From Burnout To Brilliance with Nelly Gal

Growth shouldn’t require sacrificing your sanity. We sit down with first‑gen founder and medical professional Nelly to unpack how she turned a survival hustle into a sustainable business by aligning purpose, hormone health, and a team she can trust. Her story moves from 3 a.m. anxiety and cortisol spikes to clear decisions, warmer leadership, and a brand that converts through real connection, not pressure.

We dig into how sharing your story creates trust, referrals, and retention in any service business. Nellie explains why burnout isn’t just a workload problem; it’s a biology problem. She breaks down the hormone mechanics behind confidence—what happens when cortisol stays high, how sleep and nutrition affect dopamine and serotonin, and when targeted supplementation or hormone replacement can restore energy, mood, and focus. Along the way, we explore practical tools: the seven whys to clarify purpose, building a simple spiritual or reflective practice, and setting boundaries that protect your best work.

Then we shift to scale. Delegation turns self-employment into ownership, and the right manager can collapse stress while multiplying output. We talk about hiring for trust, giving experts the wheel, and why founders should keep a baseline understanding of every function without trying to master them all. Marketing, finance, operations—once specialists own these lanes, you reclaim time for the work you love and the impact only you can deliver.

If you’re feeling stretched thin, this conversation offers a roadmap: stabilize your body, tell a truer story, build a team that thinks, and let your energy guide what grows. Subscribe for more bold, people-first strategies, share this with a builder who needs it, and leave a review to tell us the one task you’ll delegate this week.

Schedule a 30 to 45 minute consultation with Nelly. Just mention Scaling with People on her instagram at https://www.instagram.com/live_vibrant_medspa/

Transcript

Welcome & Show Promise

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Scaling with People, your weekly playbook for turning chaos into compounding growth. Each week we go under the hood with battle test experts in all areas of business, from marketing to sales, operation finance, and people, plus product and leadership to unpack the plays, numbers, and systems that turn chaos into compounding growth. Learn straight from founders and experts who've done it and continue to do it successfully. There's zero plus, just moves that you can still immediately. This podcast is brought to you by Guide to HR. Human expertise, AI-powered impact. Welcome everyone to today's Skilling with People podcast. I'm Guinevere Cruy, your host and founder and CEO to Guide to HR. All right, on today's Skilling with People, we're ditching the hustle hangover and learning how to reclaim your radiance, lead with unapologetic confidence, and turn personal struggle into unstoppable impact. From battling burnout to building a brand that blazes, Nellie Gell knows what it means to rewrite your own roles. As a first gen woman, she's turned great into growth, held confidence and hormones, and built a business that skills without selling your soul. Welcome, Nellie. I'm super excited to have you on the show today. Tell the audience a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Hi, Guinevere. Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to be here. We were just chatting before, and you have so many wonderful guests before in the podcast. So I'm very honored to be here. Um, my name is Nellie Gal, like you said, and I am originally from Cuba. I came to the US when I was 21 years old. So my birthday is in on Monday. So I'm hitting, you know, I'm hitting the 40s. Nice. Welcome, welcome to the 40s. Thank you. Um, and yeah, came to the US when I was 21. I lived a little bit in South Beach, moved to New York City for 12 years. I had a Met Spa over there as well. But um in that case, I was kind of like the, you know, behind the scenes in terms I was not the one providing the procedures and uh the treatments, etc. So that's when I went to school, became a PA, and um moved to Florida a couple years afterwards. And I've been here forever since, I think six years right now. I'm loving it. I love the warmth. It reminds me of an island. Um and um worked for a Med Spa for two years, and after that, um founded my own medical spa uh for the last two and a half to three years. So a little bit of my story.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

So a small business owner.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Yes, ma'am.

Story As Business Superpower

SPEAKER_00 2:37

All right, cool. All right, so you've gone from first-done struggles to building a scalable brand. What was the moment you realized your personal story became your business superpower? And if you don't mind, I'll put you on the hotspot. And could you share a lesson learned with our audience?

