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14. Sleepless Nights and "Stresslings" with Mallory Underwood
18 Plays1 year ago
She’s like a gentle chiropractor for your soul, except you get to feel better for free.
Mallory Underwood loves talking about wellness, and this episode reveals why. From youth team sports to pre-kids beach volleyball, yoga teacher training to endurance fundraisers, fitness has always been a sure-fire way to nourish her soul.
What she didn’t realize was how quickly her active lifestyle could evaporate. After weaning her first son, Mallory suffered from debilitating insomnia for nearly a year. A hormone imbalance turned out to be the culprit, but a fierce urge to protect her sleep persists to this day.
“Reclaiming your sleep is the ultimate expression of self-care.” But that’s a tall order when you share a home with two kids, a husband, and a duo of nocturnal hamsters.
Even once she found a home-based workout rhythm, largely centered around riding her Peloton bike, it wasn’t smooth sailing. Acute back pain flared out of the blue, forcing her to recalibrate her wellness routine yet again. Biking made it worse. So did sitting at a desk. As did…well, pretty much everything.
In this episode, Business Unbound’s Co-Founder shares how she assembled the support team her body (and mind) needed—all while combating a chronic case of people-pleasing and perfectionism.
For more inspiration, subscribe to Unbound Turnarounds on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts!
LINKS:
- Connect with Nicole
- Connect with Mallory
- Peloton Bikes: www.onepeloton.com/bike
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Transcript
Introduction to Unbound Turnarounds
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to Unbound Turnarounds, a podcast all about the challenges women business owners think about constantly, but rarely voice. We're Nicole and Mallory, entrepreneurs, friends, and co-founders of Business Unbound, a community helping women alleviate the headaches, heartaches, and backaches so work actually works for life. This is your safe space for the ups, downs, and the turnarounds.
Season Two Kickoff
00:00:31
Speaker
Welcome back to season two of Unbound Turnarounds. So Nicole mentioned it last week, but for those who didn't hear, we now have an Inbound Insights email list, which you can sign up for on our website at unboundboss.com. It's also linked in our show notes. And really, that's a space for us to share some more authentic stories. A lot of times, we do a two-parter where you get one email the first day and then a follow-up the second day.
00:00:59
Speaker
And it relates to different topics and specifically right now, wellbeing tips and tricks and stories and challenges and solutions or things we're doing to get around those challenges. So it gives us a place to talk beyond what we get to talk about in this season. So make sure you are subscribed to that. With that Nicole, how are you feeling since you shared your wellbeing journey last week?
Entrepreneurial Wellbeing
00:01:24
Speaker
I feel great. I genuinely always feel better once we have these little chats because I think the worst thing is just kind of holding on to all the stuff by yourself. And what we want to do is just kind of be that virtual outlet for people to be like, oh, same. Yeah. So yeah, I love doing it. I like that we're starting each new season with kind of our own stories and then bringing on some amazing guests. So I'm excited for the ladies to come.
00:01:52
Speaker
That's a good headspace to be in. Yes. So for now though, I am super excited to swap seats with you from last week and continue with season two. So we are digging into entrepreneurial wellbeing and how the kind of physical and mental best practices
00:02:12
Speaker
make business sustainable. So that's something we are both really passionate about in different ways and overlapping, but just that sustainability factor of being like, am I building something that will transition and evolve with my life in the ways that I need it to.
00:02:29
Speaker
So last week we kicked things off with my personal wellness stories and today we're going to get into yours. So if you love what you hear, you guys, you can also check out our boost your brain wellbeing course. And we have lots of tips and tricks in there to just make business feel better. And as always, you know, Mallory talked about this last week a bunch too, but it's just important to remember that
00:02:53
Speaker
well-being is an ever-evolving journey, right? It's not anything that we ever reach. We don't check it off the list. It's something that we kind of always have to keep our finger on the pulse of. So that's what this episode is about, and I can't wait to get into it.
Mallory's Physical Wellness Journey
00:03:08
Speaker
So, Mal, just to kick things off, you and I have pretty different approaches to physical wellness and our backgrounds, and I love that about us.
00:03:18
Speaker
So, your story I think is going to resonate with some people that are different from those that resonated with mine. So, like, why growing up did physical wellness look like for you? Well, I find it funny because we are very close knit and we have a lot of high values that match and a lot of passions that match. But when you get down granular,
00:03:39
Speaker
You really are very different. We're very different in a lot of ways. So hopefully if you can't relate to Nicole's story, you can relate to mine and vice versa. So opposite of Nicole, I grew up being very active my whole life. I wouldn't say that my family was overly, I think we all kind of had our activities in sports, but
00:03:59
Speaker
I don't know exactly why it just was part of who I was. It was already part of my identity. So I was playing recreational sports like younger and then got into more competitive sports like you can play through your school and then you can also play on additional leagues.
00:04:15
Speaker
So I was playing some sports year round, basketball and volleyball were my high school sports. And to this day, sometimes I still miss them. I do have very fond memories of those times. Post high school, then I got into before we had kids, we were living in
00:04:33
Speaker
a lot of different places. But when we were in Florida, my husband and I picked up beach volleyball recreationally, and that was super fun. What great way to be active and enjoy the beautiful beaches of the Gulf Coast and be outside in the sun. So those volleyball skills kind of helped me there.
00:04:53
Speaker
And then in my early nonprofit, so I say like my corporate world, but I was in the nonprofit sector, I did a couple endurance events because if you listen to my episode two, which is my origin story, I was working for large national nonprofit and the campaign I was fundraising for was to support people doing endurance events and fundraising for our mission. So I, you know,
00:05:20
Speaker
Had to drink the Kool-Aid a little less. I'm telling you all to do this. So I guess I'll try a couple endurance events. Triathlon and half marathon is what I ended up doing before moving on. That's incredibly unattainable for me. But I applaud you 100%. Thank you. And I guess it's shifted and it's become different as an adult. I do find that I get a mental release from
00:05:46
Speaker
a certain type or a certain level of physical activity. So, you know, if I'm riding the Peloton bike or lifting weights where I have to really be focused on that, it's almost like getting into a bit of a flow state or almost having like a mental release where it's just like all the bags drop. And I use that as kind of a little bit of physical wellness, but also like I said, like a bit of my mental wellness too. Yes.
00:06:10
Speaker
Well, and I think it's interesting for one, I will say, because my memories of volleyball are just red forearms in gym class. Like, that's what comes up for me. And I love that you found joy in it. And I was like, can this part of gym be over? Like, can someone give me a test or something that I could be good at? But I think it's interesting that you started out even in all of these sports because
00:06:39
Speaker
They are almost all team sports and that tracks for me but I'm wondering what you see looking back and then from your current place of being someone who's so driven by community, do you think that was a factor? I mean, I do think it was but I don't think I had that self-awareness yet.
00:07:00
Speaker
So they were, I mean, they were team sports, even not recreationally, even my outlet for music was the violin. So you're in a whole orchestra. It was all, you know, a community based activity. I think hindsight, it makes total sense. But in the moment, I didn't realize it. I also love that it's actually community of women.
