NK Podcast: Leading H.E.R. Way

Ep 44: Burnout Series w/ Demi Mabry - Scaling Up Without Burning Out

February 27, 2024 • Nikisha King | Certified Life & Business Coach • Season 2 • Episode 44

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Imagine trading the certainty of a medical career for the unpredictability of capturing life's fleeting moments through a lens. This is the story of Demi Mabry, who left her stethoscope dreams behind to embrace the vibrant world of wedding and portrait photography. 

Her journey from aspiring healthcare professional to celebrated photographer unveils the sheer power of passion pivots, the struggle against burnout, and the quest for a balanced life. Join us as Demi opens up about her vibrant transition, offering a candid look into the heart of creativity and the resilience required to chart one's own path.

Three Takeaways from today's podcast:

  1. Navigating the Pivot: Learn how Demi's leap from pre-medicine and psychology to photography wasn't just a career change but a complete life transformation. Her story is a testament to the courage needed to follow one's heart, even when it leads away from the conventional path.
  2. Battling Burnout with Purpose: Discover Demi's strategies for combating the all-too-common entrepreneurial burnout. Her commitment to maintaining connections and prioritizing self-care highlights the importance of finding a balance between work and personal life, offering practical advice for entrepreneurs on the brink.
  3. Embracing Rest and Gratitude: Uncover the transformative power of gratitude and rest in Demi's life. By sharing how these simple acts have helped her find peace amidst the chaos of entrepreneurship, Demi's insights offer a roadmap for anyone looking to rediscover joy and passion in their work.

Whether you're battling burnout, pondering a pivotal career change, or simply in need of a dose of inspiration, this story is for you. 

Discover how embracing change, prioritizing self-care, and finding balance can transform your work and life. Hit play now and join us on a journey that promises to enlighten, encourage, and empower. 

How to Connect with Demi Mabry:


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Nikisha:

Welcome to Nikisha King podcast leading her way, where we see the human, evolving and resilient spirit in you. I'm your host, nikisha, and in today's illuminating episode, we're thrilled to feature Demi Mabry, a radiant force in the world of wedding and portrait photography from Charlotte, north Carolina. Demi's story is a testament to the power of following one's heart. With a foundation in pre-medicine and psychology, she made the bow leap into the realm of photography. A decision has led her to enriching a 11-year career. Beyond her work, demi is known for her zest of travel, her love of romance novels and a great sense of humor.

Nikisha:

Today, demi opens up about an all-too-common struggle. Many of us face burnout. With her characteristics, warmth and wisdom, she'll guide us through recognizing the signs of burnout and share invaluable strategies for embarking on the road to recovery. Prepare to be inspired, enlightened and equipped with practical advice to nurture your resilience and reclaim your spark. Don't miss this heartfelt conversation packed with laughter and insights. Tune in now for an episode that promises to be both healing and uplifting. Demi. Thank you so much for being a guest on NK Podcast leading her way. First and foremost, everyone, let me introduce you to this wonderful, amazing lady, and when I say introduce you, I'm going to tell you how we met. We met in Florida, where I went to an event and, of course, demi was on the dance floor cutting up rug. I know that's such an old saying.

Demi:

Do you remember like the song that was playing when you saw me?

Nikisha:

No, I can't remember the song Demi. Oh, I remember you and all the good energy you released. I was like this is my girl, like Demi. And I didn't know Demi, I didn't know her name at that point, but her energy was so good and I just wanted to say I loved everything about it. Demi, let me just let you know you are one of my people because of the energy you give off and I want our audience to get to know you as much as I know you and enjoy you. So can you tell us a little bit about what kind of business you have, how long you've been doing it and really what's the purpose behind it? Absolutely.

Demi:

So just to say ditto to that, I remember seeing you and you told me on the dance floor you were like, I don't know you, but I love you. And I was like, all right, that's my red haired girly. And then I saw you all week and engaged. I was like, oh, hey, girl, like always on the dance floor it was, oh, it was such a time we had.

Demi:

So I am, my name is Demi, I'm a wedding and portrait photographer. I live in Charlotte, north Carolina, but my work takes me all over, which is really exciting. I work, I do weddings, as I said, but my portrait work includes usually, like I'm very big into newborns, but largely branding. Like branding is a huge portion of my business and I love it. It is so exciting, something you and I talked about and something that absolutely just sets my soul on fire. I love it.

Demi:

Love being able to dig deep with business owners and help give their brand visual imagery that represents them in their business and is adequately communicating to their ideal client. Like that is so exciting to me. And then, you know, with my wedding clients, I love to, just as you know, I love to have fun Like and as much as that might be a silly like mission for my business. I love just being able to celebrate with them in the most like one of the most exciting days of their life. So that that's a little bit about my business. What I do, I feel like Demi Mabry is evolving into, like you know. Yes, it is all of these things, but it's almost a lifestyle brand too that is evolving. Like we talked about, I'm launching a podcast this year, which is so exciting. Following in your footsteps.

