The Secret Killer Lurking in Your Business

What’s the thing in your business that’s quietly draining you… but not quite painful enough for you to deal with it yet?

In this short episode, Natasha explores why we tend to tolerate the very things that slowly steal our energy, focus, and presence and how waiting for a breaking point can cost more than we realize.

Using a personal story as a jumping-off point, this episode invites you to look at what you’ve been managing, avoiding, or “just dealing with” and ask a different question: what would change if you addressed it now, before it forces your hand?

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Transcript

Natasha (00:00)
What's the secret killer in your business right now that's stealing your time or productivity, but it's not yet quite painful enough that you've decided to make a change?

A months ago on a walk with my friend Anissa, who also happens to be a therapist, she said that humans, we rarely make a change until something is so painful, it prompts us to finally tackle it. In other words, if it's just annoying, even, you know, if it's the thorn in your shoe, if it's not so painful that you have to pull it out, we just keep going. And most of us are really running forward on that default programming. And as a business owner, it's really not.

the best strategy. So I thought I'd take this podcast to talk about one of the secret thieves in my life and business and how I've decided to start tackling that and how you can take some time for yourself to figure out what's the obvious or not so obvious thing in your life right now that if you took the time to proactively address could transform your life and business.

For me, that's actually my back pain and managing my back pain. Ever since I started working at a computer from college, my first job, I remember this pain just settling in in between my shoulders, all of this tension that I carry. And so this has been something I've dealt with for a long time. I have managed it with different things throughout my life. Hot yoga has been a godsend in the past. And in recent years, I've taken up massage therapy.

I get at least one massage a month now when I started it. It was when I got so tight and overwhelmed that I just needed someone to help me out. I would go get a massage kind of just retroactively. Now I get at least one a month because it makes such a difference for me. But I found that even that this was just sneaking up on me and really stealing my concentration, my ability to just be present because when you're kind of dealing with

that pain and tension, it really seeps into other areas of your life. So at the end of the day, know, like I just can't focus when I sleep. And actually this became a really big trigger for it this year is that I was going to bed and I was waking up in more pain than when I went to sleep. And so I did several different neck pillows and then I realized that the Tempur-Pedic mattress that I invested in just was no longer cutting it because the firmness wasn't correct. So.

Working on sorting that out, but it just ignited it in such a way that I couldn't ignore it any longer and Even before the issue with the mattress had started earlier

Last year in 2025 I had decided that I would take a more proactive role in managing my back pain because I'm not getting any younger and This isn't gonna get any more manageable without more dedicated care and attention So I had already started implementing some things we do my husband I do cold plunge and sauna and The massage with that kind of all those three therapies. I combine that to help manage and it really does help

But I realized I needed to do even more than that. And when I went to see the massage therapist, she said, you know, coming in just once a month to do this, because you have a lot of tension in here, it takes a lot more intention and attention to undo all the things that you do all day. An hour a month isn't gonna cut it, which I knew.

So I went back to some of the other things that I had been told, but hadn't implemented in a daily practice. And I've been to my health practitioner and they show you the stretches and the exercises, but I really hadn't found something that gave me enough relief that it was worth it. So I started researching more things and I'm using a yoga block and straps to incorporate stretching into my day. And I had another aha when I went to the dentist the other day and you know, he had asked,

if I wanted to get Botox because he said the muscle where you know I clench is just so tight and aggravated and I'm not ready to try that yet but it was really enlightening to me because I'm trying to treat a lot of tension in my back but it re-reminded me that so much of this tension comes up from my back goes through my neck and lands in my jaw and so then I'm clenching at night and I've got a night guard and ⁓ I actually

just remembered this. This is where it kind of came to a pinnacle the other day. I had traveled home for Christmas vacation and I had forgot my night guard which for me is a nightmare because then my teeth hurt and I'm grinding them I just have terrible dreams. I know if you've ever had the dreams where your teeth are falling out but they're the worst dream ever and if you know what I'm talking about you know what I'm talking about and

You know, nothing to it though. I just didn't have another option. was in California, my night guard was at home. And about three days into the trip...

