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.

Erica: 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.

Erica: Because honestly, girl, you were never meant to do this alone. Have you ever experienced stuckness? Maybe in a relationship, a career, maybe with your body issues or addiction? Do you know what you need to do to move forward, but you find yourself just unable to take the steps to actually make it happen? Neuropsychotherapist and author of the book, The Science of Stuck, Britt Frank is here to teach us all about the power of the micro yes.

Erica: The science behind why we don't do what we know we should and what you can do to turn your stuck into go and your go into acceleration.

Erica: I wanna kick today off by asking, do you struggle to understand your own brain because same, do you work towards unlocking your greatness, are you also maybe stuck like me half the time? Well, today's guest is a kindred spirit and someone I am so grateful to have in my life now. She is a licensed neuropsychotherapist and the author of the book, The Science of Stuck, and she is no stranger to sticky floors. Britt Frank, welcome to the podcast from now to next. I am so thrilled to have you here.

Britt: I am so excited. We are finally having this conversation. Thanks for having me on.

Erica: I know. So I'd love to kick it off with who are you, what is this come up story of yours, and, like, how did we get on this Zoom screen today?

Britt: I've got my, you know, my shiny resume and my sorted resume. The shiny resume is I'm a licensed neuropsychotherapist, and all that, it's a really big mouthful that just means you have a brain and a body. And if you understand how it works, your life works better, period, and sane. And I came to this work through my own hot mess of a history, you know, just like a really functional dysfunctional person. I showed up for work every day, but I was doing drugs at night.

Britt: I, you know, managed all the expectations of my team and nailed all of my metrics. Nevertheless, I'm in these dysfunctional crazy making relationships when I would get home from work. And I think there's this huge gap between the things that we know and the things that we do. Right? I mean, we know eat vegetables, drink water, don't drink a bottle of Chardonnay every night.

Britt: You know, get up at five, work out, nevertheless. Here is this gap between what we want and what we do, and that gap is my specialty. And then, you know, that's sort of my sorted resume. My shiny resume is I went to Duke, and I've got my masters, and I'm trained in somatic experiencing, which is a neuropsychotherapeutic modal. You have a brain.

Britt: Driver's ed for the brain does not exist. And if we understood how to drive these organs in our head, these three pounds of salt and mush and fat, our lives get really good really fast. So that's what I do and why.

Erica: I love all of that. And I wanna, like, just jump on into this functional, dysfunctional person that you were because I feel like that is a perfect sticky floor that so many of us are living in. Right? Like, we are on one side of the coin doing all of the things, being all of the people, meeting all these great expectations, and then we go home, we close the door, and we're this total, as you said, hot mess. I love that term.

Erica: Was that the sticky floor? Is that a sticky floor? How did we get out of that sticky floor? All the things.

Britt: Functional dysfunction is a tricky sticky floor because it's sticky, but because you are still executing, it's really easy to go into denial and say, I'm fine. See? I can show up for work every day. I'm fine. Nothing is wrong.

Britt: And functional dysfunction can be also on a spectrum from I'm a complete hot mess behind closed doors, but it could also look like I'm fine. Everything's fine. You know? Works fine. My relationship's well, I'm sorry, but we did not come here to be fine.

Britt: We did not go through adolescence and puberty and growing up to become adults for our lives to just be fine. So functional dysfunction is tricky and sticky because to get out of it, we first need to reckon with this is not all there is. It is not enough to be functional. It is not enough to be fine. We want every, well, I'll just speak for myself.

Britt: I want everything that is available to me with my choices, with my resources that I can have because life is short, so why not live it?

Erica: Got it. Isn't it so amazing how we can rationalize anything we want to rationalize in our lives? Because that was what I was doing, living in that functional dysfunctional place where I was drinking a bottle of wine every single night because I was stressed out. And then I would get up, and something that is so important to me, it's a core value of mine, health and wellness, I would go, like, run five miles. And it sucks.

Erica: Let's be clear. That was not a good five miles. But it was like a, see, I'm still running five miles. I'm still functioning. I'm healthy.

Erica: I don't have a problem. This is fine. And, again, nobody knew because on the outside, it all looks like that. But this additional layer that I struggled with, and I'm interested to know if you struggled with it, was I also didn't want anyone to think I wasn't fine. I didn't wanna ask for help.