Nikisha:

No, these are your own footsteps.

Demi:

You're right. You're right, yes.

Nikisha:

You're leading the way and what you do when sharing your story and the way you share it, and I think that there's always space for that right Now in doing your business. What's your purpose? What's the thing that drives you every day to serve your business owners for branding your families with the portraits of the babies, like. What is the thing that drives you to show up?

Demi:

You know, this is always such a hard question for me because number one, it's sometimes it's hard for me to dig deep and be like, oh, why it's fun.

Demi:

That's why but, I think that a big reason why I do most of it is the connection piece. I love what I do because I get to connect with so many people that I would normally never connect with, and like I just actually just wrapped up a blog post about a newborn session, and one thing that I love about newborn sessions and being able to do that is like when you are invited into someone's home during that snippet of time, like they just became parents. There's so much love and vulnerability there and they're inviting me to be part of this, like it truly is. They're like pinch me moments like that, and I feel the same way on wedding days that like wow, I literally get to just have fun with these people and be a part of their family for the weekend and just get to be essentially a fly on the wall during their what is one of the most beautiful days of their life.

Demi:

Like I said, though, I really think the biggest thing that drives me is connection and feeling connected to people. Like most of the time, if I don't feel an immediate connection, whether it be over email or like a console, a lot of times those aren't my clients, right, and so I, yeah, I, just I love connection and I obviously love photography and the fact that that's the medium that I get to use to connect with people, but I really think that my mission is connecting with people and, just like you said, I'm a big energy person too and I love just feeding off of each other's energy and people's energy. And I am very particular because of burnout, of who I let and who I take on as clients, because connection is so huge for me and it's such a pillar of my business.

Nikisha:

That's such a good point. It's so interesting that you said it's hard, but once again you find it right for fun and connection. Those are your two mission, like your area, and I think people sometimes think it's a lot more than it's not.

Demi:

Yeah, Well, and I think the reason that I like say that it's hard is because I want to have this big, profound, like oh my goodness, because of this and this and oh, just have this like eloquent answer. But I'm like it's fun and I love meeting new people, like it can be as simple as that, you know.

Nikisha:

Right, and that's the thing right, this eloquent thing. What is that? It doesn't exist, right? Everyone has their purpose in life, and sometimes it really is to connect, because your energy is not everyone energy. I know that for a fact. There's so many people who are not going to walk up to people or get on the dance floor and do their thing, so it's for a reason.

Demi:

I had a girl tell me what she looked to me. We were at a party and I was just talking to everybody, as I do, and she goes you're a bit much, aren't you? And I was like, well, you can leave, you don't have to be right beside me.

Nikisha:

That is true, that is very true. It's always. It's always one person, though it's always one person, yeah, and then you just protect your energy and you're like yeah, exactly Now, in doing business and being a part of our burnout series, I have a question Was there ever a moment in your time of business that you felt like you one was burned out or you recognize something was happening you didn't know it was burnout Like. Tell me if you ever had an experience like that.

Demi:

Yeah, so I know that you're not alone. Burnout can happen in stages, and so this is something that a lot of people don't realize is and we kind of chatted about this that burnout is such a taboo not a taboo like a buzzword in our industry. It's like, oh, we're burned out, burned out, burned out but what does that actually mean? And there truly is, it's like a spectrum burnout is, and so you can be feeling a little bit burnt out but not really know what that is. And I know you and I are going to talk about some of those things a little bit, but I would say I have been really blessed that I've never gotten to the point of like absolute utter collapse with burnout. And I feel like we see a lot of creatives that happen to where they'll just pull up the map and you're like wait, what happened? And they just get to the point where they can't do it anymore. So I feel like I've gotten to the point, you know like, where I start to just like withdraw from family and social life. I feel like that's like the biggest of the most that I've gotten to. That I realize I'm like, oh, I can't do this because of work. I can't do this because of work. And I realized like I don't, that's not the point of life.

Demi:

For me, like I said, a pillar of my business is connection. Why would my life, my personal life, the things that must not be centered around connection? And when I realized that I'm shutting my friends out, my family, I'm like, sorry, busy season, I just can't. I was like, okay, I don't want to live like this and I think something is wrong. And you can start to like depersonalize and just feel like you're in this zone of it's like a twilight zone. You're like, okay, there is an end date.

Demi:

But then I feel like, as creatives too, it's so hard. When you see a dollar sign show up, you're like, ooh, like I should just take it, like we can say no and leave money on the table, and I think that's hard for anyone to do when we see it. But once you realize like, okay, if I take this, I'm quite literally, if I say yes to X amount of dollars, I'm saying no to my family, friends and my own mental health. And so, once you can frame it that way, that really helped me get out of a season of burnout.

