This episode is really about owning the moments where things don’t go to plan, and choosing to meet them with honesty, responsibility, and self-compassion instead of shame. It’s about learning to trust yourself with money by actually paying attention to it – simplifying, supporting yourself properly, and building something that feels steady and sustainable.
I’m joined by Sage Grayson, Dama Jue, Kate Kordsmeier, Liz Stapleton, and Steph Blake.
Listen and don’t miss out on a special goodie bag from the Weird Hermits!
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[00:00:00] Ruth Poundwhite: Today’s special round table discussion is a really important one, all about listening to our bodies, setting boundaries, and running our businesses in a [00:00:10] way that is truly sustainable for the future and not based on how we think we should be able to sustain it.
[00:00:17] Welcome to the Soulful Sales Show [00:00:20] where we talk about believing in the value of your offers, getting them in front of your right people, and selling more of what you do in your unique way.
[00:00:28] Hi, and welcome [00:00:30] back to another episode of the Soulful Sales Show. So today we have another one of our extra special round table discussions with the Weird [00:00:40] Hermits Mastermind where we are talking about something that affects. So many of us, and I think we need to talk about more often when it comes to the [00:00:50] way we run our businesses, and that is burnout, boundaries, and our bodies.
[00:00:55] So some of the topics that we are exploring in this discussion are [00:01:00] how do we know the difference between needing a break and just avoiding something uncomfortable? When does burnout become a sign that we have outgrown some part of our [00:01:10] business? Which boundaries do we practice that genuinely work for us and protect our energy?
[00:01:17] And how do we listen to our [00:01:20] bodies and run our businesses in a way that honor what our bodies need? So this is a really, really honest and powerful [00:01:30] conversation. I loved having this discussion with my mastermind buddies. We talk about everything from our nervous systems to sabbaticals, chronic fatigue, letting go of [00:01:40] clients.
[00:01:41] All of this stuff, and if you have ever wondered how you can make your life and business work around your unique set of circumstances, then [00:01:50] I hope that this will be an inspiring and reassuring conversation for you. All right, let’s dive in.
[00:01:59] Sage Grayson: [00:02:00] Welcome. Thank you so much for joining us today. This is Burnout Boundaries and Bodies Round Table, and I am Sage Grayson, and I’m your [00:02:10] moderator.
[00:02:10] And you can find me@sagegrayson.com. And we are the weird hermits. We are a group of women online business owners who have [00:02:20] earned multiple six figures for multiple years, and once a week we come together to share strategies. Brainstorm solutions and [00:02:30] support each other’s businesses. I gotta say I love our mastermind group, and I especially love when we come together every so often to do one of these panels.
[00:02:39] This is our chance to [00:02:40] answer all of your burning questions about a very specific topic. And today we’re talking about burnout, boundaries and bodies. And [00:02:50] I gotta say, we are not here to talk about surface level self-care, like taking bubble baths. No. We are doing a deep dive [00:03:00] into what actually works to help us protect our mental, physical, and mental health or emotional health when it comes to our [00:03:10] businesses.
[00:03:10] So I think this might be one of our most important round tables that we’ve ever done. So before we get started, we have some gifts for you as [00:03:20] always. Let me grab the link. We have. Some offers that we would love to share with you. Let me put this in the chat right now. [00:03:30] Whoop, and we will share this link multiple times so you can get our gifts from the weird hermit.
[00:03:38] Thank you. Okay. [00:03:40] If you have a question during today’s round table, please be sure to put it in the chat and we will be monitoring the chat and getting to as many questions as we possibly can. [00:03:50] And also before we get started, make sure you have some way to take notes today, uh, because I don’t want you to miss a thing.
[00:03:56] Alright, I think that’s it. Let’s introduce you to our [00:04:00] expert panelists. Steph, will you introduce yourself?
[00:04:03] Ruth Poundwhite: Hi everyone. I am Steph Blake, founder, CEO of uh, the Blake Collective. And I have two other companies. Not gonna dive into that too [00:04:10] much, but my whole thing is helping entrepreneurs simplify and automate their businesses.
[00:04:15] And then in one of my other companies, it’s um, all about helping you reconnect to yourself, your [00:04:20] creative side. And we talk a lot about self-care, inner work. So I’m really excited for this conversation ’cause it’s not something I talk about much in the B2B side of things. [00:04:30]
[00:04:30] Dama Jue: Thank you. Thank you so much. Uh, Liz, would you introduce yourself?
[00:04:34] Liz Stapleton: Ah, no, I’m super excited to be here. As always, I love this group of ladies. Uh, I’m Liz Stapleton. I’m a lawyer, turn online [00:04:40] business system strategist, and I help creators replace backend chaos with simple, scalable workflows over at create our ops hub and I so they can grow without burnout, which is really, you [00:04:50] know, poetic with this round table.
[00:04:51] Dama Jue: Yes, it’s perfect. Thank you Tama, please introduce yourself.
[00:04:57] Dama Jue 2: Hello, I’m Ddu. I, [00:05:00] uh, help digital product creators create and sell more of their offers with my favorite thing ever Lazy funnels. The lazier the better. Um, clever marketing automation, big automation [00:05:10] nerd and strategic systems. So my model for context is low ticket, high volume, and I work also with people one-on-one, um, to strategize and implement their offer ideas and [00:05:20] copy and all that good stuff.
[00:05:20] I live in Hudson Valley.
[00:05:22] Sage Grayson: Yes. Wonderful. Thank you. Kate, please introduce yourself.
[00:05:28] Kate Kordsmeier: Hi everybody. I’m glad to be here [00:05:30] again. And I’m Kate Ktz Meyer, uh, founder of Success with Soul. I’m the no social girl, so if you wanna grow your business without social media, that’s my jam. [00:05:40] Um, and obviously my business is called Success with Soul because I do believe that the inner work, the mindset, the energy and all of that make a big difference in your [00:05:50] strategy and how your business works.
[00:05:52] So I’m excited to chat about that here today.
[00:05:54] Sage Grayson: Yes. Thank you. And Ruth, please introduce yourself. [00:06:00]
[00:06:00] Ruth Poundwhite: Hi everyone. I’m really happy to be here. I am a business and self-belief coach and I, I talk about this stuff a lot in my work. I help people [00:06:10] to set up and run their business in alignment with their energy, their values, and their personality.
[00:06:17] Sage Grayson: Thank you. Alright, [00:06:20] so we are the weird hermits and every panel we have a different collection of us. This is not our full group, so make sure you attend our future panels. Definitely. Okay, [00:06:30] so I think we are ready to get started with burnout, boundaries, and bodies. And I have some questions for us, and I did group them according to burnout, boundaries [00:06:40] and our bodies.
[00:06:41] But maybe we need to start off with a little bit of a definition to make sure we all know exactly what we’re talking about. So when it comes to [00:06:50] burnout, how do you tell the difference between I need a break. And I am actively avoiding something that’s [00:07:00] uncomfortable. So how do you tell the difference between those two?
[00:07:03] I need a break or I’m actually avoiding something uncomfortable. Does anyone wanna talk about what [00:07:10] that version of burnout looks like and how do you tell the difference?
[00:07:13] Ruth Poundwhite: Um, one of the things that, um, in my training as a self-belief coach that I thought was [00:07:20] very helpful, although it definitely oversimplifies it, is that a lot of us have a tendency to, there are different tendencies that we [00:07:30] each have and noticing our patterns over time.
[00:07:34] It can make it a lot easier to see. So for example, I am the kind of person who to [00:07:40] cope with uncertainty or doubt or fear or whatever, will push harder and work more and avoid [00:07:50] whatever feelings, uh, coming up. That’s my, if, if, if you were to look at the average of the way that I respond to things over time, that’s my tendency.[00:08:00]
[00:08:00] For other people, it can be completely kind of the opposite and they have a tendency to think more or pause more or hold back. And [00:08:10] obviously we each need both of those kind of energies. But I think, um, that looking at our patterns and tendencies over time [00:08:20] is, is very, very important because it can be very hard to tell in the moment, although I’m sure that you all have some great things to share about this.
