Episode 59: How High-Achieving Women Can Grow Without Burning Out

In this deeply eye-opening and energizing conversation, Jennifer sits down with Sophia McKenzie, founder of Gearing Together, who helps high-achieving women entrepreneurs and corporate leaders rebuild confidence, set boundaries, and grow without burning out.

Burnout is a buzzword these days but Sophia reframes it in a way you’ve never heard before. Instead of describing burnout as exhaustion from overwork, she defines it as a misalignment between your energy and your values. And once you hear her explanation, it will change the way you see your work, your stress, and your habits forever.

Sophia shares her own story of what she calls “extra-crispy burnout” the moment she realized her roles as a mom, employee, and daughter were stretching her to the point of breaking. From hives to hair-doing guilt to misaligned corporate culture, her story is both relatable and powerful.

Together, Jennifer and Sophia unpack:

• The emotional vs. physical roots of burnout
• How to recognize early symptoms (that most ignore)
• Why women entrepreneurs often overwork themselves straight into overwhelm
• How to break the overwork habit using small, intentional micro-habits
• Why outsourcing at home is also a CEO-level strategy
• What it really looks like to lead yourself differently

Sophia’s tools, stories, and gentle-but-direct style will leave you feeling seen, supported, and inspired to show up in your business in a healthier and more aligned way.

Meet Our Guest: 

Sophia Mikelionis is a leadership coach and former finance executive who helps high-achieving women entrepreneurs and corporate leaders rebuild confidence, set boundaries, and grow without burning out.

Connect with Sophia: 

www.gearingtogether.com
https://www.youtube.com/@GearingTogether

Instagram: @gearingtogether 

FREE Resource: 

You’ve Built a Business You’re Proud Of -But It’s Time for It to Work for You. You’re still wearing all the hats, working long hours, and not paying yourself what you deserve. You know there’s more possible. More profit, more clarity, and more freedom to enjoy the life you’re building.  The Earn More Stress Less 9-Pillar Blueprint helps women entrepreneurs with families create profitable businesses that finally pay them back. 

My name is Jennifer Kok, and I’m a profit and growth advisor for service-based women entrepreneurs. I help women business owners make smarter, more strategic decisions so they can grow profitably, pay themselves consistently, and avoid burnout.

Because the truth is, business owners make decisions all day long, but the ones that really matter are often the hardest ones. Should I hire? Raise my prices? Invest in marketing? Let go of a draining client? Expand, or simplify?

Those decisions carry weight, and they can impact your time, your profit, your energy, and your long-term growth.

That’s why I created the Focused Growth Collective, a virtual mastermind for women business owners who want support making the kinds of decisions that move a business forward. Yes, we talk strategy, but we also look at the bigger picture like mental load, health, profit, and long-term sustainability.

My goal is to help women build businesses that pay them well, support their lives, and still feel worth leading 10 years from now.

Connect with me:
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Transcript

Jennifer Kok (00:01.23)
Sophia, I am just beyond excited to have you on the show today. Thank you so much for joining me. It is so good to get to know you. So your focus with your work is helping high achieving women entrepreneurs and corporate leaders rebuild confidence, set boundaries, and grow without burning out. And before we dive into your story, I want to talk about burnout.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (00:06.571)
Bye, Jen.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (00:22.187)
Yeah.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (00:28.608)
Mm.

Jennifer Kok (00:28.62)
Because sometimes I feel like that word can get tossed around a lot. It's a little bit, the burnout culture, the hustle culture. It can be a little bit of a buzzword, right? But the reality of it is a lot of times when entrepreneurs may be quit or they fail, they a lot of times cite it as the reason as they were just burned out. So when we look at burnout, the Webster, good old Webster definition is to become exhausted.

either physically or emotionally due to prolonged stress or overwork. What is your definition of burnout?

Sophia M - GearingTogether (01:03.069)
Essentially when your energy and your values don't align. When you're showing up every day and you're investing your time, your effort and your energy and it doesn't match your heart, your soul, where you want to be and how you want to show up. And I think it's because the way that our society is wired, it's like a 24 hour news cycle. Like everyone is always on, you're expected to be on, you're expected to deliver. And that creates

pressure and it kind of forces us into these processes or always being on in ways that aren't natural to us in ways that basically force us to sacrifice kind of like parts of ourself along the way. And when we do that continuously, that's where the burnout leads. It's an exhaustion because your body, your mind, your emotions are like, this isn't what we signed up to do. Get me off this ride.

