Erica: Hey, girl. By now, you know I have Her Collective, my online community for ambitious women who are done doing it alone. Her Collective is for the women who are smart, capable, and driven, but they find themselves stuck on the sticky floors like self doubt, burnout, and waiting for permission that quite honestly never comes. 

Inside HER, you get more than motivation. You get real support, real strategies, and real momentum. We work on things like clarifying what you want now and what's coming next, building confidence without burning yourself out, navigating hard conversations, career moves, and leadership moments with clarity, and surrounding yourself with women who actually get it. This isn't about hustling harder. It's about moving intentionally with the right tools and the right people in your corner. If you're ready to stop spinning, start choosing yourself, and build a career in life that actually feels aligned, I'd love to welcome you inside her collective. 

You can learn more and join us at www.joinhercollective.com. Because honestly, girl, you were never meant to do this alone. Quick question for y'all. Have you ever felt like you are running on empty, trying to be everything to everyone, and you still feel like you're falling short? Well, today, we are diving head first into the burnout epidemic with someone who knows it inside and out. This is a therapist turned business mentor, Maegan Megginson, and she is here to drop some truth bombs about why most burnout advice is total BS and how we can truly liberate ourselves from this hustle and grind culture. So trust me, this episode is the wake up call that you didn't know you needed, and it is so timely with the holidays amongst us. 

But you know where you're at, y'all. Welcome to the Glass Ceiling and Sticky Floor podcast, the show that's here to empower you to break free from the limiting beliefs, ditch toxic behaviors, and unlock the infinite possibilities waiting for you. This is your time to live your best life unapologetically. 

I'm Erica Rooney, your host and biggest cheerleader on a mission to get more women into positions of power and keep them there where they belong. If you're ready to shatter ceilings, crush self doubt, and build a career and life overflowing with growth and abundance, you're in the right place. Here's the deal. We talk about the hard stuff here. Imposter syndrome, perfectionism, fear, burnout, you name it. It's raw, it's honest, and it is exactly what you need to level up. So grab a seat, pop in those earbuds, and let's dive in. 

Maegan Megginson is a business mentor and licensed therapist who helps entrepreneurs recover from burnout by creating more sustainable and energizing ways to work. Y'all, she draws on her experience as a healer and a 7 figure business owner. Let me repeat that. 7 figure business owner. K? Her unique magic weaves together the practical and the spiritual elements that we need to create successful businesses and truly wealthy lives, which let's be real y'all, we all want and need that. 

And today, we are going to dive all in on all the good stuff, like the bad burnout advice that we've been getting, the number one question that we want to ask ourselves to be more successful and less stressed. That's me. But then, also, we're gonna talk about how you can generate nonmonetary revenue to pay yourself in rest, time, freedom, flexibility, and happiness, which y'all know what I'm going through right now, leaving corporate, starting my own business, doing all the things. 

So I need to go all in on some of that non monetary revenue y'all. But Maegan is here to tell us something that we probably all already know, which is that the way that we work, it's not working, but she's here to help us find a better way. So, Maegan, welcome to the glass ceiling and sticky floor podcast. I'm so glad you're here.

Maegan: Erica, thank you so much for having me. And I have to say, you're giving me a real blast from the past because, originally, I'm from Houston, Texas, and I I moved to the West Coast, almost ten years ago now. And just your y'alls are like butter on my toast this morning.

Erica: Oh my gosh. It cracks me up because I'm in North Carolina, and, of course, I don't think I have a southern accent. But then when I talk to people outside of North Carolina, they come to me and they're like, wow.

Maegan: It's strong. It's adorable. I'm here for it. This is great.

Erica: Oh my god. Well, I would love to hear more about your story. You know, were you the business mentor first? Were you the therapist first? Like, how do we get this version of Maegan today?

Maegan: Yeah. Such a great question, and I'm gonna give you the TLDR version of this answer. So I started as a therapist first. I actually became a therapist right out of college. I was a psychology undergrad, and I was just totally enraptured by couples therapy in particular. So I went straight from undergrad into a grad program that specialized in couples therapy and came out of that program. I worked in a small group practice for a minute before I was like, what what am I doing? Like, I'm an entrepreneur. Honor who you are. Go into private practice. And I was in private practice as a couples and sex therapist for many years before I moved to Portland, like I mentioned a minute ago, back in in 2016. And when I moved to Portland, I I was ready. I was ready to expand. Right? There was this ambitious part of me that was just kind of itching to get out of the cage. And, when we moved across the country, my husband and I and our our three adorable beagles, he quit his job. He was a corporate chemical engineer. He was totally worked, burnt out on on the corporate life, and we landed in Portland and just had this real kind of reckoning with our lives. You know? What are what are we doing? What do we want to create for ourselves? And it felt like the next right thing to do was to start hiring other therapists and and creating a group practice, he and I working together. He was doing the more engineering type tasks, you know, things that required spreadsheets. And I was doing the people managing. I was seeing my own case load of clients. That was going great, but I I reached a point a couple of years later where it actually was born out of an episode of burnout, which maybe we'll we'll talk about later. But I realized that the way I was working wasn't sustainable. And also that I was feeling called to change the way I was working. I was feeling really called to work with business owners outside of the traditional Western psychotherapy paradigm. So I started exploring business coaching, and for several years, I was doing both. I was seeing therapy clients. I was working with business coaching clients. I was managing this therapy center that was, you know, growing. Year after year, it was getting bigger. And long story short, I realized over time that I needed to let go of my role as a therapist. I needed to step away from being the leader and the manager of a business that was built on hiring more and more employees, and I needed to create something really small, really simple, but with huge impact. And and that's where we are today with with Deeply Rested, which is the name of the business where I work with business owners, less business coaching now and more mentorship around. You know, how do we as business owners remove ourselves from some of the toxicity of capitalism, so that we can take good care of ourselves, our communities, while also creating businesses that are providing for us financially. And here we are. And here we are. Having coffee on a Tuesday morning.

Erica: Election day at that, y'all.

Maegan: Election day.

Erica: Here. This is not gonna go live on election day, but this is a very high anxiety day for Yes. All of America. Okay? So we might as well be talking about burnout. Right? Like

Maegan: Might as well. Right.