[00:08:28] But yeah, that was a very, like I said, [00:08:30] oversimplifying, it’s not always. The case that you’re gonna continue that pattern every time, but, but very helpful to think of it that way and observe yourself over time. [00:08:40]
[00:08:40] Sage Grayson: That’s a really good point to look for patterns. I know every single one of us has experienced burnout.
[00:08:46] Who’s got another definition? Or how do you, uh, [00:08:50] see burnout show up in your life?
[00:08:51] Liz Stapleton: Uh, oh. Oh,
[00:08:53] Sage Grayson: go Liz, go ahead.
[00:08:54] Liz Stapleton: Okay. Uh, I was just gonna say, kind of building on top of what Ru said is it’s recognizing yes, those patterns are where your [00:09:00] energy is. So, like, I’ve been recovering from burnout for a while. I think you guys know, but a lot of that shows up as just exhaustion in general.
[00:09:07] It’s not necessarily a need a break, it’s just, I don’t want [00:09:10] do it. Or I’m so overwhelmed with all the things I need to do that I, my brain shuts down and is tired and it’s like I’m tired. I need a break, but in reality, I just need to actually take some action. Whereas when I really need a break [00:09:20] is sometimes I, when I, my brain and nervous system can’t focus and I’m like, agitated.
[00:09:24] So that happened last week. Tech was teching, like mm-hmm. Page blurs were freezing and I was [00:09:30] losing my freaking mind over the course of the week. It just built. And by Friday I was like, I gotta walk away. Like, I need to shut everything down. And it took a good two hours for my brain and nervous system to just [00:09:40] settle.
[00:09:40] And then I, I still didn’t go back that day, right. I was like, we’re gonna self-care and uh, you know, but we need to walk away because this is, at this point. [00:09:50] I am not going to get more done because I’m just too agitated. It’s just gonna be a fight. And so recognizing that I need to put that boundary of work can wait and I need to go [00:10:00] take care of myself, or I’m gonna be out for a week instead of just an evening or half a day.
[00:10:06] Kate Kordsmeier: Yeah. Yeah. I’ll add to that too, [00:10:10] that for me, a lot of times it’s, uh, burnout manifests more as physical symptoms than just like, Ugh, I don’t wanna do this. Or, you know, [00:10:20] having like more mental resistance to something that for me is usually more when it’s like, this is uncomfortable or vulnerable and I’m putting myself out there, myself taking a risk and it’s [00:10:30] big and scary and you know, that kind of thing.
[00:10:32] Versus burnout, for me it feels much more like, you know, racing heart or tightness in my [00:10:40] chest, or maybe even full on panic attacks, but like that physical anxiety where my body is like. My body is now gonna force me to take a break because I [00:10:50] have not allowed it to. When I start getting sick all the time, that’s when it’s like, hmm, this is a sign that I’m working too much or doing too much.
[00:10:58] Um, so for me it’s [00:11:00] often more of the physical, like manifestations of those stress, um, that, that signal to me the difference. [00:11:10]
[00:11:11] Sage Grayson: Yeah. Yeah. I, I definitely, uh, feel that too when I have the anxiety going. I know I definitely need to take a break, uh, rather than just [00:11:20] feeling tired and sleepy when I’m procrastinating and avoiding something.
[00:11:24] But if I got the shaking anxiety, totally, totally burned out. Desperately. Need rest. [00:11:30] Steph, do you have anything to add?
[00:11:31] Ruth Poundwhite: I do. Yeah. Mine, um, is very similar to Kate’s where it’s more physical and I’ve done, at this point, like six years of nervous system work to [00:11:40] really understand my body and understand, okay, if I have a slight tickle in my throat.
[00:11:44] Nine times out of 10, it’s not because I’m actually sick, it’s because burnout is on the way. So that is [00:11:50] usually the first sign for me that I’m doing too much and I need to slow down. And then if I don’t slow down, if I just ignore that, it’ll show up as brain fog. [00:12:00] And my brain just literally will not work.
[00:12:02] Like I’ll try to think about something and something that I would normally be able to figure out really easily. It’s just like my [00:12:10] brain is not firing on any cylinders, let alone all cylinders. And then from there, if I just continue to ignore it, it becomes a full on, um, sickness. And [00:12:20] that, that’s how I always know.
[00:12:22] It’s like,
[00:12:22] Sage Grayson: wow.
[00:12:23] Ruth Poundwhite: You may have heard, um, this analogy where, and I don’t wanna get too woo. We can if you want, but like the universe [00:12:30] will throw you a pebble. It’ll throw you like, as your warning sign. Right? So like, my warning sign is like the tickle in my throat, or it’ll throw you a rock, which is, that’s like, [00:12:40] okay, now I’m sick.
[00:12:40] I’ve start like actually lay down or it’ll throw a boulder. And if I get that boulder, that means I’m in bed. I literally physically can’t move. So I have [00:12:50] started to notice those warning signs and uh, stop it with a pebble before it even gets to the rock.
[00:12:56] Sage Grayson: Oh my gosh. I love that. We love it. We love getting Woo here.
[00:12:59] Yes. [00:13:00] Stop it at the pebble. Perfect.
[00:13:02] Dama Jue 2: I wanna,
[00:13:03] Sage Grayson: what about you?
[00:13:03] Dama Jue 2: I won’t say a non, an anti woo, but I’m probably the least Kate’s smiling. ’cause she already knows. [00:13:10] I am always the unw least Woo. Um, for me, I love running a business, one because I was never very good working in an office. And [00:13:20] two, I really enjoy revenue, like as a former accountant and managing funds, strategizing all of it, I love it.
[00:13:28] Uh, for me, when [00:13:30] I don’t wanna work, like I actively don’t wanna work, I’m not excited about my next launch or making money or. My new idea, I would rather lay [00:13:40] in bed and binge Netflix. It’s about as unu a code as I can get. But if I don’t wanna, I’d rather lay in bed and watch Netflix than [00:13:50] make money or run my business.
[00:13:51] Like, okay, I know that I am like something’s off, but I’m gonna go ahead and indulge that today and take a walk, talk to my [00:14:00] husband, play with my puppy, do whatever it is I need to do for a reset. I’m not gonna ignore it, but that’s, I love running my business and making money. So when I don’t wanna [00:14:10] do that, I’m like, that’s, there’s something wrong.
[00:14:12] And we’re tiptoeing towards something.
[00:14:14] Sage Grayson: Oh, I love all these different perspectives that we’re getting. Yeah. Okay, [00:14:20] so when we have burnout, have you ever noticed that your burnout is a signal that you’ve outgrown a version of [00:14:30] you or a version of your business? Has burnout ever been a signal that, oh, we’re not gonna do that anymore.
[00:14:38] It’s time for a new [00:14:40] version of you, a new version of your business. Has that ever happened to anyone?
[00:14:44] Kate Kordsmeier: I love that Sage always comes up with these questions and doesn’t share them with us beforehand. So we are getting all these like, [00:14:50] Ooh, this is good. I gotta think about this for a second. But I, I will definitely share that.
[00:14:57] Um, I took a six month [00:15:00] sabbatical in this, basically the end of 2023, December, 2023. And so, um, there were a lot of reasons for doing that, but I do think one of them was [00:15:10] exactly what you just said, Sage, that like I had all of her faces when she asked that were like, um, it’s exactly what you said that [00:15:20] I think I had outgrown.
[00:15:22] Or like what was, what was working before was no longer working and it was time for me to evolve into the next version of [00:15:30] myself. And it doesn’t necessarily mean like outgrown, like what I was doing before was bad, and now what I’m doing now is better. It was just like different things for a different season.
[00:15:39] [00:15:40] But I think it was a, a signal to me that you need to take a break. You’ve been kind of that Einstein quote of like doing the same thing over and over and expecting different [00:15:50] results. And I need to take some space to figure out what I wanna try differently because when I’m just too in it and too close to it, I can’t see [00:16:00] properly.
[00:16:00] So I think that was kind of what that burnout looked like.
