00:00:05 Joanna Lindenbaum
I’m Joanna Lindenbaum, a coach, ritualist, and all-around transformation nerd who is obsessed with helping clients go deep to create more change and results with their clients.
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I created the Coaching Revolution Podcast to share with you coaching skills, tips, and advice, as well as a deeper understanding of human behavior and of yourself.
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so that you can do even better client work and group work, grow your business organically, and know that you’re making a real difference in the world.
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This is about creating a revolution in the transformational industry so that more practitioners feel amazing about what they do, and so that more of our clients experience life-changing shifts.
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Let’s get started.
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Hi, everyone.
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This is Joanna, and I am so happy that you’re here today.
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We’re going to be talking about something that I think, actually, that I know is on so many coaches and practitioners’ minds and hearts these days, something many folks are feeling and worrying about.
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And in a word, what I’d call it is capacity.
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So the title of this episode is why you don’t have the capacity you want and what actually builds it back.
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Let me explain a little bit more.
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If you’re someone who feels rushed on most days, like you’re behind before you even started, I see you.
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If there’s a quiet, nagging voice inside of you that says, what is wrong with me, that everything feels like so much, I see you.
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If you find yourself worrying that you don’t actually have the capacity to take on the next client or the capacity to finally do the next marketing activity that your business needs,
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because you’re already so tapped out that you don’t know where to find the extra time, let alone the extra energy, I see you.
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And if your own personal life has been slipping down the priority list, like the appointment you keep meaning to book, the friend you keep meaning to call back, that version of self-care that’s more than just surviving the day, I see you too.
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And
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I want to say right at the top of this episode that if you identify with any of these things that I just mentioned, there is nothing wrong with you.
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This is not a personal failing.
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This is not you being bad at adulting.
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Although I will admit sometimes that I definitely feel like I am not good at adulting.
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And
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If you identify with any of this, it’s also not necessarily because you’re bad at managing your time.
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This feeling that I’m talking about, the rushed feeling, the I don’t have enough left in me feeling, the all I want to do is watch Netflix feeling, the falling behind feeling, the oh my goodness, I never get to the bottom of my to-do list ever feeling,
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All of it is so, so common.
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And I don’t think that we talk about it with nearly enough compassion or real understanding.
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We need to so that we can do something about all of this.
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And here’s the thing.
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A lot of this, it’s not actually about you.
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It’s about the world that we’re all living in and all trying to build businesses in.
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So on top of all of the regular adulting things, which I think are a lot to begin with, making sure that we eat, pay the bills, clean the house, get to the doctor,
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take care of the kids or the pets or the elderly parents, if any of that applies to you.
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On top of all of the adulting, we’re also now living in a moment in time that is fractured and fast in ways that our nervous systems were definitely not built for.
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There is the busyness of our modern lives so much
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busyness.
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And technology is supposed to make it easier, but I think technology has just somehow made us all busier.
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There’s this rushed pace.
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There’s this sense that there’s always one more e-mail, one more notification, one more thing pulling your attention in five directions.
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And this is all before you’ve even had your morning coffee.
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And underneath all of that, as if all of that weren’t enough, for most people right now, there’s also a kind of low grade or high grade anxiety running almost all of the time about the state of the world, about the news.
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We feel it because we’re inside of a culture that’s so polarized
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And the news, the polarization, the constant barrage of all of the things, it can make us feel unsafe and uncertain.
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All of the social media, it’s actually designed to activate our nervous systems.
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It’s designed to create divisiveness.
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Forget about all that’s happening in our personal lives, which can be so much.
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Just what’s happening in the world alone is so depleting.
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It can take so much just to carry all that is happening in the world and to show up for life.
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every single day.
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I honestly don’t know how all of us aren’t just puddles on the floor with all of this.
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And here’s the part that I think really hits hard, especially for those of us that are in the coaching industry, the transformational industries.
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I hate to say it, but our own field can be part of the problem.
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Yes, inside of the coaching industry, we talk so much about self-care, about boundaries, about nervous system regulation.
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But at the very same time, inside of the industry, there is a kind of undertone.
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that you’re not really making it unless you’re scaling to 7 figures or running 10 different marketing strategies or building some kind of Tony Robbins type of business, massive, huge.
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And, you know, I’ll tell you, sometimes I feel the pull of all of that as well, the feeling of I haven’t done enough,
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the feeling of I should be making it bigger and better, those messages seep in for sure.
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Even though it’s not really who I am or what I value, there are moments I catch myself wondering if I should be doing more, posting more, being more visible, all of the things.
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So please, hear me.
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I’m not
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saying any of this from outside of it on a pedestal looking down.
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I’m saying it from inside of it.
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I’m here with you in this.
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I get it.
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So when you feel like you don’t have capacity right now, I mean, I want to say
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That makes so much sense.
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Of course, it feels like a lot.
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It is a lot between personal life and adulting and news and media and coaching industry, right?