00:07:21
Speaker
Right. And then we kind of skipped over me and getting yoga certified. That was a part of my adult life too. And that was a more mixed gender, but community being the link between all those things. Yes. You know, women in community always having kind of been a foundation for you.
00:07:40
Speaker
Yeah. I'm curious if, you know, looking back at those team experiences very early, were there pieces of you back then that you feel like you have used in entrepreneurship, you know, where there's some not even lessons learned, but were there aspects of you that you feel like this is why I enjoy doing those sports and who I was while doing them had these particular skill sets or attributes that I still
Mallory's Health Challenges and Recovery
00:08:07
Speaker
call upon? Hmm.
00:08:09
Speaker
I think being in the community was a sense of belonging that I always felt was really important. Even in my entrepreneur space now, I think it's that connection with clients or my contract team members of really creating like a cohesive group working toward a similar goal.
00:08:28
Speaker
I think personally, though, there were lessons to be learned on leadership and sportsmanship. And I wasn't always good at like, I might have had a negative attitude or I might not have led as well, like as captain one year, whereas like now I think I would have done it differently. But you have to go through those experiences to learn them. So I think I was learning those things now as a business owner that were some of those things as like a captain and running, having a mission and a goal.
00:08:57
Speaker
I didn't know it at the time and I may have failed, but it was part of the experience, part of the journey. You can see it now in hindsight. Well, and it's interesting to me because when I think about a lot of the kids that I see now or even some kids I was around as a child, the sports was so competitive and maybe you were.
00:09:16
Speaker
right? But as an adult, when I met you, and kind of every second since, you've never been a competition person, like that doesn't seem like the motivator, like your favorite, you know, hashtag is like community over competition. And I feel like you're so you're not competitive in all the ways that can be negative about the word.
00:09:37
Speaker
You know, so that's just an interesting Part of you that I'm like, oh she does all these things where normally that's where competitive Powered people go and yet ask my husband though. Oh, no. No, okay We're all got like really know if cut through it cards and board games. No, I think I I like to win I
00:10:01
Speaker
Okay, maybe this is because we don't play board games and I haven't seen you like throw monopoly across the table. I just haven't seen it. I think it was the, but it's still, it's the team working together toward a collective goal of trying to win the competitiveness. It wasn't me out there by myself. Maybe that's the difference. In an individual sport trying to win.
00:10:22
Speaker
So when you go through those experiences and challenges with a group of people, whether sports or not, it tightens that connection. So I think that was part of it. And then there's there's so many rituals around it and it was just so fun.
00:10:38
Speaker
I loved it. You know, we're hair braiding and we're having weekend tournaments and we're hair braiding, you know, having teen barbecues or all that time on the bus, the bus, weekovers. I mean, it was fun. Honestly, it was fun. And I do look back on most of it fondly. There were some challenges and some hard parts. But yeah, most of it was a good time. It's just interesting. I wish I'd known childhood Mallory too, although I don't know if we would have overlapped. You've been like, who's that freak in the art room? I don't know.
00:11:08
Speaker
But I am curious, so things did change a little bit for you once you had your two young kids. Like we talked about even in my episode last week, as far as identity goes and rituals and things like that can change with different phases of your life. And so I remember that when you talked about becoming a mom of kids, you actually had some physical well-being challenges that you did not anticipate.
00:11:36
Speaker
And they were really impactful on your life and your kind of quality of life. So do you want to talk to us a little bit about that? Yes. OK. So this experience, having that background, I always felt like I could trust my body. I had an awareness of it. I felt capable, strong in a sense. I wasn't lifting weights at the time. But I could do any of the physical things that were asked of me.
00:12:03
Speaker
or I could try anything, I could go try a sport or whatever and I wouldn't be injured because I was aware of my body and I had the capability. Obviously, you know, when you get pregnant, there's a physical part of that, so... I don't know, but yes, generally. Well, yes, logically, you know. Yes, logically, I know. So, I was anticipating that and of course, you have to recover from it and it's a big thing that's happening, transition to your body. What I wasn't anticipating was
00:12:30
Speaker
this hormonal shift that happened to me. And this was post nursing. So my son had nursed for 14 months and I was ready to transition out of that. And he was sleeping through the night. So he was sleeping finally. And I weaned him kind of accidentally really quickly. When you weaned them from nursing, what I have learned is to not do it so fast.
00:12:57
Speaker
You're like, um, I'm going to shut off the spigot and you're done. Tada. And it was like, I cut to feeding anyway. So it just sort of happened. And then when you, you do lose your ability, your, your milk supply goes down. And so then you can't really like go back necessarily.
Adapting Business Practices
00:13:14
Speaker
Sure. So it kind of just happened really quite quickly in terms of hindsight, like how I probably should have done it.
00:13:22
Speaker
So then what happens is I am, I have all of a sudden I've never had this before in my life. I mean, I've never been like an amazing sleeper, but I've never not been able to sleep. I had this intense case of insomnia.
00:13:36
Speaker
I hate it so much for you. I hate it. Nicole, it was it was so bad. I was dreading bedtime. Usually when your kids go to bed, you're like, oh, right. Exactly. And I could go to sleep or whatever. And I wouldn't want to sleep because I knew I wouldn't be able to. There were a handful of nights. I think it was seven to nine months this happened where I wasn't sleeping. I didn't sleep the whole entire night.
00:14:03
Speaker
I mean, I was literally awake the whole night. And then you're just this isn't college Mallory. You can't. Adults cannot. Maybe it wakes up at five or five. Yes. I couldn't function the next day. Physically, I was just completely impacted.
00:14:20
Speaker
No energy, nothing. You can't think. No, no. I mean, they talk about how driving tired is worse than driving drunk. I mean, you're just completely unable to function. Yes. And what did you think was going on? Well, I still had this 14-month-old to take care of. A lot of things. I went through different phases. So I started with my GP, like my general practitioner, and did the normal blood work.
00:14:47
Speaker
It's so silly now, like, oh, let's test your vitamin B or vitamin D or whatever. And then they kind of dismissed me. And then I went to my OB and she didn't know what was going on. She's like, well, you're adjusting to being a new mom. I'm like, hmm.
00:15:03
Speaker
He's 14 months. Yeah, right. Like, no, this isn't postpartum depression because I mean, I don't really feel depressed. I like literally can't sleep. And then comes with that, like some agitation. There's other things. Right. So then I got to the point where I thought I was losing my mind. Yeah. And I saw actually I think it was a sports psychologist because that was who my husband feels. Yeah, exactly. But all brains.
00:15:27
Speaker
I went through like an exercise to see if I was just like in this massive depression because then I thought I was just, you know, great as people. How would you know, you know, exactly. And yeah. And the and the professionals are saying they don't know, like how well so now is all is it in my head? Like, why can't I shut my brain off at night? Right.
