Girl Out of Order Podcast
Girl Out of Order is not just a podcast—it’s a call to action for the woman who's done shrinking, contorting, and apologizing for who she is. Hosted by Christine Gale, attorney, speaker, identity coach, and unapologetic girl-mom, this show is your go-to space for fierce conversations, gut-level honesty, and radical permission to reclaim the woman you were always meant to be.
Girl Out of Order challenges the belief that women must play small to belong. No topic off-limits and no mask required.
Through solo episodes, powerhouse guest interviews, and Christine’s signature blend of humor, truth-telling, and challenge, you’ll be inspired to drop your sword, stop the self-abandonment, and rise in your worth. Because fitting in is overrated—and being out of order might be exactly what sets you free.
If you’ve ever felt like too much and never enough at the same time, pull up a seat. This is your home.
Girl Out of Order Podcast
Ep. #143 - My Math Was Wrong: Erika Coleman on When All In and Giving Your Best Are Not the Same Thing
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I didn't do bad things. I did too many good things. Erika Coleman
The first time Erika and I got on a discovery call, I knew within five minutes this was a hell yes. Not just because we practically have the same bookshelves (we do), but because she said something I hadn't heard put into words before. You can burn out doing everything right.
That's what Girl Out of Order is about, figuring out that "right" and "sustainable" aren't always the same thing.
Erika built a business teaching companies how to go virtual, grew it 345% in five months, and was still hired at the top of her game, right as her mom was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. For 14 months she gave everything, doctor's appointments, a flash mob of joy, a "happy pill" full of love notes, a family talent show. She thought giving her all was the only way to give her best. Then her mom passed away, her business closed two months later, and Erika found out the hard way that all in and giving your best are not the same thing.
We also get into:
- The research on why even good virtues become harmful past a certain point
- How to keep your drive without robbing tomorrow's version of you
- The two questions to ask yourself to check your pace and your presence before you burn out
If you've ever confused giving everything with giving your best, this one's for you.
Tag a woman who needs to hear this. #GirlOutOfOrder #IdentityRedesign
Welcome to Girl Out of Order, a podcast for women who are ready to own their identity, master their mindset, and build compelling lives. I'm Christine, and I am your host on the journey of making the most of your one wild and precious life. So, girl, if you're ready to do the brave work, come on in and let's get started. Welcome back to the Girl Out of Order Podcast. On today's episode, I have a guest that exemplifies why I love doing this podcast so much. This woman is truly elegant. She is the picture of grace, and she's so very, very wise. You are going to love, fall in love with Erica Coleman. Erica is a speaker, consultant, and see if you can relate, recovering over achiever. Erica believes that the most successful people are just getting accomplishment wrong. She has founded a million-dollar virtual training company that serviced some of the top organizations in the world. And listen to this, her TEDx talk launched into the top 3% of TEDx talks within just a couple weeks of going live. Erica's curiosity about stress and motivation and well-being led her to a master's degree in industrial organizational psychology. Say that five times fast. And even better, she got that master's from Harvard University. She is the quintessential on paper overachiever. But what she has learned about achieving in the process of her career is gonna blow your mind. Erica, you see, this is what makes her different. She imagines a world where no one needs to choose between achieving their goals and building a life worth living. So help me welcome to the podcast, Erica Coleman.
SPEAKER_00I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for having me on.
SPEAKER_01I am so glad you're here. So during our discovery call, where we were kind of saying, like, is this a good fit? I told you immediately it was such a hell yes. Not only because we have pretty much the same bookshelves, which I thought was hilarious, but we have such similar beautiful energies and passion to really help women have the most extraordinary life they possibly can. So I am thrilled that you are here. I've given you your shout-out, your intro. But what I would like you to do, because it's one thing coming from my mouth, is I just want you to introduce yourself to the community, to this woman who is listening to our podcast right now. If I walked up to you on the street and I just handed you a microphone and said, All right, who do you say that you are? What would you say?