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It’s a lot.
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You’re a human nervous system trying to function inside of a culture that just wasn’t designed for human nervous systems
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to thrive.
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And again, I get it.
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So in case you’re wondering, my life is often chaotic and messy and a lot.
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I get worn thin sometimes too.
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Sometimes things in my life do not look pretty.
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And I want to give you just a small snapshot
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into some of this right now because I really want to normalize for you that there’s nothing weird or wrong about you if your life feels like a lot.
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I want to normalize this for you so that you don’t beat yourself up about it because I promise you
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Most of the people that you see on Instagram who post about how much spaciousness they have and all of the things, everything is neat and happy, all of it.
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I have a feeling they might be lying.
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So let me give you a quickie window into my life because I think it will be helpful for you to hear.
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There is a lot, let’s talk about my business first.
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There is a lot happening inside of my business.
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I show up in a lot of ways and for a lot of things and for a lot of people.
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I devote a lot of my energy, a lot of my life force to my business.
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My top priority inside of my business is my clients and my students.
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And I show up big time, both for my private clients and for the people inside of my group programs.
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And right now I’m working with an almost full roster of private clients.
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I have actually cut back for the summer because Penina’s leaving for college at the end of August and I want to make sure I’ve got time in
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space for her, but I’ve got a near full roster of private clients.
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And on top of that, I’m also leading and holding space for four different group programs right now.
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And because of who I am and because of what my values are, I haven’t put any of my programs on recording.
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I teach
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pretty much everything live.
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I show up for classes every single week.
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And also I teach 95% of my curriculum myself versus having members on my team do the teaching.
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And this…
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Yeah, it’s a little bit because I’m a little bit of a control freak, but it’s mostly because I love teaching.
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I love being with my clients.
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I love being with my students.
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I love holding the space for learning.
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I love witnessing shifting and transformation.
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I love all of it.
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This is what I’m here for.
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This is why I’m in this.
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And
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Because, and this about me, if you’ve been listening to the podcast or if you’ve been in my programs, because really high quality and high touch and really being there for my clients and my students is so important to me.
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It means that I put in time and energy, not just when I’m in my sessions.
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It means that my private clients are in touch with me throughout the week.
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I’m reading their copy.
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I’m on Voxer with them.
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I’m showing up for them.
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I’m holding space for them.
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And I also make myself available to my students in my group programs and trainings if they have questions or need support in between our sessions.
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So we’re talking about supporting a few 100 people at any given moment.
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And on top of all of my client and group work, I’m also leading my business.
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So
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That means, first of all, I’m doing a lot of writing.
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I do all of my marketing myself.
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I’m writing all of our emails, our sales pages.
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I write all of the podcast episode scripts, the show notes, the newsletters, the opt-in pages, the nurture sequence.
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even though most of my curriculum for my programming, I’ve been doing those programs for a year, the curriculum is already written.
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I’m kind of a perfectionist, so I’m often tweaking curriculum, adding in new pieces of research, et cetera, right?
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So I’m doing all of that.
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And then on top of it, I’m also making
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strategic decisions inside of the business.
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And some of those decisions require research and deep thinking and time.
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So in general, work is a lot.
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And then I end my work day.
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and I’m adulting.
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I’m parenting my 2 girls, sometimes better and sometimes not parenting as well, but parenting nonetheless.
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And I’m doing the dishes.
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And to be fair, John helps with a lot of the housework.
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He really does, but I’m doing the dishes and I’m cleaning the house and
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I’m driving Yael, my younger daughter, around to all of the places and the classes and the socializing, folding the laundry, though I do that in front of the TV when I watch Netflix at nights.
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I’m walking the dog, right?
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And then there are the things that are out of the routine of life.
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So in the last month,
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I’ve traveled to New York City for a family vacation.
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I’ve traveled to Boston to drop Yel off at sleepaway camp.
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And then last weekend, John and I went with another couple to Virginia for a week away.
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Now, all of these are wonderful things for sure, but it definitely makes life busier.
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There’s more activity, there’s more catching up afterwards.
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And then of course, there’s all of the inevitable
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tumultuous events of life, like the backyard flooded last month, like the coldest week of the year in February, all of our heating broke, right?
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There’s always something.
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I’m not telling you any of this so that you feel sorry for me and all of the responsibilities or so that it sounds like, oh, look at how busy and important I am.
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These are mostly wonderful things in my life.
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I know this.
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I’m grateful for this.
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But I’m telling you all of this because I want you to know the busyness, the responsibility,
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my gosh, this feels like a lot.
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I have it too.
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And I know you have your own version of this.
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And I’ll also share, there were moments these last couple of weeks where, especially between all of the traveling, I was stretched thin enough that I was short with Yael a couple of times, right?
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And then it took some work
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to help her calm back down afterwards.
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Not my best parenting moments, but totally my real life.