00:15:47
Speaker
Is that what it is? Please be a new mom and also a doctor while you're at it in your spare time. You're like, great. Yeah. And I was, I mean, I was back to work. I was working remotely, thank goodness at that point, but I hadn't started my company yet. So I was still clocking in at eight to four at my desk every day. The nanny was coming to the house to take care of my son. And you know, while you're trying to work, you're going through this. So.
00:16:14
Speaker
Finally, we saw again through my husband's networks, he works in human performance. So he has all these well-being and doctors and amazing experts. Even with those resources, we still took us this long to figure it out. I saw a functional medicine doctor and he immediately knew it was wrong. I remember I brought my husband with me into this appointment. We're sitting in this room on these chairs and you know the table you lay down on and I had like the paper across it.
00:16:43
Speaker
He was drawing on the paper that you're supposed to lay down on the table. He drew the cycle of your hormones, what they're supposed to do and a normal monthly cycle. And your estrogen and progesterone and they do these little waves and they're supposed to cross and
00:16:59
Speaker
He was basically saying, I guarantee, he hadn't even done my blood work yet. I guarantee that you're basically experiencing extreme estrogen dominance and your estrogen is way up here. Your progesterone is way low and they're not crossing and this is causing all of your problems. Wow. And I was like, thank goodness. Somebody could see me and witness me. I mean, we're not going to get into it and I'm not crazy, but yes.
00:17:23
Speaker
Anyway, we tried some natural supplements for a few months and it didn't quite work. Got onto actual hormones for a very short period of time and it immediately fixed it. And that was, I was on the road to recovery. But since then, what it's led to is then like,
00:17:38
Speaker
trauma in a sense that I've had to acknowledge many years now down the road of being super protective of my sleep. Yes. And super nervous that anything is ever going to happen to my sleep and I'll be awake all night. I feel seen by this. Terrible. Different but the same reaction to kind of a physical mental well-being struggle.
00:18:02
Speaker
like that this it shows up for a long time right like even when you I remember the first time you came to Bozeman and we were talking about you know how our little team was gonna divide and conquer beds in the house and you were like listen I feel weird about saying it but like
00:18:21
Speaker
could I maybe put a mattress in another room, right? And that was the first time I knew that you felt this kind of like protective nature over your sleep. And it's like, of course, like whatever you want to do. But like, that's, that's years later that that's still, you know, that physical issue is still a mental challenge.
00:18:42
Speaker
I mean it's still a thing and that's been it's there's some times where being a parent that's not great because I'm not the nicest to my kids as they're waking me up in the night when they're older. Right. And I feel badly about that. So it's something I have to work through. I'm much better. I have tools now. I do sleep with white noise. I sleep with an eye mask. I even sleep with earplugs most of the time too. Like just double whammy. You don't want to hear anything.
00:19:07
Speaker
I think that advocating for myself is super uncomfortable sometimes, but yes, I do it because I recently, very recently heard that the highest form of self-care is putting boundaries on your sleep.
00:19:21
Speaker
And that makes me feel so witnessed because it's when all recovery happens, it's when you can only ever function at your highest if you're well rested. And so having those boundaries on sleep is the best form of self-care and it's the most powerful thing you can do for the people around you too. And I feel less bad about it now.
00:19:43
Speaker
as I'm going through, especially like how could I have built a business if I wasn't sleeping? How could I do anything? Now you don't have to feel like you need to justify it. No, and I'm getting better. Yeah. I mean, I think about sleep is like the time when, you know, the scrubbing bubbles commercial, I think about like, that's the time when the scrubbing bubbles go in and like clean out all of your, your brain detritus, you know, and
00:20:11
Speaker
Like, if I'm not sleeping, I got to make sure those scrubbing bottles can get in there, you know? And for me, it shows up as like, I need to be able to have the option to have nine hours of sleep, which sounds insane to many people who don't sleep for nine hours. And I may not sleep for nine hours either. But if I go to bed at midnight, my alarm is not on until nine. If I wake up until before that, that's fine.
00:20:34
Speaker
But for me, it's protective in a different way that ties back to fatigue. But yeah, I think putting the boundaries that you need on your own sleep is huge. And sleep is part of what we talk about in the course.
00:20:49
Speaker
I was going to say we talk about it in the course because one of the tactics to being able to manage your workload or your load is making sure you're rested because then you're not bringing the stress from the day before over and adding it to the stress of that day as well. So it's cumulative. It's cumulative. It's beyond.
00:21:10
Speaker
Oh, I just need to have good sleep. There's so much science and understanding of like why that I understand it now and I truly put me back. So yes, I'm getting better. I went to a summer camp two summers ago, slept in a cabin with like 10 women and I did it. And that's huge. I know I was so nervous the whole time. Yeah. And I slept OK for like two of the four nights or whatever. So I mean, there is progress. But I think talking about sleep
00:21:39
Speaker
making sure if there's any issues with your sleep, obviously putting up, everybody knows the sleep practices like sleep in a dark room, have it be a consistent noise or quiet, all that, keep it cool. Yeah, I don't do that. But yeah, there's way more beyond that than that. This is what we're talking about. Like you have to find those things that work for you. And it is the catalyst to being healthy to be able to run your company.
Impact of Physical Challenges on Mental Health
00:22:01
Speaker
It has to start with your rest and your recovery.
00:22:03
Speaker
Yes. And I think that people will have different versions of that story, right? So I think between our two stories, the Venn diagram of this is that there will be physical challenges that we face that could be different and could show up differently, but those leave some mental scars, right? And so then if you find yourself
00:22:27
Speaker
in a placeholder that kind of triggers that feeling of the time when you couldn't sleep or the time when I felt so tired, you know, that could show up mentally in a way that is really hard to run a business or live a life. And you have to come up with kind of your own, your own tactics to deal, but people are not alone in that, you know, and it shows up in a lot of different ways.
00:22:51
Speaker
But I think a lot of things changed when you had kids. And some of that was the kind of physical activities you were able to do or felt like doing. And so what did that end up looking like once you had kids at home? And you can't just go, Jim. You can't just go run out of the house for four hours without being arrested.
00:23:16
Speaker
You can't leave them. You can't leave them for that. From my limited understanding, you know, you gotta hang around. So, what did that look like?
00:23:24
Speaker
So there's a partnership there. And I think both for my husband and I in the first, I think it was like first year of both of our kids being born, you know, sometimes you got frustrated, but it was like, okay, it's okay. Like it's a cycle. It will come back. We'll be able to like have activity again as a normal part of our life. But just like right now, it's very sporadic, especially when the second kid comes, right? So yeah.
00:23:52
Speaker
What I ended up doing was leading heavily into the workout at home scene. I was doing Peloton before we had a bike. So I was doing their lifting classes, working out. Luckily we had a lot of the equipment because like I said, my husband's, you know, his industry. So I would wake up before them and I would wake up, work out in the living room, lifting weights or, you know, non-weighted activities. And I would just be bouncing around the living room like a weirdo by myself.
00:24:22
Speaker
Now, I will say I loved it. I didn't love it as much as being in a yoga studio with people, but I loved it in a sense that it was easy. It was accessible. I could do it even when the kids were around. A lot of times they'd be working out with me. It's not as great when they're doing it.