SPEAKER_00I usually say I'm a recovering overachiever. Like that's where I start because I used to put so much of my identity into how much I could get done that when it bit me back and really kind of set me back for a lot, I had to start saying, okay, who am I outside of that? So what does that recovery process look like? And it's all rooted in this fact that we want to be seen as competent and capable. We will do all sorts of things because we want to be seen as competent and capable. It matters to us. Sometimes we know we are, sometimes we don't. Sometimes we're proving to ourselves that we're competent and capable. But in that effort of trying to prove it, I overextended so often that it ended up costing my me my health, and often costed me my relationships too. I mean, growing up, I was the girl that'd be like, no, I can't hang out, I have homework. Like I was that kid.
SPEAKER_01You're the Harmoni Granger, right? I was very much Harmony in every way. You not Harry Potter people. If you know, you know, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you you've all met that kind of book nerd that's like, yeah, I understand the social situations are nice, but I'd rather get my work done, right? Like I was very much an intense person. In fact, we've described it often as I used to think the life was a simple math problem, that as long as you did your best and maybe a little bit more, things just worked out. And so I was always striving to continuously be giving everything that I possibly could. And for a long time, it did work. So I thought my math was right. Like I did really well in school, I did really well in business. I, in the relationships I wanted, I did really well and right, like because everything was full send, full in all the time. But I found out that my math was wrong. And I found it out in the hardest way possible.
SPEAKER_01I I love the way you said that. So we convince ourselves that these habits, other people can see the habits and the patterns, and they see the train coming down the track, and you're just in the middle of the tracks going, woo, everything's great, right? People around you are like warning, warning, and you're like, no, I'm fine. But what you said was, I had my math wrong and I found out in the most difficult. I don't know, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but the way you said it, I found out in a really difficult way. So tell us about that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so in 2022, I had been running my own business for five years and it was really successful. I was a virtual training, like teacher. I taught big companies how to go online for their training stuff. And it was nice because I was really good at that before the pandemic hit, and the pandemic hit, and it was like so. I had this wildly successful, wonderful business built on rules that I had set up, and I was hired all the people that I liked. But in 2022, the world was opening back up, and so I knew no matter what, demand was gonna go down. And then AI is just like a whisper at that point. So I was like, okay, tech is getting better, world is opening up. I was like, it's okay, we'll pivot. Not to mention, I'm already exhausted because it was the pandemic, and for me, that meant more work. We grew 345% in five months, like extra grays because of that. So that was crazy, but I was like, we can do this, we can pivot, we've got grit, we're gonna change our marketing strategy, we're gonna add in these new services here, blah, blah, blah, right? But then in March of that year, I got a phone call that no one wants to get. It was your mom's in the hospital. And I got that call. It sucks, doesn't it? Because you just sit for a second, like, okay. It turned out she had terminal brain cancer. And they told us at most she had 18 months left to live. This was the healthiest, luckiest woman I have ever known in my whole life. And she got terminal brain cancer. So it was like, what? At the same time. But as I did before, I was like, well, my math says give everything that you can give. So that's what I did. I said, okay, where are the extra places that we need to lean in so that we don't waste a single minute of whatever we have left with mom? While I was also trying to pivot and shift and hire consultants and everything I could think of for my business. And I swear you could have watched it in tandem. My mom's health and my business sales just this they both went down at the same time. So about 14 months later, my mom passed away. That was awful. We buried her the mother the day before Mother's Day, and then two months after that, I closed my business. Wow. And it was the first time in my life that I had every to-do that I ever wanted done, like checked. You know how we make those huge to-do lists? It was the first time I had every possible to-do done. And so I was like, Well, I guess now I'll sit down. And I did, but then I couldn't get back up. Like literally, I couldn't stand. And I remember still being in denial, like, no, I'll be fine. I'll just sit for 15 minutes. I'll be fine, it'll work out. But then my daughter, who was then five years old, came into my office and she was holding a picture that she had colored that was so proud of. And I was too tired to smile. And that's when I finally was like, crap, I'm not okay. What do I do? And I was also kind of angry because I felt like I did everything right. I was like, I did all the best practices. I'm really good at researching things. Like, I did everything right. Why, one, did it not save everything? And two, why was my result this exhaustion that left me not functional? That's where I got stuck.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. But as you said here today, vibrant and alive and rooted. You're clearly not stuck. And for us high achieving, high capacity, ambitious women, sometimes we're stubborn asses.
SPEAKER_00Oh, it's so stubborn.