[00:16:05] Sage Grayson: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:16:07] Liz Stapleton: I was gonna add, um, it wouldn’t. [00:16:10] It wasn’t necessarily burnt. I mean, I was burnt out, but I don’t know that it was particularly because of was doing my business. But it, it, my business was becoming harder because it wasn’t [00:16:20] aligned with what I wanted to be doing.
[00:16:22] Right. So, you all know I did a pivot and rebranded last year, but I had been like stagnant, declining for a couple years. ’cause it just [00:16:30] like, I struggled to force myself to do this thing ’cause it wasn’t, I had outgrown it basically. So, uh, you know, I in general had burnout. That was, there was a lot of [00:16:40] factors in that, but I think that definitely played a role.
[00:16:42] And it doesn’t necessarily mean like a sabbatical, you know, I mean, kudos to Kate, like, but for me it meant a pivot. And so adjusting that and [00:16:50] recognizing it, and I’ve had a lot more energy around my business in general where I’m like, excited to do these things and I think it just, it makes a difference.
[00:16:58] Sage Grayson: Yeah.
[00:16:59] Ruth Poundwhite: [00:17:00] I, I had a situa, well, I got burned out doing my work when I was working as a copywriter, a hundred percent. The reason I got burned out was because I had to do so much [00:17:10] writing because I was massively undercharging. Um, and it sucked all the enjoyment out of it, and I [00:17:20] feel like it forever changed my relation.
[00:17:22] Like I still, writing is definitely my thing, but I, something shifted because I was undercharging and burnt [00:17:30] myself out writing. Um, later on in this business, I was experience. I’ve, I’ve had chronic fatigue since 2020. It’s [00:17:40] really hard to notice sometimes what the cause is of a flare, because a flare can happen straight away.
[00:17:49] It can [00:17:50] happen days, weeks later. It’s really hard to notice. The first si it, it, it could be really, really tricky, but over time you start to notice some [00:18:00] things, um, that are causing it. And one thing I noticed was causing the flares of my fatigue. So it’s, it is different to burnout, but it’s still obviously on the same [00:18:10] kind of path.
[00:18:11] Um, was having too many calls in my calendar and it took me ages to notice that it, and it [00:18:20] actually was a shift in my body, I guess, with other stuff going on. And there’s a whole load of other stuff like that we could talk about in relation to the chronic illness. But it [00:18:30] ma, I had to make a tough decision to stop working with clients in the way that I was.
[00:18:35] My whole business model was basically coaching people on calls in [00:18:40] groups and one-to-one, and I made a really quite dramatic shift. To working asynchronously, asynchronous [00:18:50] coaching and more, one to many offers. It was really hard to change. My whole identity as a coach was like unraveling with like the way I was coaching [00:19:00] people as well.
[00:19:01] But when every time I doubted that change that I had made, I asked myself, can I continue the way I’m going? And the answer was no. So I [00:19:10] had no choice and that actually made the, made it easier to, to just trust because I had no choice. But that, that’s kind of the biggest thing that I can think of, those two things.
[00:19:19] The [00:19:20] first ones, it was quite simple. I was just undercharging and working too much. Second one felt, felt hard, but ultimately was a really important [00:19:30] lesson.
[00:19:31] Sage Grayson: Wow. Yeah. I think almost every one of us has done a big pivot or really had to outgrow a version of our business. Steph, did you have something [00:19:40] to say?
[00:19:40] I
[00:19:40] Ruth Poundwhite: do. Yeah. This has happened to me a couple of different times over the past 10 years. Um, and I’ve noticed that it’s gone along with the different seasons of my life as well. So [00:19:50] prior to being a parent, having one child, having a husband, having two kids, right? It’s, it’s, it’s been different every step of the way.
[00:19:57] And I’ve noticed that at each of those [00:20:00] stages, I have to not only become a different person, but my business has to support me in a different way so that I can show up as the best version of myself. And last year, um, [00:20:10] I was like, I ignored all of the signs and I was knocked on my. But in case there’s any kids here for a literal week, and I could not get out of [00:20:20] bed because I didn’t listen to the pebble, didn’t listen to the rock, and I just got hit with a boulder.
[00:20:24] And it was at that point where I’m so grateful that that happened to me because I physically could not move. [00:20:30] And it forced me to just rethink everything that I was doing because the way that I was operating up until that point was not conducive to the stage of life that I was in Now. I was trying to [00:20:40] fit that version of my business into an old version of me and the season of life that I was in, it just wasn’t working anymore.
[00:20:48] And it just. [00:20:50] At during that time, I had so much more clarity of what I didn’t want to be doing. It’s very similar to what Ruth said, like, these are the things that I no longer wanna be doing. Why am I still doing this? Why am I still offering [00:21:00] this? And then just completely pivoting to doing the work that I actually enjoy doing, not what I thought that I had to do because I saw so many other people online and [00:21:10] this industry doing the same thing.
[00:21:11] I thought that I had to follow that path when it was not aligned with me at all. And I think that’s the biggest piece here is [00:21:20] alignment, right? It’s like if you are not fully aligned, if it doesn’t let you up, if it does not excite you, there’s a disconnect there. And that’s where the burnout wall start to come in much more quickly.[00:21:30]
[00:21:30] Sage Grayson: Yeah. Donna, anything to add?
[00:21:36] Dama Jue 2: I’m muted. I was just thinking as everybody was chatting, the one [00:21:40] time where I knew that burnout was like needing me to change my. Model was done for you client work. And it was like, can we meet on Sunday night? I have my [00:21:50] kids stuff during the day, or can we do this? ’cause I have work during the day, or I, I can’t do this, I’m doing client work.
[00:21:55] And it just ended up being like, hi. I am literally taking time away from my personal and [00:22:00] social life and my downtime with my husband to take client calls at 7:00 PM on a Sunday. Like, ugh, who wants to do that? And the Voxer and the text [00:22:10] messaging and texting me on my vacation and just like, I don’t wanna do this anymore.
[00:22:14] I don’t care what you pay me, please. So I, not very long thereafter, a couple months [00:22:20] thereafter, um. Came out with a, like a digital product line. It was Thrive Cart templates that I knew was going to do good. I just needed to do the work, prioritize [00:22:30] myself, had my first five figure launch and then let my clients go.
[00:22:33] Two weeks later I was like, okay, I’m done being the bridesmaid. I’m ready to be the bride digital products for me. [00:22:40] Um, yeah, I’m done. I’m done with strictly done for you. So it was just the big, like, it was like getting this text message while I’m in Lake Tahoe with my guy knowing that I’m on [00:22:50] vacation and just like, Hey, I haven’t heard back.
[00:22:52] And it’s just like, yeah, ’cause I’m ignoring your Voxer right now. There’s a reason why you haven’t heard back and I don’t remember giving you my number. But anyway, [00:23:00]
[00:23:01] Sage Grayson: I love it. You are the bride now, the bridesmaid. This is
[00:23:04] Dama Jue 2: a thank you. It’s, I got, I got really tired of making like all my clients [00:23:10] 50 K launches and a hundred K and 30 K and it’s just like, can, can I have that please?
[00:23:15] I have all the skills. So anyway, yes, that was the final push for me. [00:23:20]
[00:23:20] Sage Grayson: This is a beautiful transition to talk about some boundaries. So how do you handle boundaries when your income feels like [00:23:30] it is directly tied to being available? How do you set boundaries when it feels like your income is tied to being always available?
[00:23:39] Who’s [00:23:40] got
[00:23:40] Kate Kordsmeier: your business up so that your income is not tied to always being available?
[00:23:44] Sage Grayson: There we go. There we go. Yes.
[00:23:47] Kate Kordsmeier: Yeah, that exactly what I [00:23:50] mean. Everyone was sharing here. I did not, um. I guess I was gonna say, I didn’t do done for you work ever, but that’s not true because I was a freelance journalist for eight years [00:24:00] and that was the same, same thing.
[00:24:02] Like I, um, if I didn’t write and I didn’t get paid. And so similar to, you know, being available. [00:24:10] So I think one, one way is just to make sure that your business is not always trading time for dollars. It’s not to say that you can never trade time for dollars, which I think sometimes people [00:24:20] take it too literally and are like, so I could never do anything that’s not scalable.