Erica: We're gonna have a lot of people in that space today, but let's go ahead and dive into the good stuff. Like, I was so intrigued because you have said that a lot of the of the advice that we get around burnout is total crap. Like, take time off, hire help, all of that stuff that, you know, sounds good to me. So why is that bad advice? And then, of course, what should we be doing?

Maegan: Mhmm. Let's talk for a minute if it's okay about what burnout is because I think

Erica: it can be helpful. Because it is a buzzword right now, and I think there's a lot of, I don't know, I guess, just assumptions on what burnout is and what it's not. So I would love to hear what is burnout.

Maegan: Yeah. And I think this is a really helpful place to start because nobody like, none of us know exactly what it what it is to be burnt out. Right? You said it is a bud a buzzword. It's in the zeitgeist. People are talking about it. They're using the word, but we're all using the word in slightly different ways. And at the court, that's okay. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, like, what it means to be clinically burnt out or casually burnt out. It doesn't really matter to hear. Right. If you're suffering, you're suffering. But I find that when we're suffering, it can be really helpful to discern what's my unique flavor of suffering because the clearer I can get on what's going on for me, the easier it's gonna be to find the solutions that help give me relief the quickest. Right? So sometimes people confuse burnout with depression. Right? They they can look really similar. It can be hard to really puzzle out which which one am I. It can be hard to discern burnout from just being tired, right, from from needing a break. I think the best way to think about burnout, it's the state energetically where you just stop caring about

Erica: all

Maegan: of the things that used to really matter to you. Right? So if you used to really care about your team, if you used to really care about your clients, if you if you were if you have a mission and used to get lit up when you talked about that mission, you wanted to get out there and talk about it and do good work in the world, if you used to love going to your kid's school, recital. And now all of those things make you angry, resentful, or you just, like, can't muster the energy to do it. It's a good sign that you might be struggling with burnout, which you can just think, like, you used to be you used to be a candle with a a beautiful strong flame, and now you've been, like, doused in water and it's like you can't get that candle to relight. Right? So it really is pretty significant. When we're in burnout, we often need some type of major intervention, major support to help us get back to baseline. If you feel like you resonate with some of those qualities, but you're not at the point yet where you really can't reignite your own flame, then you might be, like, on the brink of burnout. Right? You might be at a place where you need to make some changes, you need to recharge your batteries, but you can get yourself out of this hole without needing to make any, like, major massive changes. Is that making sense so far?

Erica: It does. Let me ask you one question because I heard this definition. I don't know if it's a definition more so as one sentence about burnout, but it really resonated with me, and I'd love to get your perspective on it. But it's like, if you just need to take, like, a two day vacation for some r and r and come back at it, like, you were not burnt out. Like, if you are burnt out, you are laid out on the couch, can't do anything. Like, it takes more than just a few days off if you were in true burnout. Would you and to me, that kind of helped clarify it because I kept showing it being like, yes. We're burnt out. We're all burnt out. You know? Yeah. So would you say that that resonates with you as well, or what's your thought?

Maegan: Definitely. I think that in situation a, right, you you need a vacation. If you can get a little break, recharge your batteries, come back at it with a fresh perspective, what you're really looking at is like, oh, I wonder if there's, like, a more sustainable for me more sustainable way for me to show up in my work so that I don't go through these ups and energetic ups and downs. Because that's to me what you're describing, Erica. It's like an energetic up and down. Yeah. And and we wanna sustainable way. Right. We want a more sustainable way so that when we're engaging with our with our work, we don't get to the point where we're like, I can't send another email until I take a vacation. No. We don't need to that's like you don't need to feel that way. So I would say, yeah, that's, like, at one end of the spectrum. And then at the other end of the spectrum is, I'm gonna quit my job. I'm gonna burn my business to the ground. I can't imagine doing this ever again. It's it's extreme. It's and it's, it's so heavy. It's so sticky in the body. And if you feel like you're on that end of the spectrum, that's when I really recommend seeing a therapist if you haven't already because we wanna make sure that you're not actually clinically depressed. Right? So, again, they're cousins, but they're not exactly the same. You might be experiencing depression if you have a deep sense of hopelessness, right, if you have kind of a skewed perspective on your relationships, if it's hard for you to, like, accept love from from the people in your life, if you're crying a lot, right, if you're really angry because depression can go either way. Again, these are all things that you can experience when you're burnout. But if that burnout has trickled down into a stickier depression, we really wanna highlight that and get you to the right place to get the support that you need to come out of it. Burnout often doesn't require therapy. I mean, to be clear, go to therapy. Therapy is awesome.

Erica: I was gonna say do it. Therapy all the time, and I need everyone who listens to listens to this podcast to have their therapist on speed dial, y'all.

Maegan: Go to therapist. Go go to therapy. Find a great therapist. But it's it's that inner discernment. Right? When we're clinically depressed, you probably aren't gonna be able to climb out of that hole yourself. You're going to need professional support to do it. When you're really burnt out, get professional support if you can afford it, if it's available to you. But if it's not, don't worry because we can crawl our way out of burnout on our own. Right? Listening to this conversation is is a great place to start. What can we do when we're burnt out to get to a better place, to reignite our flame, to get to a point where we can take a deep breath again, kind of see the forest for the trees. What can we do that's helpful, and what do people tell us to do that is actually counterproductive?

Erica: That's where I wanna start. Let's talk about the BS that's actually pulling us, like, further down the burnout rabbit hole.

Maegan: Alright. So in order to do that, we do have to talk for a minute about capitalism and patriarchy. I actually that's okay.

Erica: Why did you brought that up? Because I wrote down earlier that you said the toxicity of capitalism. And I was like, like, oh, we're gonna go big here. Yeah.