SPEAKER_01We do not listen to the warning signals because, again, we think our math is right. And I think we talked about that in our discovery call, where it's like, you know, everything that I did that got me the law degree and helped me achieve all the things I was able to do doesn't translate. It's like trying to do the same health exercises in your 50s that you did in your 30s, and then you end up with a torn meniscus instead of a you know 20% body fat. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, you know, you get to this point where you had this ridiculously successful business, you had a wonderful relationship with your incredibly, I think you said luckiest woman alive, mom. She was amazing. I'm sure she was. I'm sure she was, and she raised an incredible woman. Oh, thank you. And you, and you've got this daughter that's looking at you like, Mom, here's my picture, and you can't even smile. And you said you use the word stuck, and the reason I want to unpack this is because the women that listen to Girl Out of Order, so many of us can relate to feeling stuck. And I know it might be a little bit of an overused word sometimes, but it's so descriptive of how we feel because our brain tells us we should be able to get out of it, but our body says, No, no, no, you're gonna listen to me now. Don't wait for it to get your attention, it stinks. It does stink. So you've here you are stuck. Walk us through what happened next.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so obviously, first and foremost, I had a great therapist who was helping me work through at least getting to the point where I could stand again. And then, of course, as soon as I thought I was even somewhat capable, I did what I thought was the most obvious thing, and I applied to a master's program at Harvard. Of course. Of course, because again do that. I achieving. I'm like, where do you go from here? You don't go backwards. What's next? That's what everyone was asking me. What's next? I was like, it's gotta be something big. It's got Harvard's next, right? That first semester was rough. It was really, really hard on me. I'm very grateful for the support system I have with my family and my therapist. But what was cool is that after that first semester, I was like, you know what? I'm still bugged by the fact that I don't know what I did wrong. So I'm gonna ask the smartest people I know, and I'm gonna make it a focus of my master's studies to say, what did I not understand about stress? What did I not understand about performance? What did I not understand about well-being, so that I know how to do it right for next time. And so that's why I said when I was studying it, um, the degree is technically industrial organizational psychology, which is a terrible name. Don't even know what that means. Yeah, it's a terrible name. It took me so long to memorize it. But what it really means is that we take the concepts and methodology of psychology and you apply it to business. So, how do you make business performance better? How do you help engagement from a psychological perspective so that it's sustainable, especially for leadership and for as I was trying to look at culture in my group? Because I was like, I felt like I had the best company culture, but why did it still burn me out so bad? Because I loved what I did. I loved my mom. Like this is the war I was holding is that in the past, I was like, well, if you hate what you do and you're burnt out, well, it's because you were engaged in something you don't care about it. But can you love what you do and burn out? Mm-hmm. You definitely can. So it was actually in my stress class that I took that as soon as I could. I rolled in that class right away because I was like, in that poor teacher, I raised my head so much. I was like, I have another question for you. I didn't understand that.
SPEAKER_01You were definitely Harmona Granger.
SPEAKER_00Oh, 100%. And I was like, I don't care what grade I get, I need to understand this in depth. This is not for the test, this is for life. And for the first 13 weeks, I learned exactly what I had done right to be able to survive those 14 months. So I was like, oh, I'm actually pretty freaking good at resilience. And then the last week, we were studying the dark side of coping, and I finally understood what I did wrong. We read a study by Adam, Adam Grant, and Barry Schwartz, and it says, Can you have too much of a good thing? And they in the study went through and picked the best virtues you could think of, like courage and persistence and hope and optimism. And they said, What happens when you overdo those things? They found out that all of them at best give you diminishing returns. At worst, these good things become harmful to you. And that's when I realized, oh, I didn't do bad things, I did too many good things.
SPEAKER_01Hmm.
SPEAKER_00Huh.
SPEAKER_01Okay, that's confusing. Very confusing. And I know you're gonna explain it because you're Harvard educated organizational something-something psychologist. Don't know what that word. But okay, you have to explain that because it isn't it isn't registering with me. And if it's not registering with me, chances are the root listeners are going, uh flush it out for us.