00:24:41
Speaker
And they're seeing me be active, which is a thing that was important that they were seeing you work out instead of you only ever working out at the gym where they're never seeing you. And it was, you don't have to have a gym membership. Right. So I did that. Yes. Yes. And I was using that as a mentor release as well. I then ended up getting a Peloton bike. So that was once we had moved to Calgary. So I had started this Peloton in Phoenix and then did, you know, we're doing that all through COVID and
00:25:11
Speaker
Everybody being home, we moved to Calgary. I said, if we're going to move, I want this house where everything has its own place because I was working out and working, and the kids' toys all in this small ranch in Phoenix. So now we moved to Calgary, we have an actual gym, and we had brought a different bike with us that I could do the Peloton workouts on, but it wasn't the same system.
00:25:34
Speaker
And then I stopped being able to read like what output I was having on this bike. It was kind of breaking down. And so stuff in my husband surprised me with the Peloton, an actual bike for our anniversary. I think the first year we were here. So then I had an actual Peloton bike and then we ended up with the treadmill. We had all the things and I was doing them regularly. I loved it so much. Yeah, you loved it. You loved it.
00:25:56
Speaker
I loved it because it was like a mandate to a community. It was a community, a virtual community. Yeah. I could see it. It wasn't in person, but I could, I could get a sense of the energy and I was getting the mental release, but I was still able to do it at home and I could still do the workouts and I could still, you know, the lifting weights and I could still ride the bike. So it was working out. And did you find, so we talk about this sometimes, you know, the grasses sometimes always look screener, right? Sometimes I wish I was less alone.
00:26:26
Speaker
And sometimes you wish you were more alone, you know, because you live in a house of three people. And I live with a small, very quiet dog. And, you know, was this something that you found also was a way for you to have a little bit of time carved out for yourself? You know, when we talk about kind of making your model calendar and getting and looking at the week and being like, is this energetically feasible? You know, was that something that you used as an outlet as well to just have your own time?
00:26:57
Speaker
Yes, I will say I've become a morning person because of my circumstances. I'm not a morning person. I would much prefer not to wake up at 6.30. And I know that's not even that early for most people, but to come into the cold basement and work out on my own, right?
00:27:14
Speaker
But I was very diligent and I was doing at least four times a week, if not all five, Monday through Friday days, because I felt like it gave me a leg up on the rest of the day. If I didn't have that, my brain felt a little more scattered. I didn't feel grounded, I guess. So I was using it for those mental aspects as well and to end like a release. Yes. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense.
00:27:40
Speaker
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00:28:00
Speaker
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00:28:30
Speaker
I also feel a little bit seen by, because I talked last week about how finding something that I really loved also made me just super aware of how it would feel to lose it. And I think that's a common experience. For me, it was kickboxing. And for you, I wasn't the only one with a tough year, personally. Business things happen. Yeah.
00:28:53
Speaker
but also like some personal things happen outside of our control. And this was a tough year for you. Like I got a lot of voice memos about health this year, right? So what, I mean, what happened? Yeah.
00:29:06
Speaker
Well, I lost my bike. Yeah, I lost the ability to ride my bike. This actually was the October before, so it would have been October of 22. I explained it like a light switch was flipped. I woke up one day and I had low back pain, which I've never really had before. Mine is like menstrual cramps sometimes, but like
00:29:27
Speaker
This was different. I was like, okay, well, that's interesting. I'm sure I tweaked it or, you know, whatever go away in a week or 10 days. So I have this back pain. I start to realize that my hormones must be completely out of whack because now my menstrual cycle, which was regular, you know, like 27, 28 days is like 19 days. And it's like three months in a row of like 19 days. I'm like, well, I'm not doing that. No.
00:29:52
Speaker
that's too soon no so i know there's something going on with my hormones and then i'm having this stomach pain like right under my ribs on the left side that's not like debilitating pain but almost like a constant ache slow organ failure and i'm thinking yeah you're freaking out you're right you're like i don't know something's deteriorated i'm not sure now is there like a tumor and they're like what the heck is this
00:30:16
Speaker
You know, it's your appendix again as you Google. You're like, nothing is on the left side. There's nothing in there. There's no gallbladder. Yeah. Okay. So all these things happen at one time, like October 2022, I still managed to work out all the way through like the end of that year. Yeah. And then start very end of 22. I end up going to see a natural path because I know the MD I go in and they basically
00:30:41
Speaker
I'm like, here's like laundry list of things wrong with me. And they basically, it's very dismissive, right? Or here's some medication, but not like getting to the root of it. Take Tylenol. I go, yeah, I go, which, anyway, that's probably part of the problem is I was taking a lot of Advil actually, which I think was
00:31:03
Speaker
exasperating the stomach issues. So 2023 looked like a year of me spending a lot of time and a lot, you know, insurance and benefits and I'm in Canada, so it's a little different, but it only goes so far. So spending a lot of time and money and energy and focus on feeling well.
00:31:21
Speaker
And this isn't like a thing where it's a traumatic diagnosis and that's horrible and I know people have that. I also know people have chronic pain and I have a new appreciation and understanding for it that I can't, my compassion, I just, I can't, I don't wish that upon anyone. So I have this awareness now of like what it feels like to wake up every day in pain.
00:31:45
Speaker
to not know why, to not have any really real way to deal with it. And so why would tomorrow be any different? Yeah, you lose a sense of hope and you also have this like, you've called it, I think like a radio playing in the back of your mind, it's constantly, you're constantly thinking about it.
00:32:03
Speaker
Everything that you do is despite having that radio playing. Yes. And we literally built this whole company this last year while Nicole and I are both going through these challenges in different ways. Here it is anyway, you guys. We're still doing it, but I couldn't ride the bike. So I lost not only my physical benefits, I lost my mental release.
00:32:27
Speaker
And, you know, it's cold here. So sometimes they couldn't even really walk very far. And sitting, you know, I'm like trying to stand, trying to sit, but you're wanting to work, but your back is aching. And I had all the tools. I have all the things and I have all the rubs and the wraps. It wasn't working really. It wasn't working. There was no quick fix.
00:32:47
Speaker
you just kept going on yeah so what i did to get through it and i think we can think of this for any challenges in life as well as business is i had my support network like nicole said every time i went to an appointment you guys i would get a boxer and i would tell her
00:33:03
Speaker
I loved it. I loved it. What happened? This is what they think today. I saw therapists for a little bit trying to work through, you know, like I think it was all related. That got very expensive. So I did end up having to stop that. I mean, I know it's a privilege to be able to go at all. It is a massive investment. But if you can manage it, I think therapy was amazing. And then I put in place. So I had my personal support network. I put in place a team of experts.
00:33:28
Speaker
And I found the ones that worked for me. I tried a couple and it didn't work out. I just didn't have the right vibe with them and I stopped going. And I found a gentle chiropractor because I just knew my body couldn't handle massive cracks like it would have freaked out. So I found someone that I could go to consistently for short appointments. So they were a little bit cheaper and more accessible to go to regularly. I had my massage therapist who's an osteopath as well.