Maegan: We gotta go big. We have to go big because if we don't, we it's like we're trying to solve a problem without the proper tools. Got it. You you can't do that. You can't light a candle without a match. And we have to be honest about why are like, why? Why are we burnt out in the first place? Like, what is going on in the way my life is constructed that leads me to the point where I am hopeless, demotivated, depressed, anxious, fill in the blank, whatever it might be. Why is this happening? Well, it's happening because we're operating inside of some really oppressive societal systems. Right? Capitalism is here to tell us that your worth is based on your productivity. Right? That we need to treat our bodies like we are robots, that we are here to produce, produce, produce, produce. And capitalism is built on the foundation of exponential growth. Right? So quarter after quarter, year after year, we need to be doing more, making more, being more. It is absolutely unsustainable. It's killing our planet. It's killing our bodies, and yet we're all operating inside this very toxic system. And then as women, we match that up with patriarchy, right, which is a system of power that is really organized around the wounded masculine. Right? And men are just as just as much victims to the system of patriarchy as women are. But since mostly women are here listening to this podcast, like, let's just talk for a minute about the unique experience that we have as women operating within a system that is really ruled by men, by dysfunction masculine values. These are values that make us feel like we're here to serve. Right? That our job is to be in service to someone else, not to be in service to ourself, and that we need to stay busy because there's so much to do and there are so many people to please. And if we don't please somebody, we're gonna get kicked down the ladder. So whatever progress we've made as women to empower ourselves, to become financially independent, to create businesses, or work our way up in whatever corporation we might be a part of. It's constantly at risk of being taken away from us if we don't perform in the right way.

Erica: Okay. And then two, I would say double down on that if you are a woman who is a mother or a caregiver. Right? Because we also then tack on all of these other responsibilities and expectations that we Yeah. Essentially grade ourselves on. Right? Like, how good of a mom am I if I do all of these things? Right? Like Mhmm. Does my kid show up to school with homemade chocolate chip cookies, or do I just send in paper plates? Right? Like, let's be clear that I send in the paper plates. But I remember those days thinking of, like, if it wasn't perfect, it wasn't good enough. And it ended that just compounds it.

Maegan: So perfectionism is a symptom of patriarchy Yeah. To be clear. Right? Every single time we are struggling with perfectionism, it is because we are feeling the squeeze of patriarchal expectations. You know, like you said, be more, do more, be the best all the time, be the best caretaker at home, be the best employee at work, be the best most successful business owner. All of these pressures are getting pushed down on us because, listen, when we're tired, when we're exhausted, when we're burnt out, when we don't have the mental capacity to have conversations like this, we just keep playing the game by the rules that have been given to us, and that's what they want. Right? That's what our society our society wants us to be compliant. But being compliant leads to burnout. So here's where we here's where the puzzle shows up, Erica. We're being compliant. We're getting burned out. Society as a whole wants us to continue being compliant. So they're not gonna give us the real they're not gonna give us the real solutions to burnout. Because when you really start to heal your burnout, you go through a whole liberation process where you really start deprogramming from some of these toxic belief systems that you're ready to just throw in the garbage can. So this system is is a little bit invested in making sure that we're too busy to think about this, but we have enough energy to be productive. And that's what most of the burnout advice out there really aims to do. Right? It doesn't aim to heal the root cause of why I am draining myself dry, why I am extracting my own precious resources. No. They don't want us to look at that. They just want us to feel just better enough so that we can keep producing, keep being more, keep being perfect. Does that make sense?

Erica: It does. And I just it's a little sad. You know? I'm like, damn. All that makes so much sense. And I I keep thinking back to all of the women that I know who are so successful who have just been chasing and climbing the corporate ladder, and, like, that's why we see so many women who actually get to the top of this ladder. It's like we finally have a clear view, and we look around at the patriarchy and all the other bullshit that's there, and we're like, this is what I've been working my ass off for?

Maegan: Yeah.

Erica: But I'm really interested because, yes, I can now very clearly see how all of those tactics, like taking time off, are just stop gaps. You know? It's like the work around, whatever you wanna call it. Yeah. But then what should we be doing?

Maegan: Yeah. So let me just say one more thing about, like, the bad burnout advice. Like, you you know that burnout advice, like, is you should be skeptical about any piece of burnout advice that asks you to do more or to pay for something. Okay? Look. That's pretty clear.

Erica: Don't do more and don't pay for shit you don't need.

Maegan: That's right. Right? Because a lot let's think about this for a minute. Like, for example, burnout advice, especially for high achieving perfectionistic women, will be like, well, you need to hire some support.

Erica: Mhmm.

Maegan: Right? You need to outsource. You need to delegate. Okay. Listen. This is this is nuance because, like, if you can afford to hire someone to clean your house and do your laundry and prep your meals and you wanna do that, fuck yeah. Do it. That's great. That's awesome. Yeah. But what happens is that a lot of women are pressured into making these decisions when they're in places where it's not actually financially responsible for them to do that. Right? Or or it's not where they want their money to go in their life. So we start feeling really pressured to to dish out money, to hire support so that we can keep doing more. Okay. If I hire someone to clean my house, if I hire a virtual assistant to manage my inbox, if I, you know, hire someone to prep my meals, then I'll have more energy to work harder, achieve more, make more money. If you find yourself in that paradigm, you need to hit pause because you are just running faster on the hamster wheel. Like, that's all you're doing in that situation. It's not gonna lead to you feeling better in a in a sustainable way. It's a quick fix that's just you're just kicking the can down the road.

Erica: Well, I love that you said that because I cannot tell you how many people have told me to get a house cleaner. Like, for years, people have been telling me to get a house cleaner. And could I afford one? Sure. But when I really sat down and I looked at it, Maegan, I was like, that's not going to solve any of my problems. Right. Like, I'm not stressed out about my house. Now if I was, maybe that would have been been a solution. You know? Right. But that that wasn't something that was gonna solve any problem for me. So I love that you bring that up because you're right. It's not a solution.

Maegan: It's what I to be dramatic, what I like to say is it's a Band Aid on a fatal wound.

Erica: Yeah. Well, and not only that, but then you're actually adding, like, the mental workload of Right. Is my house clean before the house cleaner has come? Like, have I put away everything I don't want them to see? Did I pay them? Are they here? Oh, they can't come. I have to reschedule. And there's Yeah. Even more stuff that you're talking on. Yes. Yes. To make your life

Maegan: easier. It's too much. We're overcomplicating in an effort to simplify, and it's a trick. You know? It's like, it's a scam. Back away. Run-in the other direction.

Erica: That is a scam.

