Erica: Welcome to Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors, the podcast where we stop playing small, start calling things out, and actually do something about it. I'm your host, Erica Rooney, executive coach, speaker, and a little bit of a movement maker. And I'm on a mission to get more women into positions of power and keep them there.

Because let's be honest, we've been told to lean in but not too far. To speak up but not too loudly. To be ambitious but somehow still likable. And y'all, we're done doing that.

This is the space where we break it all down. The sticky floors, the ceilings, and the gaps that are shaping who gets ahead, especially in this next era of AI and leadership. Some of it's mindset. Some of it's burnout. And some of it is the system working exactly as it was designed. Either way, we're not staying stuck in it.

Each episode is your nudge to move. One decision, one shift, one bold step forward. No overhauls, y'all. No waiting until you feel ready. Just real momentum. So if you're ready to think bigger, move smarter, and build power on your own terms, you're in the right place. Let's smash the ceilings and close the gaps.

Today's guest is Dr. Susan Lovelle, a physician turned, and I'm going to get this right, executive performance strategist. Y'all, that was a new title for me, but I am so intrigued by it. She is a TEDx speaker, the founder of Balanced Performance, and the author of Thrive, a five-week guide to mastering your energy at any age.

But what makes her story so powerful isn't just her expertise. It's how she earned it.

Before building her work around wellness, performance, and executive vitality, which, hello, that was a term I did not know when I was an executive, Susan was a successful plastic surgeon and the only one in her area, carrying an enormous level of responsibility and pressure. From the outside, this looked like success. But underneath it, you know where I'm going here. The cost was building.

She actually landed in the ICU three times in one year. And she was forced to confront a truth that so many of us as high achievers avoid for far too long: you can look accomplished on paper and be running straight toward burnout.

So Dr. Susan, that is just like a book cliffhanger. I am so excited. Thank you for joining me on the podcast.

Dr. Susan: I am thrilled to be here.

Erica: Okay. So if people are just now getting introduced to you for the first time, give me a little bit about who you are now, the work you do, and why it's so important.

Dr. Susan: Oh, I love that question. It really is a culmination of years and years and years.

Initially I was a professional ballet dancer. Traveled around the world for 14 years, loved it. But you can't dance forever, right? What I did get from that, though, was "the show must go on."

And so I took that with me when I went into plastic surgery. No matter what was happening, whether I was tired, exhausted, it didn't matter what was going on, I knew that I had to continue to perform.

When I first opened my plastic surgery practice, I was up in New York City. That's where I opened, and where I was until the year after 9/11. At that point we were raising kids. They were young, and New York City had changed. I did not want to be there any longer. So we moved and went in the exact opposite direction. We moved to northeastern North Carolina, to a small town where there were literally 6,000 people and two traffic lights.

Erica: How old are your kids at this point? Old enough to know, because they were probably like, "Where did we go? Mom has taken us to outer space with the aliens."

Dr. Susan: Yes, they were. My son was 12, my daughter was four years younger. So they were aware. But they actually acclimated pretty quickly. They really enjoyed being there eventually.

But the thing was, even though the plastic surgery part of it was great, I did my clinics, saw my patients, did my surgeries, which were sometimes three hours, six hours, sometimes even eight hours long. And then when I came home, because we were now in this small town, I didn't want them to suffer for me choosing to move away from friends and family. So I was a soccer mom.

So I went from working all day to coming home and being the soccer mom, which would have been great had I been taking care of myself. And if we didn't have the middle of the night, "Johnny fell off the table and now has a laceration on his forehead." So now I'm getting called into the emergency room in the middle of the night to sew lacerations. Because when Johnny has a cut on his face, who do you call?

Erica: See, I would have said, "Can you call me at 7 a.m.?" Like, can little Johnny just hold a little pressure on there for a little bit?

Dr. Susan: That would have been wonderful, except, well, that's not going to happen. Not if I'm Johnny's mom. You're coming in. You're coming in now.

The lacerations, the dog bites, all of the emergencies that happen and can't wait. I was taking care of them in the middle of the night. So now we're talking about almost 24/7, because there was no other plastic surgeon anywhere around.

And like I said, had I been taking care of myself, it might have worked. But I wasn't. When I first moved down there, I gained 35 pounds, which for a short person is a lot of weight.

Erica: Well, ex-ballerina, and a plastic surgeon. Now you've got all of these external ideas going on.