00:33:53
Speaker
and I had a PT friend who wrote me all these programs in an app that I could follow the videos on and I was dedicated. I was committed to going in the basement every morning and doing the exercises even though I was in a pain and I couldn't work out but I was doing the things.
00:34:15
Speaker
at least there was something you could do. Like that is a step to just be like, okay, someone gave me something that might make tomorrow different. Yeah. And I know I'm going to do it days. I don't know if it was you or my husband and I'd be like this. I still mentally was hard because I'd be like, this doesn't feel like it's doing anything. Right. First of all, it doesn't feel like I'm working out. Right. Is it doing anything? Is it doing anything?
00:34:40
Speaker
I don't even know, Nicole, how to eventually, it was like seven, no, it was like nine months. And then I had no pain, finally. It was just like it came, it went away. Well, you also did a lot, right? Well, I did a lot to make it go away. Yes, yes. It didn't just magically go away. No. But I do remember there was a feeling of relief.
00:35:02
Speaker
kind of at the beginning of, I believe, you seeing the the gentle chiropractor when she said, hey, here's some things that I am seeing that are not aligned. Right. Or she would take like kind of the full body scan and just I remember there was a relief in your voice of saying she said there are things that are not where they should be. And it felt like a relief of like, I am not a crazy person.
00:35:28
Speaker
Also, maybe this is fixable, but you really didn't believe it. I mean, there were many days where I told you like this is not default permanent, right? Like it feels so permanent because it is always in the back of your brain.
00:35:43
Speaker
It is always there, like a radio and everything you're doing is despite having a radio playing. And especially for someone like you who likes doing one thing, very focused at a time, that stuff, right? And you talked about a little bit with not being able to sit as much with work, but like, how did that affect your business experience when, you know, at the same time, all day, every day in the back of your mind is like, what if this pain is forever?
00:36:12
Speaker
Well, you know, that's the benefit of the entrepreneur world in the sense that, I mean, yes, I was mentally worried about it, but I just kept doing the next step in the business or the next thing I had to do. There were some days where I was in pain and I didn't want to sit or I could change my schedule around to some extent. If you built your business in a way that gives you freedom of schedule to have all those appointments and my kids are both in school,
00:36:38
Speaker
So, right. How would you have done that? I think the combination of them, so the naturopath really works on the hormone side, we've regulated that out. It's, you know, still evolving, but there's so much more understanding now. The massage and the osteopath was giving me insight there. The PT and my husband, they knew
00:36:57
Speaker
They knew what it was. It's a lack of rotation in my right hip and really comes down to a lack of rotation for my T-spine of playing the violin for seven years and then nursing for two years at a time almost twice. Like I just had lost any mobility in my T-spine. So there was like physical
00:37:15
Speaker
logical reasons why I had to open up all those outlets, but still the mental doubt, you know, was there. And I think just sharing that and having people to witness it, just witness me in this struggle. It's not it's not the worst thing that's ever happened. It's not this horrible diagnosis. It's not like some of the terrible things going on in the world. But can you just witness me in this and like, let it wait, let it wait. Yeah, because it is my reality and it still sucks.
00:37:41
Speaker
It still sucks. And I think the other tough piece about it is having something change suddenly like that. And it makes you kind of mentally think it could always happen again. You still struggle with a little bit, right? Like when you're, you were planning a vacation and when you're going to summer camp and, you know, or when you have a, you know, an important meeting.
00:38:05
Speaker
that this is in the back of your mind as what if I end up in pain on vacation and I can't get to my support network or and that's just I think it's good to realize and just acknowledge that that that's gonna be that way for a while right and these sudden changes that you can't prepare for that's scary stuff it makes me feel vulnerable
00:38:29
Speaker
you know, of life. Yeah. And I'm still not back to really riding the bike. I the bike triggers the pain. It makes me sad. Like you talked about losing kickboxing is a heartbreak. I feel that. Yeah. I try even just like I thought maybe I could just stay seated and it still aggravates it because there's a lack of stability when I'm leaning forward on the bike.
00:38:51
Speaker
So that's probably not forever, but there's just all this other foundational work I have to do. And I think that comes back to any challenge. If I look at it and take the emotion out of it, there's probably foundational work that can be done in your company. I think it's setting up the systems.
00:39:07
Speaker
There's pain points. Yeah, there's small changes. There's little things, and we have so many of them in the courses. Gentle chiropractic for your business. Yes, because if you've set those foundations, it can hopefully prevent the challenges, you know, down the road. To some extent, you can't prevent everything. But for some of the things, you can't.
00:39:27
Speaker
Well, and I think the other thing we should briefly touch on before we kind of transition to the mental well-being part is not being able to ride your bike and having this issue actually introduce you to a new tool that ended up in your backyard, right? And I don't know that that would have happened, but tell me about your new special love in the backyard.
00:39:53
Speaker
It's currently broken right now. We don't have to talk about that. It's going to be fixed. It's going to be fixed. So we have a sauna. I don't know if that sounds bougie or super weird or super Canadian, but we have a sauna in the backyard. Our backyard is like nine full-grown evergreen trees. And so underneath it, it's a cedar sauna. So it's like a circle.
00:40:20
Speaker
It's just a cedar sauna. It's exactly as cute as you guys are imagining it is. Yes. Yeah. And it looks perfect underneath the trees back there. It's like if you were in like a Scandinavian winter and there's snow, I mean that's what it's like up here in Canada. But actually I think it would have happened because it was my, my husband was the catalyst to getting it. But the benefits of it, it helps with pain. There's so many health benefits too. I'm trying to convince Nicole to get one. Three sauna appointments scheduled, you guys, just to my credit right now.
00:40:49
Speaker
I am wearing off on you. From the immune support to also, it's almost like having a little bit of a workout. If you had someone like my lovely husband to spew out all the statistics to you, he could. And maybe he'll be like our first male on the pod and we'll do a special episode because he has a lot of knowledge to share but in this wellness space,
00:41:09
Speaker
But I think that the sauna had gave me a way to like, okay, it's wet to detox and to have a place where it's like a challenge, but I can sit through it and focus the mental release. So it's been lovely. I really do. I am very grateful for it. Yes.
00:41:26
Speaker
And I think that's just a good illustration as we kind of tie up the physical piece of your story for now is that you can maybe find new ways to feel the things you loved in activities that you're not doing anymore for whatever reason.
00:41:43
Speaker
And it's just being open to saying, you know what, I love that Peloton bike. I love it. And for whatever reason, it's making my back so angry and I'm sad about it. And I will admit to being sad about it, but also maybe I can have something else that I also love that is different.
00:42:04
Speaker
And just be open to it. Just be open to it. We are going to have my natural path on in an episode this season. And she's going to talk about as we become hairy men and puzzle women in our early to mid forties, there's a lot of shifts happening. And I was, even though I'm not quite there yet, I was kind of a start to that. So we're going to talk a lot more about the hormone piece and how, like kind of maybe how I manage that and what she thinks about that coming up. So if you're interested in that, or if you have some of that stuff going on, stay tuned for later this season.