Jennifer Kok (02:02.844)
my gosh, I really, I feel like I just want to sit here for a minute because I have never heard anybody describe burnout like that, where your energy and your values do not align. You know, what I just read, the good old Webster definition to me seemed more physical. What you're sharing is more emotional.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (02:14.079)
Yeah.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (02:21.247)
Yeah, yeah.

Jennifer Kok (02:22.624)
And so probably because of that, that's what's causing the fatigue and the weariness and the tiredness, because you just don't have the energy. You're not excited about what you're doing because at the core, it's not aligning with who you are. Wow, that's powerful and a lot to kind of deep dive into there. So what I love about your business, gearing together, you started it after walking away from what you call your own extra crispy burnout.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (02:33.971)
Absolutely, absolutely.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (02:44.491)
Mm-hmm.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (02:51.211)
Yes, fried on both sides, okay?

Jennifer Kok (02:55.81)
Okay, I mean, my goodness, I was like extra crispy burnout. There has gotta be a story there and I have gotta hear it.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (03:01.387)
Yeah, well, let me tell you I was I was Missed all of my efforts and energy they weren't aligned to who I am in so many different ways One how I was showing up at home as a mother I was I neglected doing my daughter's hair so many times and I realized that Yes, my husband can get her to school. He can feed her he can clothe her but there's nothing like a mother's touch on her daughter's hair So that was one way

Second way is I joined a company doing what I enjoy doing, which is finance, but the company culture, it just wasn't a fit. I went from working on fun consumer packaged goods like cereal and candy and those things to pharmaceuticals. So it was just a little, little different culture when it comes to, cause honestly, if you miss your number, that's like life or death. So I found myself leaving.

home before the sun rose, driving to work, giving every inch, every ounce of myself to this culture that just wasn't aligned to who I am. like, you know, cracking jokes. I like making the numbers fun and there's no room in that culture and that industry where I was for that. So burned out two ways so far. And then my mother, I'm an only child. My mother's health began to decline. So I'm putting all my effort and energy and I don't know about

your listeners who have parents that are aging, but sometimes they don't listen. And sometimes the way I approach medicine is, let's, let's get all of the education and let's act. Let's, let's put all this stuff into practice. And my mom is just of the, she's of the, like the old school regime, like, no, I'll just do what the doctor says. I'll get a pill. It'll be fine. So that was friction. So I have friction in like three different places.

Jennifer Kok (04:32.557)
Yeah, no kidding.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (04:56.307)
and I was losing it. I was a jerk to my friends. I was a jerk to my husband. I was a jerk to myself. Everybody talks about make sure your cup is full because you can't pour from an empty cup, but what's in your cup, right? Like I was pouring out hostility. was pouring out anger. I was pouring out impatience. And that's how I realized, okay, something has to give. I'm, I'm burned out. And it was, it was hard to even realize it cause I'm a type A. So it's like, wait, I'm

Jennifer Kok (05:11.341)
Right.

Jennifer Kok (05:25.357)
I can do this, right. Yeah. Well, and most of us, women entrepreneurs, people in corporate, we are type A, you we're high achievers. We started a business that takes a lot of gumption, that takes a lot of desire to win. And so we are, we do find ourselves in that. And I think what was interesting about how you said you're pouring out of your cup and the things that were getting put into your cup were out of your control, which a lot of us...

Sophia M - GearingTogether (05:26.347)
I'm feeling something

Sophia M - GearingTogether (05:31.775)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (05:39.445)
Yeah.

Jennifer Kok (05:51.272)
as women have. lot of us are mothers. A lot of us do have aging parents, know, have houses to run, have businesses to run, and we're just getting pulled in all these directions. So did you recognize this in yourself or did somebody like somebody close to you say, hey, Sophia, like, something's got to give here?