Dr. Susan: And what ended up happening, as I mentioned, I ended up in the intensive care unit three times in the space of a year.

What I want people to take away from that is that burnout doesn't look the same in different people. Sometimes we completely miss the signs that it's building until it actually happens.

Erica: Yeah, that's what I wanted to ask you. You're a physician. You've been through all of this. You know what's going on, and still you went through it. So I'm wondering, now looking back, what were some of those signs?

Because I 100% agree, it shows up differently in so many people. Whenever I hear somebody say they've been through it, I'm like, tell me more. Because I think if we can actually talk about "well, it looked like this in me and it looked like that in her," somebody will say, "Oh, that's what that is."

Dr. Susan: The biggest thing for me was the fatigue, number one. Just being tired. But remember what I said from dancing: the show must go on. Doesn't matter. You keep working even though you are tired.

And then the other thing was the inflammation. In my body it was gut issues. I would get bloated if I ate something. I would swell. If I ate eggs, I would get a rash.

Erica: So you wouldn't think that's burnout. And that had never happened before?

Dr. Susan: Never happened before. So it was my body trying to tell me that it was tired, it was exhausted, I wasn't taking care of it, and to start to listen. We'll get into how that works into some of the frameworks that I now teach.

But I didn't listen the first time. Clot in the leg, went to the lungs. Didn't listen, came back, went right back to work as soon as I could. Did it again six months later. Did it again.

And then that last time it was a huge clot. That was my entire left leg up until my waist, because by then I had a filter. After two went to my lungs, they gave me a filter.

That third time, I almost didn't make it out of the intensive care unit. And I realized I had to change what I was doing.

Erica: So when you think about this underlying "the show must go on," in my world we talk a lot about sticky floors. Those are the limiting beliefs and toxic behaviors that keep us stuck. Chasing constant achievement, people pleasing. When you look at this constant need to be on all the time, 24/7, what do you think that was really anchored to for you?

Dr. Susan: Really, what it was, well, you always give it a reason. If I'm the plastic surgeon, I can't not be on my game. I cannot afford to go in and have a bad day in the operating room. Which is true.

Erica: Period. That's a fact.

Dr. Susan: It's a fact. So you take that and you take it to every other part of your life. And that's what I was doing.

I couldn't not be perfect with my kids and take them to all of these games. I couldn't not be there for my husband. I could not do anything else.

Erica: So ingrained.

Dr. Susan: It had to be, because if I wasn't on my game in surgery, there was a big problem. But then taking that to the rest of my life and not giving way on anything else. I had to have the best meals. I had to have it all. It was just something I took with me.

Erica: Wow. I was thinking about that a lot, because for those of you who are watching on YouTube, I've got a lovely black sparkly boot on because I've broken my foot. It's actually a dancer's fracture.

And I think about all the things I can't do right now that I would normally be doing, and it bugs me. Some of these things bug me, like making sure my counters are all cleaned off at the end of the day.

Dr. Susan: Right.

Erica: But that doesn't need to be done. It's really this exercise in forcing myself to accept a little bit less than my standard and have that be okay, which is interesting.

But I would love to hear from you. Once you have earned your flyer miles coming through the ICU three times, the ICU, not urgent care, that's way worse. What made you actually stop? And then how did you make that pivot to change the course of your life?

Dr. Susan: That third time when I came out, what I realized was that I couldn't even function anymore. Something as simple as doing the laundry, trying to put something in the washing machine and take it out, took me a half hour, because I was that exhausted. I couldn't walk my dogs from one house to the next house. And I said, there's just no way.

It was interesting, because even knowing that was what was going on at home, when I got to the office I was still trying to shut it down and push through.

I had office space with exam rooms in the front and my office in the back. It was about, I don't know, 50 yards. It wasn't a lot. But I didn't have enough energy to walk back and forth from my office to the exam rooms. So what I did was I had them put a little couch outside the exam rooms, so that I would see a patient, come and sit on the couch, and then go into the next person.

And one day I just kind of looked at it and I said, number one, what am I doing to myself? But number two, what am I teaching my staff? That it's not okay to take care of yourself? That it's not okay to understand what your body needs and care for it so that you can care for everyone else?

Erica: Yeah, we wear it like a badge of honor. Look at me, just really struggling through. But don't you do it. Don't you do this. This is just for me.

Why do you think we hang our hats so strongly on that?