Overcoming People Pleasing
00:42:35
Speaker
And so it's a pretty good illustration of, I feel like, your physical well-being journey. But what I also want to dig into is the mental side. That's something that you and I nerd out on a lot. And there are some definite ways that we overlap on this piece, maybe even a little bit more than we do on what physical activities we like.
00:43:00
Speaker
But I want to call you out a little bit on a couple of traits that you have that I also feel very seen by. And the first of those is sense of people pleasing and perfectionism. So that is something that I can absolutely relate to. And I am curious how that shows up for you.
00:43:23
Speaker
So yes, okay, the usual suspects, people pleasing and perfectionism that I always like every year say I need to let go of.
00:43:31
Speaker
Yeah, I continue to work on this. I think it starts with self-awareness for me. So probably 2020, you know, I can't remember when I did a program to finally start looking at some of these self-awareness pieces. Maybe around 2021, I really kind of looked at some of these pieces and then a little bit in those therapy sessions I talked about. So I think increasing self-awareness is where any change like this has to start.
00:43:57
Speaker
And then once I know kind of my own thoughts and feelings on things, I can work to craft my own opinion on them. Then once I have that, I can work on comfortably, respectfully speaking it. So this is like the people pleasing part of it. So if this is my need and a boundary, first I have to identify it and know my thoughts on it. Then I need to be able to articulate it and then I need to be able to do it in a way that's respectful of other people.
00:44:22
Speaker
And in business, this comes up very often. But I think what has helped me is trying to surround myself with the people, like the clients that I choose to work with, the team members that I work with, surround myself with people that understand a human first or appreciate a human first approach. Yes. And are open to me communicating that way. That's also how we can solve problems or any conflicts.
00:44:47
Speaker
kind of having even like a psychological safety socially, knowing that if I bring something up that I think is actually better for the company, you're not going to socially judge me or ostracize me because absolutely am 100% of the time you're the worst.
00:45:05
Speaker
But you need those people. Honestly, it's a game changer. If you don't have that psychological safety, if you think if you make a mistake, if you bring something up and then you're going to have the cold shoulder or they're going to talk about you behind your back, then that is the opposite of psychological safety. And it is on the docket for us to create a course around this because
00:45:26
Speaker
Maybe people talk about it in a corporate sense, maybe even not so much. It's a lot of the work of what organizational psychology is doing now, and it's an up and coming field. But how does that really, on an entrepreneur level, how does that relate to you and me on the small scale level?
00:45:42
Speaker
Well, it relates because I can choose these people and I can build this type of safety net so that I can communicate. And then the people pleasing kind of goes away because I am communicating what I actually believe and feel and I know that it's safe to do so.
00:45:58
Speaker
Well, and I'm curious how you've seen the people pleasing and I think we're both recovering people pleasers. I am not nearly as far down that path as I would like to be. But how have you seen that show up in your business? Like when do you kind of stop yourself and say, oh gosh, this feels like that. I'm totally doing that right now.
00:46:20
Speaker
because wanting people to be happy is good, right? Like, I don't have a problem with that, but it's when it turns into, you know, to your detriment or trying to make someone happy who will never be happy or things outside of your control. Like, what does that look like for you running a business?
00:46:39
Speaker
I find that if I over-deliver, if I'm consistently over-delivering, it's a sign that I am not feeling safe in that relationship because I'm wanting them to be happy. Yes. And if somebody is neutral, I don't know if neutral is the right word, but it's almost like
00:46:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think it is neutral because they're not expressing their feelings on your work. Obviously, if people are unhappy, they're going to tell you and if people are happy, that's great. But it's kind of like those people in the middle where it's like, I don't know if you like my service or not, if you're happy with this or not. Just kind of crickets.
00:47:14
Speaker
You're like, and so it's either communicating to them that you need to know or maybe it's not the right partnership. So I think those neutral relationships are ones to keep an eye on. They don't necessarily have the big red flags, but it is something to be mindful of. Yeah. So I think over-delivering is a tendency that I might do when I start to feel that way.
00:47:34
Speaker
And I feel seen by that because, well, when you said over-delivering, I had at least like five scenarios immediately popped to my mind, which I do that because I want to, I think it's because I want to guarantee that they'll be pleased.
00:47:49
Speaker
I'm not certain that if I just do what they asked of me or if I just do what they paid me for, you know, that they will be guaranteed to be happy, right? And it's a tough place to work from because I don't think it puts you in the place of doing your best work when you're working from a place of not psychological fear, but it's not psychological safety.
00:48:11
Speaker
for certain, you know, just you feel unsettled and you're just not quite sure. And so one of the things we talk about in horse riding a lot is that if your horse isn't doing what you're asking for or what you want it to be doing, you need to make it more sure. You need to make him feel more sure.
00:48:32
Speaker
And I think about that a lot because, you know, there are times in my day where I will be working on a project and I'm not sure they're going to like it. I'm not sure it's good enough. I'm not sure it's witty enough. Like, are these subject lines funny enough? I don't know. What is funny enough? That's not even a real. That's not a measuring stick. What is that? But in those moments, I I've been thinking more recently about, you know, if you're feeling this way, you need to find a way to feel more sure.
Detaching from Outcomes
00:49:01
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:49:02
Speaker
So to me, that's the opposite of over-delivering, is why am I not feeling sure?
00:49:07
Speaker
Yeah, and I think the perfectionist side of it too kind of plays into that. Like you're wanting it to be perfect. What I've tried to do that I'm not always successful in is try to remember that I don't control the outcome or the response of other people. So I'm going to deliver my best service and then that's my best offering to you. I have work ethic and I have, you know, I'm proud of the work and services I provide.
00:49:33
Speaker
I give this to you. If you have a reaction to that, if you're unhappy with that, that's not for me to choose how you're going to react and then we go on with, you know, severing the relationship or changing or whatever. But just trying to remember that I am not in control of how other people respond.
00:49:53
Speaker
I can only manage what I can control and that is what I deliver, that is what message I say, not what they say back to me. And it is very hard and that's why I'm saying I'm like a recovering perfectionist. Like it's always a constant work in progress. And we've had to remind each other of that sometimes too because this is very hard. And if you feel this way too, it's very hard. And one of the words that you talked about in season one was learning to detach from the result.
00:50:19
Speaker
And so that's a very, if you just need a one word mantra, detach. It's not your responsibility, you don't control it. And the other thing I heard when I, during my first resilience session actually, was that she said, you know, copyright Lorca, she said, you know, it is a form of vanity to take responsibility for anything that you don't guarantee the outcome of. And that hit
00:50:47
Speaker
really hard for me because especially looking back on this year, you know, for you, it might be the back pain and somehow we feel responsible for it. You know, for me, it's not fighting my person and I feel deeply responsible for that. But really, could we have guaranteed that we would be pain free? No. So it is vanity to think that and I think the opposite of that is being more detached.