Erica: I didn't want people to think I was struggling. I wanted people to think I had all of my shit together. And so when you kinda put those two together, like, zero vulnerability, zero asking for help, it just, like, compounds the situation until it blows up in your face, at least for me.

Britt: It's so true. And I can swear on here. Right? Like, yeah. Absolutely.

Britt: In the addiction recovery world, fine, I'm fine, everything is fine. Fine is an acronym for fucked up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional. And so when people are like, I'm fine.

Britt: Yeah. That often checks out. Yes. You are. Yes.

Britt: I am. And we can do something about that.

Erica: Yeah. And like you said, fine is not good. Like, we have this one life. That's what we're experiencing right now. Like, you just wanna be fine?

Erica: You just wanna get to the end of your life and feel like you were fine?

Britt: The fact of the matter is, and I know this from a decade now of sitting in front of incredibly high functioning, high achieving people, no one is fine with being fine if you drill down just a few inches below the surface. I don't need anything. I'm fine. Really?

Britt: If you're willing to get honest with yourself, like, savagely honest without shaming yourself, there's no point. Shame is just, first of all, it's like neuropsychologically contraindicated. Meaning, when you shame yourself, you get more of the thing you don't want and less of the thing you do want. So shame is just not, it's not just about being compassionate and loving yourself. Shame is an ineffective, inefficient mechanism for getting to the outcomes that you want to get to.

Britt: But no one is actually fine with being fine if they're being honest.

Erica: So the process of getting unstuck and drilling down, how do you drill down? How do you not feel that kind of shame?

Britt: So the shame really happens as a result of attaching stories to data points. So if you look at a data point, I drink a bottle of wine every night, that is, I mean, not attaching morality to it. Like, obviously, we know that's not good. Yes. Health wise, medical wise, relationally, it's not good.

Britt: But let's take the morality off of the data points so we can just evaluate them. And I tell people, if you're looking at a business cost benefit analysis or if you're doing an inventory, if you have a retail store, you're not gonna be like, oh my god, I've run out of the thing, I am a terrible person. It's like, just order more of the thing.

Britt: So if we can take the business skills and translate them to personal growth and development, which means take the morality off, take the stories off, take the shame off. Let's just evaluate what are our choice points, what are our resources, and of those, what are we willing to say yes to? Because shame will keep us stuck. Identifying three choice points and then picking one, no matter how small, will get us going. Because the thing about being stuck, stuck turns into unstuck the second you say yes to anything. In any direction, at any speed, at any whatever.

Britt: It doesn't matter how small your step. Stuck becomes unstuck when you say yes. So rather than spinning in the, and I'm a therapist, I love a good deep dive into the why. And when it comes to business development, yes, you should start with why.

Britt: You should know your why. When it comes to being stuck, you don't need to know why you're stuck. Let's just find a yes because yes turns your stuck into go. And we all wanna go from stuck to goals, and that's just not how the brain works. You don't go from stuck to goals.

Britt: You go from stuck to go, and then from go to acceleration, and then from acceleration to goals.

Erica: Oh, I love that. Do you think that people get stuck in the why? Like, they wanna figure out why do I do this? Why do I keep going back to this boyfriend or drinking the wine or doing the thing that I don't wanna be doing? Do you think people get stuck there and then they can't get to that go point and that yes?

Britt: Oh, I know it. Because I see it every day and because I was captain of the why team. I mean, I worked in the advertising world. I was an account executive and mired in my own BS. And when I started to heal and get better, I just fell in love with all of this information.

Britt: And so I became obsessed with the why, and I made a career out of it, which was great. But you don't actually need to know why, and the analogy I like to use is, and again, yes, the why can be useful, we need to know why to a degree. But if you walk up to a burning building and you see a building engulfed in flames, you don't stand there and go, I wonder why the building caught on fire. I wonder what the origin was.

Britt: I wonder what the mitigating factors were, like, get the people out of the damn building, and we'll figure out why it got started later. And so when you come in with stuckness, whether it's career, financial, relational, it doesn't matter. Wherever you're stuck, that's a burning building. Let's get the people out of the building first, and we'll figure out the why later. Because okay.

Britt: Here's your why. I can answer your why. People come in. They're like, why? Great.

Britt: Here's my whiteboard. I can sort of, like, murder board this led to this, and here are my strings tying, so what? Now you know the why, and you still have gotten nowhere. Let's get moving first, and we'll figure out why second. And often, once you get yourself up and running, the why becomes wholly irrelevant.

