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 find themselves stuck on sticky floors like self doubt, burnout, and waiting for permission that 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 and 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. Welcome to the Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors podcast, the podcast where we get real about the challenges that women face in work, life, and leadership. I'm your host, Erica Rooney, HR executive, keynote speaker, and executive coach, and I'm on a mission to get more women into positions of power and keep them there. This is the space where we call out the paradoxes.

Being told to lean in but not too far, to speak up but not too loudly, to be ambitious but not too ambitious. Does that sound familiar? Yeah, we're over all that. Here we break down the sticky floors that keep us stuck, from imposter syndrome and perfectionism to burnout and fear, and we give you the real strategies to shatter those glass ceilings once and for all.

So if you're ready to rewrite the rules, own your power, and take your career and life to the next level, you're in the right place. Y'all, today's guest is a leading voice on strategic resilience, helping high achievers maintain their edge without sacrificing their sanity. Allison Graham is a dear friend of mine. We've been connected for years. She's a keynote speaker, a consultant, and an author, driven by her own personal journey through adversity. Allison developed practical, science backed frameworks that help professionals rethink stress, manage challenges, and solve problems more efficiently.

She's the author of many books, including Married My Mom, Birthed a Dog: How to Be Resilient When Life Sucks and Take Back Your Weekends: Stress Less and Do More to Be Happier. Allison, welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad you're here.

Allison: Oh my god, I am so excited to be here. Your energy just makes me feel covered in love. I'm so happy to be here.

Erica: Well, I love that. But I want to hear more about you, what led you to this, and how you became so focused on resiliency.

Allison: Well, you know, they say our mess is our message. And goodness knows I needed it, as you might understand from the title Married My Mom, Birthed a Dog. It's fun because you found all the goodies on the internet that I'm trying to hide as a brand. If ever there was a mistake in branding, it might have been that in the corporate market. But here's the thing. I went through a time in my life, as so many of us do, where I had expectations of how my life was supposed to unfold.

I was working 18 hour days. I didn't know how to set a boundary to save my life, and ultimately life intervened. I ended up having surgery. It should have been simple, let's put it that way.

Things went terribly wrong, and I came out of that surgery with chronic neuropathic pain. It's been 18 years since the procedure. The doctors basically said, look, it's never going away. You're never going to work full time again. We need to talk about you going on disability.

That was the moment I went, oh no, no, no, no, no. It turned into this drive of, I have to find an answer. The neurologist said, well then you're going to have to learn how to be more resilient. He said it like he'd ripped all the hope out of my heart. He was just like, you're never going to, and it was ripped from me. Then he said, you're going to have to figure out how to be more resilient. And that was the hope I needed. It began this journey of frustration and failure. I've listened to so many of your beautiful interviews and podcasts, and I know your story.

Everybody has a story, and that's what I started to see. Every one of us has gone through something. If it's not chronic pain like it is for me, it's an autoimmune disorder, or you're going through a breakup but you still have to perform.

Erica: My therapist once told me, and I thought this was so perfect, she said everybody loves a comeback story. Because when I was really going through it and having to rely on my own resilience and deal with all of my own sticky floors, it was like, this is ugly, this is gross, I don't want to do this. And she said, Erica, you talk about being a speaker.

You talk about wanting to motivate people and impact people. Nobody thinks about it, but nobody loves a comeback story more than an audience. So I love hearing your comeback story, but that resiliency was the hope you needed. What got you through to where you are now, which is a well known speaker.

You're an author. You're doing all the things.

Allison: I think it was fear, to be honest. That can be a great motivator and also a great deterrent, it can make us freeze. But I was so afraid the neurologist was right. I was in the media, I was in politics, I was volunteering on all these boards. I was living a life that quite frankly was not sustainable, which is why I'm all about de-stressing your success. You can still have what you want, but you have to make decisions and have strategies in place so it's not draining everything out of you, because I didn't even realize I was in an unsustainable pattern.

I was on that trajectory. That's what I thought life was supposed to be. Then when he said I'd never work full time again, and quite frankly he was kind of right. I'm a two to five hour a day person, functionality wise. I can go hard for several hours, and then my body needs to collapse a bit sometimes. You make decisions and get very strategic. But it was fear. It was, I'm not going to let him be right.

Erica: I love that. You talk a lot about destructive stress versus positive pressure. What I want to ask you is, for women who are constantly operating in these high pressure environments where they feel the weight of the world on them, how can they learn to identify and metabolize this unhealthy, destructive stress before it becomes a sticky floor in their long term health and success?