00:51:14
Speaker
So that actually, it leads to the second thing that I wanted to talk with you about because we both share this, our Venn diagrams overlap in this way. We've got some empath props. We got hashtag empathprobs. It is tough, but like we are people who absorb
00:51:31
Speaker
your emotions like little sponges and it's a struggle. So what does that look like for you? So we talked about Ashley's episode number seven all the time because we, it just really resonated with us. So in human design, Nicole and I both have open, I don't know, spleen. It's the one that then you take other people's emotions at.
00:51:53
Speaker
I see all other people's stress and energy and emotions. It has been several years where I have to try and do actual practices to not take it on or to release that or to call my own energy back at the end of the day. Because if you add that on to your own stress, it leads to burnout.
00:52:13
Speaker
It's a fast track to burnout. It's fast track. So I try to remember it's not our job to manage other people's emotions. That is not something I have to be responsible for. I can witness and I can then detach. It goes back to what you're saying from having an emotional response to what they're saying.
00:52:30
Speaker
This is extremely relevant being a mom with kids who have big reactions and I'm constantly working on it. Just my husband last night talking about something and then I'm feeling myself. You can feel rising and it's like, okay, wait, I'm going to give that back to you because this is your challenge and your situation and it's not mine.
00:52:50
Speaker
Yes, I think there's a huge difference between even the language that we use and one of the best words that you've taught me that I I mean maybe you hear it said a lot but I sure don't is to just witness something that is happening for someone else and witness versus carry or solve or solve
00:53:10
Speaker
is so hard, right? Because what you're feeling is actual emotion from someone else's struggles. And that's not wrong. Like we love being empaths instead of people who don't care about anyone. But it's really hard to just witness instead of carry.
00:53:28
Speaker
But that slight shift in even just how we describe it, I think can make a big difference because you'll say it to me and I will attempt to remember to say it to you instead of when I'm typing, like I must need a solution to this thing. Like, you don't need it asking me for it. Yeah.
00:53:45
Speaker
She's not asking me for it. It gives you a language to use with other people too, because not knowing what to say, I have some family members who are going through real health struggles right now and it's very emotional for all of us. And Nicole will just be like, I'm witnessing you in this. It gives you language instead of trying to come up with advice or the right thing to say. It's just acknowledging their human experience. And it's super powerful.
00:54:11
Speaker
And the other thing I want to say about empaths, I actually think it's also a superpower. I think it's our biggest strength and it can be a weakness only if we let it. So it allows me to focus on the connections that are so important to me and being able to be one on one with people and understand them and really have them feel a connection to me and feel a sense of belonging. So it's good and bad. Yes.
00:54:33
Speaker
And I think the word witness for me, what it also does is trigger in my brain that there's a permission not to take that on, right? Just the word itself just says, I am observing that for you. And I'm saying that I'm hearing what you're saying is wrong.
00:54:52
Speaker
No, I can't fix your back. I can't do it. I can't raise your kids. I can't solve health issues. I can't even solve client issues. Sometimes I have ideas. But unless you ask me for them, probably you don't want any ideas. And the same for me. I think the witnessing is a way to respond to people who are going through something different than you have and still be useful. You don't always have to respond to someone and be like, oh, I totally know what you mean.
00:55:20
Speaker
because there's a whole bunch of stuff that you're going to be like, I haven't had that one. I don't know that one. I haven't experienced it. I don't have solutions for that. So it's just a way to kind of pivot a little bit if that's something that you guys also struggle with. Yeah. The other big thing that we talk about and that boosts your brain well-being course is how you reframing stress
00:55:42
Speaker
So stress is actually not what's bad for you. It's your reaction to stress that can be bad. You have to have some stress. You have to have some stress to get through certain parts of life.
Managing Stress and Structuring Life
00:55:52
Speaker
It is your cortisol actually rises in the morning to get you to live your life. So stress inherently isn't bad. It's how we're reacting to it. So again, we talk about that more in the course, but one way that we can practice that in a day to day is
00:56:05
Speaker
a simple reframe of the word stress. So instead of saying, oh, such a stressful day, which is what we're conditioned to say, we can say, I had a day full of stressors. I had so many stressors today. I experienced a lot of stressors. Yeah. And it takes it from like, it almost puts it external, right? Like these are external things that stress me out, but it wasn't that I was a stress basket or whatever. Exactly.
00:56:30
Speaker
And I think that's a huge reframe that kind of pivots into the next section of just entrepreneur wellness in general and how you have kind of arranged your business for flexibility and being a parent and having a family and just setting yourself up not to experience as many stressors, right? Or you like to say, you've even said stresslings.
00:56:56
Speaker
It's a little stresslings, which I think is adorable. These are the little things that you're like, oh, I love them, but good grief. It's blessings and stress combined. Blessings and stress is stresslings. Yeah, because your kids can be a stressor, but they're also blessings, yes. Right, exactly. So how have you created this new, different version of life that aligns with your values around wellness?
00:57:23
Speaker
Okay, well let's, so I deliberately chose this life because I wanted to have a parent in our family who is flexible. I have seen still now friends and had seen where neither are flexible in their commitments.
00:57:41
Speaker
through work and it's very challenging and it's very hard on the family. And so then you have to find external support like an au pair or a nanny or family members to lean on. So you have to have it. I haven't seen where you can't have it where it worked.
00:58:00
Speaker
So for our family, we made this choice together that I was going to choose this lifestyle in order to be flexible. And I had identified pre-COVID that my three main values in life, and I say this in business too, are spaciousness,
00:58:20
Speaker
experiences and connection. And I think hindsight why COVID was so hard is because all three of those got slashed at the same time. And I think I talked about that in my season two. Oh, we should do a COVID X episode. Yeah, yes, probably. So when all three were slashed, I think that really reaffirmed that those really are my most important values.
00:58:42
Speaker
So knowing that, knowing that in order to have spaciousness, in order to have connections, I really lean on a support network and a community and it's super important to me, which is why every time we move, which again, if you listen to my episode two with many, I had to work on that community first because that really filters into what I find those three values.
00:59:06
Speaker
I don't think I shared the story about my grandpa or talked about him, but my grandpa, my mom's side was super influential to me. And it's almost like after he had passed away, I realized just how much, but he would make you feel. And there's like many of us. We go to a Christmas gathering every other year and rent this big house to be together. There's probably 50 people
00:59:29
Speaker
35 sleeping there. We have two houses and it's like 50 plus people who are together. He could make you feel like you were the most important person in that room at any given time. And we all felt it. Every one of us. Yes, he was magic. He was magic. And when I started thinking about these values and what was so important, I think it was a lot of his influence on me of how that made me feel and how I want others to feel.
00:59:53
Speaker
I want people to remember how I made them feel and to feel loved and like they belong and that they're understood and they're seen, right? And so all these things come back to kind of like a deep purpose for me, like a life's purpose, not in one thing. It shows up in many different ways and different things I do in my life.