Maegan: The other big one is burnout advice that requires you to, like, read a book about productivity or, like, learn this new method of, like, how to be less stressed out. Right? If you have to do work, if you have to buy something or learn something or implement some new system to make your life more efficient, you're kicking that can down the road again. It might make you feel momentarily better, but, actually, you're just doubling down on how much is expected of you. Because we also get caught caught in some cost fallacy when we start implementing these, like, burnout interventions where we're putting so much time and money and energy into ways to make our life better that we think our life should be getting better. And when it doesn't get better, instead of shifting gears and trying a different approach, we're like, oh my god. But I've already done all I've already like, now I, like, have the housekeeper. I don't wanna fire them. You know? It's like, oh my god. Do that. We're not gonna yell. That makes me feel bad. La la. So then we're just, like, doubling down. We're doubling down on our own suffering. And the only people who are benefiting are this this larger societal system of capitalism and patriarchy. And we don't have to do that. We can step away from that. We can step in another direction, but it's gonna ruffle some feathers. That's what I wanna say before we start talking about, you know, the other side of this coin. That when you decide, I wanna step out of this toxicity. I wanna step out of this dysfunctional way of living, of existing. The people who are still mired in it, who are still committed to it, they're not gonna like you. They're not gonna like what you represent. You are going to feel really threatening to them. So you have to really shore yourself up internally to make sure that you're strong enough and you're grounded enough to do the liberation work of removing yourself from some of these toxic ways of living.

Erica: Hey there, listeners. If you have ever felt like you're stuck in a place, held back by self doubt, perfectionism, or that pesky inner critic, you're not alone. We all face those sticky floors that keep us from reaching the heights we dream of. But guess what? It's time to shatter those limiting beliefs and toxic behaviors to uncover infinite possibilities. My book, Glassy Leads and Sticky Floors, is your ultimate guide to smashing through barriers, overcoming limiting beliefs, and stepping into your full potential. This book has been endorsed by none other than the great Mel Robbins, best selling author and motivational powerhouse. It's also been featured in Success Magazine, so you know it's packed with insights that work. Inside, you'll find real life sticky floor stories, practical strategies to help you navigate your own sticky floor moments, and a whole lot of inspiration to keep you climbing. This isn't just a book. It's your roadmap to success, confidence, and freedom. Grab your copy of Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors today at www.ericaandersonrooney.com. Whether you're in the boardroom, the classroom, or just starting out, this book is for you because no one, and I mean no one, deserves to stay stuck, No one deserves to feel small, and you have glass ceilings to shatter. Let's do this. And I would also just caution that these people will be very close in your inner circle too because Yeah. They all benefit from it as well. And when you start to change, not everybody is ready for that change. So

Maegan: That's right.

Erica: Just a little disclaimer from my own lived experiences. But

Maegan: Mine too. I'm sure you experienced that. I mean, you said earlier that you're moving out of corporate into working for yourself. Like, I'm sure that there are people in your corporate circles who have a lot of judgments about the decisions that you're making.

Erica: Oh, yes, girl.

Maegan: Right. That's what we in the therapy space call shadow work. Right? That, like, when we get really irritated or have big reactions about things other people are doing, decisions other people are making, it's it's often an indicator that that that represents a shadow within myself, some part of me that I'm not ready to look at or get to know or face. Right? And that's a great example. Like, if someone in your corporate circle says, I'm out of here. You know? I'm I'm gonna do my own business. I'm gonna liberate myself from this system, and you feel tons of judgment towards her. That probably means there's a part of you that wants that freedom and flexibility as well, but it feels too scary to look at it just yet.

Erica: Yeah. I would say spot on, and I would say spot on from my own judgments that I've put on other people too.

Maegan: A 100%. Yeah. I've got I I I mean, I'm not perfect by any means, but I've gotten better at this point in my life at at more quickly recognizing when I'm judging someone else.

Erica: I understand.

Maegan: And then going like, what is what is it about what am I judging about them that I secretly harbor within myself? And can I spend some time exploring that? Anyways, separate separate podcast Yeah. We're going down a rabbit hole here. But do

Erica: your shadow work back to burnout.

Maegan: That's right. Yeah. Do your shadow work back to burnout. Yes. Okay. So should we talk about some

Erica: things Yes, girl. I'm dying

Maegan: to know because

Erica: I I already wanna hang up with you and start them, and I don't even know what they are yet.

Maegan: Yeah. Well, I think you're I mean, from what I'm hearing, you're already doing a great job, Erica, so kudos to you. Okay. So in order to really remove ourself from these paradigms to heal burnout within ourselves, we have to first do some deep self inquiry. Right? We have to, like and this is where therapy can be really helpful, but also, like, you you are you can do this yourself. You can do this with a friend. You have so many options of, like, how you can do this work. I think it starts with some deep breaths and some deep questions. Right? What do I really value in my life? Right? What really matters to me? What do I feel sad about not experiencing or not doing in my life right now? If we can start with some of those reflection questions and if we can be really honest with ourself, what we do is we we begin to create our own road map for what kind of changes we need to make in our lives. Right? So maybe you ask yourself those questions and, well, I mean, I was gonna just make up an answer, but I'm I'm curious for you, Erica. Like, what what would some of those answers be for you? Like, when when you really kind of think about what you value and what's most important to you, what comes up?

Erica: Yeah. Well, I love the values question. I'm a big values person. So for me, obviously, family, my kids. They're, six and nine, so making sure that I'm present for them and focused on them. Family, for sure, I'm a very big growth minded person, so making sure that I'm always growing, learning new things. And then I always, one of my values is also, like, health and wellness and making sure that we always take care of ourselves emotionally, mentally, physically, all of the things. Yeah. But when you talk about what do I feel sad about not doing, if I rewind, like, to a month ago when I was back in corporate, I was always sad that I felt, preoccupied with work all

Maegan: the time. Yeah.

Erica: Mhmm. So even when I wasn't working, my brain was still on and still going, and being preoccupied about work meant I couldn't be focused on my kids and my family. Right? Mhmm. Because I was always stressed. And that's what also made me sad about what I was not doing is I noticed that because I was always preoccupied, my stress levels were high, which meant I wasn't having the type of relationship that I wanted with my kids because I was really short-tempered, more frustrated. Yeah. All of the things. But to to even go a little bit deeper and, like, what what I find interesting about it and maybe can help somebody else is when I was so unhappy in corporate, and this was two years ago when I first really started feeling unhappy. I went out and I got an executive coaching certification because growth, step one.