Sophia M - GearingTogether (06:08.917)
Yeah. It was, it was me seeing my daughter's hair and I had that aha moment. Like, what am I doing? I'm failing. Some people wish they could be mothers, right? Some people wish they could have a family that's intact. Some people wish that they could take care of their aging parents. And I'm like, I'm failing on all of these. So the way I'm approaching it, something's not right. And when I took that role, I knew day two, was a mistake day two, but I could not tell my husband that.

Because So I convinced myself I looked at myself in the mirror I'm like you're gonna at least do a year we're gonna figure it out and In the midst of that I found small habits to help me reset to help me realign daily with who I am Where I want to be so that way I didn't have to burn it all down to reset and I could find home home to me

Jennifer Kok (06:39.829)
Well, he knows now.

Jennifer Kok (07:04.737)
You know, that's so interesting how you knew day two, your gut was telling you something that this was not gonna go the way you want it to go or where you want it to go. But it's so hard for us to just say, this isn't right. And you're not alone. I mean, we all keep showing up at things that we know we shouldn't be showing up at because we just don't know how to say, this isn't for me. And it's almost like we're embarrassed. So at what point...

Sophia M - GearingTogether (07:28.543)
Yeah.

Jennifer Kok (07:31.199)
Did you decide, okay, I'm leaving this corporate job that's just draining me in so many ways and I'm going to start a business? Where were you with that? Did the business come immediately after resigning or did you resign first and then took some time?

Sophia M - GearingTogether (07:44.556)
So I took an unofficial sabbatical. I admitted to my manager, hey, this isn't working. It's so funny. They gave me the paperwork for the sabbatical, and I was so frightened. couldn't even complete the paperwork. It was like first name. I was like, what do you mean, first name? OK, so either way, so I kind of had like a minor explosion there. I stepped away quietly. And because it was quietly, a lot of my coworkers were still pinging me, like, hey, what would you do in this meeting with Bill?

What would you do in this meeting with Cathy? So on and so forth. So I'm giving them my unbiased opinion. And basically I started mentoring one person and starting to two or three. And I was like, you know what? This is fun. This is energizing because I was not only giving them career advice, but also weaving in little habits to make sure they don't burn out.

Jennifer Kok (08:30.441)
Okay, very, very cool. So you mentioned a couple symptoms that you were feeling. Can you kind of just give us a little bit of generalization of what are some symptoms women might experience if they are starting to head down the burnout route?

Sophia M - GearingTogether (08:44.651)
Yeah, yeah. So I always look at the physical ones because typically those are the ones that we push down first, right? It's the headaches. It's that random eye twitch. You're like, I don't know why my eye's twitching, but I've been stuck in this Excel workbook for about two hours and I haven't gotten up for a bio break. Sometimes it's tight shoulders. For me, it was hives one morning. I legit woke up in hives, but

Jen, do you know what I did? I didn't even call a doctor. was like, give me some calamine lotion. Let me slide on a different color of cardigan. It'll be fine. So I think the body whispers that we're doing too much, but often because we're type A's, we just push past those. We're like, it'll be fine. I'll rest and then I'll reset tomorrow. So those are one thing. That's one element, the physical.

Jennifer Kok (09:19.117)
Yeah.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (09:35.808)
The other element I would say would be like the emotional, like, do you feel like you have space to think clearly? And typically the answer is no. Typically you're always in fire drill mode. Like, I'm not looking a month ahead. I'm just trying to get through this hour. I'm just trying to prepare for this meeting. If you don't have space for those things, and if you truly aren't able to focus, even if you do set aside time,

you could be headed for burnout. So those are two major things that I see with the clients I work with that relate to burnout.

Jennifer Kok (10:09.025)
Okay, so wonderful. So now that we kind of better understand how you define burnout, which I am just loving, and the symptoms that we can kind of look for. I love how you said you took your extra crispy moment and you turned it into a program that is pouring into people and is helping so many people, whether they're in corporate or women entrepreneurs. And you've kind of developed what you call your three strategies to kind of avoiding or managing it before we hit burnout. So you're trying to capture people.

before they get to that point of, just can't do this anymore, I can't even focus on this piece of paper, and I'm just yelling at all my loved ones around me. So you're trying to get to those people before, right? Okay, awesome.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (10:48.937)
Yes, yes. And that's the hardest time to get to people because they're like, it's not that bad. It's fine. They can handle it.

