00:39

Hey, everyone. Welcome to today's episode. This is a topic close to my heart. We are talking about wholeness over hustle, healing over endless burnout. And this topic is probably the biggest theme that is woven all throughout my podcast over the years.

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00:57

But we are really talking about it exclusively today, and there is a big reason why. So before we dive into that, in case you missed last week's episode, I was telling you more about the upcoming retreat, the deep reset retreat that will be held in October.

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01:12

This is three days. We are going to be in a beautiful cabin. There is going to be stillness and it is going to be both comfortable and also being very alive in nature. I am co-hosting this retreat with the incredible Melanie Fay.

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01:28

And I'm telling you, without the work that she brings, my coach training program and my community would not be the same. So Melanie and I will be there to support you in your next big transformation.

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01:40

We're going to be helping you to truly deeply reset yourself, connect with who you are, connect with your mission and your vision for your life or your business. And we're going to really do the work to help you integrate the changes that you're wanting to make, helping you to release the old stories, to release the limits, and to be able to feel truly prepared and resourced to be able to achieve that next version of you.

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02:08

So that's what it's going to be about. It is magical. Please click the show notes or go to my website if you want to grab a spot. There are still spots available and I would love, love, love to have you.

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02:20

Okay, so the other big exciting thing that I shared with you about last week that we're going to be diving into today is that at the end of this month, She Rises, the book, is going to be out. It is going to be live.

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02:36

And the full title is She Rises: Insights and Wisdom from the Women of the Masterful Coach Collective. This book is co-authored by me and 12 of my brilliant master coaches. This book is full of wisdom.

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02:53

And for you guys listening, don't count yourself out of this one. Yes, the title is clearly speaking to women and many of the topics are geared toward women, but there is a really important chapter for you in there that is going to address emotions.

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03:09

And by the way, you will learn something from all of the other chapters too. So here's what I want you to do. Right now, if you have not yet, pause this podcast, go to the show notes, or go to mollyclare.com and get on the first to know list for She Rises.

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03:25

It's going to come out at the end of the month. You can get a killer deal on the Kindle version the day it comes out and you're going to want to get your hands on it and we would truly appreciate your support.

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03:36

So I'm going to be talking more about the book next week, but today I'm talking specifically about my contribution to this book. So She Rises is a book that has one chapter from each master coach. And we're talking about things like how to navigate our emotions that we have never experienced before or understanding how to even be present with ourselves.

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04:04

This book is talking about grief. It is talking about nervous system regulation. It is talking about setting boundaries. It is talking about protecting ourselves from burnout. So all of these big things that we face, there is a chapter on just about every one of them.

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04:21

And the great thing about this collaboration is that you're going to get different voices, different perspectives, and even different approaches, different methodologies. So that's a little about She Rises.

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04:33

So each chapter is written by a different author, a different master coach. So today we're going to talk about the chapter that I am contributing to this book, which is wholeness over hustle. And I truly believe that this is the new standard for us.

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04:52

And specifically in the book, I'm talking about this being the new standard for high-level women, high-achieving women, and even high-achieving women in business. I think that for so long, we have believed that we've got to hustle.

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05:07

We've got to work a little bit harder. And, you know, some of the challenges in particular that men experience in terms of the hustle are certain expectations on them as a man in how they achieve and how hard they're supposed to work and how much they're supposed to work.

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05:25

And certainly, there are some similarities in this achievement and hustle conditioning of men and women, but there are also some differences. And for women in particular, there tends to be a pressure and an expectation that we are supposed to do everything for everyone.

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05:44

And not only are we supposed to hustle when it comes to business, when it comes to finances, but we're supposed to hustle in our private life as well, in our personal life. We are supposed to be the one.

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05:55

We are supposed to be the glue holding it all together. This is not sustainable. It is a no-go. It is not working. And what it is creating, it is creating more of us walking around on this earth every day in unbelievable high levels of stress than should be the case.

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06:13

And so I'm really talking about wholeness over hustle with you today and speaking to those of you that are high-achieving, that are high responsibility, and who are done running on empty. And maybe, just maybe, you're ready to feel at peace.

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06:35

You would love to feel deeply alive. You would love to feel whole and actually feel fulfilled in the things that you're doing. Isn't it fascinating that we can work so hard, we can run so fast, we can do so many things, and yet the fulfillment is lacking.

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06:55

And when we have those moments of fulfillment, we credit it to that hustling, to that overachieving, when that's not actually where it's coming from. So I think this is a really important message because I think we owe it to ourselves to take a minute to pause and slow down and say, what am I really spending my time and energy on?