[00:24:24] And I think it’s just a balance. But some of the boundaries that I have in place, um, [00:24:30] is that I have certain days of the week and weeks of the month that I do not take calls. And so like, clients can only book calls with [00:24:40] me on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And basically Tuesdays and Thursdays are the only time you’ll catch me on a call.
[00:24:45] Um, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I. As long as I can [00:24:50] help it. And of course, life, life sometimes, and you gotta do what you gotta do. But I would say 90, 99% of the time, I’m not on calls Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. You know, I don’t ha, [00:25:00] I ha I set up systems in the business to sell for me on Evergreen, which I know all of us here do.
[00:25:06] Um, and lots of ways so that I can, I’m not, my [00:25:10] business isn’t tied to me even showing up at all, let alone like being available live for my clients. Um, and then one other thing I do is that when I have [00:25:20] containers for things, I always have boundary expectation documents that I give my clients in advance.
[00:25:26] So, for example, I do [00:25:30] unlimited boxer coaching with some of my clients, but when I. Start working with a client, I send them the expectation that says, here’s what unlimited actually [00:25:40] means. Does not mean I will vox you back 24 7. It means you can leave me as many messages as you want at any time of day, but [00:25:50] for me, I check Voxer once a day and I will get back to you every single day.
[00:25:55] So within 24 hours, Monday through Thursday from 9:00 AM [00:26:00] to 5:00 PM Eastern, these are the boundaries around here. And so I think setting those expectations, I’ve never had anybody say like, that’s unfair. I don’t like [00:26:10] this. Or, you know, whatever. It’s just like, I think people clear is kind, and people appreciate knowing what the expectations are upfront.
[00:26:18] And sometimes I have to, [00:26:20] you know, reinforce those boundaries with certain clients. But it’s really easy when you can just like send them the doc again and just say, just a gentle reminder, here’s how it works. And [00:26:30] yeah, so that’s, that’s fine.
[00:26:32] Sage Grayson: Beautiful. Clear is kind. Yes. And I think all of our clients will respect us more if we have boundaries and we [00:26:40] act like the true leaders of our businesses.
[00:26:43] Who else has a boundary that’s worked for them?
[00:26:46] Ruth Poundwhite: I wanted to share from the perspective of, you know, when we [00:26:50] believe that we have, we have to be available to, to make the money because it’s a pattern in your brain that you’re gonna have to rewrite. Especially like what I was saying earlier about our [00:27:00] tendencies.
[00:27:00] Like I am someone who deals with fear and uncertainty by pushing harder. It it, so if I’m not, if I feel like I’m not making the money or making the sales, or having the [00:27:10] clients that I want. The natural and, and this is very normal. The natural, um, response to that is like, I just gotta work harder and I just gotta work later and I just gotta put more effort in.
[00:27:19] Right? [00:27:20] And sometimes we are in seasons where we do have to work a little bit harder, but I would argue that from a, from a like nervous system perspective, when we [00:27:30] are busy and fighting and pushing, we are, we can only see here in front of us like, I gotta do this, I gotta do this. When we are [00:27:40] rested and taking care of ourself, it’s when our field of vision widens.
[00:27:44] I mean, this is literally and metaphorically and we get to be more [00:27:50] creative. This is, it’s in the downtimes that we come up with new ideas. It could take one idea. To make you a million dollars. I literally could, I [00:28:00] mean, like obviously it’s a special idea, but still, if we could believe that this is the kind of, um, reasoning I actually have to give myself [00:28:10] sometimes when I am in that state where I think I have to push, push, push, I have to remember that there is scientific evidence why rest is [00:28:20] actually not just good for me, but good for business as well.
[00:28:22] And it sounds really sad that I have to frame it that way, but when you, when you are wired to think a certain way and to push [00:28:30] harder, you have to, you know, uh, give yourself the evidence, tell yourself the facts, and then build the evidence as you go. Um, but [00:28:40] it, but it is hard if you’ve, if you’ve been used to pushing it is hard.
[00:28:43] So practical stuff, setting up your business to not need you all the time. But it’s a huge mindset and [00:28:50] nervous system thing as well.
[00:28:52] Sage Grayson: I love giving yourself, oh, Liz says rest is productive. Yes. I love the [00:29:00] idea of giving yourself the space and the quiet to come up with those ideas. Like you don’t come up with a million dollar idea when you’re anxious and you can’t, you can hardly [00:29:10] think straight.
[00:29:10] I think that’s beautiful. Yes. Give yourself the time and the space to, to rest and come up with those ideas. Steph, do you have a boundary?
[00:29:19] Ruth Poundwhite: I do. [00:29:20] Yeah. So I put something in the chat and I’m not going to act like I know anything about this ’cause I’m not a scientist. I’m not in the medical field. I will not act like I do, but a portion of our brain literally [00:29:30] stops working when we are just going nonstop.
[00:29:32] I wanna say it’s the frontal lobe. Don’t quote me on that. Go look it up. You’ll find a million articles once you, um, once you do [00:29:40] that. But yeah, so I’m sure like most of the people listening here, I come from a corporate background. My mom worked in corporate for. 45 years until she [00:29:50] retired. I worked in corporate for 10 years before I started my business.
[00:29:52] So I had an employee mindset coming into my business. ’cause I didn’t know any other entrepreneurs, so I just basically learned everything on my own. [00:30:00] And one of the things that I learned at one of my previous jobs was do not ever put an auto responder on. And whenever a client calls you, you answer. So for about seven [00:30:10] years that I worked at this company, that was ingrained in my brain that if you’re going on vacation, you’re gonna answer your email still.
[00:30:16] If you, if it’s nine o’clock at night, [00:30:20] if it’s really important, you should answer it. But if you think it can wait the next day, that’s okay. So, and that was because my boss just had a lot of his own issues. We’ll, we’ll just leave it [00:30:30] there. A lot of his own issues that he didn’t deal with, which then, um. He transitioned onto us as employees.
[00:30:37] So when I came into my business, I was doing all client [00:30:40] work and I had that same mindset. Like Audrey’s didn’t exist, autoresponders didn’t exist. I didn’t even know what an automation was when I started my business. Right. And it took me a [00:30:50] lot of time and nervous system work, mindset, work, whatever you wanna call it, to get comfortable with knowing that it’s okay to step [00:31:00] away, it’s safe to step away, and to be able to trust that all of the work that I’ve done to set up the system, to set up the automations, that’s they’re still working for me, right?
[00:31:09] And [00:31:10] it’s okay for me to take a break. It’s okay for me to rest because I know what happens when I don’t. I almost ended up in the hospital one time when I didn’t. And I think if we think [00:31:20] about this from a long-term perspective, like how do we want our businesses to be 5, 10, 15 years from now? If we keep going nonstop, we’re not gonna be [00:31:30] here.
[00:31:30] Right? You, for most of us, are the faces of our businesses. So we have to be showing up not every day, but on a consistent basis. [00:31:40] And if we burn out, like we’re not gonna be here. Right? And I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve seen so many people in the past couple years, we’ve all been in this [00:31:50] world for a long time.
[00:31:50] So many people have shut their doors on their businesses because they did that exact thing, right? They were just going, going, going. And now they realize it wasn’t sustainable, even if they made millions [00:32:00] and millions of dollars. So my whole thing is sustainability. I wanna be in this game maybe doing what I’m doing now.
[00:32:06] Something else I don’t know. But I know that if I don’t take care of myself, [00:32:10] it’s not gonna matter.
[00:32:13] Sage Grayson: Ugh. Oh my gosh. It’s, it’s heartbreaking. We have all seen good [00:32:20] businesses crash and burn and not be able to keep up. The output. So I love that you said that, that for sustainability, we need to have those boundaries.
[00:32:29] [00:32:30] We need to have those automations, we need to have things working for us so that we can stay healthy and, uh, keep doing our good work and still serving people. [00:32:40] Does anyone else have another boundary? ’cause I do have a good question about bodies that I’d like to talk about. Oh, anyone?
[00:32:48] Dama Jue 2: Yeah. I’ll just quickly, [00:32:50] yeah, yeah.