Britt: Like, I like the why because it's my job. But most people I've found think that why leads to unstuck, and it doesn't. Why leads to insight, but insight is not action. Insight doesn't necessarily get you anywhere. We're drowning in information.

Britt: We all know a lot of stuff. Like, there's plenty of information that we know. Nevertheless, we're not doing things. So we are over-indexed on insight and fully, fully needing to move more towards action. And, you know, with pervasive, repetitive patterns, eventually, you're gonna need to figure out the why.

Britt: But even with something like, I smoked methamphetamine. Not proud of that. It's not that there are good drugs, but that one's, like, a really, really bad one. So why I was addicted to meth was not the chief concern. It eventually became quite relevant because in order to get to root cause resolution, I needed to understand how I got there.

Britt: But you don't need to know why you're addicted to drugs to start not doing them. You don't need to know why your, you know, company is a mess to start implementing, like, immediate actionable things to get things stabilized. Why is the second order business, not the first. And everyone wants to start with why because of the belief that why is the key that unlocks change, and it does not. Why unlocks insight.

Britt: What do I do? What are my choices? What am I willing to say yes to? That unlocks change. That gets you unstuck.

Erica: I love this. You're challenging Simon Sinek. You know?

Britt: I love, no, no, I say this in every one of my panels and keynotes. Simon Sinek is a genius, and start with why is the right order for business development.

Britt: If you're launching a business initiative, if you're starting a company, then start with why is quite important.

Erica: If you're getting unstuck.

Britt: Not for personal things. When you're talking about getting unstuck from habits, from patterns of thinking, if you're talking about things that you personally are feeling stuck with, you don't wanna start with why ever. So, yes, Simon, check, but not for this.

Erica: Exactly. Exactly. So, Britt, what kick started your healing journey?

Britt: Oh, boy. So I wish I had this, you know, it's such a Hollywood mythology that we have this burning bush insight moment where suddenly I hit rock bottom and the light came through. Healing is not linear. Mine certainly isn't. I'm sure for some people, they had a moment of insight that was then followed by dramatic, sustainable, long term change. I do not know any of those people.

Britt: I'm sure they exist. I don't know all of the people. And if that's you, like, you go, I am super stoked for you.

Britt: But healing is a big spiral, and it's messy, and it's moments of insight followed by five miles backwards, followed by incremental steps forward, followed by periods of total inaction and complete just, I do not care, I hate you, I hate this, I hate everybody, screw it.

Britt: Healing was not a moment for me. It was moments of insight followed by often years of doing nothing about it, followed by really, really, like, go, I'm gonna do the thing, I'm gonna get healthy and well, followed by I have no desire to get healthy and well because that's where all my truth is. And I don't want to know what's true about myself and about my history because of the shame.

Britt: So as soon as we take shame out of the equation, it becomes safe to know what we know. It becomes safe to actually identify what we want and to jump the gap between our good intentions and our successful outcomes. The researchers call that the intention action gap, which is a very fluffy way of saying, like, this is a messy process. Like, you can know things, you can want things, you can say things, but there's a big gap between that and an outcome. And in the gap is where all the pain is, but that is the way forward.

Erica: Cognitive dissonance.

Britt: Oh, yes. Indeed. That's

Erica: What it really kinda, like, trips my, like, mind into, okay, what I'm saying and what I'm doing are not meeting. They are so far apart. And that's what was really causing that stress for me, and, eventually, I was so uncomfortable with that that that's when the change started happening. But like you, it's not a linear process.

Erica: And I think so many people think, like, step a leads to b, c, d, all the way through to the end of the alphabet, and it is never like that. It's not in a growth journey, a recovery journey, a business journey. Like, again, you said, I'm sure there are people out there who've had a very clean and beautiful straight life and fabulous, but, like, mine was not like that either.

Britt: Certainly not. And a big part of the dissonance is this belief that making good decisions is immediately followed by good feelings, and that is just categorically false. And this is why when it comes to working out, we know to a degree, I mean, I don't like pain, but we know going to the gym is going to be uncomfortable because to grow muscles, you have to tear them first. That's how muscle strength is built. You lift weights to tear your muscle fibers.

Britt: So we know doing squats is not gonna produce a good feeling. It'll produce a good outcome. You may get a little bit of endorphins from doing it. But we were taught that making good decisions, I'm gonna quit drinking, I'm gonna get healthy.