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07:15

How do I really feel? And this is a really good question to ask yourself. If I continue on the path I'm currently on, where am I going to end up? What does my future look like? My well-being? My relationships?

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07:35

When I look at the big picture of this, is it a good idea to follow, continue down this path? Okay? And here's what I want to say to you. As someone who's high-achieving, high-responsibility, go, go, go, taking care of everyone all the time.

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07:53

I want to offer up to you that your next level of success, your next level of impact on those around you, and your next level of income is not going to come from pushing harder. It is not going to come from doing more or taking more on or spreading yourself more thin.

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08:18

It is going to come as you can hold still long enough for your brilliance to begin to shine. Okay. And we can all have this. I imagine when immediately what's coming to my mind is my daughter's first birthday.

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08:39

And we're outside and we were at this little park in our neighborhood and it's windy, right? And you know how it is. You light the candle and then you're fighting with the wind, right? It's that wrestle.

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08:47

It's just like putting the flame out. And I think the same is true for us as we are moving through life so fast, creating such a current, so much wind. How do we stay alive? How do we stay lit up in our lives?

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08:59

It's pretty difficult to do. We need to protect our light. We need to protect our gifts. We need to protect our well-being so that we can truly shine. So as we talk about this topic, I'm actually going to share some of the highlighted points in this chapter of my book, because truly I can say that in the building of my business, in the raising of my kids as a single mom, I really have not just learned and I've seen firsthand this magical secret of building stillness and personal fulfillment within the many moving parts of a high achieving and high responsibility life.

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09:39

And I'm really passionate about teaching each of you to do it too. And this is a quote from my chapter in the book that says, I learned this truth. The pressure to achieve, to be more, and to do more will never offer you the peace that can only be felt when you hold still long enough to see your own inherent worth.

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10:06

I want you to think about this for a minute. How often do you stop to really appreciate your own worth? And I know some of you listening may think, well, I don't even know that I know my worth. I didn't even know that I'm connected with that.

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10:23

And if you're thinking that, what I want to tell you is it's okay that that's where you are. It's okay that you feel that way. And I want you to know that your worth as a human being is undeniable. It is undeniable.

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10:42

I don't care what you did or didn't do yesterday. I don't care what you did or didn't do a year ago, 10 years ago. I don't care what you do or don't do today or tomorrow. Your worth as a human being, it just is.

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10:59

Nothing can change it. And I don't just believe, I know that when you can be more connected to your worth as a human being, to who you are, to what's great about you, to the human being you are, when you can be connected to that more often.

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11:25

This drive to constantly achieve and overdo and work to feel worthy and valued and purposeful, that drive is going to shift from one that is an exhaustive cycle of trying to prove your worth to one of a drive that comes from knowing your worth and choosing to show up powerfully, knowing your worth and choosing to give and serve and create from a place of feeling whole, from a place of feeling capable, and doing so in a way that will continue to re-energize your spirit over and over again rather than exhaust you. Okay. And as I'm talking through all of this, I know I mentioned this at the beginning, but do make sure that you are on the list for the book because I have a workbook that goes along exactly with this topic.

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12:31

And it's actually going to help you take these concepts much further. So let's talk for just a minute about over-responsibility. So in my experience, most of my clients that I work with and have worked with over the last decade or more tend to go, tend to be over-responsible.

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12:53

What does this mean? This is where we are believing that we are responsible for what everyone else is thinking and feeling about us rather than simply being responsible for how we're showing up and who we are and how we're treating other people.

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13:08

Over-responsibility means believing that we have to take care of everything and everyone. I'm going to go ahead and share just one statistic from you that I'm pulling from my book. And this is going to relate to you women listening here.

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13:25

But for the men, I want you to think about where you're carrying more of this load as well. Okay. So in a U.S.-based study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, it reported that in most dual-income households, women carry between 65 and 73% of the mental load.

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13:42

Managing schedules, remembering appointments, anticipating needs, and holding the invisible architecture of daily life together. And what I want to offer up is that the worst part about this is that word invisible architecture, because so much of the responsibility, the things that we are doing and taking on, they can't really be quantified.

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14:03

They're intangible, which makes it even more difficult for us to understand why we feel the way we do, right? And so as I bring this up, I want you to just take a minute to notice where in your life or at work or in your relationships are you carrying a tremendous load?

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14:21

Where are you believing you need to be doing even more when maybe that's not actually true? And one thing I want to highlight as an interesting thing to think about is that while it seems like a good idea to take on less, actually, for a part of us, it feels scary and unsafe to take on less responsibility.