[00:32:50] Add that. Um, the, I’m really clear about setting the boundary of when I’m available because I’m not available all the time. I’m not at my desk all the [00:33:00] time. And even if my phone is in my hand all the time, that’s nobody’s business but me in screen time. Right. So, um, I’m really clear about how I handle customer [00:33:10] service.
[00:33:10] So I have a link that people can submit a support ticket. It’s listed at the bottom of every email I send. It’s listed on my website, my course platform. I periodically send it to my whole list, [00:33:20] like, Hey, do you need support? Get it here. Do not hit reply. I do not handle customer service in my inbox. I do not handle customer service in dms.
[00:33:28] God forbid you tag me [00:33:30] in a Facebook group to, to offer customer support for one of my products. Like Heavens, no ma’am, please, and I have a template set up in my Gmail for here’s how you [00:33:40] get support. Here’s how you pitch a collab to me. Here’s how you do this. Like, very clear, this is how I wanna be contacted, and I just, I’m not afraid to [00:33:50] reiterate that boundary.
[00:33:50] And the only person between me and my boundary and enforcing it is me. So, like if I say, this is how you get customer support, you fill out, this is how you do it. [00:34:00] Like it’s up to me to remind people that you need to fill out the form because my VA will get to it really fast. I’m gonna ignore your email for 30 to 60 [00:34:10] to potentially 90 days.
[00:34:11] It’s gonna give me anxiety that it’s in my inbox, but I’m not gonna get to it. So the kindest thing I can do is hit reply, select one of my Gmail [00:34:20] templates and say, this is how you get support. I do have an autoresponder, but nobody looks at those. So, you know, or people often don’t, whatever. I still will send, like, here, [00:34:30] here’s how you get it.
[00:34:31] You will not be getting a reply from me. You know? And so it’s up to me to maintain that boundary. So that’s how, and then when I have a group program, I’m really clear about when I respond to [00:34:40] things in the, you know, in the community or when I’m available for Voxer, I do not hesitate to push back on your nine minute Voxer sweetheart, I listened to the first two and a half minutes of it.[00:34:50]
[00:34:50] I, I am not able to, I’ve just said that before, like I’m not able to, I listened to the first three minutes of your Voxer, I’m not able to listen to the rest, but I’m gonna respond to what I [00:35:00] heard up until that point. Um, and it’s up to me to hold that boundary. So yeah, online business feels like we’re available everywhere.
[00:35:07] And when we had office jobs, like s was [00:35:10] saying, we just left right at four. Or five, we could just leave and no one could pop by your cube to find me. But that’s not the case in, um, online business. So it’s up to me to [00:35:20] be clear about those boundaries when I’m available and how I wanna be contacted.
[00:35:25] Sage Grayson: Yes, a hundred times.
[00:35:27] Yes. We teach people how to treat us [00:35:30] and that it goes for our businesses too. I love it. I love the systems you have in place for that. I actually got a
[00:35:37] Dama Jue 2: note in my, yeah, I’m a big systems nerd, so of [00:35:40] course I’m like, I’ll just build a system for this because this is how I goof off in my business. Instead of doing hard things like designing a new sales page, I just wanna build a new automation or a new system.
[00:35:49] So [00:35:50] I’d way rather do that.
[00:35:51] Sage Grayson: This is how we sustain our businesses too, and not burn out. Uh, I had somebody post in my school community this week about how annoyed they [00:36:00] are when they reach out to a creator and they don’t answer their emails or hit reply to email and they don’t, don’t respond. And how, how rude that is that they don’t respond.
[00:36:07] And I’m thinking, do you know how many hundreds of [00:36:10] emails we get every day like that, that I, I think this is a great reminder for all of us that we teach people how to treat us. I love, love, uh, what you [00:36:20] just said about, um, the customer service ticket. Beautiful.
[00:36:24] Liz Stapleton: Yeah.
[00:36:24] Sage Grayson: Okay.
[00:36:25] Liz Stapleton: I have similar setup. Yes.
[00:36:27] Sage Grayson: Yes.
[00:36:27] Liz Stapleton: I said I, I I have a similar setup.
[00:36:29] And the other thing I [00:36:30] do, so I know you talked about like being, setting boundaries in terms of availability. I don’t. I don’t do client work anymore. I don’t, you know, but again, I’d say like [00:36:40] doma, the one place where I feel I’ll feel bad is like customer support. And so I’ve set up that like ticketing system where I’m like, look, if you want an actual timely response, go there.
[00:36:49] [00:36:50] Um, but the other thing I’ve done is, uh, because you can always work in your business, right? There’s always more to do. You know, you, you don’t clock out at four o’clock. [00:37:00] Um, and so, I mean, I generally don’t work in the evenings, but sometimes, as Ruth said, you go through a season where you’re doing extra.
[00:37:07] But even if I’m doing extra where I’m like, okay, well [00:37:10] I need to get a little more done and I’m working. I have a, like a hard stop time of like eight o’clock. I’m like, Nope, we’re done. Like, it doesn’t matter where we’re at, it’s eight o’clock. We shut it down and we walk away [00:37:20] and we actually take care of ourselves.
[00:37:21] So similar to the visibility, but not quite.
[00:37:25] Sage Grayson: Yes. Yeah. I know. I was so tempting to work 24 7. But we can’t do [00:37:30] that. We can’t do that. We owe it to ourselves and to our clients not to do that.
[00:37:36] I, oh, I believe it’s time to talk about our bodies. [00:37:40] How has your body changed how you run your business? Uh, whether for better or for worse, [00:37:50] who wants to talk about your body, your health, your mental health, chronic conditions? Neurodivergence, who wants to talk about how your [00:38:00] body has changed, how you run your business?
[00:38:05] Anyone got a story to share?
[00:38:09] Kate Kordsmeier: I [00:38:10] mean, check, check, check over here. All those boxes. I have several chronic health conditions. I’m neurodivergent. I have [00:38:20] P-T-S-D-I, you know, there’s lots of, I’ve got two kids. I’ve got three animals. I have a husband. He is probably the most work of all. No, I’m just kidding. [00:38:30] Um, yeah, I.
[00:38:33] Call it horizontal ambition because I spend a lot of my time working from the couch. [00:38:40] Um, I have pots and um, several other hormonal conditions that all kind of stem back to fatigue being one of the biggest, [00:38:50] uh, symptoms that I deal with. And I’ve just found ways to help me work. And sometimes it’s like working from bed, working from the couch, um, [00:39:00] you know, getting, like I have a lap desk, I have like the things that can help me, you know, ergonomically ’cause it’s not great for your back.
[00:39:07] But, um, yeah, and I think having [00:39:10] those boundaries in place is another way that like my body has forced me to do that because I literally can’t do it another way. [00:39:20] Um, and so, yeah, I think, and even just like being an introvert, like it’s not necessarily diagnosis, but I feel like it is, [00:39:30] uh, something that is just like.
[00:39:32] Commands how I, how I show up. Um, so that’s, that’s kind of part of it for me. But I wanted to say one [00:39:40] other thing too, speaking to this boundary stuff, which is, I think especially as women, we can feel really guilty saying no or putting these boundaries up and like [00:39:50] our existence, uh, is to serve others and to be there for other people.
[00:39:55] Um, and one thing that I have found really surprising and [00:40:00] really reaffirming to me is I have had so many clients when I have had to set boundaries and even reinforce boundaries, say, thank you so [00:40:10] much for modeling what it looks like to put yourself and your health first. And it’s been so amazing to be like, oh wow.
[00:40:18] ’cause I felt really [00:40:20] bad, you know, I felt like, I hate not being able to do this for you. And I, I have anxiety about it, but every time they’ve, I get thanked and [00:40:30] like that, it’s just. I think there is something really permission giving to other people when you can model what it looks like to [00:40:40] set boundaries to, um, take care of yourself.
[00:40:43] And yeah, it sounds like that’s not always the experience for, uh, everybody in this group, but that has been my [00:40:50] experience thus far. Um, and maybe part of it is because I’m really upfront too with A, what my limitations are and [00:41:00] b, what my boundaries are. So it’s never really like a surprise. Um, it’s always just like, this is, this is how I have to operate and you know, if it doesn’t work [00:41:10] for you, that’s okay.