SPEAKER_00So, with what I was trying to do every single day during those 14 months that really pushed me over the edge was that I was trying to say, as long as I thought what I was doing was a good thing, I should be doing it. And so I did. So if you look at like what we did with my mom, it wasn't just get her to doctor's appointments and fill out her medications appropriately. It was also plan the ultimate family talent show and coordinate with her hundreds of friends who wanted to come visit and make sure that they knew not to make her feel pitied or awful, like we were doing this whole emotional relationship management thing. We coordinated a joy mob, which is like a flash mob, but for joy, where we surprised her with dance things. We went and played games with her wigs because she hated them, and so we were trying to make them more fun. My sister actually made, we loved it. She made her happy pills because she's a physician's assistant. With the happy pills, she took capsules, but like a fortune cookie, rolled up lots of little like highlighted phrases and things that we loved and put it inside she could open one each day and get a love note, right? All of these things, amazing, wonderful things. It's a lot. Did we need every single one of them?
SPEAKER_01No, I'm actually tired just thinking about it. Like I'm I'm fighting a yawn, I'm not gonna lie. Right? It's like it's involuntarily happening. I'm yawning, right?
SPEAKER_00And they were great memories, and I love them. And I'm also like, I loved just as much the moments where I just sat with my mom and snuggled her on the couch. That was just as effective for my memory. But I thought for it to be worthy of my time and attention, it had to be massive and big and amazing. So I had to say, I was giving my all, and it literally was robbing me of being able to give my best. So, what that's the big shift we have to learn to make all and best are not the same thing.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And so you have this revelation all and best are not the same thing. What do you do with it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so that's when I started. Well, when I still had to recover from burnout, we have to make that known. It with the level of burnout I had, it was 14 months before I felt like I could push a little harder and not have to sleep for three days to make up for it, which I hated because I'm an ambitious person, and yet my body felt so fragile. And I was doing, I was like, if I'm gonna have an injury like burnout, I'm gonna treat it as if I had to go to any physical therapist, like if I tore my ACL. So I had this whole regimen I'd built out for myself to try to say, how do I heal from this? And I'm grateful for it because it would have taken longer, but it took 14 months before I was really like, okay, I could stay up a couple hours later tonight and be all right if I needed to push through this assignment. Um, but it was two years before I felt ambitious again.
SPEAKER_01So, you know what resonates for me with that is as high ambition, high capacity women, one of the virtues that we often push aside is self-grace.
SPEAKER_00Oh, for sure.
SPEAKER_01We might be, and some of us are not gracious to others, but let's just assume for conversation's sake that we give grace to our children and we give grace to our mom and we give grace to the cashier who's moving slower than we would like her to. But when it comes to giving ourselves grace, no. And so what I'm hearing you say in two things. That's the first thing is that there was a moment where you you made a decision to give yourself the grace and the space that you needed to heal. Yes. Two, when you're talking about burnout, you're not talking about somebody who's exhausted for a couple days because she had a divorce trial that was exhausting. You're talking about to your core systemic depletion. Is that fair?
SPEAKER_00Nervous system shutdown. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Nervous system shutdown. So that's what I want the women to hear is like this this is a woman who's gone there. Like you went there and you decided you weren't gonna stay there. And what is also true still? No, of course not. And I know I'm speaking to the ambitious woman out there. You made a decision not to stay there, but you didn't snap your fingers and just snap out of it. You you didn't, you didn't over talk yourself. No, you you started to tune in, I'm assuming. I shouldn't say this, what you're doing, but I'm gonna ask, is it true to say you you learned how to tune in to the signals and actually heed them?
SPEAKER_00Yes, because especially the for the first little while. I mean, obviously, I applied to Harvard mid-systemic shutdown.