Britt: I'm going to be honest and vulnerable, that that should yield an immediate net positive feeling, and it doesn't. So when confronted with the discomfort of change, even positive change, we give up because it's like, wait a second, I made a good choice, why am I feeling even worse? Because that's how brains brain. That's just how the change process works.

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.

Erica: 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 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.

Erica: 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.

Erica: And I think often when you're getting out of whatever that stuck floor is for you and that instant gratification, good feeling doesn't come, we very quickly can rationalize with that. Well, like, I'll start tomorrow, or, like, I'll start on Monday, that's a better day, it's a new leaf. But, unfortunately, those days keep stacking up, and then we're, like, nowhere near where we wanna be.

Britt: And it's so true. First of all, I'll start tomorrow is a lie. And, again, no shame, I said it too. But if we're willing to get honest with ourselves, we all know I'll start tomorrow is a total lie.

Britt: And the thing is, and this helps deshame the whole dilemma, our brains are not wired for success. They are wired for survival. Our brains are not wired for higher level things like health, healing, wellness, connection, abundance, our brains are not wired for any of that. Our brains are not wired for tomorrow.

Britt: Our brains are wired for right now, this moment, which is why it's not I'll start tomorrow. It's what are you willing to do in the next thirty seconds in service of your goal. Even if it's a microscopic step forward, even if you've already drank a bottle of Chardonnay and eaten a dozen donuts and have watched nine hours of Bridgerton, what are you willing to do not tomorrow, but in the next thirty seconds? Because anywhere you can access a choice point now, you're gonna start training your brain. Your brain is not wired for tomorrow.

Britt: It's wired for right now. So let's work with the design.

Erica: Nice. Work with the design of your damn brain. I like that. I like that. Yet we're so irrational, and we think that we can do all these other amazing things.

Erica: So, Britt, as a therapist, as an author of the book, The Science of Stuck, where do you see people getting stuck the most?

Britt: The why is probably the biggest place I see people getting stuck the most. And then the second one is the mythology that you're broken, and this is just who you are, and you just can't change because you just have an addictive personality, or you just don't have the attention span, or you just don't have the motivation, or you just can't slow down. Like, your brain is not a static state thing. Our brains are constantly learning and growing, and the concept of neuroplasticity, in a nutshell, means you're not who you are right now. Your brain is not the same brain now that you'll have next month, next year, let alone in five, ten years.

Britt: So if you have a brain, it can change. And that's really confronting because there's some comfort in, well, this is just who I am. There's some permission there to do nothing. If this is just how I'm wired, then there's no responsibility to take accountability for your changes. But this is not who you are.

Britt: That's, again, that's not how the human brain brains. That's just not how brains work. So the why keeps people stuck, the this is who I am keeps people stuck. And then the next biggest one is this idea that your changes are going to happen in Instagramable moments, and they do not. The change process happens in a series of micro movements.

Britt: No one is going to live tweet, I guess we don't use Twitter anymore, no one is going to Instagram live that they left their shoes by the door and then did nothing. But if you wanna get off a habit of collapsing on the couch, you don't start with a ten minute walk. You don't even start with a five minute walk. You start by putting your shoes by the door and then getting back to the couch.

Britt: Then tomorrow, maybe you put them on and go back to the couch. Then the next day, you put them on, take three steps out your door, and go back to the couch. And very high functioning people get really, really offended by this. That's insane. Like, how am I supposed to get anywhere with these, I call these micro yeses.

Britt: How are you supposed to get anywhere by doing micro yeses? And the answer is a lot faster than if you keep trying to take steps that are too big and you end up back where you started. A micro yes forward will very rapidly compound. And then before you know it, you're doing the thing you say you wanna do. But we take steps that are too big because our brains can't die.

Britt: I should be able to do a ten minute walk. That's no big deal. What's wrong with me? Why can't I? And now you've got a shame story attached to a why, attached to a step that's too big.

Britt: So take out the why, take out the shame, and remember your brain is wired for small. Micro yeses get you unstuck, period.

Erica: I love that because we also live in this world of shoulds. And a lot of it, I think, is because of social media too. Like, we see all of the Instagramable moments of the people who are doing all of the healthy, great, amazing things. They're not showing their failures. They're not showing the moments where they're falling on their faces, all of that.

Erica: And we just have this, like, well, I should be working out, I should be meditating, I should be married or have kids, or whatever those shoulds are. Like, we live in these moments of should and of comparison. How do we stop that?