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And there were a couple of moments in the last few weeks where I felt so much like, what the heck am I doing?
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We’re in the middle of all of this tech transition, and it has been so much, and I’ve just felt like, what the heck am I doing?
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It’s too much pressure to run a business.
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And I even once or twice went back to my longtime fantasy, it comes up a couple times a year, of just blowing everything up, just blowing up the entire business.
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And I picture myself then getting a job at Barnes & Noble, and it seems so calm and so spacious and so simple.
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Now, I want to be clear,
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These fantasies, they’re rare for me.
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It’s not the norm, but I’m naming it because I think it’s important for you to know that I have these moments too.
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Sometimes I wish I could just be, I call it a lady who lunches, right?
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Where I just like have a whole day, I work out every morning, take my time, and then I lunch with friends.
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and then I take the whole afternoon to journal, then make a gourmet meal every night.
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Sometimes I have those fantasies, but life just is not like that, right?
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Life is messy, and I have chosen a lot of what I have because I want some of the busyness that I have.
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And I’ll say, if there’s something that I’ve learned in my 50 years of being alive, almost 51 at this point, it’s that there’s no perfect.
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There’s no ideal.
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It’s all messy.
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It just is.
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But now here’s where things get important.
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All that being said, I do believe deeply
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that even with all of the imperfections and the busy and the messy, we can still find and have capacity.
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So while I don’t think it’s realistic for those of us who are growing or sustaining a business to necessarily have the kind of spaciousness that we want every single day,
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I do think that we can have enough space, enough nourishment, enough resource, even when things are really full.
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Even in the moments that feel really hard for me in the moments that I fantasize about that job at Barnes & Noble, I still have the capacity
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to show up for my clients.
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I still have the capacity for my marketing and my business, my family, myself, my self-care.
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Now, sometimes more, sometimes less, but I have it.
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And I want you to have the capacity too, so that it doesn’t have to feel like you can’t take on another client because you just can’t handle it.
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So that it doesn’t have to feel like you can’t lead a group program because you just can’t handle it.
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So that it doesn’t have to feel like you couldn’t possibly put energy towards marketing because you can’t handle it.
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So that you have a body and a nervous system that feels safe.
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inside of your business and inside of your client work so that you have a body and a nervous system that can grow your client work and your business.
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OK, so what can you do about all of this?
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I’m going to share some things from my toolbox that can help.
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But first, I want to say that if you’re listening right now and you’re in a place of extreme burnout or just extreme feeling, like you just don’t have capacity for anything, if you wake up every day exhausted, if you don’t have enough energy to function in your life or to take care
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care of yourself, if you’re in a constant state maybe of dysregulation or extreme stress all the time, I see you and I’m sending so much love.
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And if that’s you, the tools that I’m going to be sharing on the episode today will likely not be the full picture for you.
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If you’re feeling you don’t have capacity for anything, it may be that either there’s a deeper health issue going on that you need support with, or there’s a deeper trauma issue that’s calling your attention.
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Or it might be that you have an extreme situation in your life right now.
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So for example,
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After my older daughter, Penina, was born in 2008, I was not OK for a number of months.
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I had had a traumatic labor and birth with her.
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It was excruciating back labor that lasted over 48 hours and almost nearly brought us to a C-section.
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I had postpartum depression.
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I wasn’t sleeping because I was basically nursing all night.
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Penina had colic, and she would cry basically almost all the time.
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I felt like a 24-hour human soothing machine.
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In those months after she was born, I was exhausted.
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I was strung out.
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I often felt like a failure as a mother.
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And my nervous system was out of whack in a way where I couldn’t even settle or find a sense of calm or space, even if I did have a little bit of time to myself.
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Like I said, I was not OK in those months.
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That kind of burnt out is something that takes real time to move out of.
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We’re not going to address these types of things on today’s episode.
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But if this is you, then I want you to take your health and your well-being really seriously, my friend.
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Seek out support, take really good care of yourself, find places where you can rest and have time and space for you.
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So the tools that I am going to share today
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are not for extreme capacity issues, but more for you if you feel like there is energy right under the surface, or there might be the possibility for more capacity sooner than later if you moved through things a little bit differently, if you did things a little bit differently, if you responded to things a little bit differently or approached them a little bit differently.
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And these tools, just to be clear, what I’m sharing today, they’re not comprehensive.
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They’re a curated assortment for today of some of my most powerful things that allow me to have capacity, even when things are uber busy and messy.
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What I’m sharing today
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is also not a five step system to an optimized life, like **** right?
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Because I just don’t believe in that.
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I think that, you know, do these five things and your life will be great.
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That’s just kind of BS.
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This idea that, you know, if you just do this, this, this and that, then life becomes perfect and it’s rainbows and unicorns and you make a million dollars.
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And that’s not what this is.
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Instead, I’m going to share with you a couple of things.
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Number one, a foundational philosophy about life and business that can help you have more capacity.