Allison: Right, so this really feeds into my Triple Resilience Model. It's not that we have issues, and those issues cause a stress reaction, which then requires resilience to de-escalate the stress. That seems very intuitive. It's not the issue, it's our response to the issue that causes the stress. But I want to take it a step further.

It's not that all issues are the same. We have adversities, the real issues of our life, the turning points, the catastrophic external forces, or sometimes internal, that are going to change the way you know your life to be. It doesn't matter how good you are at dealing with stress. If you get a life threatening diagnosis, if somebody you love is in danger, if your body is shutting down on you, you're going to have a survival stress reaction. And the type of resilience that requires is very different than if we have a whole bunch of obstacles that are part of our job, that we're paid to solve, and that's just how we're supposed to live our life.

That's kind of why you have a career, because there are problems and your job is to solve them. When you do that over and over, you do a great job. So that's separate from an adversity.

Those obstacles are often expected. They can be stuck on repeat with these repeating moments of angst, and they just happen by default. That's where destructive stress comes in, because we have these obstacles, and our response to them is what creates destructive stress. Our power is in de-escalating that destructive stress with strategic resilience. But I'll take it even a step further.

So we have adversities and obstacles, and they need different types of solutions. But then we have tasks. Tasks are the things that need to be done, and they don't need any stress reaction. They're the long to do list. Actually, I don't even call it a list, I call it a task circle, because there is no end.

It just keeps going round and round. Something's coming off it, something's going on it, and that's just reality. So much of our stress is expecting the tasks to get done. It doesn't require any emotional contribution. We just have to be really strategic about how we're pulling those tasks out of the circle.

How are we finishing them, or being productive, or streamlining our system so we actually get the right work done, so that doesn't turn into an obstacle, which can turn into an adversity. If we throw everything, like I'm going through so much and I'm so stressed out, into one great big tangled up stress mess, we're completely disempowered to deal with our stress.

Erica: A lot of this is making me think about, especially for women, the mental load, because you talk about it being a circle, and that's what it feels like. It feels like all of these tasks are just open, and none of these loops are closed. That's why we always say, let's circle back. We constantly have all these things open. Even though maybe a lot of those things are small and menial, it's the fact that we can never close those loops that wears down our resilience. What's your thought about that?

Allison: I actually think it's the expectation that we're one day going to close the loop that is the problem.

Erica: Hey there, listeners. If you've ever felt 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, Glass Ceilings 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 Mel Robbins, best selling author and motivational powerhouse. It's also been featured in Success Magazine. Inside, you'll find real life sticky floor stories, practical strategies to help you navigate your own sticky floor moments, and a 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 deserves to stay stuck, no one deserves to feel small, and you have glass ceilings to shatter. Let's do this. But I don't want to get comfortable thinking I'm always going to have all these open loops.

Do I have to?

Allison: Well, until your child stops eating Fruit Loops, you're going to have to go to the store yourself and get those Fruit Loops and be good to go.

Erica: That's right.

Allison: And so when I work with clients, I work with a lot of lawyers and senior people, men and women. This is not a female specific gender thing. It's, when I get caught up, then I can work on that project.

Erica: Yes.

Allison: When I figure this out, then I'm going to be less stressed, then I can go on vacation. The problem is, I call this when-x-then-y thinking. We're putting off today's happiness based on tomorrow's fantasy. Our stress needs is where we have the opportunity to feel a sense of control and peace in the middle of all that chaos, and that constantly revolving task circle, is by no longer emotionally attaching to the fact that there are all these tasks. That's called adulting. You're going to have to shower, you're going to have to blow dry your hair, you're going to have to do all these things that get in our way. But if we're emotionally charged by those, and we're treating them like obstacles instead of just tasks that need to get done, then we're diminishing and stealing our own capacity, unnecessarily.

When people start to see how these work together, and how we separate the tangled up stress mess, what happens is we go, I know it's just a task, I just have to get it done. We no longer give it the emotion that's often sucking us dry in terms of our capacity. And with obstacles, if a task is set on repeat and it's causing consistent angst, that to me makes it an obstacle. And that's when we get to play with our problem solving to solve it.

Erica: So how do we play with our problem solving? Because that sounds a lot more fun than the way I solve problems, which is usually screaming my head off.

Allison: Oh, I did that yesterday. Every now and again we might have an amygdala hijack, if a certain company would just get their act together, six months I've been fighting with them. Sorry, I digress.

Because we're never going to be perfect, right? And that's okay. But being gentle with ourselves about that is important.

But let's go back to how do we play with this.

Erica: Yes, how do we play?

Allison: You said it on your podcast too, it's all about reframing. And it's not reframing to pretend things are phenomenal, pretending things are positive when they're not. Often when I start working with someone one on one, they say, I'm really optimistic, and I'm like, are you really though?