SPEAKER_01Which is a bit of a curious decision, I'm not gonna lie.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was. It was, I mean, it shows you the addiction I have to you have to keep going. Um, but my body, first and foremost, wouldn't let me ignore it for the first while. And so I would try to, I tried to be like, I'm gonna be fine, I'm gonna be fine. And I wouldn't, I my vocabulary would disappear. I again couldn't stand those kinds of things, so I couldn't ignore it anymore. So it really grabbed my attention. And while I was healing, it was I was like, if I don't like a learn how to sit and breathe for a minute, like I started yoga, I started meditation, I started things like that. Cause I was like, I have to learn to sit with myself and this discomfort, and I have to practice. One of the cool things about psychology is that you learn your brain believes what you tell it, it doesn't necessarily believe truth, it believes what you repeat to it. Yep. And so I had to practice actively saying to myself, this is temporary. I will be okay. I'm grateful for the body that I have, I am still here. It will get better because I am good at what I do, I will keep being good at what I do. I'm just doing it a little slower right now. And that helped me give myself that compassion you were talking about before. Because without the compassion, I wouldn't be here right now. I'd still be beating myself up. It got to the point I was I was having panic attacks about six months in because this is this huge identity shift of if I'm not productive, who am I? If I'm not useful to my family, who I'm the I can't watch in conto that movie from Disney because Louisa and I have a hard beef to talk through. I'm like, yes, I felt like carrying everything on my shoulders, and nobody asked me to. I took it and I carried it, and it was so heavy. And so when I lost that piece of that actual ability, I had to sit with being like, am I valuable just who I am? And I am. Did I do that sitting with that moment? No, because I'd always wanted my measurable outcomes, because you know, that's how we always did it before. Measurable outcomes, how I know I'm valuable. So I had to start learning. I one of the things I did the most was actively practicing gratitude for myself every day. Because I wanted my brain to treat myself better. I was like, as if I were a friend to myself, what would I say? Instead of being someone who consistently beats myself up and being ashamed of what I couldn't get done today. I'm like, if I'm talking to my six year old, I'm going to say, okay, you gave your best today, and look at the amazing things that. You did and look at how well you did of the few things that you did today, and tomorrow, because you you listened about when to stop, tomorrow you'll be able to do more, right?
SPEAKER_01No, of course, you didn't like it, and and I think that's what I wanted to say is give yourself permission to not like the process, but still do the process. Yeah, love that. It's okay to hold both. I think it's a both and right. Like, I don't like being still, I don't like being what I would determine as productive, but what I don't like more is the long-term effects of not listening to her, meaning my body, in this moment. And so you had an opportunity, Erica, to rewrite your identity. I did. So tell me how you rewrote this identity in the aftermath of the company shutting down and the body shutting down, as and and then you're navigating grief. And as somebody who's lost both of my parents, there is a profoundly different type of grief when you lose a parent. I and anybody who's been through it, you're just gonna nod because you know what I'm talking about. And and losing your mommy is um, you know, my mom and I had a complicated relationship, it was not an easy relationship, but there is not a day that goes by that I don't miss her in some form, some fashion. You know, I'm I'm I'm just gonna say it. I still have her ashes next to my bed. And I don't, I don't think about it. It's just it's just my it just is. And so when you lose a parent amidst all these other things, it's like the burning down of of what you of the familiar.
SPEAKER_00Oh, for sure.
SPEAKER_01And you have a you have a point of decision then, Erica, which I'm assuming you came to, you're like, okay, now what? Now what? And how you answer that question determines the outcome and the and the and the next level of where you go. So how did that unfold for you?
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, when you say that stuff about mom, I can't let that go either. There I think about her so often, she loved number things. So if 1111 pops up, I always just go, hi mom, because she loved 1111. And so we do, we carry those pieces with us. And at her funeral, my dad gave us all assignment. My dad's a professor of educational philosophy, so of course he is. Lots of discussions, right? I mean he said that everybody's life has the opportunity to be an object lesson to help somebody else's life become more. And so I have four sisters, and he said each one of us were assigned to give a talk at her funeral. And our goal, he's like, I don't want you to just talk about mom and who she was. I want you to pick a virtue or a value that she embodied and then use her story to teach other people about that value.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Oh my gosh, I can't. Okay, can we just pause for a moment?
SPEAKER_00I'm getting all you're gonna get the backstory to my TED talk, is what you're gonna get.
SPEAKER_01I was getting all the tears. Like, I just like I'm trying to keep them in because I really like my makeup today. So see, I had to, I had to, I had to make it lighthearted, but uh, that is so profoundly beautiful. It was the best closure. Oh my god, it explains so much about the energy that you give off because it's not just your mom, but it's the wisdom of your dad. That's so amazing. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, I just had to comment on that.
