Redefining Success: Choosing Joy Over Burnout feat. Eric Nehrlich

What happens when the thing you’ve been chasing suddenly doesn’t feel worth it anymore?

In this conversation, Alyssa Nolte and Eric Nehrlich unpack the pressure to achieve constantly and the freedom that comes from saying no. Eric shares the story of how working 100-hour weeks at Google led to a total collapse and a life-changing realization: success means nothing if it costs your health, joy, and relationships. Alyssa reflects on her own “mirror moment,” realizing she’d been modeling the same burnout cycle for her kids.

This episode is a must-listen if you’ve ever asked yourself, is it worth it? or felt trapped by the pace of your own ambition.

Key takeaways:

•  Saying no is a skill and it’s one that can change your life.
•  Energy audits help you find what fuels you and what drains you.
•  The best leaders set clear expectations and model the balance they want for their teams.

Mentioned in this episode:

•  TooManyTrees.com (Eric’s coaching site)
•  LinkedIn – Eric Nehrlich
•  Google, Apple (referenced in Eric’s story)

It's time to say "goodbye" to the Sunday Scaries.

Connect with Alyssa
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alyssanolte/
Subscribe to the Taking Back Monday Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7158635254474272768/
Follow the show on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TakingBackMondayPod
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Transcript

0:01

Hey, you're listening to Taking Back Monday. My name is Alyssa Nolte, And I'm Eric Nehrlich, and we are going to get right into it. Eric, tell us what is your origin story? so my origin story is Christmas Day, 2011. I've been looking forward to this day for weeks, actually months.'cause I've been working incredibly hard. I've been working a hundred hour weeks. At the time I was working at Google, I was trying to earn a promotion. I was told, get everything done. Here's all this work to do. And if you just get it through it all, if you exceed expectations, you're gonna get that promotion. I pushed it.