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Absolutely. When I realized that my personal struggle was a superpower, is when I started to share that with my clients. I started to share where I came from, why I do what I do, my purpose in my industry. My clients and my patients started to really connect with me, started to understand and trust me. Uh, we started to build personal relationships that translated into more business, into more referrals, because now these ladies were coming in and realizing that I was just not trying to, you know, sell them something. Um, I was trying to connect with them and really be honest and understand where they were coming from as they were understanding where I was coming from. So personal relationship, personal connection is the lesson in any business, in any service business, you have to connect with the person that you have in front of you. Um, so that would be my lesson for all of the service providers out there. A lot of um, you know, oftentimes I hear my patients telling me, well, I didn't really go back to that other med spot because I felt like I was a number. I felt like I was invisible, I felt like they were not really listening to me, they were not trying to connect with me, they were not hearing my, you know, my concerns. They were just trying to push their agenda, build the treatment plan, and just kind of, you know, railroad me. And uh when I come to you, it's very different. You actually sit, you listen to me, you don't overpower the conversation, you are present. So that's my superpower and my lesson.

Burnout Hits And Healing Starts

SPEAKER_00 4:29

I love that. Yeah, when you're in a services organization, you definitely need to be having that personal touch and the relationship building. And I just had uh a couple podcasts ago, a gentleman who talked about building um fundraising off of those people, uh, customer, let's see, customer investors. So custom investor, I think is how what he put it to it. Uh, so that goes hand in hand to what you're saying as well. And so we we I queued up talking about burnout, and I'm I'm a little triggered myself. I think a lot of corporate people are uh, you know, working in the office and whatnot, and and all the things that, you know, we have to do more with less, have to do more with nothing. And so uh burnout is definitely a practice is definitely a real thing. But unfortunately, it's also practically a badge of honor for founders and even for people who work for startups until it breaks you. So, what did what did hitting your burnout wall teach you if you did hit one? Uh, and about leading in a way that actually fuels you instead of kills you.

Purpose, Faith, And Feminine Energy

SPEAKER_01 5:29

You are, I mean, right on the dot. And I am in the place right now where I'm healing from the burnout. And like you said, so I come from nothing. I come from the third world country, a communist country where we just survive. We don't, we're not there to thrive, we survive. So I came to the US with the same mentality of like, I gotta make it, I gotta make it, I gotta make it because I have a very large family that I have to take care of in my country, and I really have to make my bills, I have to work the hours. And whenever I felt like I was not doing enough, I felt guilty. I felt like I was not living up to my own expectation and standards, and my cortisol levels will go up, will go up. I'll wake up with anxiety, really bad anxiety in the morning. Wake up at 3 a.m. with jolt, you know, oh my God, you know, these things need to get done. And it was translating into my team. So I was leading from a place of fear, I was leading from a place of lack, of um, you know, let's just try to get the most sales today because we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. I was not understanding the ebbs and flows over the business, and that led me to really having panic attacks in the best way possible, not the ones that land you in the hospital, but the ones that land you like crying at night and crying in the morning coming to work. And I knew for a fact that that had to stop because that is not the life that I was meant to be living. And today that's my job. I help women exactly do that, how go from you know, burnout to a breeze. So, in a way, my healing started understanding that just because I was pushing so much, it didn't mean that I was gonna be more successful in business and definitely not very successful in my personal life. I was alienating relationships, not working on relationships, and I was feeding relationships that were not good for me, you know, friendships, et cetera, that were not really aligned with who I am. Um, it became everything very transactional, and that's something that I wanted to step away from. So in my healing process, I started to go and dwell a little deeper into why am I doing what I do, my purpose, very concentrated on my purpose. Um, I'm building a spiritual, you know, foundation where I have to have faith and trust in the future, in the universe, and obviously trust in God. And that has helped me tremendously. I work with a spiritual director, and this man is a light in my life. I always recommend him because it is um, it has made a huge impact in how I'm leading, how I'm presenting myself. Um, I'm working on, you know, um being more feminine in my energy. You know that as females entrepreneurs and females in the corporate world, it is hard for us to be on that feminine energy all the time, or even sometimes, because you have to, if you are in some sort of leadership position, you gotta act sometimes from that a personality, from that power, from that, you know, femme fatale. So I have learned that I need to steer away from it and then concentrate more on nurturing that softness, that you know, spirituality, etc. So that's exactly where uh I am today.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