Because I think you're not.

Erica: If you have to say you're optimistic, you're probably not optimistic.

Allison: You're probably not. So let's make it really simple. What's that frame? It's, how are we doing physically? If I'm tired, I'm probably going to make a more difficult decision. I'm not going to be at my best. If I'm in pain, I'm probably at risk. I don't teach how to overcome the physical stuff.

But let's honor that we need to have the healthiest body we can, and look for the risks. For example, when I walk into a boardroom or onto a stage to give a speech, I've learned I have to check in with my pain level. Where is my nerve pain right now? Is that a seven? That means my overall capacity is already a whole lot used up before I even get on stage. So everything I do has to be even more strategic.

Because the pain is there, we've got our physical being, then we look at our storyline. What are the words I'm using? The more extreme they are, always, never, no one, anyone, the more we're going to the extremes, either really negative or really pretendy positive, neither of which is helpful. This is where I recommend playing the better word game.

Pick a better word. When somebody says it's awful, is it awful, or is it just mildly irritating? We want to neutralize what we're actually saying, because that gives us the perspective, the objectivity, when we neutralize. Bring it closer to the middle.

We don't have to go all the way over to positive. Sometimes the answer is yes, it is awful and it sucks, can't deny that. But based on the words we're using and the story we're telling, it's going to influence our emotion. And our feelings are the things that will, you know, I feel overwhelmed, well you feel overwhelmed because you're saying I've got all this stuff to do, I'm never going to get caught up, all these extreme words. So we pick a better word.

You see how it changes, it will influence how we're showing up emotionally. And when we show up emotionally differently, our behaviors, the way we actually operate, can shift. So recognizing the physical being, this is our frame. How am I showing up physically? Do I need to recognize there's a risk there?

I'm hungry, I'm in pain, etcetera. We're just bringing that to our conscious awareness. Then, what are the words I'm using? I love putting pen to paper, actually jotting it down, and looking for our words and neutralizing them, which can influence how we feel, which gives us the power to show up better. If we want to increase our destructive stress, we go, I'm going to be exhausted, I'm going to be in pain, I'm going to let that risk take over for me, and I'm going to use extreme negative words and see the worst in a situation. Then I'm going to come up feeling overwhelmed and emotional and irritated and resentful, and then I'm going to procrastinate because I'm going to shut down because I'm an avoider, and all of that. And then we're just going to get into this swirl of destructive stress. If we want to neutralize that, we take the task and say, it's just a task. Or we take the obstacle and say, it's just an obstacle.

And we reverse engineer the swirling. That's our frame.

Erica: It's no longer the doom spiral. I love that. It brings a little bit of reality back to it. I love how you talk about all of these things as expectations, because whether you admit it or not, whether you recognize it or not, we all come to the table every single day with an expectation of how the thing will be, how the day will go, how your kid is going to act, how work is going to be that day. It's almost like, why do we set some of these expectations for ourselves?

If we can just neutralize those things, like you're saying, then we can let go of that spiral.

Allison: I want to share this. Last week, a client of mine, two of her kids were home from school early, September, cold, threw off her entire meeting schedule, and her husband had been away at a conference. We've all been there. And she said, tomorrow is going to be hell.

Erica: Yep.

Allison: I said, okay, let's pick a better word, because we don't know that for sure. She was expecting that because of her kids, and we were able, within minutes, to triage, readjust, and figure out the expectations for what that day was. She had a stellar day even though the kids were sick and there was this mess up with the scheduling. Our words will pigeonhole us in a direction that can cause more stress unnecessarily.

Erica: I love that, because that's a very tangible, real thing that I think everyone listening to this podcast has been through. In some of your books you talk about how we can stress less and do more, and I'm here for that, because I tend to stress more and do less all at the same time. What is the biggest mistake you see high achieving individuals make, especially during the work week, when my tension is high and my patience is low? What is that mistake that's preventing me from fully detaching from those expectations?

Allison: In general, and me too if I'm not careful, we allow distraction. We allow other people to control our schedule. Example, I was working with a group of six executives around a table, and at 2pm one of the senior executives started to cry. He said, I can't keep going like this, I have to work every Saturday because the work week is so off the rails. I don't get any time to actually do the work, and I'm going to miss my kids' childhood, and this organization is not worth it. No offense. It was so heartbreaking. I said, okay, let's look at this strategically. What's the actual issue?

The actual issue was he didn't have the six hours he was working on a Saturday blocked into his calendar to do it during expected work hours. Why not? How hard would it be to get six hours in a full work week? Why weren't you getting that?