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14:45

Okay? So you see, think about this. So if we've been conditioned to believe that our value, you listening, right, your value will increase when you take on more and prove yourself. I can say that I've had that message given to me many times.

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15:04

I've taken that message on. I'm worth more if I do more. If I impress people, people value me. If I'm nice, if I take care of things, people appreciate me, right? So because we believe this, to take on less, to say no, is to risk being devalued, being rejected, and ultimately to feel unsafe emotionally.

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15:28

Isn't this interesting to think about? We can see clearly that I should take on less, but why don't we? Because our nervous system doesn't feel safe. We are believing at a subconscious level. We are believing that if we take on less, if we pull back, if we say no, if we stop taking so much over-responsibility, there's a part of us believes that we will not be safe.

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15:53

And this is a big deal. And this is why it is so hard to break this cycle. So I just want you to consider this. As we continue to talk through this, I want you to think about, number one, what would it be like if you truly could lay down the extra responsibility?

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16:11

What would it be like if you truly could take on less? And what if it could be a little easier to do that than you think? And as you're thinking about this, what I want to offer up to you is that your brilliance, your gifts, and your potential is limited by a hustle mentality.

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16:36

And one of the things that I do in my chapter in the book is I talk about, I break this down into really some evidence for you. Because what I know is that when you are ambitious and you are driven, it can be a pretty difficult thing to sell you that by slowing down and doing less, you're going to be more successful.

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16:59

I get it. It seems like a good idea, but it seems impossible. And so in the book, I dive into really specific evidence to say from a nervous system perspective, this is why when you are doing less and when you are more regulated, you will be more effective.

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17:18

Because, as you know, if you've listened to any of my episodes about the nervous system, when we are in a parasympathetic nervous system state, we have the most access to our prefrontal cortex. This is the part of our brain that is creative, that is strategic, that thinks long-term, plans ahead.

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17:34

This is the problem-solving center of the brain. Doesn't it make sense from a nervous system perspective that if you are better regulated, which is going to require you to have more wholeness of self, that is how you're going to be most effective.

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17:52

Think about it just from a practical standpoint, right? If I am overwhelmed and activated emotionally because I'm managing all the kids, right? Two of my kids are grown now. I don't have this experience as much, but I can think back to when my kids were little and I'm thinking, okay, I just need to hurry.

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18:11

I just need to do a little more. And I'm constantly emotionally activated. How present am I going to be able to be with them? And it seems counterintuitive, right, to do less, to slow down when you feel so overwhelmed.

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18:23

But guess what? When we do, that's when we're present. That's when we're capable, right? And just from a spiritual perspective, an intuitive perspective, and our ability to truly get inspiration in our lives, we cannot connect with that when we are in the busyness and the overwhelm of trying to prove ourselves.

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18:55

So I really want you to think about this. I really want you to take this in and really consider, is it possible that by creating space in your life for a greater sense of well-being for you, more calm, more downtime, fewer things on your list.

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19:21

That is when and how you are going to be able to ultimately achieve more. That is how you are ultimately going to be able to connect more in relationships. And ultimately, that is how you are going to live the fullest and richest life, truly mastering yourself, mastering your life, mastering your emotions, which really so much of that just boils down to living authentically.

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19:56

So I've touched on this topic. I have so much more in the book for you, but I hope today you feel inspired to think about this a little bit differently. And I know for many of you, it can be really hard to do less because you believe that you may even believe that you're good at functioning in a high state of stress.

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20:19

And while I agree and I believe you, if you are this high functioning in a high state of stress with such limited access to your prefrontal cortex, just imagine what is possible if you can actually change the pattern in your mind, in your body, and in your nervous system and have even more access to that prefrontal cortex.

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20:47

But we've got to be willing to say no to the hustle. We've got to be willing to say no to those high cortisol levels. We've got to quit buying into the story that we need to do more or be more in order to prove our worth.

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21:03

And we need to choose that our well-being and our emotions and our life, your life, your existence matters enough to give yourself, mind, body, and spirit the care that you need. Wholeness over hustle is the new ultimate achievement.

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21:30

All right, that's what I've got for you. If you haven't yet, make sure to get on the list to read the book. I go more into this in my chapter. I've got a workbook there for you. It's going to be so great.

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21:39

And next week, I'm going to be sharing with you more about the themes of this book, She Rises, and you're going to glean a lot from that as we talk about this concept of self-trust and how self-trust is truly the foundation for the growth that we all create.

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21:57

So I'll talk with you next week. Have a good one.