Dr. Susan: I mean, that's the million-dollar question, right?

Erica: That is the question. Okay, well, I have a question I think you can actually answer. When you stepped away from being a plastic surgeon, did you have a hard time with the identity shift, or was that a natural next step for you?

Dr. Susan: It's funny, because this is my second identity shift. Dancer to surgeon, and surgeon to executive strategist. Each one takes its toll, or took its toll.

With the dancing, I missed performing. I didn't miss all of the preparation. But even today, I still love watching dance. I love good dance. My family, since I'm very...

Erica: She's a dance snob. We call a spade a spade here. You're a dance snob. It's okay, you're a ballerina. You're allowed to be.

Dr. Susan: But with this next thing, it was the performance. If I could just do surgery without all of the other stuff, I probably would still be doing a little, because that's what I loved, helping people transform.

And what I love about what I do now is having someone come in and I help them see what they can do to transform and become a new person. So there's good and bad to each one of those transitions.

Erica: I always say there's a red thread, and you outlined yours so beautifully there. I was actually a health and wellness coach for Verizon for almost a decade, and I did it because I loved helping people. Then I transitioned into HR because I loved helping people. Then as I climbed the corporate ladder, I actually enjoyed the organizational piece of it and the strategy piece. And now I do all of this work, podcast, thought leader, speaker, all the things. And that's also helping people.

Dr. Susan: You find that red thread. Exactly.

Erica: And for me that's been helpful when having those identity-shifting moments, where it's like, okay, but what is at the core of all of this? That's what's tethering me and pulling me through at the same time.

Okay, I think this is a beautiful transition into what you do now as an executive strategist. Before we dive into the work itself, how did you know that this was going to be the thing?

Dr. Susan: I didn't.

Erica: Ah, well, there you go. There it is.

Dr. Susan: The main reason I made that transition was because when I started talking to my plastic surgery patients about their health and their nutrition and their sleep and their hormones, they were like, "Just cut it off, okay? Just be done with it."

So it was really kind of a struggle. And what I realized was that because I was more interested in that transformation, and I could keep doing that forever, this is where I wanted to go. That's when I made that split and left plastic surgery.

But when I first came out, I still had that one-to-one, "let me be their doctor" mentality. And I did that for that whole first year in the transition. Then 2020 hit and everything changed, and you couldn't really do that anymore. So I started going online, teaching people in groups.

And I realized two things. One, I enjoyed doing it. And two, it was a lot more efficient at creating transformation than working one-on-one. Because really, with the depth of what I do now, I could work with maybe 10 or 15 people a month and do it well.

But if I'm speaking to groups, going to conferences, that's one-to-many. And teaching providers, which is what I also do now, that's the ripple effect. Which is so much more rewarding.

Erica: Interesting. I bet you never saw yourself coming back and teaching providers. And I'm sure you're able to help so many people just in sharing your own personal story, which is hard at first.

Dr. Susan: I don't know about you, but I've never been one to just start talking about what's happened to me and everything I went through. Until I realized that it kind of hits people. It gives them permission to share that they're struggling as well.

They look at it and think, oh wow, if this person who is teaching me has struggled and gone through this and is still making changes in her life, then it's okay for me too.

Erica: Yes. I will say, I have always been a person who never showed the world what was hard. You were always the positive person. So when someone asks how you're doing, you say great. And it does not matter how shittastic your day has been, you are having a great day. If you've had a cold or the flu for a week, it's fine. It's all right. This broken foot, you know.

That was always me. And then I realized that's what everybody always saw. They never actually saw any of the times I was struggling. When I burned out as a chief people officer, no one knew I was anywhere near burnout. When I struggled with alcohol, nobody knew that was a struggle.

But what I find is that most people feel that way. Nobody wants anyone to see their vulnerable side. So when you bring that up and you say it first, that is the open door.

I started this when I was a chief people officer, and this is one of the moments I will always remember. I had brought my entire team to Raleigh to have an in-person meeting, and whoops, I had a therapy session right in the middle of our strategy session. Life was lifeing. I did not want to give up that therapy appointment.

And I just remember looking at them and saying, "Y'all, I have a therapy appointment. It's one hour. It's virtual. I'm just going to go over here and do it. Y'all do emails. I will be back in an hour."

Flash forward like two or three weeks. One of my team members sent me a Slack message and said, "You know what? I'm really struggling with my mental health today. I think I just need to take a day where I can lay in bed while my kids are at school and do nothing." And I said, "No problem. Go."