Demi:

And so my season of burnout it was probably like three years ago, where I was just going, going, going, doing, doing, doing, saying yes, being a people pleaser and taking into account my own needs at all, knowing as I do the science behind things with being pre-med and psychology in college, I was thankfully able to be like okay, I was able to recognize the signs a lot quicker than I think most people are able to, and so I was able to backpedal a little bit Because fun fact about burnout you can truly take anywhere from like one to five years out of burnout. So that's why I'm still I said that was three years ago I still am kind of like working my way back down the ladder, so I feel better than I have, but yeah, yeah, you're still on that recovery stage.

Nikisha:

I recall my burnout was when I was younger. In my business I'm 15 years in right these years has been better because I've been taking care of myself first. So everything after that kind of follows and it's better. But prior, in my 10 years or seven years, I didn't have that understanding, so my family had to pay. That was my burnout, right when every weekend I'm at my desk and I'm emailing and doing work and there's moments where we go on trips and I had my husband like chip in to help assemble things.

Nikisha:

On vacation, Not before we were going on vacation not on vacation, then I didn't get to that point.

Demi:

But now I'm like, oh, no, that would have been the worst.

Nikisha:

But right before we're leaving to go on vacation, we're like getting stuff together so we can chip it out, and I felt like those moments, those are my desperate moments. Those were the moments where everything was low priced, high volume, me doing everything, not having a team, not believing I can afford a team Right yeah, doing all the things. And then there was a point where I was social proof, where I went to a conference it was a small one in the city and this beautiful human being was doing everything I was doing for more money and less work. And then I was like what the hell is going?

Nikisha:

on and how is this happening? In a while Right, and I remember going no, no, no, this cannot be my life. And I went on my journey and, like you said, it was maybe a five year process, right? I'm transforming in now, friday through Sunday, it's my time.

Nikisha:

There is no doing any projects Right, just hanging out with my family and being present to my kids and loving on my family and being there and it's done a lot of wonders for all of us in our process. Right Like my kids can see a healthy entrepreneur and know that's an option for them. And it's not going to keep up with their world right, mm-hmm.

Demi:

So I think it's too, when you think about when you start in the creative industry, like we all have to start somewhere and you know there's tears, right, and we all start most of the time coming into that lower tier where we're charging less, having to take on more. But it's our responsibility to grow and get out of that. That's what I feel like. You can easily stay in that cycle of just taking more and more and being volume-based, you know, and you can use your own. Some people may really love that, but for me that wasn't sustainable and you have to ask yourself, if I'm doing today what I do for, if what I'm doing today continues for years down the road, what will my life look like and can I sustain that? Right? And if the answer is no, then you're on your way to burn it Right.

Nikisha:

But I never think volume-based is sustainable unless you have a system right. Amazon couldn't be sustainable without a system. No, oh my God, Could you imagine it wouldn't be Amazon today? No, it would be in his garage right the dining space.

Demi:

Hack it in stuff Absolutely.

Nikisha:

Yeah, like he wouldn't be who he is today. Yeah, when people think about growing, they get nervous, mm-hmm. They think it's an option. It's not an option or a choice. If you really get at what you do, you're going to grow, mm-hmm. And if you grow, you definitely need a system, even if you want to sell your business you need a system, I feel like systems are the best Systems could be a whole other podcast series.

Nikisha:

It surely is, because a lot of creatives feel like it's the beast. Then I go no, it's just another tool that you have, like an art pencil, a camera. It is just another tool.

Nikisha:

Agreed, but let's get into a little bit more of how to identify burnout for our entrepreneurs who are not even sure what that looked like, because sometimes you're doing the work, you're doing it. There is no burnout for you. I know, I know I hear you guys right now Like burnout was that? I don't have experience burnout. I don't have a family to worry about.

Demi:

I don't have friends.

Nikisha:

I hardly have friends. I get it, I hear you loud and clear, but what we're going to have, demi do is kind of tell us four or five and I'm going to share a little bit and then have you, demi, explain a little bit more on it. So one of those burnout things is a constant need to achieve, or always striving. Now I'm going to put my hands up for this because I'm always wanting to improve, like I'm, like my system is good but it could be better. But I try not to get crazy with it, because that's when I go straight down that rabbit hole. But can you share more with us? When entrepreneurs have that always wanting to achieve, what does that look like?

Demi:

Yeah, so this I feel I'm like I resonate with this because, like I said, on that spectrum of burnout, like, let's say, this side's the worst. This is like beginner stages, that constant need to achieve is early signs of burnout, and so I can still find myself as I'm working my way back down the spectrum. I'm still kind of stuck in that, but especially for my Enneagram threes that are always like success oriented and are wanting I mean, we're artists Like, of course we want external validation, like we want people to say, oh, your work is beautiful. We want our clients to go, oh, like rant and rave about how amazing our work is. It feels good.