I'm like, I'm working 8: 0:38

00 AM to midnight every day. I'm working weekends. I am just doing everything I can. Anything anybody asks me, I'm like saying, yes, I can do that. I will deliver. No matter what it takes, I'm gonna make it happen. In my head, I'm like, I just have to get through till Christmas.'cause then, you know, then I've hit the end of the year. Annual planning will be done. I can, I can relax. So I get through to Christmas. I'm like, I'll, it's to have my family. It's gonna be great. I wake up Christmas morning with 103 degree fever and my body just collapses. Like I basically don't get outta bed for a week, and it was miserable. I'm like, I'm like, wait, what am I doing? What am I doing with my life? And I didn't have a good answer to that'cause like that, that my whole life had been, what's the next milestone to hit? Get the next job, get the next promotion. You know, it's the, the, the conveyor belt of go, go, go get to college, get the job, get the promotion up, up, up, up. Always what's next? I never asked myself why, why do I want that next promotion? What's in it for me? What's, what's gonna be different for me if I get that promotion? Or, and I'd also never asked myself, what's the cost? Like, what am I giving up for that promotion? But lying in bed that week. For whatever reason, I finally asked myself that question, like, do I even want this promotion? Is this worth it to me? And the surprising answer was no, it was not worth it to me. I went into the office after, in January and my first one-on-one of my manager, I'm like, I'm not doing this anymore. And they said, what? What? What does that mean? Like, I'm not working that hard anymore. It's not worth it. They said, I don't understand. This is your job. And I said, well, I'm not gonna work that hard anymore. And they said, okay, well if you can't do the work, I'll find somebody that can, and you're definitely not getting that promotion if you're not doing the work. I'm like, okay. And so they took away, half my team gave it to somebody else. They slashed my performance rating. That was terrifying. That was the first time in my life I had said no to an authority figure. The first time in my life I'd said, no, I can't do what you're asking of me. I'd always been the gold star achiever that exceeds expectations, and it felt terrifying and disorienting for a little, for a few weeks probably. And then I was like, wait. I'm still getting paid by, I'm working 40 or 50 hours a week instead of a hundred hours a week. I can see my friends, I can have a life, I can go on a bike ride if I want to. This is a totally different life and that, so that's my origin story.'cause I, I realized. That I had a choice. I could do what I wanted to do with consequences. I mean, it's not like I got to keep the promotion and work less, but there were consequences. But if I was willing to accept those consequences, I could make different choices. I, I believe firmly that the unit. Verse puts these conversations into my, into my path because I'm having almost the same parallel conversation, um, with myself, right? And, and this whole idea of is it worth it? Are we doing this for the right reasons? Am I willing to do what it takes for this outcome? And having to be the one who makes that choice, not necessarily just letting the world make those choices for me.'cause I too, very high achiever, I used to tell people that, um, I was one of those people that my, the next words outta my mouth were always, what's next? What's now? Let's go. And, uh, for some people that can be really obnoxious because I never rest in the moment of victory. I'm always onto the next thing we're trying to achieve. Um, and so I relate to that so strongly and I, I'm in that moment right now where. You know, there's a, there's a. A fork in the road for me and I can make a choice. And one choice is absolutely killing myself to try to make something happen. And the other choice is doing something that I really enjoy, um, but maybe isn't the most exciting or impressive or the thing that's gonna get me that, you know, Ted talk slash keynote slash whatever, you know, you're trying to get. And I am sitting here and nobody's gonna make the choice for me. And I've been sitting here waiting for a couple months waiting for someone to make that choice for me. And I finally realized literally yesterday. I have to actually make a choice right now. I don't get to just, I don't get to wait for someone else to do it for me. I have to either decide to do it or not. And so I resonate so much with your story right now. Yeah, and I, I think it's very easy for people like you and me to wait for other people to make that choice.'cause they will give us opportunities. I mean, that's what kind of ruined me at Google was I had, it was a situation where I like, I did work, I did good work when I got there. They're like, great, you're doing that. Well, here's some more. Oh, you're doing that? Here's some more. Oh, you're doing that. Here's some more. And I had never been in an environment where they gave me more work than I could handle. So I had never learned to say no. It was like, which sounds ridiculous, you know? I'm like, whatever, in my late thirties at this point. And I'm like, I've never learned to say no and. Yet, so, 'cause I'd always been like, well, I'll just kind of see what, what people offer me, and if that sounds interesting, I'll go after it. And that's, I just kind of drifted through life waiting for opportunities to appear in front of me and then go after what was in front of me. And this experience I had was where the first time I'm like, no, I'm gonna make some more conscious, intentional choices about what do I want for my life at this point in time. Um. I think that's, it's a really hard choice.'cause it's like the, the great part about waiting for other people to tell you what to do is if it doesn't work out, you can blame them. Oh, it's my mom's fault for making me go to college. Oh, it's this manager's fault. It's, it's somebody else's fault. I don't have to take responsibility for my life 'cause I'm doing it for other people and it's, it was really scary. Still is really scary for you to say like, no, I'm doing this for me, and I will take the consequences and I'll take the responsibility for that choice. So I wonder if any of that resonates with