Maegan: Yeah. But

Erica: then I was like, well, maybe it will just help me with my job.

Maegan: Yeah.

Erica: And so I did it, but to do it, I had to do some pro bono coaching hours with other women. And when I did that, I could not ignore how lit up and happy

Maegan: I felt that type of work Mhmm.

Erica: In regards with my corporate job. Mhmm. And I think that contrast, you know, really showed me that, like, all of the things I was doing in the nine to five were not lighting me up, bringing me joy, making me feel fulfilled. They weren't even making me feel productive. Right? So, like, I was going to this job. Nothing was getting resolved. More loops just kept getting opened. Nothing kept getting closed. So, yeah, a lot of it is is about, like, my emotional availability for my family, I think. Mhmm.

Maegan: Woah. This is thank you so much for sharing. A while. We're turning

Erica: it into a therapy session. Great.

Maegan: I am here for it. I'm I'm here for it. I mean, this is how we learn. Right? So I just wanna say thank you for I as I was asking that question, I was like, I didn't ask Erica if I was allowed to ask her personal question, so thanks for diving into that to me. I should've listen

Erica: to this show on the reg. They know all the things.

Maegan: Good. Good. Good. So I think that quick side comment. In order to recover from burnout, we have to tell honest stories about ourself. We have to come back to a really ancient tradition of storytelling in our circles, in our communities. That's why I love podcast so much. Right? Because it gives us a way to tell really vulnerable stories that so many people have access to. So when we get real with each other and when when we say, like, my business or my corporate job was robbing me of my ability to be a good mom to my kids. I have a client who calls her she's working on this in her business right now. She calls herself monster mom. She's like, when I'm, like, over focused on my business, I turn into monster mom. You know? I'm like, I'm cranky. I have so I have little patience with my kids. She's like, I hate that. I I hate who I am when that's all I have to give them. And when we start saying these kind of truths to each other, you can imagine, like, we're all just, like, standing at, like, the the cage of of capitalism and patriarchy with little chisels, you know, and we're just starting to chisel holes in the wall. We're putting cracks in the foundation. And, eventually, we're gonna tear it all to the ground. And it's not gonna be some big dramatic flourish. It's gonna be all of us telling these kind of stories and making these type of micro ships in our lives together. Like, this is huge. The story you just shared is so incredibly important for the liberation of all of us who are feeling trapped in this way. So thank you for your service. Now taking this a little bit deeper, we start to get clear just like you're doing on yeah. It's a it's a hard question, but it's a great question. Like, what am I sad about? Where do I feel grief? Where do I feel regret? And we start to see we start to get honest with ourselves about, like, okay, I'm I'm so preoccupied with this shit that, like, I don't even care about. Like, on my deathbed, I'm not even gonna remember that I did this. I'm not even gonna remember that this, like, was a project that I gave so much of my life force energy to and look at the cost. So this is another great question when you're in this exploration phase to ask yourself, like, what is the cost of the decisions that I'm making? What's the cost to my body? What's the cost to my family? What's the cost to the planet? What's the cost to the people who work under me and my team or in my business? And we wanna start to look at ways that we are participating in an extractive an extractive way of existing on this planet where we are just taking, taking, taking from ourself, from our from others, from the Earth. That's another way to sort of deepen this exploration of really noticing what's out of alignment for me. What is out of alignment for me? And once we get clear on what's out of alignment, then we can start to make micro changes to bring ourselves back into alignment. And I say micro changes because most people don't have the privilege or the luxury of snapping their fingers and changing their entire lives overnight. You know? It took you two years.

Erica: Your job, guys. Don't

Maegan: worry about

Erica: it with your day

Maegan: job. Right. Unless you have a trust fund or a partner who doesn't require income, in which case, quit that fucking job. You know? Like

Erica: Right. Yeah. Away.

Maegan: Make a drastic change. Like, I'm all for drastic changes when your life can support the weight of your drastic change. So if that's you, awesome. I'm excited for you. But most of us don't fall into that category. Right? Most of us, like, really have

Erica: to set this do the micro changes.

Maegan: Have to do the micro changes. I've had to do the micro changes. You're, you know, you're two years old doing the micro changes. Micro changes are beautiful. And this is where you really get to start playing with your life and with your work, you know, and asking yourself. So let's use preoccupation as as you know? Let's workshop preoccupation. Love it. Let's do it. So you're like, I'm preoccupied. Okay. So let's think about this. Like, what are you preoccupied with, and where can we remove stimulus or expectations from your plate? Again, I don't want you to buy anything. I don't want you to add anything onto your plate. So what let's let's talk to the you of eighteen months ago, two years ago. Right? Like, what was maybe, like, one small thing you could remove from your plate that was really feeding your preoccupation? I'll tell

Erica: you one. I mean, it's little, but it was a big impact for me, and it was taking my Slack and my work email off my phone.

Maegan: That is such a brilliant place to start.

Erica: I'm telling you. A good place to start. That was hard as hell. Which is hard. It's mind boggling to me how hard that is and what a mental freaking mind fuck it is to take that off your phone. And I added it and removed it and added it back and removed it Yeah. 27 times, y'all. But that really made the biggest shift for me when it came to not being so preoccupied with work.

Maegan: Such a brilliant example. And I have full body chills because it is so hard. Like, our addiction to being constantly available is intense. It is intense. And I do the same thing. I go through phases where, like, I delete my email app off my phone, and then I'll, like, add it back, but only for a minute. And then I'll delete it again. I do the same thing with Instagram where I'm like, get it off my phone, and then I'll add it back for, like, fifteen minutes and be like, what am I doing here? This is terrible. I'll delete it. So, like, we get to be imperfect in this process.

Erica: Okay. I have to share another tip, though, that I haven't done yet. I just learned it yesterday from someone else, and I'm going to do it. I'm a little scared, but I'm also going to do it. And that is changing the settings on your phone to gray scale so that everything is in black and white because you're not so stimulated by all of the graphics on Instagram and LinkedIn and social media and stuff. Red notifications. The my god. That's brilliant. So I'm gonna try it. But I am a little scared because I love my Instagram, y'all.