I love that. Well, thank you so much. That was very personal, and I appreciate you being so open and candid and honest. So thinking about you know, some of the things that you offer in your services, obviously, listeners are not necessarily local to you. Are there any like advice or steps that someone could take, one or two steps to help start kind of unwinding that burnout and start to get to a place where they're getting fulfilled?

Practical Steps To Unwind Burnout

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Yeah. One of the things that really helped me was to understand and to have a main question for me was like, why am I doing what I do? It could be for who it could be what's the purpose of, you know, how do I spend my hours, how do I spend my time, on what level, you know, which emotional level or which emotion dominates my day? If it's an emotion of anxiety, if it's an emotion of stress, if it's an emotion of fear, that's where you really have to say, hey, you know, let's stop for a second and let's figure out where. And then from there, you got to find the resources. So if it's talking to a counselor, if it's talking to a spiritual director, if it's talking to your, you know, functional medicine physician, to figure out, you know, how can you be optimized? But the the basis is you have to start digging a little deeper. I do that with a notebook, and I ask myself the seven whys, you know, why am I here? And then go deeper into okay, why is this important, and then go deeper into why this means to me. And you go deep seven layers, and when you do find that, it is kind of like you're like relaxed, you know, because now you know what direction is it that you have to take. Yeah. And some other times you're gonna find out that you have to step away from what you're doing. And um, it's okay. You know, it's just like you have evolved, you are you're aligned, you're more aligned once you discover what how you want to spend your hours of your day at work, those hours that are there to build your future and your legacy, how you want to spend them. If you want to spend them burned out and doing something you hate, or you want to spend it doing something you love and get paid for it.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

That's it.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Yeah. I actually would add in exactly that. And another question is what is it that you love? What is what gets you up in the morning and excited to get out of bed? You know, a lot of us are not necessarily like, oh, I was so excited to go to work today and clock in, you know, or whatever the situation is, but I'm excited to work on this project. I'm excited to work with these people, I'm excited to move this goal forward down, you know, the football field so I can actually have this company do XYZ, which is why I'm I'm built it, right? So I think knowing what you enjoy doing is another key thing too. And I've had my kind of aha moment too. And I realized, you know, why am I pushing to go to these extremes when that's not really what I'm good at and I don't enjoy it? Let's just be honest. Like, I really don't enjoy it. So, like, let me focus on the things I do enjoy, and that fills your bucket up just by working on the and I I unfortunately catch myself working until eight or nine o'clock at night, but not because I have to, it's because I'm having so much fun and enjoying what I'm doing that it doesn't feel like work until my husband's like, Hey, are you gonna get off and come hang out with me? I'm like, Oh, right, gotta do that too.

Curiosity, Passion, And Career Pivots

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Yes. So um, to you know, exactly that sometimes doing what you're aligned with is it's not work, you know. Yeah, and you know what? Sometimes you you you're not going to discover your passion right away, but continue to have curiosity for things. At the end of the day, it is a journey, it is not a destination. It's like, okay, this feels good. Let's talk a little bit more about that. This feels good. Check with your gut. You have instant check with your gut whenever you're working on a project, whenever you are working on something that you know can become something else. Are you interested in that? And then take steps further to um make it profitable for yourself. Um, I have a lot of clients that they've been laid off, you know, recently, and um they're like, you know what, I'm kind of good because now I can actually work on my passion, you know. And how do you have to wait years, 10, 15 years on a job that doesn't feed your soul just because you have health insurance and just because you have paid time off, it's not feeding you, you know, it's not filling your bucket.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