SPEAKER_00You're fine. I'm it was a valuable experience. If you listen to my TED talk, it starts with one time I was asked to describe my mom in one word. That one time was her funeral. And I mentioned in my talk that I turned to my four other sisters because we didn't share our talks ahead of time. I'm daughter number four out of five. So three sisters get up ahead of me and they pick the same word champion, champion, champion, champion, all of us in some way described my mom as a champion. Do you see why I didn't actually give the full story in my TED talk? I wouldn't have made through it. Um and so what I've actually learned now, that is the word I use now. I want to be a champion. And I've used my understanding of science of leadership and then watching my mom as I grew up to say, what is that? What do we do? What are the traits of a champion? And I said, I want to define myself by that. I want to carry my mom's legacy with me forever because my mom was so good at it, and that's how I cannot feel like I've lost her completely. And that's actually become a huge part of my studies and my teachings now, because even though I technically study high performance and stress, what I really want is for people to learn how to champion their own goals, their own achievements, and then to build up more champions around them in the process. And so it's fun when I give keynotes and whatnot. Like we start there, we're like, here's some stress management, and then I just take them a little turn here and we go deep dive into this fun kind of content of how do you want to define yourself as you go after your achievements? Do you just want to be something who checks all the boxes at high quality? Because I do want that, but I also want to be someone that you enjoy being around in the process. So how do I do that? That's part of yeah, or am I someone who just dreams big all the time, but I'm not actually great at executing and getting it, you know, off the ground? Or am I someone who dreams so big that maybe I don't always assess my risks right? So, how do I balance all those pieces together to truly become a true champion? And it's a lifelong process. Like, I'm not 100% know that I'm gonna land there and be like, check, I'm a champion now. No, it's gonna be this gradual growing, which is when you talk about what was the moment when I made the shift. That for me happened when I have a mentor. Her name is Meg Wheatley. She's actually like an organizational, big, big name. And I'm just lucky she's been a family friend my whole life. Because I called her, I was, you know, still dejected, full burnout. Um, I'm a religious woman, so I'd been praying every day to God. I was like, When, when does this end? When do I feel like me again? Um and her name came to my mind. He's like, talk to Meg. So I called Meg. I took her to lunch. I was whining at lunch a lot. I was like, listen to how awful it's been. It's been so hard. She stopped me and she said, Erica, there are gifts in adversity that you cannot get any other way. Do not wish away those gifts. It's your job to mine them. And then she gave me homework to mine them. And then I was like, but I don't know what I'm supposed to do next. Everybody asks me, What are you gonna do next? Like, I'm at Harvard, everyone's like, What are you gonna do with this? And she told me I was too obsessed with destination. And instead, I needed to just work on direction. She's like, destination boxes you in. You know exactly who you want to be, you know how you're gonna get there. That's great. What if you're supposed to be something more? So she said, your goal is to say for the next week, I'm gonna do small behaviors that move me in the right direction. I want to go. And then that way, if a better opportunity comes up that I didn't imagine on day one when I was making my plans, I'm not stuck to whatever definition I'd made in my destination. So that's when I started to say, I want to be a good person. I want to be someone my kids like to be around, I want to be someone my husband still loves, I want to be, and I just said, what would that take for me to get closer to that today? So that's where I started to pull myself out and change and to define myself as now I would probably put the word to it, I want to become a champion.
SPEAKER_01I love that so much because as I was asking you the question about you using this period of time, we'll call it adversity loss, as an opportunity to rewrite your story. It's it's so clear to me that you just decided instead of rewriting, instead of writing a story or continuing on the trip to path of being somebody who's a high achiever, you shifted to being somebody who's a champion. Because the way that you describe it, I picture it like the top of an organizational chart, which I'm sure speaks to your heart, girl. It does. And that that organizational chart starts with champion, and then all the little bubbles that come off of it are the different parts of your life, the different ways that you show up. Because one of the things we talk about so much on Girl Out of Order and in my own personal development journey is what is the two millimeter shift I can make today? I love that. What is the because if you make a two millimeter shift each day, and this is from Tony Robbins' work and being in leadership and crewing in Tony Robbins, they actually they actually send out these little wrenches when you crew. And it's to remind you that you don't have to do it all right now. You if you just make a two millimeter shift towards whatever that goal might be. And what I love about what you said, and I have to believe that it was a massive shift for you, is oh yeah, I'm making a goal of being a good person today. I'm making a goal of being an attentive wife. I put that word in for me. But it's like those aren't, I know, but those aren't goals that high achieving, ambitious women would necessarily put on their bingo card, right?
SPEAKER_00It doesn't look good on your resume.