Demi:

It would feel unnatural to not feel good if someone says that Ultimately we have to find the validation within ourselves and to know that we can tell ourselves like, no matter what someone thinks about my work, I am pleased, I love it.

Demi:

It feels good to me because if we don't find that internal validation, we will constantly be striving and constantly be trying to go up the ladder again and again and again and again and just again.

Demi:

Moving back to that statement of if you're doing what you're doing now, if you're doing it three years from now, is it still sustainable and that's not just to continually like moving up this ladder. And yes, there's being ambitious and wanting to improve your systems, like you said. But if it's good, let it be good. Rest in the fact that it's good and don't take this as not needing to be better. That's not what I'm saying at all. I think anytime a leader or creative entrepreneur loses the desire to be better and learn from leaders in our industry and your industry and from outside your industry, even that you're on a fast track down, but you just leaders or readers and we learn, and I'm not saying don't do that. I'm saying always try to get better, but constantly like this internal need to achieve be validated and always striving. That is a quick path to just burning out.

Nikisha:

That is true, because the validation part I know I don't need. I don't need the good job or right, I don't need that. It's always how can I make it better for the people I serve?

Nikisha:

is where I come from when I do that. But you're right about that, the validation part, because when you constantly keep looking outward for some, something in that's when you have to pay attention to what's going on within you that you need that space filled and that can lead to burnout because people are not always giving the right nation right. So you're constantly trying to do do so you can get that.

Demi:

If anyone has the resources for it. Therapy can be incredible with figuring that out. Like, hey, why do I need this validation so badly? Like yes, it's nice to hear, but what's the difference between a me that just enjoys hearing it and a me that needs it and craves it and has to work for it? You know?

Nikisha:

Right, that is true. Another one of burnout, another. I wouldn't call it a symptom, but another way of seeing it or being mindful of it when you neglect your own needs. What does that look like Demi?

Demi:

So this can be just truly neglecting your own needs, almost similarly to how you do if anyone's ever experienced depression Just like everything is kind of on the back burner for you.

Demi:

So like, let's say you're like I need to go to the gym, or I want to go to the gym, but then you're like can't do that, I don't have time for it, I need to work.

Demi:

So if it's these things that you have deemed important to you, so like just using myself as an example, like being active, going to therapy, spending time with my husband, spending quality time with my friends and spending time with my mom and grandma, that live 20 minutes for me, like those are five things that are very important to me. Once I start neglecting those and just basically saying you know, I don't have time for those because I need to work or because I want to work, that is a quick, also like blinking light of like oh, that's that is on a fast track to burnout, because then you're giving your work all the power to sustain you and all these things that you have decided that were important to you prior are just being thrown to the wayside. So then you can further advance your career, but it's it's going to be so short lived, because you're headed straight for collapse. If you continue to do that and it's not necessarily you know my psychology brain goes to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which is like do you, are you familiar with that?

Nikisha:

A little bit.

Demi:

It's like it's basically just a system of needs and basically, if you know hunger and basic things like that aren't met, then you can't meet the next needs. And so I'm not necessarily talking about, like our primal needs, of you're neglecting feeding yourself, but sometimes have we ever skipped lunch or dinner because we're like I need to work? And sometimes you are neglecting those basic needs and if you're not meeting those needs, you can't meet emotional needs and different things like that. So that's, that's essentially what that looks like. And again, as you can see, as I explained it, it's kind of like a oh duh, that's a fast track to burnout.

Nikisha:

The other thing when you said about your five things on relationship wise, right, when I thought about those. When you take those things time with your mom, your grandmother, your husband when you start taking away those things and you're giving it more to work, you're depleting yourself. Right, work is taking a lot of energy and you're not replenishing. The spending time with your family, the traveling, the friends that's your replenishment. And when you're giving more to work and you're not replenishing, there's going to be a point where you're at a deficit, a zero, and when you can't give anymore but you're still working.

Nikisha:

You're going to notice your attitude and you're going to notice how easy it is for you to be like really tempered, or you know what I mean.

Demi:

And that's literally that. Next little bar in the spectrum is resentment. Yes, After you start to neglect your needs and your cup is empty I mean you're not getting filled from anywhere else yes, so then you start to resent those around you and you're blaming people for your current situation. But easy slip into a victim mentality of I just work so much, my clients are so demanding, blah, blah, blah, and it's like it's actually our own fault for getting here.

Nikisha:

I love that you brought that up, because that is something that we hear. I hear a lot. You know, there's always a situation where there are, first and foremost in our industry, there are people who love to give discounts.