you? It does. And one of the other things that, that I was thinking about as you were talking was, um, I used to wear. The ability to handle more than any other human being as a badge of honor. I got such a rush of people being impressed by all of the stuff that I was doing and saying things like, I don't know how you do it all, and, and all of those things. And like I didn't realize in the moment that I enjoyed that, like. Disbelief that people had and how amazing and incredible and successful and talented I was at, you know, being busy. Um, but it took a lot of like reflection to say, okay, I, I really didn't want to be busy. I wanted to be a martyr as a personality trait of all of these amazing things that I could do. And I was incredible and I was talented and I was so much better than everybody else 'cause I could balance everything and they couldn't. And I remember literally telling people like. Oh yes, work the best 70 hours of my week. And I meant it like unironically and like, but like people in our society and in our culture, were impressed by that. And it was a positive it. They're like, this is amazing. I know. And so I got such a dopamine rush out of like people celebrating me for literally making myself. Sick because I used to have the same thing that you would have in in December where it's almost like my body knew I had a two week stretch where I was, I was gonna be able be able to take a break. It's like, alright, now we can do all of that sickness we've been holding onto.'cause we haven't really been allowed to do it now, but here's our window. So I would always get sick. My, my downtime was like the second or third week of December. I would always be deathly ill like on my deathbed every single December and. It got to the point where I was like, I'm missing all of my good family time and, and I have kids now who are doing Christmas and mommy's in bed sick when I'm, and I'm missing out on all of these things and for what? hmm. Yeah. For the sake of an identity that's like, I'm the one that can do it all. I'm the special one. I'm the person that can handle whatever this is. Um, and how old are your kids, if you don't mind me asking? Uh, they are now six and 10. Um, when this was all happening though, I mean, uh, my, my little was a newborn. He was like between ages of like one to three. I spent way more time working. I went back to work at like six weeks because I was desperate to get back to my desk. And so like, uh, there's a lot of things that I missed out on his first three years because. Mommy was a badass and she was gonna go, you know, she was gonna have it all and I, I missed out on a lot of his first three years for that reason. Um, yeah, and I mean, there's good reasons to do that also. Like, I don't want to, like, I, I've always, I don't, I I want to be clear like that. There you were a bad asset work and you were doing a lot of great things and like there's great things to that also, especially in our society, which has certain tendencies. It's great for kids to see that their mom works and that work is important to mom and it's not just, oh, mom's gonna stay home and take care of the kids and dad's gonna go to work like that is. So you're, you're setting a different model and you're also setting the model, like, I gotta work until I make myself sick and, Well, it got to the point where there was one night where I had another child and she was in, she was probably like two. She was sitting in my office and it was like right before bedtime and she has a little like toy laptop. And I'm sitting at my computer and I'm working and she's sitting over on the corner, she's clocking away on her laptop and I look over and I say something like, okay, Charlotte, we gotta go. And she goes, mommy, I am in a meeting and you need to be quiet. And I was like. Oh my God, you have heard me say that to you? Like she, like it was like looking in a tiny mirror and one of, I think that maybe was my origin story of like, oh my God, like I do want you to see me as a badass entrepreneur who's building, you know, interesting businesses, but not at the expense of like. You think that this is how the world is and that there's no choice in it and that that's what comes down to me. Like if you wanna be a stay at home mom. Yes. If that's your choice. If you wanna be a badass at work, yes. If that's your choice. And it goes back to your origin story, right? That you were making the choice to not be a 100 hour, a week a week person, that you were making the choice to do what everyone else was doing, which was work 40 to 50. It's not like you were asking to work 10. yeah, yeah. I, I, it's, there's all these choices that PE people make, but they just make them unintentionally and unconsciously because it's the way they've always done things. One of the things I try to do now as a coach is help people realize they have these choices. They're like, oh, I'm stuck. I can't do anything different. Well, my manager's asking this of me. My company needs me to do this. And it's like, yeah, they are asking it of you, but you don't have to say yes. They're like, well, if I say no, what's gonna happen? I'm like, I don't know. I don't know, like, I don't know the, the full consequences, but let's be, let's be honest, about what it's costing you in this moment. That, that, that you're exhausted, that you're burned out, that you're struggling, or it's costing you time with your family. Um, I, I have a similar story of when I actually left corporate life myself was, so I've been working, so I actually stayed at Google after burning out and found a way to balance things a little better and. Well, I guess it was another six, seven years I was at Google. Um, in a job I actually found that was fulfilling and I kept my boundaries better and so forth and so on. But then I had my first child and doing my job well at work. Was going to mean and I was gonna start missing out on thing, the things you're talking about in those early years and um, I'd already been exploring coaching for myself at that point for a year or two, and I was debating like, am I really, like, does this make sense for me to like leave the high paying, secure, you know, and it, and let's be honest, impressive. Like, I don't know how many people on LinkedIn have X, Google X, Salesforce, X, whatever in their headline as. Again, a