Maegan: Right. It's big. So this is such a great example of, like, meeting yourself with grace. Right? Meet yourself with grace. It's like, okay. This is scary. Let me just try it as an experiment. I'm gonna change it to grayscale. It'll take literally two point five seconds to change it back. You know? Like, we're not making life altering commitments here. We're just trying little experiments to see, like, well, how does my nervous system respond if I change my phone to grayscale? How does my nervous system respond if I take Instagram off my phone for the weekend? Right? How does my nervous system respond if I take Slack off my phone and only look at it when I'm on my laptop? Right? We're just we're starting to notice. You're gathering data about, like, where has my body been conditioned to be on, to be responding, to be perfect all of the time, and what happens in my body when I step away from some of those obligations and expectations. And you are going to start to learn about your own system, And then you get to start making more and more personalized decisions about where your energy is going and what your boundaries are because, like, my boundaries aren't gonna be the same as your boundaries.

Erica: Right.

Maegan: So there's no checklist of, like, 10 things, just 10 boundaries to set so you feel less burned out. No. It doesn't exist. My values are different than your values. Right? My desires in life are different than your desires in life. My boundaries with my phone are different than your boundaries with your phone. So when you are working on your own relationship with burnout, you have to give up on the fantasy of there being a quick fix, of there being an easy solution, of there being some, like, preprinted road map you can follow that's gonna work for you. No. But that's not a problem.

Erica: I know. I want it too. Like, to be clear, I want

Maegan: it too. But that, okay, coming back to cap to the cyst the toxic system of capitalism, those are beliefs that we internalize because we operate inside of capitalism. Right? Capitalism says everything should be easy. Everything should be fast. Progress should be quick. There's a you know, you can pay for any solution you wanna find. Right? That kind of that fast, fast, fast, easy, easy, easy, that's not real.

Erica: Mhmm.

Maegan: That's not real. And part of, like, the sinking down back into the earth, into your body, into the land. Right? This is all part of the deconditioning process. You are deconditioning from capitalism. And as you slow down and sink into yourself, you start to see that a garden doesn't grow overnight. Yeah. Right? A garden takes an entire year. It takes four complete seasons for the garden to do what it needs to do to create fresh tomatoes in the summertime. Right? You can't say to the garden, like, okay. Done with tomatoes. Green beans. Now go. You have thirty seconds. Figure out

Erica: some cucumbers.

Maegan: Give me some cucumbers. No. And you are a garden. Your body is a garden. Your life is a garden. So anything that you're asking yourself to do or you're expecting yourself to do that is, like, instantaneous or easy or simple, you gotta step far away from that because you're literally asking your body to do something she is not designed to do. And that's what I call an abusive relationship. Yeah.

Erica: I think that's such a great reminder because it's like our conscious mind knows that these things take time. But unconsciously, we're like, oh, great. Let me fix like, it should be easy peasy, lemon squeezy to fix, and it's not. So, like, keep that as a reminder. Right. But let's talk about also, like, how go back to how can we do more generation of the nonmonetary revenue. Right? Yes. That is, like, the catalyst, the turning point. That is what we I wanna focus on in this new era of my life. So Great. Tell me more about that.

Maegan: Okay. Non monetary revenue. Okay. Real quick before that, I wanna give you two more quick burnout recovery tips that I think are vital, and no one's talking about them.

Erica: Let's hear it.

Maegan: Just one is joy. Right? Joy is the medicine for all things. So if you're really struggling with burnout, what that means to me, what that says to me is that you have very little joy, you have very little pleasure in your life. Pleasure can be nonsexual, it can be sexual, it's all of it. So if you're burnt out, one of the easiest things that you can do today is to search for joy, to search for pleasure, and see, can you bring a little bit more joy, a little bit more pleasure into your body? The more you do, in simple ways, it can take thirty seconds. Right? The more you do that, the more you're reorganizing your system and the easier it's gonna be to do some of this deeper heavier work that we're talking about. So find joy, find pleasure. And the last thing I'll say about burnout for today, let yourself be yourself. Self expression is an antidote to burnout. Right? When we're burnt out, just like you were saying, we're burnt out because we've gotten so far away from our values, from our desires, from who we really are. We're pretending to be somebody else. I've never met a person who's burnt out who's not pretending to be somebody else. So the more you can really clarify, like, wait. Who am I? Who was I when I was 13 years old, when I was seven, when I was four? And can I bring some of those parts of me back into the world again? Right? Let your freak flag fly. Right? The more yourself you can be in the world, I guarantee you, the less you're gonna struggle with burnout. So just planting those seeds in the garden, the garden of the mind, and you can see

Erica: if you can of the mind. Before you I mean, I wanna get to these nonmonetary revenue things, but I have to share this joy tip that this comes from my friend, Jessica Janssen. She talks all about joy. But a lot of time, we're like, but I don't have joy in my life or there is no joy. She does a monthly, post on Instagram, Instagram, and you can do it monthly, weekly, whatever works for you. But she just calls them, like, it's November now, so her November joy starters. And she goes back to the previous month, and she looks through her phone because we all take pictures of fabulous things on our phone. And she looked through those moments. So, like, when she posted her November joy starters, she had, like, her kids in their Halloween costumes and volunteering and speaking on stages. And for her and she's had, like, a really tragic thing in her life happened. She lost one of her children. And so you can imagine if anyone is struggling with joy, it would be her. But she looked back for these joy starters as evidence that life can still have beautiful moments. Mhmm. And so if you're struggling to find that joy Floyd. Yes. Grab your

Maegan: phone right now

Erica: and just slide through your camera, row two, to remember that you have those joy stars. But I love the let yourself be yourself. I feel like that's an area where I really struggled because, you know, you talked about who are you pretending to be. Y'all, I was always pretending to have all my shit together all the time. Right. And I did not. And that is what led me to the burnout. But back to you, Maegan Megginson.