Nikisha:

And when they give that discount and the client asks for more after booking them. There's a resentment. And when they resent them, it's because you're coming from a place of this burnout, exhausted, right, because they took a less value amount, gave or giving more, not having time to be with family, to be re-upped or replenished and they start resenting them.

Nikisha:

And when you start resenting your client. It shows up in your actual behavior, right, the thing you're doing. There's mistakes and the client complains. Then there's a two star rating. I mean you're even more upset, right? You took that game of discount and now they're giving you a two star rating.

Demi:

And even with discounts I know that's a separate conversation, but I feel like a lot of times, discounts can come from a scarcity mindset anyways, and so a scarcity mindset's not coming from a full cup, it's coming from an empty one, and so that's again neglecting your own needs, and so just that falls right in line with the resentment piece.

Nikisha:

Yes, that's a good point too. The scarcity right, the whole discount fact. You aren't taking care of your needs because that discount and price won't help you meet either your number or your responsibility through your financing. Because, remember, business owners are adults, they have bills, they may have families, they have things and if you start giving discounts you're losing that need, that thing that take care of you and the people you love.

Demi:

And will you then have to take on another job to meet that gap and sacrifice your needs?

Nikisha:

Yes, it's a cycle, isn't it? It's a cycle, and once you're in it, trust me, you can't see it.

Demi:

You only feel it, you feel all of it. It's like how love is blind. You just can't. Once you're in the thick of it, you're like I'm fine, though I'm fine.

Nikisha:

Oh, my goodness.

Demi:

Yes.

Nikisha:

I love that.

Demi:

Yeah.

Nikisha:

So let's also speak about a sense of hopelessness, because when you're in the circle, I remember being in the hamster wheel of that feeling, all those feelings. Yes, I did feel hopeless.

Demi:

I felt like it was.

Nikisha:

It was nothing I could do. I was the victim in my story. Nothing I could do to change this. This is just what it is.

Demi:

Yeah, and so, okay, I'm bringing that spectrum back up. If you remember, this is like low side of our now. This is high and sense of hopelessness is really high and that's gonna come right before like true utter collapse and Feeling of hopelessness. Like I said, neglecting your needs can mimic depression a little bit. The sense of hopelessness can really mimic depression, and so a lot of creatives do, in fact, and anyone, not even just creatives I'm just saying that because you and I are but anyone feeling burnout and feeling that sense of hopelessness, it can really mimic depression or even turn into depression.

Demi:

And so once you're getting to that piece I mean when you're sitting there and you have nothing left to give and you're just looking at all the work ahead of you it can feel so hopeless, like I'm not spending time with my family. I'm working every day, sun up to sun. I'm not doing things that bring me joy anymore and you're like you get here and you're like how did I get here and how? And then you try to decide how do I get out of here, because I have so many clients, and this is what happens is people reach the stage and they hit collapse because the only thing they know to do is to just not take on any more work. They're like that's how I fix this is like I just stop and I have to fall off the map for a little while.

Demi:

And so you, if Possible, it's like, try not to get there. That's why that's just it's such a hard place to be, and you can get out of it, trust me. I've been there, you can, but it is. It's. It's tough to feel that sense of hopelessness, especially with something you love so much, like your work, and that is like your child too, you know. But when you're a sense of hopelessness not only from your work but your personal life too, like that's just it's hard.

Nikisha:

It is now the fact that you said there's something you can do to get out of it. Can you share with us at least three actionable steps that we can take?

Demi:

Absolutely. First there's. There's so many, so I'm like I'm trying to think the biggest thing that I think can help is Read people that don't do this, I feel like, can slip into burnout so much more. But redefine what success means to you, and you have to know what success looks like for you before you go on this absolute. You know what do they call it Rabbit wheel, because if you are just mindlessly striving for something, no goal like, what does success look like for you?

Demi:

Does it look like being home, making enough money so you can just be home with your kids? Does it look like building an empire? Does it look like 30 me throw photographing 30 weddings a year at X, 100 dollars in town? Does it look like photographing 10 luxury weddings out of town? What? What does it? What do you want it to be? Because then we can start playing the comparison game. I mean like, oh well, she's doing better than me. I need to do what she's doing, and especially with the amount of educators that are out there right now, everyone's doing something different and if you listen to everybody and try to just mimic their success, it's not gonna bring you fulfillment.

Demi:

As I identify what success means to you, and if you don't like, tell me that that's not a fast track to burnout and being there. So when you're in that moment, take a breather and say like, okay, clearly, what I'm doing is not sustainable. What does what is important to me and what does success look like to me? And so understand that rest can be productive during this time, and I feel like, as entrepreneurs, rest can be looked at so poorly, like oh, we don't rest, we don't rest, we go. We go like truly, we were being busy like a badge of honor. It's not like the badge of honor should be like oh my gosh, I got to wake up at 9 am, I got to have a leisurely breakfast, I went to the spa today because I could. You know that success for me. I don't know anyone else, but rest can be productive.