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I’m going to share with you a couple of mini habits that can help with capacity.
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These are things that make
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life a little more doable when it comes to nervous system.
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And when I’m in practice with these little mini habits, they make my life sustainable, a lot more sustainable, allow me to have capacity for the things I need.
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And the third thing I’m going to share is the most important.
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I’m going to share with you one of the most important things I’ve learned.
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that coaches and transformational practitioners specifically need in order to have more capacity for client work and marketing.
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So hang on till the end for this one.
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It’s a biggie.
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Okay,
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So here’s the first thing.
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And it’s foundational.
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It’s foundational for having more capacity.
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You have to make choices because at the end of the day, you can’t have it all.
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There’s just not the time and space for it.
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So like this guiding philosophy is basically you can’t have it all now.
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On my good days, part of me feels like I do have it all.
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And in a lot of ways, I do.
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I’ve created my dream business.
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I’ve created a really wonderful life.
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And I feel so much gratitude for all of it.
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But in just as many ways, I absolutely do not have it all.
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I mean, I really, really don’t have it all.
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There’s just so many hours in a day and so many, so much energy in my tank.
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So I could give you a million examples of what I don’t have, right?
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For example, I’ve never been the mom who has the
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healthy snack ready for my kids after school.
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I’ve always wanted to be that.
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I’ve been there after school for my kids, for homework, for emotional support, but I am certainly not the perfect homemaker.
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My kids have more than once gotten their yearly checkups a month or two later than they should have.
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Things fall through the cracks in my household.
00:29:51 Joanna Lindenbaum
Another example of not having it all, I don’t get myself to the gym as regularly as I’d like.
00:29:59 Joanna Lindenbaum
I also don’t get manicures as often as I’d like.
00:30:04 Joanna Lindenbaum
I only get them maybe twice a year, even though I bite my nails and my nails look pretty awful.
00:30:10 Joanna Lindenbaum
And I’d be a little happier if my nails were more presentable.
00:30:16 Joanna Lindenbaum
Our microwave has been broken for a while now.
00:30:20 Joanna Lindenbaum
and I haven’t gotten around to getting it fixed.
00:30:25 Joanna Lindenbaum
I also can’t have it all in my business.
00:30:28 Joanna Lindenbaum
I’ve got like 30 different ideas for programs I’d love to create, but I can’t do them all.
00:30:33 Joanna Lindenbaum
I have to choose.
00:30:36 Joanna Lindenbaum
Also, this is a biggie, for the most part, over the last couple of months, I’ve let go of my social media presence because I haven’t had the time for it.
00:30:51 Joanna Lindenbaum
I’ve had to make decisions about how I use my time and energy because I can’t have it all.
00:30:57 Joanna Lindenbaum
And honestly, social media has been weird on my nervous system.
00:31:03 Joanna Lindenbaum
So, and I don’t love it.
00:31:05 Joanna Lindenbaum
So even though all of the marketing and social media experts out there tell you, must be on social media, I’m not really on it too much right now.
00:31:20 Joanna Lindenbaum
And even though some part of me wonders if I should be doing more, I can’t.
00:31:25 Joanna Lindenbaum
I can’t have it all, and I have to choose.
00:31:30 Joanna Lindenbaum
I’ll tell you, I’m in the middle of a long inquiry around if I even want to be on social media at all.
00:31:38 Joanna Lindenbaum
I’m really looking into it.
00:31:39 Joanna Lindenbaum
Is it a desire to be on social media, or is it a should or have to?
00:31:45 Joanna Lindenbaum
Because in order not to get burnt out, I know I can’t really follow shoulds too much inside of my business or my personal life unless it’s a true necessity.
00:32:01 Joanna Lindenbaum
So if you haven’t lately made a list of everything that you do and then really assess and see which things are desires and which things are shoulds,
00:32:14 Joanna Lindenbaum
I highly recommend doing it.
00:32:19 Joanna Lindenbaum
So all of this is to say that unless maybe you have unlimited money and unlimited ability to delegate everything, none of us get to have it all.
00:32:33 Joanna Lindenbaum
It’s just not how life works.
00:32:37 Joanna Lindenbaum
There’s a quote that I’ve been sitting with lately.
00:32:41 Joanna Lindenbaum
John sent it to me.
00:32:44 Joanna Lindenbaum
last week, and I really love it.
00:32:47 Joanna Lindenbaum
It’s a Kierkegaard line.
00:32:50 Joanna Lindenbaum
It’s a Kierkegaard quote.
00:32:53 Joanna Lindenbaum
And it goes like this.
00:32:56 Joanna Lindenbaum
Whatever you choose, you’ll regret it because the problem isn’t in your choices.
00:33:03 Joanna Lindenbaum
It’s in romanticizing a life you haven’t lived.
00:33:08 Joanna Lindenbaum
A person always finds the untraveled path alluring and mysterious.