Maegan: Yeah. No. Thank you. Your examples are so helpful. What a beautiful invitation. Right? Like, it proof. Prove to yourself that joy is there. I'm also gonna say because I'll never not be a sex therapist at heart that what I one of the things I learned as a sex therapist is is the power of pleasure and how pleasure and joy are so interconnected and how so many women, especially those of us who are ambitious, busy trying to do it all, one thing that we do to to operate, quote, efficiently in the world is we cut off connection to our bodies from the neck down. Right? Because what's happening often from the neck down are signals that say, slow down. Don't do so much. Think twice about this. And that gets in our way. So we shut down literally, we shut down our ability to have sensation in the body. As a sex therapist, I'll just throw this out there. I saw hundreds and hundreds of women who came in with low sexual desire, and almost all of them had low sexual desire because they were trying to do so much externally in the world that they had to cut off sensation below the neck in order to get it done. So when we start to bring sensation back into our body, I'm picking up my cup of coffee right now as an example. And when I say, like, okay. I'm gonna let myself feel the warmth of this mug in my hand right now. I'm going to smell the aroma of the coffee, and I'm gonna feel the pleasure of that. Then I'm gonna take a sip, and I'm gonna taste the coffee on my tongue. And I allow myself to really be physically present with the pleasure of sensation, joy. You did it. You did it. And who doesn't have a cup of coffee in the morning, right, or a little snack in the afternoon? Food is a group things you put in your mouth are great ways to reconnect yourself to joy. Right? Snip it. Oh, it just and, like, enjoy it. Like, let it wash over you. Let the pleasure wash over you. Bam. You've just given yourself a little dose of joy medicine. Pick up your phone, go through your camera roll, look at how many beautiful photos that you took, and then move on with your day and do it again tomorrow. Over time, you will reprogram the way you operate in the world. It takes time. It's a little bit at a time. You can do it. I just, like I so believe we all have the capacity to change the way we relate to joy and pleasure in our bodies. Okay. You wanna talk about nonmonetary revenue, one of my favorite topics?

Erica: I have a lot of favorite I

Maegan: have a lot of favorite topics, Erica, if you can't tell. I have a lot of favorite topics.

Erica: Look. I don't I normally try to keep these podcast episodes thirty minutes, but we are like Uh-oh. Awesome, amazing shit here.

Maegan: So this is gonna

Erica: be a long one, people. Just

Maegan: I often say brevity Brevity is not my gift. Brevity is we're not we're not even related. We've never met. Okay. Nonmonetary revenue. So this is more applicable, I'm gonna say this, for business owners than than people who, you know, had jobs for big corporations. But I think that there are some creative ways that we we can apply this, you know, across across cultures, if you will. I believe as a business owner that I went into this for myself, and I believe that's true for most business owners. Right? That we go into business ownership and to entrepreneurship because we want more freedom and flexibility in our lives. Right? We wanna be our own bosses. We we want something. Mhmm. And then we go into business for ourself, and we quickly become, like, the worst bosses we've ever had. And all of a sudden, it's like we're working for our businesses and our businesses aren't actually serving us in any real or meaningful way. So one of the first thing things I do with my clients is to take a couple deep breaths and to say, your business is for you, first and foremost. It's not for your clients. It's for you. Your clients and your community, they get to be beneficiaries of the business that you're creating, but your business needs to pay you and all of the things that you want in your life. So when we go back to the question from earlier about values, about desires, right, about, like, what is it that I really want in my life? You didn't say a shit ton of cash. You said time with my kids. Yes. Totally. Exactly. Exactly. We like it. Money is not the enemy here. Money we need money. We do live in a capitalistic society. Right? Whether we like it or not, we're playing on this playground, but we get to make our own games. Right? And we get to make our own rules on this playground. So money is important. Absolutely. We need money to survive. We don't need to shy away from that. Our business needs to create revenue. Revenue in the form of cash in the bank. But the problem, in my opinion, is that because we live in capitalism, we've been taught that the only kind of revenue that matters is cash in the bank. So I like to zoom out and say, well, what other kind of revenue can my business generate for me? It often has to do with time. Right? I want my business to generate time for me to pick my kids up from school. I want my business to generate creative freedom so that I can write that novel I've been dreaming about. I want my business to support me in in giving me time in the middle of the day to go work out with a trainer, right, or to go to couples therapy. I want time to read a book. Right? We can brainstorm this forever, but it's like nonmonetary revenue. Right? This is can I start thinking about what I desire most in my life and then reverse engineer to say, how can my business pay me in that? How can time with my kids be a currency just as much as the US dollar is a currency? What do you think about that idea?

Erica: I mean, I love it. One of the exercises that I was really and still am kind of working on is not always thinking that it has to be about the money. Right? Because I left a very lucrative, stupid, cash money paying job to being my own boss. Right? And it's a scary thing to do, but I was walking with a friend and we were talking about it. And I've known this for years, but it's like we have to really get it deeply ingrained into our systems that, like, I don't need that much money to be happy. I don't need that much money to do anything that I wanna do. Like, of course, money is great, and, like, that money has allowed me the freedom to have what I call fuck you money, which is quit your job and leave. So it absolutely serves a purpose, but really getting real with yourself about what do you actually need. Like, you don't need to go get a manicure every week. Right? And, actually, that's just adding more shit to do on your to do list of things you gotta get done. Right. So Right. Really taking a minute and establishing, like, what do I need versus what is society telling me I need. That's right. What is that message of, like because initially, when I quit, I'm like, okay. I've gotta make x amount of dollars to replace my corporate income. And it's like, but I don't have to replace my corporate income. Why am I so worried about that? You know? And it's it's getting real with me in that sense. And so, again, since I've only been out for a month, it's really I keep reminding myself of all of that. You know?

Maegan: This is good. This is good. Like, write it down. Put it on the mirror because it fades over time. And I think the clearer you can get about this at the beginning, the easier it is to circle back to it when you're, you know, you're in the mud. You're in the, you know, you're in the weeds of growing your business. There's a quote I love by a philosopher named Alan Watts, and he said, as a society, we've confused money with wealth.

Erica: Mhmm.

Maegan: And I think that I'm gonna say it again. We've confused money with wealth. And this is what I want everybody to stop and pause and think about. We've confused money with wealth. Because this society has trained us to believe that to be wealthy is to be financially rich, which creates a whole lot of people, like you're saying, with more money than they actually need. Because true wealth isn't about how much money you have in the bank. True wealth is about how aligned am I with myself. Right? True wealth is like, we I have enough money to pay the bills. We're totally secure. We're living a comfortable life, and I also get to pick my kids up from school. And I also get to explore my creative projects, and I also get to invest in my own healing work. And I also get to do this, and I also get to do that. Insert whatever your values are, whatever is important to you. Like, that's wealth. When people are on their deathbed in hospice, they never ever talk about how much money they had in the bank. Nope. Now it it's and, again, it matters. There's some research about this. I can't quote it off the top of my head. I'm not that kind of person. But, there's some really great research about, like, the threshold, the point at which more money actually causes more problems in someone's life.