[00:41:12] I’m sure you can find somebody else who is more aligned with what you need, but it’s not me.
[00:41:18] Sage Grayson: Yes. We don’t have to [00:41:20] be everything to everyone. Yeah. We are allowed to say no to clients if it doesn’t protect our health and our energy. Ruth, did you have something to [00:41:30] say about how your health affects your business?
[00:41:34] Ruth Poundwhite: Yeah, I mean, firstly I would just wanna say, we’ve said this in the previous round tables, but we kind of have a [00:41:40] mantra like, what would Destiny do? Because Destiny, who is also in our group is like, if someone is rude or whatever, she has no problem [00:41:50] blocking, deleting, and we, we always come to her and like, oh, what should we do about this block and delete, what should we do?
[00:41:55] And it’s just, I just love it. I, I love, I love her energy around the boundary, so I keep thinking about [00:42:00] Destiny. I just wanted to give her a shout out there. But yeah, how like, health body just affect everything. I mean, when we, when we were talking about a time when like a [00:42:10] burnout like changed the way we do business and I forgot the, literally the biggest story and it wasn’t burnout, it was a breakdown.
[00:42:19] Um, [00:42:20] and after having my son. It to because it was so terrible, like rock bottom, kind of terrible. It [00:42:30] totally changed my perspective on just doing the thing I really wanted to do, and that’s what caused me to change direction from this copywriting I was doing, [00:42:40] burning myself out in a different way, undercharging, um, and doing this work that I really wanted to do.
[00:42:46] And being myself in my business. That was a huge part of it. And it [00:42:50] felt so scary to do it. But after getting that, having that rock bottom, it was so much less scary because I’d already faced that. Um, and I didn’t [00:43:00] wanna keep living my life like being someone else. I felt like I wasn’t being myself in my business, and it was chipping away at my soul.
[00:43:09] [00:43:10] Um, so that was huge, but I mean, now everything is affected. Like even, so, even right now as I’m speaking, I have brain fog today. And I haven’t had [00:43:20] my, I haven’t had brain fog for a while, and it’s just today. Of course, I’ve got a few live things to do and it kicks in. And one of the, that’s one of my [00:43:30] massive symptoms with the chronic fatigue, and I have had to learn to massively [00:43:40] trust that I am still good at what I do, even when I can’t think properly, even when my brain is, it’s not the worst brain fog right now.
[00:43:49] It [00:43:50] can be worse, but it’s not great either. I will forget words like I did a live earlier, forgot loads of words, felt kind of a bit awkward about the way I said things, but I’ve [00:44:00] practiced. I’ve practiced compassion, I’ve practiced trust. I’ve watched back some of these lives that I’ve done in this [00:44:10] mental state, and I’ve learned that I can still deliver value and help people.
[00:44:17] Actually not in spite of, but also [00:44:20] because of, because me sharing this is valuable and helpful to people as well. Um, but it’s, it takes a lot of, yeah, a [00:44:30] lot of work on trusting yourself and believing yourself. ’cause it is a source of judgment and frustration. And you’ll often look at other people [00:44:40] who seem to have more energy or more this, more that, whatever, and think, oh, I wish I was like them.
[00:44:47] But you know, we all have our [00:44:50] strengths. We all have what we perceive to be our weaknesses. And sometimes actually. Being honest, kind of like what Kate was saying about that stuff that is hard is actually the biggest [00:45:00] gift that we could give to ourselves and our people. So I feel like I got really philosophical then, but
[00:45:05] Sage Grayson: yes.
[00:45:06] Ruth Poundwhite: But that’s what’s true for me right now and I do have brain fog right [00:45:10] now, so there you go.
[00:45:11] Sage Grayson: We love it. Yeah. The brain fog always happens when you’re live streaming. Always.
[00:45:17] Ruth Poundwhite: Yeah.
[00:45:18] Sage Grayson: Liz, what did you wanna say about [00:45:20] your health?
[00:45:23] Liz Stapleton: I mean, I’ve been on a rollercoaster the last few years for sure. Um, was diagnosed like.
[00:45:29] I went [00:45:30] through a complete 180 lifestyle change about five, six years ago, and then exhaustion set in. I got diagnosed with sleep apnea, so that helped with [00:45:40] energy, but it’s just, it’s been, I wouldn’t say I’ve like figured it out really. I’m still, it’s still quite the journey for me. I literally got diagnosed with the A DHD like last week and [00:45:50] started meds like this week.
[00:45:51] And so seeing if that helps with, you know, things, I have a bit of brain fog as well this week. I think Ruth and I do because we’re [00:46:00] both mid summit prep and it’s a lot. Um, and so it, like my brain, you know, as staff mentioned earlier, like my brain is just not firing. [00:46:10] Like, like I can do simple copy paste. I cannot actually think on things.
[00:46:14] And that doesn’t, that’s not exclusive to work. That’s like at home where I’m like, I don’t know what just [00:46:20] happened. I don’t know. Like my brain did not process that. Like, what is going on? Um, so. Uh, you know, it’s, it’s been a rollercoaster and I’m, [00:46:30] I’m still figuring out, so I, I wouldn’t say I have, um, you know, figured it out.
[00:46:36] I, I will say I’ve built, when I first [00:46:40] had that lifestyle 180, I was doing client work. Um, and I had already kind of realized I didn’t like working for other people, which is basically, I mean, it’s not exactly, but I’m just like, I don’t like having these [00:46:50] deadlines accountable to other people. Um, so, you know, my, my business has transitioned to deal with the fact that I had a major lifestyle change.
[00:46:58] I had my body, you [00:47:00] know, went through exhaustion and adjustment in all sorts of things, and it’s, I’m still figuring it out. And I think that’s part of what being a business owner is, is, you know, trying to figure out [00:47:10] setting those boundaries so you’re not working all the time so you can take the time to take care of yourself.
[00:47:13] That’s something I’ve really worked on the last few years, especially mentally with my mental health. Mm-hmm. Um. So, I mean, I don’t [00:47:20] know to what extent that’s helpful for anyone to hear, but it’s just a matter of, you know, it’s a, it’s a process and it’s not necessarily like a, a finish line you go towards.
[00:47:28] Um, it’s just, okay, well [00:47:30] what can I do this week and where am I at and how can I show up if I need to show up? I’ve not been great at showing up with the exception of like, collaborations. Like that’s where I’ve [00:47:40] managed to maintain some regularity with whatever my body’s been going through. So, um, like that’s been kind of my fallback and my go-to [00:47:50]
[00:47:50] Sage Grayson: that is a hundred percent helpful.
[00:47:51] It is so helpful to hear. Thank you. Steph, what did you wanna say?
[00:47:56] Ruth Poundwhite: Yeah, so I will be the first to say that I have ignored my [00:48:00] body for a very long time because I was putting everything else first. Whether that was my family, I had two kids. That alone, if you have [00:48:10] physically had children, you know, your body is not the same after one let alone too.
[00:48:14] So I have just been. Honestly, like riding a rollercoaster with my physical body for the past, I don’t know, [00:48:20] 15 years at this point. And for a long, and I was also diagnosed with A-D-H-D-A couple of years ago. But like I said, for a long time I [00:48:30] put myself and especially my physical body last because I convinced myself that if I was not sitting in this chair and I was not working, then I was not making money.
[00:48:37] And guess what, if I’m sitting in a chair all the [00:48:40] time, I’m not moving, right? I don’t eat a lot of food, honestly, because I do have a DHD and I’m medicated. So if you know that like, um, [00:48:50] stimulants, they just reduce your appetite. But if I’m not moving, weight’s not going to come off. So over the past many years, I’ve gained quite a bit of weight, which I know is directly correlated [00:49:00] to this business.
[00:49:02] And it’s also very strange for me because I used to be very active. I played sports for the first 20 years of my life. Um, so now again, I’m [00:49:10] at this season of life where I’m like, okay. I feel really good about my business. I feel good where’re, like my kids are, my youngest is three. Feel like I can breathe and [00:49:20] I’m at this point where I’m like, okay, I can take care of myself again.