I had just realized I had this pain at the base of my neck and I was trying to think of when I had hit my head or bumped my head somewhere and whatever I took some ibuprofen went to bed the next day or probably about three o'clock I woke up and I was in immense pain it felt swollen tender to the touch and I'm you know racking my brain of what this could be why it's so painful why it's worse do I need to go to urgent care

And you know, after sitting in bed for 30 minutes, kind of trying to think through what this could be and what action I need to take. finally decide that I have the courage to ask chat GPT and face what this might be. Do I have brain cancer? Am I dying? Because, you know, our anxious brains, if you're anything like me can jump to all sorts of conclusions without any confirmation of what's coming. So I get on chat GPT and I start, you know, putting out my symptoms and everything. And I realized that.

this immense pain is because I don't have my night guard on and I have aggravated I believe the I might get this wrong like occipital nerve in the back of my head and it was aggravated and it can come across as this painful tenderness all because I didn't have my night guard on.

And it's like, okay, so like now is it not only just in my neck and my jaw, it's like the base of, I'm just like, my gosh, this whole system needs so much more attention. And now I've incorporated in like self massage for the TMJ. I went and worked with a microfageal massage therapist and I'm incorporating now a massage gun, I've the Theragun and I have heat packs that I

Now boil into heat therapy and the evening. So this has been kind of a long story But the point is not the back pain. The point is the intentional Addressing of something that was bleeding over into all areas of my life and business right because if you are in pain It's hard to show up for personal relationships in the way you want Sometimes you snap at a partner things like that because you just don't feel great and the energy levels at the end of the day So this was the secret killer in my business

and I've added these things to my day which are not totally crazy, right? In the morning I do the massage, in the evening I do the heat therapy, in addition to some of other things I'm doing and I'm researching some other things to just help really get to the bottom of what's causing it for me and make sure that everything's gonna support me in this and you know, this has been a process because my workspace is very ergonomical because I've been very on top of that since.

since I started to have back pain, right? But even that was not enough. of course everyone told you just work less, but that's kind of a laughing matter, right? Many of you will know, that's how we pay the bills. So what a doctor said, just work, just be on the computer less. It's not necessarily a realistic answer. So.

I have been incorporating those things into my life and those small shifts, I know it sounds like I've done a lot and I have, but the small shifts in the day, the exercise block, the strap have made a world of difference and my back pain is just night and day different. There's still more to go, but the ability to have the energy to show up more presently and just be firing on all cylinders is making all the difference for me in this month of January.

coupled with increased exercise and so I share this story with you so that you can take some time and look at this quarter of your year and Think what are the things in your business in your life? What's one really important thing that you could put some more intention into that would really change how you can show up and just take this weight off of you But it just hasn't been painful enough to make you take the action

to address it because I know everyone has something like that. And if you can get ahead of it, it's going to make such a huge difference for you this year. And we just wrapped up January, so if you're already feeling like...

You know your new year's goals maybe got a little skew. It's a great time the beginning of the month to check in see where you're at See where you need to adjust and put a little bit more intention because it can mean all of the difference for you so this episode is just a short one today, but your

body, your work is so important and looking at those different things and figuring out what's going to support you can make all the difference because I believe that your business and life are not separate. They're so integrated and as you can tell from my story

the working out, the stretches for your back, those things seem like personal things, but really, those are business priorities. And I've said in past podcasts, I don't work unless I work out, and it's true, because how I feel in my body is so indicative of how I show up in my business. So I would love you to sit and take some time to reflect and figure out what is this thing, and it doesn't have to be huge and complex. Mine is definitely a journey of unpacking what other things I can

But the main changes that I have made in this month were not all of the cold plunge and all of that I'd already been doing that so the small shift I made was okay every day now I am going to do the massage gun when I wake up. I'm gonna add in the heat pad at night I'm gonna do some stretching and block work during the day so you know 10 to 15 minutes of my day shifted and my life is very transformed from that so You know don't think of something that has to be so complex. It can be very simple, but say I am going to address this now I'm gonna

take the five to ten minutes a day to finally change this and see how that's gonna change how I show up. So when you figure out what that thing is I would love to hear from you so drop me a note on my website at natashaclaasen.com or if you're on my newsletter just reply to my newsletter I would love to hear it from you there and I will see you in the next episode I hope you feel good and show up well for your business this month.