SPEAKER_01It doesn't look good on your resume, and it doesn't fill your bank account, and it doesn't, you know, get the placards and it doesn't, you know, all the little diplomas you see behind me. But what it does is it creates a compelling life. Amen. That's right. And when you create a compelling life and you become a compelling human, that goes to the top of your organizational chart. And then all of these areas that you want to achieve in or make impact in, it starts to flow more naturally from that anchoring in of the kind of human that you want to become. How does that resonate with what you are talking about?
SPEAKER_00I love it. And I love even if you're like thinking of like with the Olympics that happened not so long ago, you have the fact that Olympic champions have good days and bad days. And I need to remember that a lot too. Where I'm like, you know what? Some days I'm gonna give a gold medal performance. It's gonna be fantastic, and other days I'm falling on the ice. So, but does that make me less of a champion? No. If I get up and I continue to be there and I show up without necessarily overextending and throwing out my meniscus, I loved that idea.
SPEAKER_01It was me always torn them both, torn them both, torn them both.
SPEAKER_00There are days that I slip up too, right? Like it's like I I remember Christmas was so hard for me. I was just so overwhelmed and overstimulated, and my kids were being little monsters, and I was screaming in the freezer, Christmas is cancelled because I just had everything done. And then I was like, Tag nab it, I gave a TED talk on not overextending, and here I am, obviously overextended. How do I fix this? But that was the thing, is before I would have shame spiraled like nobody's business. I've been like, I'm a terrible mom, I'm mean, I can't keep up, Christmas should be joyful, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that time I went, hmm, all right. I'm gonna go talk to my kids. I'm gonna apologize. I'm gonna say, all right, guys, mom obviously didn't handle that well, and she needs some help. And that has helped me too because my kids don't have to see me showing up as perfect. My colleagues don't have to see me showing up as perfect, my husband doesn't have to see me showing up as perfect because what they see me as is someone who wants good things and who is going to strive, and someone who's humble enough to admit when she messes up, which has been my best part for a connection.
SPEAKER_01That part is so huge, Erica. It is because what you started to say when you're like, Oh, in the past, and I love that. I tell the my coaching clients, I tell my divorce clients, get that phrase in your body in the past. If you start putting that in front of talking about the ways that you use to show up, it then again, you're training your brain that that's not who I am anymore. In the past, you would have allowed that shitty committee to take over your energy.
SPEAKER_00Yes, right?
SPEAKER_01I mean, my shitty committee has got a lot of noisy Karen's on it. Sorry for all you people named Karen. I don't mean that personally. Um, but it's a lot of squawkers, and sometimes you just need to be like, all right, ladies, have a seat. You do not have reign over my brain. And when we say in the past, I would have shame spiraled, that's powerful because you you acknowledge the woman that got you where you are, but then your look, what it does is it it gets you to forward look. So, in the time that we have remaining, my beautiful friend, yes, I want you to tell us a little bit about this even achieving because I think it would actually make a beautiful, put a beautiful bow on this gift of your story. And I want you to give the woman listening something she can really take with her and look at her own life and up level her own joy and and uh what's the word I'm looking for? Um, satisfaction with energy that she's bringing to the things that are important to her.
SPEAKER_00Yes. So even achieving, I've been hinting at it this whole time. Any of that philosophy you're feeling is me embracing and loving even achieving. So the concept of it is I want to get everything done today that needs to get done without robbing myself of my ability to do my best again tomorrow. So, how do I find that moment, that balance between I have commitments and I have ambitions and I have dreams? I just don't want to pursue them at the expense of tomorrow as well. And the three main things that we really are trying to juggle with that is one, how do I consistently spark and fuel my drive? Because that matters. When we're burnt out, your drive is gonna burn out. You're that's the whole burning your candle at both ends. That's what's burning is your motivation and your drive. So, how do I consistently fuel that in a healthy way? Now, most high achievers don't actually have a motivation issue. If anything, we're drowning in motivation. That's where, and if motivation doesn't have a healthy place to go, it becomes shame. It becomes that committee inside that's like, nope, you can't do this because it should, you wanted this, it was a good thing to do. No. So for most high achievers, we have to learn how to balance also caring for our needs because our body is the actual vehicle for getting things done. And that's what I did the most harm to myself is that I treated myself like it was the enemy. I was the one that was getting in the way of getting the things done I wanted to get done. And we talked about your brain believes what you tell it. So no wonder why my nervous system shut down. It's like, well, this is the bad guy. Wait, who's the bad guy? Uh wait, what? Just gonna crash. And so I was like, one of the things I needed to do was befriend myself first and foremost. And when I see all those well-being tips now, instead of seeing as a list of to-dos, I'm not accomplishing, I pick the ones in that moment that will add to my body functioning at its best for that day. So that's one of my two millimeter things. Is I'm like, you know what? Today I have to hit X, Y, and Z deadlines. So I'm gonna actually eat lots of fiber because I want the fuel that comes with my brain when I feel lots of nutrition and water. That's not something I would have ever thought of before. You better believe I've been caffeinated to the nines.