Well, and a lot of times it's one of those things where it's like, yeah, you have benefits and pay time off, but because you're working so much for somebody else, you actually are not got that good work-life balance. You don't have, and you probably could actually be making more money into your bank account that covers those things. And then some, if you're doing what you're passionate about and not just coming in and clocking in and clocking out, and you know, the quiet quitters out there and all the other, you know, the low performers, the low engagement. Uh, you know, I think those are the people who've like, if they're listening for some reason and to this podcast, like think about what you want out of life because at the end of the day, I always say we only have so many circles around the sun, and it's not that company that's gonna be at your funeral and your gravesite morning that you're gone. So uh, you know, think about that for a minute. So let's kind of shift a little bit. You talked, we we're kind of queued up, you know, confidence and hormone connections. Can you talk to me about healing, confidence, and hormones in the same conversation? Like, why do you believe those two are so connected for women in leadership?

Hormones, Confidence, And Performance

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Um, they're connected because when we lead from burnout, we're leading from in the beginning very high levels of cortisol, which is what keeps us going, going, going, going, going, going. And then when we crush, because our body cannot make the same amount of epinephrine, norepinephrine, cortisol, serotonin, dopamine, all of that wonderful concoction of hormones, it can our body cannot keep up with the demand, right? Especially if you're eating at random times of the day, if you're nourishing yourself with things that are not really healthy. If you're drinking, a lot of people socialize daily, they have three, four, or five glasses of wine or cocktails daily, right? So all of that will end up in you being depleted. So turning the clock. I always start with lifestyle, but sometimes the lifestyle of somebody is the lifestyle. We can't change it a whole lot. Then we have to come and try to chemically balance and add on things that will help you feel better, sleep better, have more energy, better mood, better libido, better sex drive. Um, and those are the things that I do in my practice. I know that my clients cannot potentially slow down because they need the stamina. So, how can I improve their stamina with supplementation, with hormone replacement, with um lifestyle habits that are conducive to releasing some of that burnout? Um, and then we have blood work, we have urine analysis that will define the path for us. They will tell us exactly hey, this is what's happening. You have an issue with low testosterone, um, high cortisol or low cortisol, low testosterone, you know, low estrogen. Let's do a little compounding of creams or injectables, and let's try to get you up and running.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Yeah, that makes sense. So, what is one mind shift that took you from surviving, maybe you know, pre-burnout, into like actually causing you to get into burnout uh as a as a first-gen woman leader to actually scaling and thriving in your brand right now?

SPEAKER_01 17:09

So understanding that I cannot do everything by myself and the team around me is crucial. So I know that we are in an HR podcast, and I was just doing one of the reviews with my manager today. It's her first year anniversary with us. And um I couldn't do what I do, and I couldn't have gone from burnout to now relaxed as a reset without the help, without her help. So the team around you is crucial to maintaining your sanity. If you cannot trust the people around you, you have nothing, you have no business, you have no corporation, you don't have there's no support. So for me, it was oh, I can actually I hired somebody that I can actually trust with my business that is going to do the task that I ask her to do, I can delegate and she can think for herself. Wow. Now I can say I have a business and I'm not self-employed.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

Because at the end of the day, if you cannot, if you have to be in your business 24 hours, you're self-employed. You're not really a business owner. The business you is just so employ of yourself, right? Yeah, exactly. So finding that team of um of people that can support you and that you can trust and you can delegate, it is imperative when it comes to healing burnout.