It was, because other people are booking my calendar. I'm not setting rules for how they book it, i.e. no meetings before 10am at all. People are interrupting me, I shut my door and people knock and come in anyway, and I'm allowing it. It took us one strategy session to figure out how to get him his Saturdays back. That's where the whole Take Back Your Weekends idea came from.

That was right before COVID that we were working together, and he's still living his best life that way.

Erica: Allison, what's so intriguing to me about that situation is that it's a no brainer, right? Let's look at our calendar, let's block it, let's put some boundaries in place. But I'll also tell you I am guilty of doing exactly what that individual was doing, and I know so many of the listeners are too. Why do you think we can't just step away from that? Is it the sticky floor of perfectionism?

Is it people pleasing? Is it just the way we're trained and wired? What's going on?

Allison: I think we teach people how to treat us, and we want to be helpful, and being helpful means dropping everything to help you as opposed to empowering them. So it comes down to what's our storyline. For example, I'm thinking about one client in particular who was really concerned for her team, and she started doing their work for them. Two of them in particular were going through really tough times and burning out. So she took on their work. And I asked, why?

She said, because I want to help them.

Erica: Mhmm.

Allison: And I don't want them to burn out. I said, give them better systems, don't take the work away from them. The belief systems are in there. Easy to say, harder to do, but I don't think it's that hard to do when you're crystal clear about which parts are obstacles and which parts are tasks. We take away the swirling from that reality. Let's say your kids are sick and you have to go, and now the first meeting of your day where you were going to have a really strategic conversation has been changed. Okay, then we just adjust the expectations and compress later in the day to still get it in. Some people need to put a buffer time, an hour and a half, that's just extra, because if we're consistently getting interrupted and consistently getting off our perfect plan, then our perfect plan is not actually a perfect plan.

It's an expectation that's adding angst and creating destructive stress.

Erica: We often just align our day so it's back to back to back, so that everything has to go perfectly. This commute can only take 27 minutes, and if it takes 28 minutes I'm going to be late, and it sets the domino effect for a terrible day. But one thing we haven't touched on that's so key is having an accountability partner, a friend, or a coach, someone who can be that voice of reason to say, okay, take a break. Let's do the things we need to do, line up and knock it down. Because when we're in that spiral, it can be so hard to break out of it.

Allison: Think about physically how that spiral shows up for you. Where do you feel it? If I notice I haven't breathed in, like, an hour, I know I'm spiraling, and that's my cue to go, okay, what actually is the issue here?

What is my storyline around it? And then getting into how do I neutralize this swirling. It does take compassionate curiosity with ourselves. That's interesting, I just abandoned my entire strategy time for somebody else's question I didn't need to answer. Not, oh, there I did it again, because what does that do?

It hurts our storyline, makes us feel like crap, and gets us into judgment mode. But if we go, that's really interesting, I did it again, no judgment, just compassion, and go, I'm living a human experience too, and it's not going to be perfect.

The issues are never going away. The tasks are never going to stop. The obstacles are not going to stop. Our expectation of winning that lottery of I'm never going to have another problem again, and I'm going to have my task list completely done forever, if we're waiting for that before we're happy, we're

Erica: We ain't never going to be happy.

Allison: We're screwed. It's how you deal with today's reality, not tomorrow's fantasy. That's where we can feel empowered.

Erica: Yes. And awareness is such a key, critical first step, because as soon as you know this is something you do, that it's a habit or whatever it is, you can start to recognize it faster and faster. That's the first step in my SNAP program, stop and notice what's going on within the body. Then we can bring that reality to it. Allison, before we wrap up today, I want to hear about, I believe it's called, and correct me if I'm messing it up, the Live Your Best Life Club. Is that right?

Allison: It is. It's really just a collection of people who have come together, online, doing power work sessions, so you can put it in your calendar and work on the important, not urgent, tasks without distraction. We co-work on Zoom, chat, challenge each other, and I put in my training and everything. I invite people who want to go deeper into this. I know we hit some big themes here, and I know your audience has heard a lot of these techniques before, but I had to figure out how to bring it all under one umbrella and stop the swirling.

Erica: I love that, because I've been on some of these Zooms with you from the accountability side, years ago. At first I was like, what is this? Then I was like, oh, I need this. It was really awesome to do that with you.

Allison: It was incredible.

Erica: Allison, thank you so much for joining us on the Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors podcast. Y'all, if today's conversation lit a fire under you, guess what, don't keep it to yourself. Make sure you share it, rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast. It really helps it land in the hands of the woman who needs to hear it most. So I need you to remember this. Your potential is limitless, and the only thing standing in your way are those sticky floors. But guess what?

You've got the power to break through them. So go out there, take up some space, and let's shatter some ceilings together.