Jennifer Kok (10:54.859)
Yeah, I'll just push through it. I'm tough. I'm strong. know, I'm thinking back to when I started my first business and two days later I delivered my second daughter. And I was, you know, hormonal, physically exhausted, emotionally exhausted, had new employees. And I went to work with new baby. And there were so many moments when...

Sophia M - GearingTogether (11:11.199)
Yeah.

Jennifer Kok (11:20.573)
I was just like crying in the car, crying in the bathroom, just couldn't, my eyes were burning. I was just trying to get through, but I truly grew up in a family culture. My parents are British. You don't talk about these things and you pull up your bootstraps and you just keep going. And so a lot of us just have that instilled in us from our, or the way we are, you know, and it's not to say that was wrong advice from them. That's just what they knew.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (11:34.443)
Yeah.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (11:40.757)
Yeah.

Jennifer Kok (11:49.645)
Work harder, hustle, you'll build it, it'll come, you know, that kind of thing. So let's talk about a couple of these strategies. And the first one is breaking the overwork habit. What is that?

Sophia M - GearingTogether (12:01.835)
Well, first of all, to the point that you brought up just a few seconds ago about you just, push through because that's what you've seen is that's why we're here is to talk about leading yourself differently. You, if you want different results for yourself, if you don't want to burn out, you cannot repeat what your grandparents did, what your mom did, what you even see your friends do. You have to be resolved in yourself to truly.

make a decision like look I'm ready to pivot I'm going to change I'm going to show up differently so I'm sorry you asked I went on a tangent a soap box that's what some of my friends call me sorry

Jennifer Kok (12:36.47)
No, I love that. You have to intentionally make a decision that I'm going to do this differently. I am going to build this business differently. I am going to move up the corporate ladder differently. And I love that. So the first tip you share is breaking the overwork habit because a lot of us do overwork and especially entrepreneurs because they're chasing something, know, chasing revenue, chasing more profits, want it to be successful, want to, you know,

Sophia M - GearingTogether (12:42.75)
Yes.

Jennifer Kok (13:06.284)
break the overwork, and we overwork. And it's hard for us too to separate it. You know, I always say that when it comes to entrepreneurship, your business and your personal life are very intertwined. You know, we don't go to an office and leave it at the door. It's always in our minds. So what are some things we can do to help break the overworking habit?

Sophia M - GearingTogether (13:10.741)
Yeah.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (13:17.333)
Yeah.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (13:24.159)
Yeah, so a lot of times, like you said, when we start your own business, you're very resilient, right? Like you have, you're a different type of person, right? Normally it's like a type A person, a person that's typically very organized, who's very well put together, well oil machine. But you can't burn out in entrepreneurship because that same hustle culture in corporate,

it will drive you mad. will, it will like push you to your limit in entrepreneurship because you have to be the CEO, the CFO, you have to be the CHRO, like all of those things. And unless you weave in small habits, small ways that you intentionally recharge to break that overwork habit. And I'm assuming most people who step into franchise and entrepreneurship, you've been in corporate for at least 10 years or five years or, or even just

going through our school system here in the States, like overworking is a habit that we all have to break. So you have to set aside. We talked about knowing that you're to lead yourself differently, but setting aside small habits, small ways that you're going to enter, energize yourself throughout the day. that means leading with rest. Where in this week am I going to rest and no eating lunch one handed while typing over a keyboard is not. I did.

Jennifer Kok (14:45.044)
shoot, did you see me eat lunch today? You caught me.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (14:49.865)
That is not resting. Resting is a form of rest could be like having a screen free lunch, right? Or actually getting away from your desk to change environments. Like rest isn't always a nap. Sometimes it is, but how, how are you adding that to your week consistently? And you really need to evaluate like your energy cycles. Do you have all of your energy in the morning? So then how are you going to recharge for the afternoon? I mean,

What I learned is like, you know, self leadership, it isn't about doing more. It's about leading yourself differently. And I say that because all of our peers, everyone else we know, everything we've seen is go, go, go. But you're going to repeat that unless you truly focus on how you're going to prioritize rest. There's a, there's a book by Courtney Carver. It's called, uh, what was it called? Rest? Oh, it's called Gentle. And she talks about resting through instead of pushing through. How would your day?

shift if you just thought about resting through. I'm going to, instead of resting the reward, I'm going to partner. Rest is going to be my partner so that way I can show up as my best self. Do I think best if I'm on a walk? Maybe I should have a walk and talk meeting with whoever I'm on the line with, but you gotta break up the day.