From Surviving To Scaling With Team

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Yeah, I think that's a key. I mean, even if uh we have listeners who are more on the corporate side, like your team, building a team, building your leader. If you are a founder, getting the right leaders with you that you can trust, and then really be able to let them like solve those problems. You trust them, they're adult, they're actually engaged and give you that space and breathing room to focus on. Again, going back to what you enjoy, there's no founder out there I have met that can do it all. In fact, there's no person that can do it all. Some of us think we can or or want to, but the reality is nobody can. And so going back to what you thrive in, what you where you get fueled and um you know what you enjoy doing, do that and then let the people around you take care of the rest of the business. If you're not a numbers person, don't try to be the finance CFO, right? You know, if you don't know how to code, go get a tech person and help you build whatever it is that you're wanting to build. And I think that's such key. I've seen so many founders who continue to try to do it all and they just they muck it up and it impacts not only their own health, the health of the business, the health of the people that are working for you, and can actually have a negative impact on the timing of your success of your business.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Absolutely. I wish I would have known a lot of the lessons that I know. Today, you don't know. Oh, don't we all? But it's it's um, yeah, I'm somebody that if I can pay for it, I will delegate it. Yeah, because I know my limitations, I know exactly where I excel, and I know where I don't excel. Yeah, um, and the faster you get to know that, the faster you can get to your promised land because then things happen at the same time and everything comes together, and then you can scale. So, for example, marketing, a lot of people out there and like they're bootstrapping their business. It's like, well, I'm gonna do the marketing myself, and I'm gonna learn how to code, and I'm gonna learn how to, you know, service the customer and the fulfillment and all that stuff. And I'm gonna be my own CPA, I'm gonna be my own tax person. Yes, that's gonna be good for a year, but that's it. Yeah, you will never grow with that mentality.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Exactly. I I think it is good to have a baseline understanding of every aspect of your business so you can actually talk from a knowledgeable perspective and also know when to ask questions, when to say, that doesn't seem right. Let me dive into it a little bit, right? Not be completely blind, but at the same time, you're not the subject matter expert on everything.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

Exactly. Concentrate and build on the skills that you have, make them make yourself an expert on what you do and then delegate everything else.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

As long as obviously you have the funds. And you know, for the funds, as long as you have a solid business plan, any anybody will invest in you. You you need to have a solid business plan and a solid, you know, um uh business or service in people will invest because we're all looking where to put our money at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

And how where are we gonna get the ROI on that money? Yeah, yeah. Well, as we wrap up on today's podcast, Nelly, is there any last final thoughts or tricks or tips or tools you'd like to give the audience?

Delegate, Focus, And Fund Growth

SPEAKER_01 22:01

Yes. So I would love to invite all of your listeners to schedule a you know 30 to 45 minute consultation with me, especially the ladies who are out there burned out and are trying to, you know, heal the triggers, heal the trauma, heal the burnout, and go from super stressed to a high-achieving CEO that you know is commanding and leading from her heart. Um, so that consultation normally, you know, I charge for, but for you guys, can do it complimentary. Well, we love freebies. All right.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

And we'll put the link in the details below.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

Perfect. Um, just mentioned your podcast and you can follow me on at Nellie Tjohanson with two S on Instagram or Nelly under, I'm sorry, live underscore vibrant underscore medzpa. Those are my two Instagram handles.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Great. Awesome. Well, thank you, Nelly. We appreciate your time. And for the audience, I hope you had a moment to maybe even just use this to decompress a little, rethink about how you want to use your energy, how you want to fill up again and not be completely empty on the tank. And uh, we'll see you on the next podcast. Thanks everyone for joining us. Thank you. That's a wrap for today's episode of Scaling with People. If you got value from this conversation, do me a favor, share it with someone building something big. And hey, I'd love to hear your take. Drop a comment, shoot me a message, or start a conversation. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss the bold, unfiltered strategies we draw every week. I'm Gwynabre Cry, founder and CEO of Guide2HR, where we help high growth companies scale smart with people for strategies and AI powered systems that don't just keep up, they lead. If you're building fast and want your HR to move faster, head to guide2hr.com and let's talk. And remember, scale isn't just about speed, it's about people. Until next time, have a great one.