[00:49:23] But again, I feel like there’s these seasons that we go through, especially as women, as moms, where we tend to put ourselves [00:49:30] last at the detriment of our physical health a lot of the time. And similar to what Liz was saying, I’ve been doing mental health work for my gosh, a ton of that for the [00:49:40] past, at least six years.
[00:49:43] That’s really when I started the nervous system work, but about 10 years. But I did just completely, uh, set aside my physical health. So [00:49:50] if anybody is in that same boat, just know that you are not alone. I have been there and I’m currently there, but there’s always ways to, um, move past it.
[00:49:59] Sage Grayson: Good [00:50:00] point about our changing health over the years and over our circumstances.
[00:50:03] Yes. Uh, dama, did you have anything to add about health and your business? [00:50:10]
[00:50:10] Dama Jue 2: Yeah. Um, at first when you asked this, I was like, oh, I don’t have cri, I don’t have health problems. And. I almost laughed at myself. ’cause I was like, yes, you do, moron. You [00:50:20] like, I have had, I have lived with chronic pain since like, I don’t know, like 20 20, 20 14, 20 16.
[00:50:26] Like it’s been a part of my life for so long that I literally [00:50:30] don’t even realize. Like I only notice it when the pain is at a seven or higher when it’s at a five. I’m just like, do, do, do my normal daily pain. Like, I’ve just literally, you know, [00:50:40] ignored it and lived with it for 14 years. So, um, one of the things that I started to do when I had the chronic pain, I couldn’t do the work and the exercise, the exercise and the workouts that I used to do is I [00:50:50] switched to gardening 10 years ago.
[00:50:52] And that has had a tremendous impact on my mental health and regulating my anxiety, feeling joy and [00:51:00] like, it’s just the best thing I can do for myself. So in the winter. I’m struggling, but I’ve been messaging with Ruth like as much as she’ll [00:51:10] allow me to get like gush about my garden and like what flowers I wanna grow, what veggies I wanna grow.
[00:51:15] And all summer long I’m giving veggies and flowers away and making gut flower arrangements. [00:51:20] And my mental health is never better. And then in the winter it’s crap because Yeah, oof. It’s hard in the winter, but I’m just at least enjoying the planning phase. But yeah, one thing that I do to accommodate for that [00:51:30] is, um, I don’t plan any big launches or big work when I know I’m gonna be in my garden when, when I’m starting seeds, when I’m pulling [00:51:40] stuff, when I’m prepping beds, like I make sure I’m prioritize that.
[00:51:42] So the worst I’ll do is I’ll get up, I’ll write an email to my list, and then I’m spending the rest of the day outside. Um, one other health thing [00:51:50] that did impact me, uh, two years ago is I just started having really chronic back pain, which was new to me and I ended up having to get physical therapy [00:52:00] and my physical therapy just therapist just said.
[00:52:02] Sitting is the new smoking. Um, this is a problem. You’re sitting too much, you know? And I was like, well, I, I was, I [00:52:10] hadn’t heard that before. You’re all nodding. Like you had, it was like, I was like, oh my God. I would never, not a judgment on other people, but I would never smoke and I would never do that to my body.
[00:52:18] Well, I’m sitting all the time, [00:52:20] like I’m doing this to my body. So I had to do eight months of physical therapy just to get to strengthen my back muscles. He said I had the back muscles of an 80-year-old woman. And I was like, [00:52:30] sir, sir, like, how dare you? Like, not that there’s anything, whatever. I, you know what I mean?
[00:52:35] I just, I’m not, I’m not 80. And I was like really offended by that. So anyway, [00:52:40] um, that all that to say, yes, taking breaks, doing, I have a Pomodoro system. I actually have an Airtable base that is like all about how I broke my burnout. And one of the things is [00:52:50] I do 45 minutes of work and then I get up and do a physical thing.
[00:52:52] Whether that’s pulling weeds, whether that’s loading and unloading the dishwasher, folding laundry. Doing squats. Like I [00:53:00] have to do a physical thing every 45 minutes unless I’m on a call like this. So that has helped with the back pain. Being in the garden is hard work. Like all those things have [00:53:10] kind of been, how the business has was negatively impacting my body, especially with the lower back and sitting too much.
[00:53:17] Um, and then the mental health, the stress of it. I [00:53:20] get good. I get, uh, business ideas in the garden when I’m just pulling weeds and like doing my thing when I have a peaceful space to think. So, anyway, that’s my, that’s my 2 cents on [00:53:30] Buzzies.
[00:53:31] Sage Grayson: Thank you for sharing. Yes, all of us are sitting way too much, way too much.
[00:53:37] We just have a couple minutes for, uh, some final [00:53:40] thoughts before we get into our final thoughts. I do wanna paste in the chat our gifts for you. Please take a look at these gifts and offers and deals from [00:53:50] the weird hermits. I just pasted it into the chat so you can all check those out. But we did get, uh, one question.
[00:53:56] Uh, it was a little bit long, but let me, uh, summarize it. The question was like, [00:54:00] how do you be successful when you are working in the margins of your life? So you’ve got burnout, you’re trying to create these boundaries, you’re dealing with body issues, mental health [00:54:10] issues. You’ve got kids, you’re a caregiver, you’ve got all these things going on.
[00:54:13] When you do have a pocket of time to work on your business, how do you figure out what that priority is? Uh, [00:54:20] so I guess my, my final thought would be, uh, I always work on the things that are closest to cash. I have a free training in my school group about closest to cash. So if you’ve got time, you’re not [00:54:30] redesigning your logo, you’re not choosing new fonts, you’re doing the thing that is closest to your end goal, which is earning money ’cause you run a business.
[00:54:37] So always work on the things that are closest to you getting [00:54:40] paid. Uh, Kate, would you like to give us your final thought for the round table?
[00:54:46] Kate Kordsmeier: Hmm. Go to somebody else. I gotta think about this.
[00:54:49] Sage Grayson: Ah. [00:54:50]
[00:54:51] Liz Stapleton: Liz,
[00:54:52] Sage Grayson: give
[00:54:52] Liz Stapleton: us,
[00:54:52] Sage Grayson: give us your thoughts.
[00:54:53] Liz Stapleton: Um, well, ideally I have like, task management in place and so I’ve gotta, okay, this is past due or I need to get [00:55:00] this done, but if I don’t, and my brain is, you know, not processing great and I still wanna squeeze something in, uh, I’ll ask chat gt be like, you’ve, [00:55:10] you know what I’ve been working on, what do I need to do?
[00:55:12] Gimme something productive. Um, you know, like that can be a, that’s like the last resort fallback of trying to squeeze something in. Normally [00:55:20] I’ve got something somewhere that, oh, I need to go do a mindless task of like, setting up my private podcast feed for something. Or, you know, just, just things that you could watch [00:55:30] TV while doing, um, you know, when you have to do deep work, that’s when you’ve gotta make sure you have the brain power and you have to know that that’s what you’re gonna work on.
[00:55:36] But when it’s like those little pockets of time, let me [00:55:40] clear out my inbox. Let me just. Say, I’m not gonna read those 17 news numbers and delete them, so I’m not dealing with it. You know, so it’s, it’s a kind of what is the pockets of time you have [00:55:50] and then what sort of mental energy you have, and that really dictates what I’m gonna work on or what I’m gonna think about working on or figure out what to do.
[00:55:57] Sage Grayson: Beautiful work. Work with [00:56:00] it, not against it. Steph, what are your final thoughts?
[00:56:04] Ruth Poundwhite: Um, yeah, I just wanted to add something to what Liz said there. So, because I have a DHD when I first start [00:56:10] my day, I used to dive into like my biggest project and I realized that does not work. So I always start with like little quick wins that will give me a dopamine hit.
[00:56:18] It could be like [00:56:20] deleting an email outta my inbox, or like dama, like maybe setting up an automation because that’s like a little quick win to my brain. So it’s like, what, what is, what’s something small [00:56:30] that I can do before I have to actually dive into this bigger task? But I completely agree with what you said, Sage.