And then she came back and said, "The only reason I felt comfortable actually telling you that was because you talked about how you had a therapist and you struggled with mental health, so I knew you would understand."

And that was the light bulb for me. When you share your struggles, it makes it so much easier for everyone else. And I'm coming from a position of power with a lot of privilege. Other people who are working more as individual contributors, without the privilege of a C-suite seat, they don't get to say that all the time. That gave her permission. It was so powerful.

Dr. Susan: It is. It's amazing. When I made that first change and said, "Okay, I'm not going to have the couch next to my room anymore. I'm going to be okay," then we started sitting down and really workshopping. How can we make this more efficient? What can we do to make it easier on all of us?

And eventually, with all of our changes, we ended up with a four-day work week. Four days, that was it. Three-day weekends every week. And we were just as efficient, got just as much done. Patients were happier because we were happier.

And it was really all because I finally said enough is enough. I can't do this. And why am I trying to make you all do this either?

Erica: Yeah, I'd kill for that kind of work week. That's some good stuff.

Okay, so talk to me about Thrive. This is one of your biggest. It's the book. It's the five-week transformation. I want to hear all about it.

Dr. Susan: Yes. This was actually a class, and it's the way I would take people through my whole framework, which is listen, let go, and live.

Erica: I like it.

Dr. Susan: So the first one is listen. Listen to what your body is trying to tell you, because your body is so wise and it knows exactly what you need. That's the first step. Awareness.

The next one is let go. Let go of whatever isn't serving you.

Erica: Girl, you see my raised eyebrows? I can listen. Let go might be hard.

Dr. Susan: Let go is, I think, the hardest of the three. Because we're used to things, we like them, they're comfortable, we don't want to get out of that comfort zone. So, let go of whatever isn't serving you.

And then the third is live your own version of thriving. No matter what that looks like. A lot of us want to fit into some mold that someone else has determined, whether it was our parents from decades ago, or our partners now, or our friends and coworkers and what they expect. But live your own version of thriving.

I tell the funny thing about hot yoga. People still do hot yoga, but there was a stretch where it was really a trend. And I would say, look, I don't like hot yoga. I don't like being hot. I love yoga, but I don't like being hot. So I'm not going to do it, whether it's a fad or whatever.

People hear that and they can kind of relate to it. But it's really that you choose what makes you happy. I've talked with coders in some of our conferences, and you ask them, well, what do you do when you go home to relax? And they're like, "We code." And I'm like, you what? But that makes them happy. So whatever makes you happy, that's what you do more of.

Listen, let go, and live. So, where were we? What were we talking about?

Erica: We were talking about Thrive, the five weeks. But that was such a good detour.

Dr. Susan: Yes. It's the guide to mastering your energy at any age.

Erica: And I think that is so key, because we've got people across all the different generations. Gen X, Gen Y, Gen A, B, C, D, all the way up. So we all need to know this, because I've seen burnout more than ever in the younger generations, all the way up to the C-suite.

Dr. Susan: Yes. Luckily the younger generation is a little less willing to accept the things that will put them into that burnout. But yes, we are seeing it there as well.

That book actually came from a class I started teaching when I first realized that the one-to-one was really not going to be as productive as I'd like it to be. So I was teaching classes to groups, and then 2020 hit with COVID and I started doing virtual. Initially it was very quiet, before I figured out, okay, let's go virtual. And I said, well, rather than just sit here and twiddle my thumbs, why don't I take this class I've been teaching and make it a book?

And that's what I did.

Erica: There we go.

Dr. Susan: Really just took what I was teaching and training and expanded it into a book.

Erica: I love that. It's so important now that we make these trainings and our knowledge base available in all the modalities, right? Podcast, book, everything. Because somebody's going to pick it up and it's going to make a difference.

And I know these physicians out there probably have one of the most stressful jobs in the world. My mom was a nurse, so we were very close to the medical profession. My best friend is an anesthesiologist, which I have to say because it's the best joke out there. She got married and now her name is Dr. Nap.

Dr. Susan: Oh, no.

Erica: I'm here to put you to sleep. I was like, no, you cannot.

But I'm so thankful for the work that you're doing. I find it so fascinating. When you go out there and you are working with executive leaders on their wellness and their performance, what are some of the things you see high achievers get wrong about burnout?