00:33:16 Joanna Lindenbaum
The issue was never about making the right choice.
00:33:21 Joanna Lindenbaum
It’s about choosing which regret you’ll live with.
00:33:26 Joanna Lindenbaum
Isn’t that so good?
00:33:29 Joanna Lindenbaum
Now, I don’t believe that the path not taken or the thing we don’t do has to be a regret, per se.
00:33:38 Joanna Lindenbaum
But I do think we need to learn to live with the understanding that we just can’t do all of the things.
00:33:48 Joanna Lindenbaum
And I know some of you, the optimists among you, are probably thinking, that’s not true, Joanna.
00:33:57 Joanna Lindenbaum
You can manifest all of it.
00:34:00 Joanna Lindenbaum
And I hope you’re right.
00:34:01 Joanna Lindenbaum
I really do.
00:34:02 Joanna Lindenbaum
But for me, I just haven’t seen it to be true.
00:34:07 Joanna Lindenbaum
I am making peace with you can’t have it all.
00:34:13 Joanna Lindenbaum
You have to make choices and let yourself genuinely grieve the paths that you didn’t take, if that’s what’s appropriate.
00:34:22 Joanna Lindenbaum
And you have to come to some peace with that.
00:34:26 Joanna Lindenbaum
Because what you can have is a lot.
00:34:31 Joanna Lindenbaum
You can have a lot of beautiful things.
00:34:35 Joanna Lindenbaum
And maybe having gratitude for that a lot is part of what actually creates capacity.
00:34:43 Joanna Lindenbaum
Okay, so here’s the second thing.
00:34:48 Joanna Lindenbaum
And I’m going to move through this part quick because these are practical, practical, doable resets.
00:34:55 Joanna Lindenbaum
Not the deep work, not comprehensive, but just some ideas for good housekeeping around your nervous system.
00:35:05 Joanna Lindenbaum
And each of these things that I’m going to share, I have seen them help for real, for myself and for my clients.
00:35:15 Joanna Lindenbaum
And
00:35:16 Joanna Lindenbaum
I don’t want to skip them in case one of these resonates for you.
00:35:22 Joanna Lindenbaum
So the first mini reset has to do with your phone, specifically social media on your phone.
00:35:35 Joanna Lindenbaum
I don’t know about you, but my experience is that social media on the phone is a total time
00:35:46 Joanna Lindenbaum
suck, energy suck, and psyche suck.
00:35:51 Joanna Lindenbaum
And really stressful a lot of the times just because of the nature of social media and the polarization and everybody trying to sell you something, every other post, all of the performing happening on social media.
00:36:10 Joanna Lindenbaum
So I actually took social media off my phone a long time ago.
00:36:17 Joanna Lindenbaum
And I will tell you, it has been so, so good for me, for my time, for my energy, for my nervous system.
00:36:27 Joanna Lindenbaum
I’m not telling you to delete all of your social media accounts.
00:36:31 Joanna Lindenbaum
I still have, I still access social media on my computer, but
00:36:38 Joanna Lindenbaum
I’ve gotten it off my phone because it’s just too easy to grab for the phone and scroll.
00:36:46 Joanna Lindenbaum
So maybe you want to take social media off your phone.
00:36:52 Joanna Lindenbaum
Here is another mini reset.
00:36:54 Joanna Lindenbaum
And this is kind of like we can call it a 5 minute spa break.
00:37:00 Joanna Lindenbaum
And shout out to my private client.
00:37:04 Joanna Lindenbaum
who you are.
00:37:05 Joanna Lindenbaum
I know you often listen to the podcast who was talking about this five minute break in one of our sessions a few weeks ago.
00:37:14 Joanna Lindenbaum
I had forgotten about it for a couple of months and it’s brought me back to it.
00:37:19 Joanna Lindenbaum
So by 5 minute spa breaks, I don’t mean literally go to the spa.
00:37:26 Joanna Lindenbaum
But what I mean is
00:37:29 Joanna Lindenbaum
Whenever you find yourself with five free minutes, two free minutes even, instead of reaching for your phone, instead of reaching for e-mail, instead of checking something else off of the to-do list, take time for yourself.
00:37:49 Joanna Lindenbaum
Maybe go outside, take in the sun, or lay on the couch and stare at the ceiling.
00:37:59 Joanna Lindenbaum
or give yourself a mini massage, or remember to breathe, or just get more present, because presence expands time and space in a way that is so powerful.
00:38:19 Joanna Lindenbaum
And okay, the third mini habit for capacity and nervous system is movement.
00:38:28 Joanna Lindenbaum
And not just any movement, but movement that gets you kind of sweaty.
00:38:35 Joanna Lindenbaum
So a real workout resets your nervous system.
00:38:41 Joanna Lindenbaum
It regulates your hormones.
00:38:44 Joanna Lindenbaum
It helps your body dump stress hormones and toxins that build up from a day of holding everything, holding all the things.