Jennifer Kok (16:04.974)
That's huge, and how do we practically go about doing that? Do you have to have a little pep talk with yourself? What do you tell yourself when you're going to sit down and have lunch, put away your phone, get away from your desk, and not feel like you don't have that gift of time to do that?

Sophia M - GearingTogether (16:20.341)
guilty.

Yeah. Well, as an entrepreneur, you create your own schedule and you have to realize that you have the power to control it. And when you come from corporate cultures, you feel like, no, I'm on someone else's timeline. I have to do it. Right. So that's the first thing. The second thing I would say is you really have to take a step back and think about how you show up best. Right. Is that, is that getting a full 10 hours of sleep? Is that getting, you know, five hours of sleep with a nap? Like you need to evaluate.

how you show up best and then try to add that to your day. It's not about being a busy bee. It's about doing those things that energize you and really build you up. And for instance, if someone doesn't know, because often when I'm talking to my clients, they're like, I got my hobby is, you know, making all of my receivables and getting all my payouts and making sure I have a customer. And what I do, what we do is,

The brain rewards whatever we practice, whatever we give the brain and do consistently, the brain says, okay, this is what we do. This is our norm. So when you're breaking away and doing something different, when you're taking that 10 minute break, when you're resting, when you have your coffee and just sitting and staring off, you have to give yourself words of affirmation, positive reinforcement. This is good because now I have time to think about strategy.

This is good. And I always like to use a coffee mug. I know everyone is obsessed with like those, those, insulated cups that keep your, your hot drinks warm for eight hours or your cold beverages cold for eight hours. But I always like a mug because that physical touch of heat. let's just say you have a mug, you put your coffee in the mug, right? So now the mug is warm. It reminds me when I pick it up, it reminds me to slow down. It reminds me to take a pause. It reminds me, Hey, it's okay to think through.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (18:13.769)
the problem I'm rushing to solve before I just jump into like tactical mode, like take a, take a step back. So it's, I would say add small inconveniences. Like the mug is inconvenient, right? Cause you're not tethered to your desk. But again, until you lead yourself differently, nothing will shift.

Jennifer Kok (18:33.359)
I love the coffee reference, like sit there until that coffee goes cold. Start there. You have permission to sit there and drink your coffee.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (18:38.165)
Yes, yes, you have permission. have permission. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing. You know, it's not forever. It's not 30 minutes. It'll be, I don't know, five to seven minutes. Well, it depends on how quickly you chug it, but that's a good way to allow yourself space to think.

Jennifer Kok (18:48.75)
Right.

Jennifer Kok (18:52.224)
Now that.

That's great. And that kind of leads into what you call outsourcing without guilt. I feel like women entrepreneurs carry a lot of guilt, especially those that are parents. You like you said, one of your aha moments was the fact that you couldn't do your daughter's hair. And I could feel how emotionally that just hits. You know, we've been there, right? And so you...

Sophia M - GearingTogether (19:06.411)
and

Sophia M - GearingTogether (19:12.704)
Yeah.

Yes, my goodness. Yeah.

Jennifer Kok (19:19.051)
you're at work and you feel guilty that you're not at home doing something. You're at home and you feel guilty that you're not working in your business at seven o'clock at night or scrolling through TikTok or whatever it is that you feel like you're supposed to be doing to get your next idea. And so you talk about delegation is not a luxury, but a leadership move. And I see this a lot with my clients.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (19:38.101)
Yeah.

Jennifer Kok (19:42.028)
They always ask me, how do I know when to hire? How do I know what to delegate? And some of it is tactical, like how much money do we have to pay somebody? And some of it is about your energy. What are you the best at? And let's outsource the things you're not. And some of it, I say, is a strategy of what's going to help you build your business down the road even stronger, is you have to show up as a CEO. So how do you help your clients deal with that guilt when it comes to

Sophia M - GearingTogether (19:57.407)
Yeah.