Demi:

And Once you flip that, switch to Dr Sandra Dalton Smith. She has a book that is amazing and she talks about seven areas of rest. That rest is not just one thing, it is physical, mental, emotional, social, spiritual, sensory and creative. Hmm, so that's really cool. I don't know if you have show notes or not, but I can link the.

Nikisha:

Add it into the show notes.

Demi:

I can link that or send you that article to link, but it's really interesting to read through just the different ways that you can rest. So that's one of my biggest ones is just defining what success means to you and making sure, during that success Definition for yourself, that you understand that rest can be productive and it's an integral piece of a formula for success for you.

Nikisha:

I remember one summer I'm the busy type, so before the word busy had meaning for me Mm-hmm where I had to feel like I was busy when my had a low season. And I remember going to a store picking up like five magazines Mm-hmm, going outside sitting on a chair in my backyard in the Sun and Reading it. And I remember when I was sitting there reading it at first I was just pretty much my brain was pretty much saying let's go in and figure something else out, let's go get busy, and I was like no, we're gonna sit here and we're gonna read a magazine Mm-hmm.

Nikisha:

We're gonna enjoy this peaceful moment, because your time will come again, mm-hmm, let's just enjoy it. And that was the first time I started to learn how to rest. That's when I learned a new game called my genre, that I play, and that's when I started to. Even when I mean play, I would go out with the ladies, the older community, which I kind of enjoy. I love that, yeah, and we played and I would play in person and it was just something that would get my mind in a place of Replenishment arrest, even though I was doing something that was fun, not associated with my business, mm-hmm. I believe, like what you said, defining for me that is success to having time to myself Is one of my success points that is measurable Friday, saturday, sunday, three days, mm-hmm, I get to do something outside of my business. That is success for me and that's really a good one and that's that social rest to like.

Demi:

That is. That is resting for you and enjoying that time and playing that, which that was your fun fact when we talk to the first time and I loved it. That is so cool.

Nikisha:

It is. Do you have a second tip that they do?

Demi:

Absolutely one of the things that I think Can help with if you're truly feeling like hopeless. That can flip that switch the most. One of the most powerful emotions that I've ever experienced is practicing gratitude and Entering that like, even in that season of hopelessness and burnout, like truly practicing gratitude. Because if you've ever reflected and felt gratitude like it is visceral, like I feel it through my whole body and it is, it is, it's amazing if you felt it and like you're smiling because I know you felt it too- yeah, oh I, yeah.

Nikisha:

I practice gratitude, especially my down moments.

Demi:

Oh yes, it can change things on like a dime. If anyone's struggling with that, there's this book called the magic by Rhonda Burn and I love that book. Intake one of 28 day journey of gratitude and it gives you just little things to think about and journal every day about and it Truly kind of lets you Into the thought pattern of gratitude, or helps you get into it, rather, and it shows you so many things that you can be thankful for that. You're like, wow, I did not even realize. And A fun little like my premed brain. A fun little science fact about gratitude that I love is it actually increases IGA, which is it's an antibody in your body and it in. They did a study with people that practice gratitude and they, like, drew their blood and everything and examined it and that antibody increased by 50% after four days of practicing gratitude. So in turn, gratitude boost your immune system.

Nikisha:

So good, you know right, it's not like you have to take some supplement, you have to do anything to get that I know. And and when you say I'm gonna tell my audience Gratitude practicing it doesn't have to be hard, no, pretty much for me, my. The way I started my gratitude journey was when I woke up. I was thankful for the breath that I had for that day. The fact that I woke up made my day the best day ever.

Nikisha:

That is all I needed, because when I got up, that's another opportunity to meet people like Demi. That's another opportunity for me to have a great conversation with someone, many conversations with many amazing people, just because I woke up with breath in my body in the morning. That simple thing that you say like I'm grateful to be, I'm grateful to have breath, that is all you have to start with and you are going to feel that vibration in your heart and wherever your body of joy.

Nikisha:

So start small. Please don't think you have to do something grand.

Demi:

Mm-hmm.

Demi:

It's just that simple and I will say something that helps too, because some people will say, like, okay, I said I'm thankful for it, I don't feel anything. Make sure you're taking a second to like, actually reflect on it. And one thing that really helps is if you say, like I am thankful for, let's say, breath in my lungs, and then you tack on because and then give a reason to it Like I am thankful for breath in my lungs because it means I'm here to live another day, yeah, like, if you give it a reason, a lot of times, it can sink in a little bit more and be a little bit more Relatable to you and be like oh yeah, like that's amazing.