Dr. Susan: Oh, the first one is they don't even want to accept that they are burned out.

Erica: Yes, I would agree. From personal experience.

Dr. Susan: That's number one. Because I've spoken with people and told them that the two biggest things are stress and sleep. And I hear from them over and over and over again, "I'm not stressed."

Erica: That's become the baseline, right?

Dr. Susan: "I'm not stressed." And I'm like, well, how about this? How about this? And it's check, check, check, check. And I say, well, if all of these things are going on, guess what, you're stressed.

And sometimes the only way they will understand and believe it is to look at their labs. That's one of the things I also do.

Erica: Oh, doctors love numbers.

Dr. Susan: I love the numbers. I call it test, don't guess. And it's not just me, that's one of the ways we talk about it.

When you know your numbers, when you see what your numbers are, you can no longer say "I'm not." When your cortisol levels are skyrocketing, or when they're down in the you-know-what. Either way, because that's what happens. Initially they're really high, and over time they just tank.

So when you show that to an executive who's been pushing through no matter what because the show must go on, then they're more likely to say, "Okay, well, yeah, maybe I really do need to do something. Maybe this is true."

That's the biggest change I would say I've made since switching over from just surgery into something like this. You've got to show people what's going on, and then show them how to get out of whatever box they put themselves into.

Erica: Do you still subscribe to that mantra, the show must go on?

Dr. Susan: Honestly...

Erica: We're getting real here, Dr. Susan.

Dr. Susan: Honestly, let's just say that my family has the right to remind me when I'm slipping back into it a little bit.

Erica: Well, listen, I tell people all the time, sticky floors never go away. You just get better at spotting them. And you put those things into place, like your family, who can lovingly check you and say, "Hey girl, you're veering a little off course here. You need to do something about it."

Dr. Susan: Exactly.

Erica: So with that, I would love to ask you, for the woman who's listening, because I know we've got a lot of high achievers and a lot of executives out there who probably have that same stress level as a physician and that same "the show must go on" mentality, that "I can't afford not to" mentality. I can't have a bad day.

What piece of advice would you give her to just take that minute and listen? How do we get her to dial into that?

Dr. Susan: Oh, it's hard.

Erica: It is hard. Over the head, right? With three trips to the ICU.

Dr. Susan: Exactly. Well, the labs help. Get your labs done so that you actually know what's going on with you.

Number two, I ask them specifically about sleep. Because you ask someone, "How many hours of sleep should you get every night?" and everyone's like, "Oh, seven to nine." They know the numbers.

Then: how much sleep do you actually get every night? And that's where I hear four, five, six hours. And I say, do you see that gap?

You can't go from four hours to eight hours. That's not going to work. But I do ask them, okay, if your brain function is important, if being on top of things in all of your meetings is important, if your ROI is that important to you, then you need to take as much care of your sleep and your body as you're taking of your numbers.

So I ask them to just go back 15 minutes a night. That's all. Something that's doable. It's a number. Fifteen minutes, you're going to go to bed earlier, or wake up 15 minutes later in the morning. And if you do that over the course of a month or so, you can get to six and then eventually seven hours of sleep.

And once they do that, they realize how much better they feel. Because we both know, if you're tired, you're not going to be efficient.

Erica: Correct. And it's going to take you twice as long to do something as it would if you weren't spiraling down.

Dr. Susan: And you're just spiraling. It's the same thing with working. We now know that we work best in 60 minutes to 90 at the most at a time without taking a break. When we actually force ourselves to do that and see how much more we can accomplish in that period of time, people are much more likely to continue with it.

Erica: I love that. All right, last question, best question. If we could go back to the Dr. Susan who's laying up in that ICU for the third time, probably ignoring all of the red flags that are flying all around her, what piece of advice would you give her today?

Dr. Susan: To realize that her biology is actually the ceiling of her high performance.

You cannot top anything if your biology, if your physiology, is tanking. And so when you take care of that first, everything else becomes so much easier.

Erica: Amen. I always say success is the freedom of time and good health.

Dr. Susan: Exactly. But you must have that.

Erica: I love that. The biology is the ceiling.

All right, Dr. Susan, thank you so much. These were amazing stories, amazing tidbits for people to act on. But I think that last one was the mic drop right there. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Dr. Susan: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

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Until next time, y'all. Keep going. Keep choosing differently. And let's smash the ceilings and close the gaps.