01:00:12
Speaker
from, you know, hosting the younger retreats to the business, many, many things, right? But I think that theme of constantly focusing on that connection with people constantly comes up that that is my deeper purpose of being here. Yes. So yes, building this company to be able to work on all those things and to have all those values be priority
01:00:32
Speaker
to create some spaciousness, which isn't always the case. But when I am over scheduled, especially when it's not my own doing, I get cranky and I am not a happy person to be around. But if I have space, it's like I can cope. I can manage. It's like me with a full bucket and having an flexibility.
01:00:53
Speaker
And I think it's a continued path of growth and an ever evolving journey. So I joined a naturopath again with my naturopath who's coming on like a monthly group. It's almost wrapping up. She loves it. I love it so much. In person connection with women. What is better than that?
01:01:11
Speaker
But just focusing on continued growth, like learning there, learning about, you know, starting this new company was a new challenge. So those are all things that doing this kind of work allows me to keep doing. Totally, totally. And I think the broader lesson there is to have that self-awareness of your big picture goals, right?
01:01:32
Speaker
But you're also putting them into place as small solutions in your life. And so what does that look like in kind of the trickle down effect? What are the actual choices? Give us some examples of some things you've done to maintain spaciousness and experience and connection. What are some ways? So some actual tactics. So I actually don't take any calls or meetings of any kind on Mondays. Makes me so proud.
01:02:03
Speaker
I love Mondays. I wake up and I don't feel like, oh, Monday. I'm like, great, Monday. Monday. I can get all my ducks in a row. I can knock off any emails that came in through the weekend. I can work on any projects. I can have, I do make appointments Monday sometimes. Yeah. So I have space to fit in appointments. I try not to have meetings on Fridays because my kids only, they have an early release every Friday, but I allow for podcasts recordings because they fill my bucket instead of take from it.
01:02:32
Speaker
And then I like restrict my calendar for scheduling calls only between like 10 and three on the other three days. I batch all my one-on-one meetings for my contract team members into the same day every month instead of sporadically. So I had more chunks of focus time that weren't broken up by those small meetings.
01:02:51
Speaker
And I've recently decided to move them to buy them like every other month because they don't need me as much anymore, right? Yeah. Guess what would be fine? It'll be fine. And you know what? The other thing is I'm not afraid to say I'm offline and I put those dates in my calendar and I don't I don't feel guilty anymore. No.
01:03:08
Speaker
It goes away, doesn't it? It does. Oh, I don't miss it. I don't miss it at all. There's something that you're doing, especially right now, which is interesting. When we're recording here in December, you are doing something that's a little less focused on the family and a little more focused on personal reflection.
Reflective Practices and Planning for the Future
01:03:27
Speaker
So tell me what's going on.
01:03:29
Speaker
This is my sixth year and a shout out to Molly from StrataJoy. It is her holiday council program so when you guys are hearing this in January, actually most people wrap it up in December or January so I may not be quite done yet. But it's a three-week program and I'm sure next year I'll be promoting it so you can all have a chance to join as well where you really just focus on
01:03:53
Speaker
reflections from the past year. You focus on what your dreams are for the year ahead and then you focus on what tactics and actions you can take to make them a reality and you're focusing sometimes on real goals but even just like how do you want to feel and who do you want to be at the end of the year and how do you want to feel. It is a beautiful ritual and I love it and so many of us love it
01:04:14
Speaker
And it really helps me set like a theme and a focus for the year ahead. So I stayed true to that ritual. And like I said, with some personal health things going on with close family members, it's hard this year, but I'm still doing it. So I think like focusing on that consistency really helps.
01:04:30
Speaker
a couple other really small things like that don't feel small but I have a bookkeeper. I don't like reconciling my bank accounts. We love bookkeepers. We love you guys. I, with focusing on Business Unbound, my more you company is not making as much projections for next year so I did have to cut her hours a bit but she's still doing the worst part for me, the reconciliation and she doesn't mind it. Yeah, she thinks it's the easy part.
01:04:55
Speaker
Exactly. I'm going to pay her to keep doing it. I have a tax accountant who's certified in Canada in the US. And it's very expensive now because it's dual certified because he's this expert. And I don't care. I'm just going to pay you every year. It's a tax accountant. We see you. We love you. We see you. We love you. I also am going to be consistent. I have been and I will continue with my support team, with my massages and osteo appointments, my chiro appointments.
01:05:21
Speaker
my Nashville support and the supplements she's recommending because I want to maintain the health that I've gained this year and that foundation that I've built. Yes. And then I think the last thing I'll say is that I book things that I'm excited about. I plan things, experiences every year. And we had the most amazing year our family did. We spent so much money. It's like all the three years since COVID we're like, let's put it full in the last year. Same. You did too. Yes. I don't know what happened.
01:05:50
Speaker
It went crazy. We went all over the place and I am going to be sharing about our latest Columbia family adventure and an upcoming authentic story email. But when I look back and I write my annual letter that I share with all our friends and family, we had a beautiful year of experiences. It will always be like that. Sometimes it'll be smaller.
01:06:10
Speaker
but I plan them ahead and I put them in the calendar. I put them in quarterly planning just like right now in January. I'll say this is what I want to do each quarter. I don't plan them all right now but then I know and then a couple months ahead I can make sure they're slated in and it gives me something to look forward to. I block it on my calendar and I make it happen and I love it.
01:06:29
Speaker
Absolutely. I think it's so healthy. And I think it's, it's really refreshing to be recording this at the end of December. And to see you doing so many things that are a healthy, forward looking, self care focused,
01:06:47
Speaker
plan for yourself because a lot of the times holidays can just get stressful and busy and you have done such a good job of creating, I mean, spaciousness to plan what you want the next year to be. And like you said, how you want to feel, plan how you want to feel, not just what you want to do. And it's not too late when you're listening to this. It's only the second week of January. So do it now. Do it every month, frankly. It's a moveable feast. But yes, I do. I love that about it.
01:07:17
Speaker
So I do enjoy sharing these stories with everyone because I think listeners, hopefully you're able to just pull out one or two things from this episode that you might want to try with your life or you want to just reexamine and write it down. If you want to email us, we'd love to hear what you've picked or what resonated with you. You can email hay at unboundboss.com.
01:07:40
Speaker
or you can go to our website and leave us a voice memo in the footer of our website and tell us about your experience, what you're planning for next year. Yeah, so thank you so much, Mal, for going deep with us on everything, physical and mental wellness and kind of wrapping a bow on it about just entrepreneur wellbeing and how we can all feel like our businesses are more sustainable, it's so important.
01:08:06
Speaker
Well, thank you. These are my favorite conversations to have. So thank you all. Mine too. And thank you for hosting me, Nicole. It's my pleasure entirely. It's always an honor to hear people's stories and especially yours, my friend. So we will talk to everyone next week.
01:08:23
Speaker
Thanks for listening. Hop over to UnboundBoss.com to join our community and leave us a voice memo. We absolutely love hearing from you. If you like the podcast, please subscribe, leave us an Apple review, and share your favorite episodes with other women entrepreneurs. Talk to you soon.