Nikisha:

That's really good. That's true, because I could be doing that but never realize I'm doing that right. That's very true. And do you have one more tip for us? So so far, we have to find your success. Mm-hmm gratitude and one more go ahead.

Demi:

Okay, let's see. I mean Okay, this is good for us business gals is, I would say, hand off your zones of incompetence. So basically, that's from a book called the Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, which you and I both read, but your zone of incompetence? He talks about your zones of genius and your zones of incompetence. Your zones of genius are the things that only you can do and you do well, but your zones of incompetence for example mine are scheduling and emails. I'm going to hand that off. I'm going to hand off cleaning my house. That is my zone of incompetence. I'm going to hand off grocery shopping because that is the zone of incompetence.

Demi:

But things like little things like that in our life, like that you're, like I don't have to be doing that. I think that is profound and that gives you something to immediately get off of your plate. And so many of us can say outsourcing, it costs you much money or that's going to cost me too much, but you're looking at it the wrong way. If you are properly hiring outsourcing, it should be making you money and the business money we personalize as, in which we're like, oh, we're paying them, but I'm like, no, it's going to make the business money truly tenfold. And that's not me saying, obviously, outsource beyond your means, but if you can do it, do it. It's going to change your life if you have the right people on your team and helping, support you and taking care of your zones of incompetence so you can focus on what really matters.

Nikisha:

Right, and let me clarify this part. When you mentioned that doing hiring out brings in money. What it does, it gives you time. So, for example, if you were cleaning your home and didn't hire out that three, four, five hours, you've been taken away from family replenishment or time in your business because you're doing it on a weekday, especially like folding clothes and doing all the laundry.

Nikisha:

But if you hire that out, that time can be now reinvested in marketing, in consultations, and those consultations get converted into paying clients. Now your business is growing. So when we say, hire out and don't go above your means, things you can do but put it on a value right. For me, what it would be, it would be grocery shopping. I might do Instacart, have somebody pick it up and deliver it to me for a little fee that I can totally be okay with because, that same fee is like ordering out.

Nikisha:

I'm not gonna lie, it's the same thing. So by you know things like that there's no prep opportunities where you just get your food.

Nikisha:

I've had some of them. So the question is if you're able to do that and you are, I know you are, because if you can invest in a thousand dollar cell phone, you are capable of doing anything you have to value it, and that's the thing. If you're not valuing yourself, of course hiring a cleaning service is gonna feel like that's an expense you do not need Absolutely, but you got to look at it differently.

Demi:

And then if you think about look at people at the top, like, look at people that are successful, and then this is also like define success for yourself, but like, I would like to have a lot of money one day like if you look at billionaire behavior, yes, they have the money to outsource things, but they're also thinking about time as money, and exactly what you said. Like me, paying somebody to clean my house is one of those. You know $50 an hour jobs that I can pay out and be like okay, well, that gives me truly five hours of my time back. That's almost invaluable.

Nikisha:

Right, so your time back could be your worth 150 or 1000 or 10,000 per hour. So now imagine what you can do in that five hours. You can gain 50k easily, right, $50,000, $50,000. Like no big deal.

Demi:

Obviously. Which one are we picking Exactly?

Nikisha:

Even when you said that about reclaiming your time, that's the other thing. There's ways that we our background has conditioned us to kind of trade time and money, right when we work for a certain hourly rate. When people come back, or people from a wealthier environment, or they're learning, they don't trade time for money. How can?

Nikisha:

my money work for me. What I'm saying this is when I invest in a company to do cleaning service, I'm actually investing in the human being. I'm actually paying someone so that they can do what they need to do in their life as well. I usually don't look at money when I'm paying something as a loss.

Demi:

It's not a loss, it's a gain for me, it is.

Nikisha:

It's a gain. When I pay my cleaning service and I give them a tip or whatever it is, I'm investing in someone else so that they can make something happen for themselves, their kids, your family. I'm not losing anything. I'm giving, and when I give abundantly, I receive abundantly from the universe from God, whatever it is. I don't have a problem giving. I can give abundantly. I don't tie my money to me losing my money.

Nikisha:

And so many people do that. I go. You're not losing anything. We have currency just for that purpose. We don't barter anymore.

Demi:

Currency is a tool that would need.

Demi:

A fun story about this is I learned that truly giving gratitude and especially a money mindset. It is a frequency, it is A high one too, it is. And I was a bad. I wasn't a bad tipper, but I just was kind of like of the mindset of like, oh, I'll do like bare minimum. Just that's how I was. And then when I learned this, I was like, oh, I shifted my mindset into like, oh, I'm helping these people, I am giving things like that. And I started doing this and like first week I was like tipping greatly and just giving money when I could. I literally got a free meal from this place and I had tipped them very well and I ended up getting a totally free meal for me and like four friends, it was like a hundred and fifty dollar meal and like, without going into details, but it was just that was so cool. I'm like, look, I was literally just given all that back.