00:38:56 Joanna Lindenbaum
And
00:38:58 Joanna Lindenbaum
I’ll just share with you the sweaty workout is the one that’s sometimes the hardest for me.
00:39:06 Joanna Lindenbaum
It’s hard for me to get to the gym because life is so busy.
00:39:13 Joanna Lindenbaum
But I do, at the very least, try to speed walk or jog a couple times a week when I can’t get to the gym.
00:39:22 Joanna Lindenbaum
Sometimes I put on a 20 minute cardio video on YouTube.
00:39:28 Joanna Lindenbaum
my kids end up laughing at me because I’m like in the living room, working out to the TV.
00:39:36 Joanna Lindenbaum
Okay, so all of these things, these little resets, they can really help with capacity.
00:39:44 Joanna Lindenbaum
And now we get to the third piece here, a really big key to more capacity.
00:39:57 Joanna Lindenbaum
This is the one that has probably made the biggest difference for me.
00:40:05 Joanna Lindenbaum
If you’re a coach or a transformational practitioner and you really want more capacity and energy for client sessions and marketing and to feel more bandwidth in general in your life,
00:40:26 Joanna Lindenbaum
then become extraordinary at supporting your clients and your groups to real results and real transformation.
00:40:37 Joanna Lindenbaum
So let me explain what mastery and being extraordinary has to do with capacity and bandwidth.
00:40:50 Joanna Lindenbaum
So the best way I can illustrate this is to share
00:40:56 Joanna Lindenbaum
how things used to feel for me many years ago.
00:41:02 Joanna Lindenbaum
Here’s what it would be like in client sessions where I wasn’t sure if I’d really helped or groups that I’m like, was that group actually good that I led?
00:41:16 Joanna Lindenbaum
I’d feel a tightness somewhere around my chest or my stomach.
00:41:22 Joanna Lindenbaum
It was like a bracing feeling.
00:41:26 Joanna Lindenbaum
part of me was holding my breath through the entire session, waiting to see if something would land.
00:41:36 Joanna Lindenbaum
And that tightness and that bracing, it would take so much life force energy from me.
00:41:45 Joanna Lindenbaum
And then after sessions,
00:41:48 Joanna Lindenbaum
I’d do a kind of replaying and replaying in my head, like a depleting kind of rumination.
00:41:56 Joanna Lindenbaum
Did I say the right thing?
00:41:59 Joanna Lindenbaum
Did I miss something in the session?
00:42:02 Joanna Lindenbaum
Was I actually useful to my clients or do they resent me because I’m not helping them enough?
00:42:10 Joanna Lindenbaum
And I can tell you, may know this for yourself, that kind of rumination
00:42:17 Joanna Lindenbaum
It eats so much time and so much energy.
00:42:25 Joanna Lindenbaum
It can be so exhausting.
00:42:29 Joanna Lindenbaum
That kind of rumination, you may not see it on a calendar.
00:42:34 Joanna Lindenbaum
It doesn’t take up appointment space, but oh my goodness, it is absolutely a time and capacity drain.
00:42:45 Joanna Lindenbaum
It is just such a mental and emotional toll, such a strain on the nervous system when you’re not doing the incredible work that you know you can be doing with clients.
00:43:00 Joanna Lindenbaum
And of course, when you’re constantly questioning yourself and worried about, is my client making progress, are they satisfied with me, am I doing a good job?
00:43:13 Joanna Lindenbaum
then it takes all of your capacity to go and market well.
00:43:19 Joanna Lindenbaum
Marketing and even just thinking about marketing becomes so stressful, so much more draining than it needs to be when you question yourself.
00:43:32 Joanna Lindenbaum
And then the marketing also ends up taking way longer.
00:43:37 Joanna Lindenbaum
Because you stall, you procrastinate, you go round and round in circles.
00:43:41 Joanna Lindenbaum
It’s harder to create it when you don’t believe in yourself.
00:43:49 Joanna Lindenbaum
All of what I’m talking about shifts when you’re in sessions and walk out of sessions, knowing in every fiber of your being that you did amazing, extraordinary work.
00:44:04 Joanna Lindenbaum
and that your clients are thrilled with your work together.
00:44:10 Joanna Lindenbaum
So here’s how it goes for me now.
00:44:15 Joanna Lindenbaum
I walk into a session and something inside of me settles instead of tightens.
00:44:22 Joanna Lindenbaum
I feel completely at ease and spacious and resourced inside of my client sessions and inside of my group sessions.
00:44:32 Joanna Lindenbaum
And that’s because I know I’m doing really good and impactful work.
00:44:38 Joanna Lindenbaum
I don’t have to rush through things.
00:44:40 Joanna Lindenbaum
I don’t have to over-give.
00:44:44 Joanna Lindenbaum
I don’t have to worry.