Britt: And, again, it's attaching a narrative to a data point. Right? I didn't work out, I should be, I didn't make it to the gym.

Britt: I should have. I'm single, I should be married. Let's just start with, again, because the word should is just the word why dressed up in another outfit. You know?

Britt: I should be married is actually code for why am I not married. I should go to the gym is code for why am I not going to the gym. So if you can suss out those whys, those keep you stuck. So, again, replace the word should with the word could. I could go to the gym.

Britt: I could not drink the fourth glass of wine. I could do this, that, or the other. And if I'm not, okay, fine, what are you willing to say yes to is a much better place to put your energy than why am I not or I really should be.

Britt: Should is just why wearing a different hat.

Erica: I've never heard that before, but it makes sense.

Britt: Said that before. This is, like, occurring to me now in real time. I love talking to you. It makes me stronger and better. I wouldn't change it.

Britt: I wouldn't want to repeat one second of my history, but I don't regret it because I'm so thoroughly delighted with where I sit right now. And if I changed anything, if I had a healthier family of origin, and I say that not in this, like, I have drug addiction, sexual assault, childhood trauma. There is some, and I'm not testing positive, I am not, that is not what's happening here. I am saying that given where I sit now, if I could go back and change it, which I can't anyway, this is all academic, I wouldn't, and I don't regret it.

Britt: So I would tell my younger self not to change anything, just to hang on, baby girl, because this will be worth it. Buckle up, buttercup. And not this happens for a reason. I don't subscribe to that either.

Britt: Things happen because life's hard and stuff happens. But, like, if that's gonna happen, and I just came back from a week of surfing, and what a great metaphor for life. It's like, try to control the ocean. Like, walk in there and try to negotiate and bargain and logic with a giant wave that's about to totally wipe you out.

Britt: You can't. But you can learn how to maneuver yourself on a board. You can learn what your choice points are in any particular moment, and that makes the ocean, you know, the ocean of life more fun to surf.

Erica: I love that because I just got back from the beach, and I've got two small kids. We go there, and they're like, mom, there's no shells on this beach, why are there no shells here? And I'm like, I don't know, I can't control what the ocean gives us.

Erica: And then the next day, there were a ton of, like, all of these little jellyfish just scattered, and I'm like, y'all, again, we can't control it. And, like, one day, the waves were crazy rough and the water was freezing cold. And then the next day, it was, like, calm and warm. I don't know why, but, like, that is the perfect metaphor because you can't control any of those things. You just have to figure out how to deal with it and, like, enjoy what you can from it.

Britt: Absolutely. And, you know, I like to call these, like, trauma turtle rolls, or life turtle roll. So when you're surfing and you're too far out to make it back to shore, but you're not far enough out to get past a breaking wave. In other words, if you don't do something quickly, you're gonna get tossed. Surfers teach you how to do what's called a turtle roll, where you dive under your board, and then the wave passes over you.

Britt: And when white water is rushing at your head, the last thing you wanna do is go under. But the safest place in that moment is to dive under your board, hold on for dear life, and as soon as the wave passes you, then you can start paddling out and make forward movement. We can't always move forward. Sometimes we have to turtle roll, and that might look like extra screen time, mindless scrolling through social media, not showering, taking a mental health day off of work. And most of us do these things, but, again, we then attach a shame story.

Britt: I should be able to do this. What's wrong with me? It's like, nothing's wrong with you. You had a turtle roll through that particular wave. Great.

Britt: Get under, get back on, and let's keep paddling out. I love the metaphor of the turtle roll because sometimes you can't paddle past what's coming at you. Sometimes you just need to dive under it and hang on for dear life and trust it will pass, and you'll be able to keep moving forward at some point.

Erica: Love it. Love it. Well, I'm going to link your amazing book that I read in, like, two days over the weekend. But where else can people find you if they wanna work with you, if they wanna talk with you or hear your keynotes, all of that?

Britt: Yeah. Thank you so much. This is, I could talk to you, like, all day. So many ideas. So you can find me at my website, scienceofstuck.com.

Britt: You can buy the book wherever books are sold, and you could find me on Instagram at Britt Frank, or LinkedIn.

Erica: Oh my gosh. Britt is just simply amazing. I love, love, love all of the science behind everything she talks about. You know I'm a data girl, so this just spoke to my heart. And if it spoke to yours, please make sure that you subscribe to it and share it with someone you know.

Erica: They just might need to hear the message of the turtle roll.