[00:56:36] That’s what I was gonna say as well, is like. What is the one thing [00:56:40] that I need to be doing right now that will make me money? That’s it. Is it sending an email to somebody? Is it following up on that? It’s probably not going on and creating a whole new product nine times outta 10. [00:56:50] It’s not. It’s these really small activities.
[00:56:53] I’m sure we’ve all heard the, the quote, um, 20% of your activities lead to 80% of your [00:57:00] revenue. So you just have to figure out what those 20% activities are, and they’re likely ones that make you very uncomfortable. But those are the things that you should be focusing on in your business during those, [00:57:10] during those small times, and then outsourcing and automating as much as possible.
[00:57:15] Sage Grayson: Love it. Love it. Dama, what are your final thoughts? [00:57:20]
[00:57:21] Dama Jue 2: Um, yeah, I think you, we’ve kind of all touched on it, but as a systems girly, if you can set up a form, if you can set up an automation, if you can. [00:57:30] Set a boundary, force yourself to write something down. Commit to, I don’t answer emails after 4:00 PM or I don’t read emails before noon.
[00:57:39] [00:57:40] Wherever your productivity or your productive time is your most, like the time that is good for you, set that boundary. Throw it in an auto reply or throw it in the [00:57:50] PS over emails, whatever it is you need to do. But set up a, set a boundary, draw a line in the sand, and then it’s up to you to stick to it.
[00:57:56] But I think you’ll, people will respect it [00:58:00] and you’ll always have a fallback to say, as I stated, here’s my boundary. So, you know, I won’t be getting back to this because I don’t like me personally, I don’t work on Mondays. I volunteer [00:58:10] on Mondays, so, um, no, I’ll not be doing anything on Monday whatsoever.
[00:58:15] And people, now my clients and my customers and stuff, they know like, oh, I know you don’t work on Mondays. [00:58:20] Yep. So you’ll be getting a reply within 48 hours of Tuesday. You know, like. You know, so I would say it’s okay to set those boundaries, um, [00:58:30] because the recovering, it takes 10, 20 minutes to set a boundary.
[00:58:34] It can take weeks or months to recover from burnout.
[00:58:37] Sage Grayson: Oh, a hundred percent [00:58:40] true homework. For everyone on the call, set up your automations and set up your boundaries this week. Ruth, what are your final thoughts?
[00:58:49] Ruth Poundwhite: So, [00:58:50] I typed this in the chat, but I think this is true for everything we’ve been talking about.
[00:58:53] It’s, it, it sucks when you are limited on time, capacity, health, whatever, [00:59:00] but trying to be someone you are not and fighting against that is not going to get you anywhere. There are so many examples of brilliant people doing things despite [00:59:10] these challenges. Follow those people. Don’t look at the people who have.
[00:59:16] No kids, no health issues, no whatever. Like that doesn’t match your [00:59:20] situation. Like they’re in a different situation. Um, work like accept your needs, accept your circumstances, and work within [00:59:30] that and just try and stay in lane. ’cause I think a lot of the time we can get very distracted, either stuck in comparison or just distracted by the sheer number of different things we could be doing.
[00:59:39] [00:59:40] Um, easier said than done, I know. But stay in your lane. Unfollow people, mute people, whatever you need to do, tune that out And work for the [00:59:50] design your work and business for the person. You are not the person you think that you should be. And I kind of need to hear that too, to be honest.
[00:59:58] Sage Grayson: Oh gosh. I think we all [01:00:00] do.
[01:00:00] Yes. Yes. I love it. Thank you. Kate, take us away. What are your final thoughts?
[01:00:08] Kate Kordsmeier: I was supposed to really come up with [01:00:10] something after listening to everybody else’s. But I, I think really it’s just to echo what y’all have said, we all are working with our own set of [01:00:20] limitations and capacity and demands. And, um, I think at the end of the day, you have to prioritize what is [01:00:30] important, what is urgent.
[01:00:32] And then I often ask myself these questions, which actually come from Al-Anon, um, and I sort of adapt them to productivity. But it’s like, does this [01:00:40] need to be done at all? Um, is this even something that needs to happen? And honestly, there are so much that we put on our list that is like, Nope, this is not actually [01:00:50] going to move the needle or make me money.
[01:00:52] Um, does it need to be done by me? And so am I the one that has to do this? And that doesn’t necessarily mean that you [01:01:00] have to have a huge team, but it might be even just personal things at home. Like, could you ask a partner? Could you hire a babysitter? Could you, hi, you know, like there’s lots of ways to [01:01:10] outsource things.
[01:01:11] Doesn’t need to be done by me, or could it be done by ai? Could it be done by, you know, an automation? Are there things like that? And does it need to be done right [01:01:20] now? And I think when I prioritize through that lens, my to-do list becomes actually quite manageable. And, um, especially when I’m focusing [01:01:30] those things on through the lens of, is this going to make me money?
[01:01:34] Make money? And the amount of time that we spend busy, but not doing profitable [01:01:40] activities is insane. Um, and so I think anybody who’s struggling with that, if you, if you put everything through that lens, it, it’ll become much [01:01:50] clearer. Perfectly
[01:01:51] Sage Grayson: said. Perfectly said. Focus on the closest to cash things. We’re here to earn money.
[01:01:57] We run businesses and we’re helping people. So focus on those [01:02:00] things. Alright, I think that about wraps us up.
[01:02:06] We’ll absolutely be sharing the replay with you. And when we [01:02:10] do share the replay with you, please make sure you let us know what topic you want us to cover in our next round table. Again, Ruth, just put the document in [01:02:20] the chat with all of our goodies for you. Please, please check them out. Um, and this has been burnout, boundaries and Bodies.
[01:02:29] [01:02:30] Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you so much for being active in the chat. We love doing this. All right. We are the weird hermits, and we’ll talk to you soon. Bye.
[01:02:39] Ruth Poundwhite: Thank you [01:02:40] so much for listening to another episode of Soulful Sales. If you have a moment to rate and review, know that it really does make a difference, and if you would like to carry on the [01:02:50] conversation, then you can connect with me in the free community@ruthpoundwhite.com slash community, or my personal favorite.
[01:02:57] Join me inside the Soulful Sales Society [01:03:00] membership@ruthpoundwhite.com slash membership and keep doing what you’re doing because your work really does matter.
“It is never too late to start making positive changes… it’s never as bad as you think.”
Show Notes:
Today’s special roundtable discussion is a really important one, all about listening to our bodies, setting boundaries and running our businesses in a way that is truly sustainable for the future and not based on how we think we should be able to sustain it.
With Sage Grayson, Dama Jue, Kate Kordsmeier, Liz Stapleton, Steph Blake, and Ruth Poundwhite.
What We Talk About in This Episode:
- How do you know the difference between needing a break and avoiding something uncomfortable?
- When is burnout actually a sign you’ve outgrown a version of your business?
- What boundaries genuinely protect your energy — not just in theory, but in practice?
- And how do we listen to our bodies before they force us to stop?
Quotes:
💭 [12:40] “The universe will throw you a pebble… it’ll throw you a rock… or it’ll throw a boulder. I have started to notice those warning signs and stop it with a pebble before it even gets to the rock.” – Steph Blake
💭 [18:30] “I had to make a tough decision to stop working with clients in the way that I was… I asked myself, ‘Can I continue the way I’m going?’ And the answer was no. So I had no choice.” – Ruth Poundwhite
💭 [54:38] “Always work on the things that are closest to you getting paid.” – Sage Grayson
💭 [58:31] “It takes 10, 20 minutes to set a boundary. It can take weeks or months to recover from burnout.” – Dama Jue
Links:
QUICK LINKS:
👋 Join the free Quietly Ambitious Community on Skool to connect with other heart-led business owners selling their way.
✨ Join the Soulful Sales Society for monthly Get It Done Weeks, soulful selling trainings, live Q&As, and community support to help you sell in alignment with your energy, values, and personality.
🗣️ Find out more about working with Ruth 1:1 on your business strategy & self-belief to grow your audience & make more sales your way.
🎧 Listen to our last roundtable where we discussed our plans for 2026
Thanks for listening!
SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts, Spotify