00:44:47 Joanna Lindenbaum
I generally don’t lie awake at night rerunning what happened in sessions or classes because I know they went well.
00:44:57 Joanna Lindenbaum
Now, of course, I’m human, so I do every now and again, run through things at night for sure.
00:45:04 Joanna Lindenbaum
But my client sessions and my group work are genuinely and without a doubt the best part of my work week.
00:45:16 Joanna Lindenbaum
I walk out of my client work energized, not depleted.
00:45:22 Joanna Lindenbaum
even when clients come in with big resistances.
00:45:26 Joanna Lindenbaum
And maybe even especially when resistances are hard things come up in sessions, I feel resourced because it feels so sacred to work through those resistances with clients and support them to the other side.
00:45:44 Joanna Lindenbaum
And while sometimes
00:45:48 Joanna Lindenbaum
I don’t have the actual time in my week to add more private clients.
00:45:55 Joanna Lindenbaum
I rarely ever feel that I don’t have the emotional or nervous system capacity inside of me for more clients, or that I don’t have the internal capacity to start a new group program because I can’t hold space for so many people or anything like that.
00:46:14 Joanna Lindenbaum
I also have a reasonable amount of space and capacity for marketing.
00:46:20 Joanna Lindenbaum
Now, of course, marketing can be challenging sometimes, but I feel I have the capacity for it inside of me because I’m energized by my client work instead of depleted by it.
00:46:37 Joanna Lindenbaum
I have the willingness to try new things, to experiment with marketing, to be on my edge, to make myself visible.
00:46:48 Joanna Lindenbaum
What also helps with my capacity for all of this is that I know that I’m making incredible impact because I get to see it every single day.
00:46:59 Joanna Lindenbaum
I get emails from clients, from current clients, from past clients.
00:47:03 Joanna Lindenbaum
I get these emails multiple times a week.
00:47:07 Joanna Lindenbaum
that are filled with deep gratitude for our work together.
00:47:13 Joanna Lindenbaum
And all of this, it all compounds and supports my capacity.
00:47:21 Joanna Lindenbaum
It gives me back time and resource that I would otherwise be spending on worrying,
00:47:27 Joanna Lindenbaum
or on trying to market myself in desperate ways, or on trying to process or soothe myself for client sessions that didn’t quite land.
00:47:38 Joanna Lindenbaum
Now, I want to be really clear, because I don’t want you to hear all of this and think, well, that’s just Joanna.
00:47:47 Joanna Lindenbaum
She’s just naturally confident.
00:47:50 Joanna Lindenbaum
Just so you know, I am not naturally confident.
00:47:55 Joanna Lindenbaum
I am
00:47:56 Joanna Lindenbaum
by nature, a deeply self-critical perfectionist with very high standards for myself, sometimes too high standards for myself.
00:48:08 Joanna Lindenbaum
And you can ask John.
00:48:10 Joanna Lindenbaum
You can ask my team.
00:48:12 Joanna Lindenbaum
All of this is true.
00:48:14 Joanna Lindenbaum
And of course, sometimes I doubt myself.
00:48:18 Joanna Lindenbaum
That’s human nature.
00:48:20 Joanna Lindenbaum
But these days, I’m more confident than not.
00:48:25 Joanna Lindenbaum
And my confidence is a confidence that was earned session by session from actually mastering the skill and the art of transformation for my clients and also the art of transformation for myself.
00:48:45 Joanna Lindenbaum
So the confidence is also earned
00:48:50 Joanna Lindenbaum
from all of the working on my own visibility fears and not good enough fears, all of it.
00:48:58 Joanna Lindenbaum
So the confidence definitely isn’t an innate personality trait.
00:49:05 Joanna Lindenbaum
It’s a result of all of this.
00:49:08 Joanna Lindenbaum
And I’ll say this again, because real life means nothing is ever fully perfect.
00:49:14 Joanna Lindenbaum
It’s not that client work or marketing is never stressful for me anymore.
00:49:21 Joanna Lindenbaum
It still can be.
00:49:23 Joanna Lindenbaum
But it is so much less stressful than it used to be and so much less stressful than I hear it is for so many other practitioners, colleagues I speak with.
00:49:36 Joanna Lindenbaum
This is part of what gets me so revved up and happy and excited.
00:49:42 Joanna Lindenbaum
Every single time one of my Sacred Depth students tells me they experience this exact shift.
00:49:49 Joanna Lindenbaum
Not just better client results, but because of all of the work that we do in Sacred Depths, the learning of the transformational skills, the increasing your capacity as a practitioner, the deep inner work you do around visibility and leadership,
00:50:06 Joanna Lindenbaum
Sacred Depths graduates have a whole different felt sense in their work.
00:50:13 Joanna Lindenbaum
Less worry, less compensating, more energy, more trust in themselves.
00:50:20 Joanna Lindenbaum
They walk into sessions feeling settled instead of bracing themselves.