badge of honor. Yeah, exactly. So I'm like Google chief of staff running the search ads business. This is, you know, like, like I'm, it, it's was an impressive title, lot of money. And I walked and I was like, does this make sense to wake, walk away from that to do some fly by night, self-employed thing when I'm at, when I have my first kid. Like, shouldn't I be providing for my family? Shouldn't I be providing, um, you know, the, the security and the financial security. Um, and two things I should say here. One, my wife works at Apple, so we are fine. Uh, we have one big secure fa salary of the family, so it made it easier to make that choice. But at the time, I had a coach myself and she asked me, it's like, is that the example you wanna set for your son? That it's better to work all the time for the sake of money at a job that doesn't fulfill you? Is that what you want? I was like, ow, don't do that. That, that, that was mean. But I mean, that was, that was the essence of it. It's like, it's, especially when you have kids, it's, you don't realize how much you're role modeling, what, what the way to approach the world in every interaction. And you, you just, you told a great story of it. So it's, it's, it's a, it's, but I, I guess I wanna say that even if you're not a parent and listening to this. You are still role modeling for everybody around you. The behavior you want in the world. If you're a manager, people are looking at you. If you're a leader, people are looking at you and they're saying whatever that person's doing is what's right. It's the right way to behave in this environment. And even if you're not a manager, even if you're not a leader, if you're a person that sets boundaries and shows, you can still get work done in 40 hours a week and not work 80 hours a week, your coworkers are gonna notice that and they'll be like, whoa. How do they do that? What's going on there? And uh, that's something I find so fascinating now is that like we can all be a role model. We can all be a leader just in how we show up every day, every interaction, every moment. There's a ton in there that I want to, to kind of double click on one, I think the importance of, you know, in the same way that. My daughter held up a little mirror to me and I, I, you know, saw something that I didn't like. Your coach did the same thing because sometimes. You can't see yourself clearly. Right. Especially when we tell ourselves these stories. We create these narratives around who we are and what we value and what our identity is. And for a lot of us Americans, that is wrapped up in what we do. It's the first thing that, um, when you go to any kind of event, so what do you do? Right? And I've made a conscious effort to not ask that question. Um, instead I ask people what they're working on. So, Hey Eric, what are you working on? And sometimes they'll tell me about their work and sometimes they'll tell me about like, an art project or something that they care about individually. Um, because I found myself only really asking the question and caring about who people were when they, uh, first caring about them as. Employees, but then second caring about, and then later caring about them as people. And I'm like, okay, we can't do that. We can't do that. But it is my hypothesis, I guess, that you know, our leadership, the people that we are, that are role modeling for us, or if we are leaders that are role model for our employees, that we have the, the obligation, the mandate, the power, whatever word you wanna use. To create environments for our employees in which they can be great team members, which they can have a fulfilling work life, which they can come to work on Monday, fulfilled and excited to be there, and not necessarily like the Sunday scaries that a lot of people get where they just dread work. So when you're thinking about great leaders that you've seen, or tactics or or conversations that you've had with your coaches. How do we as leaders create environments where people actually can high perform because they are excited to be there and they're happy to be there. There's no one path I think there. I mean, what I like, I guess what I'll say is like you can find that you can, sorry, lemme restart. There's a lot of different ways to be that kind of leader. There are some people who are in the stage that you were before where it's like, I'm excited to spend 70, 80, 90 hours a week working. That's what I want to do. Like I am my best self at work and there are PE and like I've been that person. You've been that person. Like I am a superhero at work. I can do it all. And that's really satisfying and really fulfilling. If you have no other obligations, like why not put your time into something that's going to give you, like you said, the dopamine, the achievements, the skills, the recognition. Like that's great. And then the leaders, leaders that model that and say, that's what I, that's who we are at this company. That's fine, but that company's not for everybody. And there's other companies that feel like, no, we're gonna work 40 hours a week and we're gonna work hard when we're here and we're gonna like take off at the end of the day and we're going to. Have a life outside of work, and that's great too. There's no one right way to do this. All I want people to recognize is that these are both choices and to make those choices consciously and intentionally. And so like a lot of times when I'm talking to people, they're like, well, where should I work next? I'm like, let's talk about what you want out of work, out of life. What makes you, what helps you be your best self? And that people don't like, and that, you know, that's, you know, uh, one question I ask is ask is like, what's something you're really proud of in your last, you know, five or 10 years? Something that you're excited about, something you still tell people about is a great thing. Okay, how do we get more of that? Let's figure out what are the conditions that allow that to happen. That's what I think I want. People want. That's what I, sorry. To your point about like people doing their best work, that's what I want for them. How do we create the conditions where they can do that kind of work? And that's gonna be different for different people. Some people really love the grind. Some people really need lots of downtime to, to