Jennifer Kok (20:11.501)
delegating and outsourcing.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (20:14.507)
Okay, so that's the tough part. We talked about being It's so funny. I worked with this pastry chef I don't even know how she came to me as a client but I loved it because it broke the the mold of being a corporate client and She was just doing everything. You know, like not only is she ordering the material not the materials the the ingredients She's also, you know helping prep all the materials. She's looking at it for the Q &A She's just she's doing everything because she's

so engaged in how the final product comes out. And I took a step back and I asked, but where is your most value added? If you've been doing this for 15 years, is your value add in ordering the same materials over and over again and ingredients, or is it helping improve the employees, their skillset, their momentum so that way they can stay with you? Where's your value add? And then where that value add is?

That's where you need to be. So you need to do whatever else you need to do as a business owner to make sure you can stay in that place. So if it's an ideation or sitting in front of the customer or doing sales, sell enough so that way you can outsource the other thing. Because when you wear too many hats, really you're an overqualified administrative assistant. You're an overqualified sous chef. You're an overqualified, floor sweeper.

So you have to outsource those things in order to free up that space for clarity of mind, for energy to move forward. I'm guilty of this myself. I was doing all the things and my husband kindly tapped me on the shoulder and he was like, I love what you're building, but I'd like to see you sometime.

Jennifer Kok (21:57.774)
Yeah. mean, sometimes those people around us give us the most convicting messages. Like, that's a wake-up call. Yeah.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (22:02.963)
Yeah, yeah, and the question is, yeah, do we listen, right? So yeah, I would say like when you look at look at what you're doing, your like your expertise area, and then figure out how you can live there. Where can you buy more, sell more, move things so that way you can outsource. Now the guilt comes from it may not be perfect. And that's okay. That's okay, because we're doing the long game here. It's not about short term wins. It's about the long game. And as you

are refining their process as you are training people or as you are scouting for people to fill this spot. Again, it's those words of affirmation. You have to tell yourself this is strategy. Yes, this is leadership. Yes, I am being a CEO in this moment versus my name's on the outside shingle and if I don't do this, it won't get right. So again, we have to take a beat to, I always like to lead with what can I delete today? What can I delegate? What can I delay?

because when I lead my day with those things, it helps me remind myself, hey, I like to be a sales guy today, saleswoman. That's my field of expertise, so I gotta delete some stuff. I gotta delegate.

Jennifer Kok (23:13.475)
Okay, I am putting that on my office wall. What can I delete today? That's brilliant. And it's true because we do wear all the hats. And when you first get started, you kind of have to for a little while, but I see it too often. We stay there too long wearing all the hats, not delegating and feeling bad. There's almost like this ridiculous badge of honor that entrepreneurs are trying to go achieve and receive for, hey, I did this all by myself.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (23:16.937)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (23:23.275)
Yeah.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (23:37.449)
Yes, yes, yes!

Jennifer Kok (23:42.818)
Nobody builds anything by themselves. I don't know any successful person that got there by themselves. But for some reason, we feel like we're supposed to prove something by doing it ourselves. And really, at the end of the day, all you're going to prove is that you're going to head to burnout if you're not careful. So this is so good, Sophia. So last little point that you talk about, well, not little, but is redefining productivity. You know, we talked about small breaks.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (24:03.499)
You

Jennifer Kok (24:07.735)
You talk about micro habits, smarter systems that fuel growth instead of draining you. And I think, you know, we've touched on a lot of that, but I think it does come down to the keyword of habits. You know, we have been operating one way for a long time. And now all of a sudden we have to start to massage these new ideas and.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (24:14.347)
Yeah.

Jennifer Kok (24:29.411)
show up differently every day and that takes time and you don't you feel like a lot of us just put an unrealistic expectation on ourselves like it's supposed to happen tomorrow and I'm gonna do this for seven days and it's all gonna be fixed. So how do we kind of redefine our productivity? do we do that?