00:50:27 Joanna Lindenbaum
One of my missions inside of Sacred Depths is that you learn
00:50:32 Joanna Lindenbaum
how to be a practitioner, an entrepreneur who feels safe in your body, safe for client work, and safe for marketing and business.
00:50:46 Joanna Lindenbaum
When you know, when you really know in your bones that you are skillfully and consistently able to help your clients move through whatever they bring you,
00:50:58 Joanna Lindenbaum
Something inside of you stops tightening, stops bracing.
00:51:04 Joanna Lindenbaum
Something inside of you stops overgiving and exhausting yourself because you’re not anymore trying to compensate for moments that you weren’t sure you’d actually helped.
00:51:18 Joanna Lindenbaum
You come from a place of power and resource.
00:51:22 Joanna Lindenbaum
Instead of self-doubt, you find your capacity.
00:51:28 Joanna Lindenbaum
So here’s what I want to leave you with this week.
00:51:32 Joanna Lindenbaum
First of all, a recap.
00:51:35 Joanna Lindenbaum
Number one, busy and messy are absolutely normal.
00:51:40 Joanna Lindenbaum
Please don’t shame yourself or judge yourself or think there’s something wrong with you.
00:51:44 Joanna Lindenbaum
If things feel messy, busy, sometimes overwhelming.
00:51:49 Joanna Lindenbaum
That’s just called being a human in today’s society.
00:51:52 Joanna Lindenbaum
Try to have compassion for yourself.
00:51:55 Joanna Lindenbaum
and love yourself in all of it.
00:51:57 Joanna Lindenbaum
And remember, if you ever need a reality check on how busy life can be, just ping me.
00:52:04 Joanna Lindenbaum
I will tell you about what’s going on with me.
00:52:08 Joanna Lindenbaum
Number 2, there is a difference between busy and messy and even a little stretched thin versus not having capacity to take on clients or to market.
00:52:25 Joanna Lindenbaum
or to show up for your clients.
00:52:28 Joanna Lindenbaum
For many of us, we can still be busy, but also have capacity for those things.
00:52:35 Joanna Lindenbaum
This is what I want for you.
00:52:38 Joanna Lindenbaum
Number three, you can’t have it all, and that’s OK.
00:52:43 Joanna Lindenbaum
Choose, let things go, and let yourself grieve, if need be, the paths that you didn’t take.
00:52:53 Joanna Lindenbaum
Number four,
00:52:54 Joanna Lindenbaum
Consider using some of those quick resets that I shared when you can.
00:53:00 Joanna Lindenbaum
Take your social media off your phone, take those five-minute spa breaks, maybe some sweaty workouts here and there.
00:53:12 Joanna Lindenbaum
And then number five, if you want more capacity,
00:53:18 Joanna Lindenbaum
get extraordinary at co-creating results in your client work, because that is the lever that frees up so much more and adds to your capacity exponentially.
00:53:34 Joanna Lindenbaum
So I want you to notice this week, without judgment, where are you trying to maybe have it all instead of choosing?
00:53:46 Joanna Lindenbaum
Where are you doing a million shoulds instead of what you really want?
00:53:51 Joanna Lindenbaum
I want you to notice, where is your phone draining you?
00:53:57 Joanna Lindenbaum
I want you to notice, where could you take five minutes for yourself today to just be, to just breathe, or to lay on the couch?
00:54:08 Joanna Lindenbaum
And again, the big one, where, in your work with clients,
00:54:14 Joanna Lindenbaum
Do you sense that there’s more available if you just had a little more skill, a little more mastery, and a little more trust in yourself?
00:54:26 Joanna Lindenbaum
None of this has to be perfect.
00:54:29 Joanna Lindenbaum
No myth of perfection here, my friend, truly.
00:54:33 Joanna Lindenbaum
It just has to be a little more honest and a little more intentional than it was yesterday.
00:54:39 Joanna Lindenbaum
And most importantly,
00:54:42 Joanna Lindenbaum
Above all else, please, please take good care of yourself.
00:54:48 Joanna Lindenbaum
Have compassion if you’re feeling spent or stretched too thin.
00:54:54 Joanna Lindenbaum
Try to love yourself in all of it.
00:54:56 Joanna Lindenbaum
That’s what I try to do for myself in those moments.
00:55:01 Joanna Lindenbaum
Thank you so much for being here with me today.
00:55:05 Joanna Lindenbaum
If you love the show, please
00:55:08 Joanna Lindenbaum
consider giving us a five-star rating and an excellent review.
00:55:16 Joanna Lindenbaum
If you have any friends that would love this episode, please share it with them.
00:55:23 Joanna Lindenbaum
That is my best way of getting the word out.
00:55:27 Joanna Lindenbaum
If you haven’t already, make sure you follow this podcast so that you get notifications about new episodes.
00:55:35 Joanna Lindenbaum
And I will see you soon.