Erica: It's so funny that you bring that up because I'm just sitting here and I'm like, but think about all the really wealthy, really stupid people out there. Right? And my brain automatically went to and I'm not speaking ill of the dead here, people, but, like, why would you go down in a tin can all the way to the Titanic submarine and pay a couple mil to do it? Right. You're bored. You're not finding those nonmonetary revenue things that you're talking about, like happiness. Right? Like, those people, they have all the time, the freedom, and the flexibility in the world, but they're not happy. Right. And so you've gotta have that great blend of all of that nonmonetary revenue.

Maegan: You yes. I hope so. And that and, again, everyone's blend is going to look different. Yes. Right? So we can't compare ourselves to each other because what I need to be in alignment with myself, my values, and my desires is gonna look totally different than yours. Yes. But we start with the question, where am I out of alignment? And when I think about people who work for corporations, obviously, you have less control over the expectations for your job. Less control than you and I do as business owners. Right? We have a lot of control. We have a lot of flexibility. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't ask yourself these exact same questions, just like you're saying. So many actually, let me give you a quick side story. The past the the last couple of years in my role as a couples and sex therapist, I was working with highly successful people. Right? Top top of the top of the ladder, these people. Surgeons, lawyers, politicians, whatever, corporate executives. And what I found in my career as a couple therapists is that as my fee went up as a therapist and the SES of my clientele went up proportionally, I found that people got more and more and more and more miserable.

Erica: Mhmm.

Maegan: And that they had to work harder and harder and harder to hide it. Because on the outside, they were supposed to have it all together. Right? So and I was just like, something's wrong here. Like, what is happening? Like, this is wild. And it was really my introduction to capitalism, really, of being like, wow. Look at this. There is a point at which the super rich are so dysfunctionally miserable, and they feel like they have to hide the truth of that from everybody in their lives because they should be happy. They've reached the top of the ladder. They're rich. You know? They're checking all the boxes. So I do feel like that's the golden handcuff trap that so many people in corporate jobs find themselves in. Just I mean, just like you said earlier, you're making great money. You have great benefits, but what's the cost? What is the cost of all of that money that you're making? That's what you have to ask yourself. Right? The cost is your monster mom in the mornings trying to get your kids to school. Right? The cost is you're missing out on healing yourself, on exploring your own personal growth because you don't have time, you don't have bandwidth. The cost is you're gonna get divorced because you and your partner have had no time to nurture your relationship. And then you can think even broader than that if you want to. Like, what's the cost of the work that this corporation is doing on the planet. Right? We can we can keep going.

Erica: We can go we can go for hours here, y'all. Go for

Maegan: hours and and go as deep as you can go without flooding your nervous system. But get really honest with yourself. What is the cost? Because it's only when you get clear about the cost that you can really get honest with yourself about what you need to live a truly wealthy life. And that's what I want for everybody. I want us all to live the wealthiest lives. And isn't it funny that that means we all have less money in the bank than we thought we should

Erica: ten years ago? You know what? It is. It is. It's hysterical, but this is the truth. And it's like Yeah. Is if we can just come to grips with that reality, we will be happier than ever. Maegan, if somebody wants to work with you because you're amazing and they're like, holy shit. I'm more doubt. I'm all these things. Where can they find you? How can they get in touch with you?

Maegan: Thank you so much for asking. You are amazing. This conversation was so much fun and so important, so thank you for having me. And, yeah, if you wanna learn about me and my work, you can find me at deeplyrested.com. I would love for you to join my newsletter. You can sign up at deeplyrested.com/newsletter. And since you're obviously a podcast listener, you can hop over and, listen to my podcast too, which is deeplyrested.com/podcast.

Erica: I love it. And then, Maegan, I gotta ask you this one last question. It's my favorite to ask everybody. If you could go back in time to the Maegan with the burnt out husband who's all in on the couple's therapy, you know, just getting started, what piece of advice would you give that Maegan today?

Maegan: Like most things you've asked me, I'm gonna give you a sideways answer.

Erica: Let's do it.

Maegan: Something I've learned in my own journey, my own healing journey, professional journey, is that there's no such thing as a mistake.

Erica: Like, the

Maegan: very idea of mistakes is an illusion. Every single thing that happens in your life is perfect. There is I believe that there is a divine timing to every single thing that happens and that every single mistake or challenge that you face, it's an important part of your process that's getting you to where you're meant to go. And the more I have embraced this idea that there's no such thing as mistakes, the more I can look back at my past and say, Maegan, you have done everything absolutely perfect, and there's nothing that you need to do different. And you met yourself exactly as you were able to meet yourself in the moment, and I'm so proud of you. And keep making decisions that confuse you or feel wrong or make you doubt yourself. Keep doing that because they're all getting you to where you need to go. So if I could go back in time and look my younger self in the eye, I think that's what I would I would just say you're doing an absolutely brilliant job, and there's nothing you need to fix, and there are no problems you need to solve. Like, relax. You're doing great.

Erica: Oh, well, that's great advice, and I think it's advice that we all need to hear. So I'm glad you shared that with us. But thank you, Maegan. This was an amazing, amazing podcast. I hope everyone listening really enjoyed it. I know it's longer than our usuals, but y'all, I'm not cutting anything out of this episode. It's too late. So

Maegan: Thank you.

Erica: Maegan, thank you. Alright, y'all. Didn't I tell you that that was going to be a conversation that was just filled with moments? So if you're feeling inspired to redefine what wealth and success mean to you or maybe you just needed a road map to step off the hamster wheel, Maegan's got you covered. Go ahead and head to her website, check it out. It's deeplyrested.com, and connect with her. Join up on her newsletter or just dive into more conversations like this on her podcast. And don't forget, you are enough just as you are. Burnout does not stand a chance when you are living in alignment. Alright, y'all. If you enjoyed this podcast, please make sure that you rate, review, and subscribe to the show as it truly helps it land in the hands of the woman that needs to hear it most. And until next time, remember this, the only limit is the one you set. So let's break through them together.