be creative and innovative. And all I ask leaders to do is be clear about what they expect from people. I say, this is what it takes to succeed here. If that's a good fit for you, that's fine. There's gonna be someplace else where you are a good fit. Give them the ability to opt in or opt out and to know what they're opting in or opting out of. Right? Because a lot of times, I don't know about you, but I've come across leaders who will be a little bit cagey about it. Like they'll have, they'll say one thing, but their actions actually. Totally drive a different behavior and you're, you just wanna shake 'em and be like, it's okay to just be who you are. Like own it. If that's the way, if that's what takes to succeed here. If sitting at your desk to be randomly called anytime between eight and five is what the expectation is, own that. Don't sit here and pretend like, oh, we're a flexible workplace and we can go, do you know if you have to go pick up your kids, whatever. But then you get punished when you have to pick up your kids at four 30. That's like. Not, and people will start to pick up on that and be frustrated by that. There are two things that I wanna follow up on. Number one, I love the idea of trying to look back and think about like, okay, what are the highlights of my, like my last 10 years, and how do I make a high highlight reel that is my future, right? Less highlights or more highlights, less bloopers, less filler, that kind of stuff. I love that. I think that's so important. If someone is listening to this and they are having a mirror moment in the way that you did with your coach and I did with my daughter, Mm-hmm. what the heck should they even do next? Like, what is the one thing you would have them, you know, finish this podcast, then turn it off, and then do what? So the first thing I would suggest is doing what I would call an energy audit. Throughout your day, throughout your week. I think maybe at the end of each day, even just look back at your day and say like, what did I spend on, what did I spend my time on today that energized me? That like made me excited, that made me give me a spark of life. And what did I spend my time on today that was draining. That was like, oh my God, if I have to do this a lot more, I'm just, I don't know what I'm gonna do. Um, and the people that are, have the mirror, having the mirror moments where they're really frustrated is probably gonna be like 20% energizing, 80% draining in their day. And that's a recipe for disaster because like the, you, like, when are you getting energized? Because if you're working too much, then you don't have time in the evenings to energize yourself. Um, so I'd ask those people to then take a moment to think about like, what are the things that energize me? What are the things that allow me to recharge? Maybe that's alone time. If you're an introvert, maybe that's time with people. If you're an extrovert, maybe that's deep. Um, uh, deep. skill development, like, oh, I really wanna get good at this thing. Um, or maybe it's like serving other people. It's purpose, it's impact, whatever it is. Figure out what motivates you or what energizes you and try to find a way to get a little more of that in your life each day. And if you can do even just a little bit, like even 20 or 30 minutes of something that energizes, you can change your whole day. And if you do it intentionally and you can build on it, so you do a little more energizing stuff and a little less straining stuff. You're gonna, and you keep doing that step by step over the course of weeks and months and years. Eventually you can find your way to a pretty amazing life. And that's, so that's the advice I give. It's like, it's not standard career advice. It's not like here, if you wanna be a VP of finance and this is the path, you go tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, and go down the milestones. I, I don't believe in that.'cause I've had a very unconventional career path. It's, I've wandered all over the place. I've had four different careers at this point. But what's worked for me is to continue seeking out things that energize me, and if I have more energizing things and less draining things, and that's what I found at each step of the way. I've gotten to a pretty good place. You know, thinking about all of the incredible people that you know or aspire to know, who else should we be listening to? Who is leading the charge? I'm not gonna, I, I, I can't go with a specific person, but what's, what I, I think I wanna say is like people that are energized, that have spark, that find joy in their lives because they're in touch with something that many of us forget in our working lives. It's not just obligation. It's not just, I have to do this, I must do this. There's something that we forget about that there is. Joy in doing something we're good at or joy in serving others. Joy in having purpose, and if you can get more, if you see other people like that, watch them. Be with them. Learn from them. Because if we can nurture that spark of joy in ourselves and we all have it and may be buried under 20 years of commitments and obligations, but it's in there, I promise, then we have a chance to nurture that in ourselves. And on that point, like having kids is a great way to do that.'cause kids have a lot of joy and it's really easy to shut them down. I do it myself, I'll be honest. Like, I'll be like, oh, we're, we have to get to, we have to get to the next thing. We gotta get a thing, go, go, go. And it's like they're just trying to show me the Lego they built. Let me honor that joy even for five seconds before I push them onto the next thing. So honor, joy, I guess is what I would say. And if someone is really connecting with you, they've, they've had a mirror moment or they, you know, are drawn to your spark, where can they find you online? I am mostly on LinkedIn, uh, Eric Erlich, N-E-H-R-L-I-C-H. Um, but if that's too hard to spell, look up too many trees.com. That's my coaching site, and it links to my newsletter, it links to LinkedIn, links to everything I do. So those are the two places to find me online. Well, thank you so much for joining me on taking back Monday. Hopefully this was just as inspiring for our audience as it was for me. Thanks, Alyssa. I really appreciate it and thanks for the conversation.