SPEAKER_01Okay, too close. Too close. I am I can neither confirm nor deny that I have coffee next to me. But I I I'm I'm on the I'm on the same train with you with the protein and the water.
SPEAKER_00But seeing it differently because before it was like, oh, I'm counting calories and this could be good or bad. And now food is just food. Now food is food is fuel. Food is fuel. And if I need that mint chocolate chip ice cream today, I'm gonna have it and I'm gonna enjoy every moment of it. Right. So it feels completely different because instead of me saying, I should be doing this for my body or shouldn't, I start going, my body has needs and I want to get good things done. How do I support my body to help me get there? So that was a big change. But even more than that, I had to learn how to enjoy a more natural pace. So I used to always be like, well, I very much felt that if you're not growing, you're dying phrase. And I always interpreted it as if you're not moving, you're dying. So it's just always spinning all the time, everywhere. And I thought if you're not pushing and trying and going as hard as you can, then stuff doesn't get done.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. So what else you know, what else do you want us to know about even achieving before we wrap up?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so if you want to start practicing even achieving, that's what it is. I have two questions you can use because what we can do with it just to get you started is you gotta learn how to check in on your individual health. And to do that, you check in on your pace. And then you also have to check in on your social health. Because if you're like me and you're an achiever, big achieving wonderful things takes up a lot of headspace. And we forget there are people that we love in our lives that also need care and attention. So I'll help you check in on your presence. So the first one with pace: if you're in a project, schedule in a check-in, like legitimate, put it on the calendar. And for that check-in, ask yourself one question if I continue at this pace, when I'm done, will I have enough energy left to celebrate? And then if you do, take it. If you don't, renegotiate the assignment because you're pushing too hard, it's not sustainable. The second one is go for your to check in on your presence. You need to identify one person, just one, don't get a list of 10, just one person in your life that you're really glad is in your life and you still want to have in your life one year from now. This week, find that person and ask them in the last 30 days, have I been present enough for you? And then give them space to honestly answer.
SPEAKER_01I love that so much. You are you're such a treasure, you're such a treasure, and I I just I'm so grateful for you sharing not only your story and your journey, but also, you know, your challenge. And and I mean, I'm gonna say challenge, but I'm also gonna say challenge slash invitation because it this is voluntary. We we have to sign up for and commit to building that compelling life, building the life of our dreams. We can't sit around and whine and expect it to happen to us. So there is a little bit of challenge that's laced into your story, and it's just like like you said, you know, you're when at your at your mom's funeral, like your dad wanted the five of you, and I've raised four daughters myself. So the fact that you have five is insane because I barely survived four. Love you girls, love every one of you. Um, but that you know, he wanted his his wife's, your mom's life to be a message. So thank you for being a message for our community. I'm so grateful that you have showed up as a guest. Thank you for reaching out. And before we go, where can people find you?
SPEAKER_00Yes, I have website erica colemanspeaks.com. I'm also on LinkedIn and on Instagram. It's new ish. It's called just even achieving, if you look me up on Instagram. And then I have, if you are on a high performing team or you are the leader of a high performing team and you want to see are we actually like sustainably high performing or are we sneakily getting towards burnout? I have a free scorecard that you guys can fill out if you want. Just go to balanceyourteam.com and you can check that out as well.
SPEAKER_01Perfect. I will have all these things in the show notes. So Erica's gonna get me all of those. And we will put those in the show notes, and I'm so grateful. Thank you so much for being here today, my friend.
SPEAKER_00Yes, thank you.