Sophia M - GearingTogether (24:40.447)
Yes, yes.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (24:46.151)
Well, it starts with what success looks like, right? Like we really need to get clear on what success is. And for entrepreneurs, when you're first starting out, sometimes success is, it's in the metrics. You know what mean? Like how often am I, how often am I doing X or how consistent am I with Y? How many cold calls did I do, right? Because often we take success or productivity as like this big thing, like,

I have to be busy and it's so funny. was just doing a YouTube clip on this one about toxic productivity. Sometimes we're just so obsessed with, you know, redoing this or refining this and making it amazing or being busy because we know that we have to keep going. often it's not about productivity. It's really about showing up as your best self today. It's using your energy wisely and

For instance, I woke up this morning and I didn't sleep well. And I was like, you know what? Me trying to knock out a BNC this morning, that's not going to work. So let me either go for a walk. Let me try to do something manual with motor skills, with my hands, like let me, you know, refold those clothes or redo the closet, refold the closet to be productive. So it's, it's looking at yourself and trying to understand how I can show up better based on my energy. And again, to your point, productivity is not measured by everybody else.

Yes, she's productive because she has a hundred people standing outside. No, productivity is delegating what you can. Productivity is feeding yourself, like truly feeding yourself. Like, don't just eat a granola bar. Like truly have a hot meal. So that way your mind is fueled so that way you can show up best. But I would look at that to-do list because I know entrepreneurs live by that to-do list and put those three things, delete, delegate, and delay on the right side.

as well as wins. So that way you can see, like literally jot down your wins. I was able to do two cold calls. Yes, they wore me out, but I did two cold calls. That's my win. I was able to delegate these two items to that new assistant or that part-time intern, or sometimes delegating is ordering your groceries. Don't tell anybody. Sometimes it's ordering your groceries or sometimes it's eating leftovers that you don't want to eat anymore.

Jennifer Kok (27:06.318)
Right.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (27:08.031)
But that's what it looks like. So redefine how you see it and what it feels like.

Jennifer Kok (27:13.369)
You know, I love how you touched on that because I always tell entrepreneurs that sometimes getting help at home too is part of the big picture success. Whether that's having your groceries delivered or having one of those home meals kind of already come to you prepared or a house cleaner, whatever it is, or have your family help in certain areas. Because you're right, we can't do it all. So I, know, selfishly, I'm really glad that you had your extra crispy burnout.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (27:40.649)
Hahaha!

Jennifer Kok (27:40.655)
Even though it was not good for you, but look at the gift that has come out of that for so many entrepreneurs. So take us through your services. How do you help people? What are your services? What does that look like to work with you?

Sophia M - GearingTogether (27:45.033)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (27:53.888)
Yeah, so I host workshops for small teams who have burnout and they have no clue what to do with that. I also offer one-on-one coaching. If you feel like, hey, I just need to talk to somebody because I've been trying to figure this thing out and I can't quite nail it because we can come up with, it's one thing to know what to do, but it's another thing to have the accountability. So one-on-one coaching. And if both of those feel like a heavy lift, I have a YouTube channel that I would encourage folks to subscribe to.

because I'm unpacking all the things, the ways that burnout creeps into our world, the way that burnout stays attached to the way that we think, and then self-leadership, how to lead yourself out of it.

Jennifer Kok (28:36.897)
Awesome, and I know you're also offering our listeners a free resource. It's called the Power Back Worksheet, and it's a tool that helps women pinpoint where they're losing energy and how to take it back. So I'll put the link to the show notes in our show notes today. Sophia, thank you so much. This is really just so refreshing and energizing. And I love how you are framing burnout is the first person I've ever heard talk about it that way.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (28:42.313)
Yes.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (29:06.122)
Yeah.

Jennifer Kok (29:06.795)
And I think by doing so, makes sense that we really need to pay attention to this. And it's not a buzzword. It is real. And there's nothing, you I am passionate about helping women entrepreneurs build businesses for years to come.

and not quit or fail by year five, like the statistics tell us, only one out of two make it. And I know that this is a piece of it. So I will be sharing this out to anybody and everybody I know. I think the work you're doing is so impactful. And I just want to thank you for sharing a little bit of it, giving us a taste of it. And I'm going to encourage all listeners to reach out to you. Follow your YouTube. Get to know Sophia. She is somebody you need in your life. So thank you so much for being here today.

Sophia M - GearingTogether (29:45.771)
Thanks, Jen.