Nikisha:

Yes, crazy, and that's how it works. It is a frequency and it's a transfer of energy. The more you give, you'll receive a lot more back. But if you don't know that, you can't practice it. If you don't practice it, that's why you're always at a deficit. Right, if you're always thinking you're losing money, you're going to see your whole life as always losing money. That's why we give discounts, scarcity, thinking you are whatever you give is what you return. Yeah, you're not going to get anything back.

Nikisha:

But if you give abundantly, and abundantly means within your means, you can do that. A 20% tip on a $10 meal or something on a $15 meal, whatever it is, because I eat by myself, so there's moments I have like that it's not going to break your pocket as much as you really think it is. And if you think it is the negative that scares the energy you're putting out, you always get back. So just be open to that. Agree, just be open to it. No one wants you to change anything. But if you're gonna give from that place of not having, then you're never going to receive. As a business owner Person would generate revenue to grow your business, absolutely Right, mm-hmm. Thank you so much. I love the fact that you share these three tips. So we had define your success gratitude and to give yours in zone of incompetence.

Demi:

Mm-hmm.

Nikisha:

Yeah, and these are three tips for burnout Mm-hmm. These are things that you can start doing and practicing that can help you if you're feeling like some of the points that we told you about what burnout exists for you. If you feel like you're not having time for family and friends, if you feel like resentment is occurring, hopelessness Right, you were drawing from family, neglecting your own needs. If some of these came up for you when we said it, you got goosebumps. You felt that little vibration in your hearts and your stomach. If you had any of those moments, there might be something there you should consider. So Demi has this thing where she loves to learn about one fun fact Of your work.

Nikisha:

I'm gonna ask Demi what's her fun fact outside of her work life?

Demi:

Go ahead, Sure yeah this is like I I'm not even joking. I pulled up the notes out because I keep them on deck. I have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and I tailor it for my, my audience. I'm like, okay for this one, because we talked about you meeting me on the dance form. Yeah my fun fact is that I crashed a wedding in Mexico with seven of my friends.

Nikisha:

Let them know about that. So how?

Demi:

bad guys. It was so fun. Basically, we were there celebrating my 30th birthday me, my husband and six of our friends and we had met so many people at the resort that week because, like Me and my best friend are such social butterflies and we'll go talk and talk and talk and just meet all these people. And so we were like, hey, impromptu beach party tonight at eight o'clock. And everyone's like, okay, we'll be there. So we had literally put our mini bars into laundry hampers. We're taking them outside, like over our bags, onto the beach. We had our mini speaker. We were about set up.

Demi:

So, as we're setting up for our impromptu beach party, we look down the beach and we see, like what looks like a wedding. And my best friend and I were like, should we go check it out? I was like, let's do it, so we run over there just to see what's going on. And there were the bride and groom were on the dance floor alone and they looked miserable. And so I walked up to the bride. I was like hi, what's your name? She was like I'm Emily. I was like hi, emily, happy wedding day. This is like so exciting for you. And I was like do you wish? Like the dance floor was more packed. She was like, yes, no one's dancing.

Demi:

And so I was like, okay, cool, here's the deal. I have me, him and six of our friends back there that, like, if you want us to, we can absolutely Absolutely light this dance floor up in three minutes flat. Do you want us to, yes or no? And she like looked at me so hesitantly and was like and then she was like how about like 10 minutes? And I was like okay, you want us to come for just 10 minutes, how? She's like yeah, I was like you got it, we'll be here for 10 minutes, whole place. So we run back down the beach, go get our friends, two of which were basically naked and swimming in the ocean. And I was like, guys, put your pants on, we're gonna run back crash this wedding. So we did. We all showed up, all the people at the wedding were like, who are these people? And then we were grabbing guests and like pulling them on the dance floor like, come on, come on, like Emily. And so we did. We absolutely lit up the dance floor so good I checked in with her.

Demi:

I was like Emily, do you want us to go? And she was like no, oh, my god, please don't absolutely like made our night. Like you can't leave yet we're like you got it. So we just kept dancing and it was. I took a core life memory like Crashing a wedding in Mexico with your best friends.

Nikisha:

How fun so good on your 30th. That is memorable. Oh that's why I love you like that's so good. It was so fun. It was so fun. That's one fun fact about me. So good, Demi. Thank you so much Well thank you for having me.

Demi:

I loved it.

Nikisha:

I appreciate your time with us. I appreciate you sharing burnout like tips showing us signs. It's so important to have that, because if you don't know the signs, then how could you implement anything right? Thank you so much, demi. I appreciate you and thanks everyone for listening. Today we totally enjoy your company.

Demi:

Yes, all right.

Nikisha:

See you next Tuesday. Guys. Hey, before you go, I got a golden opportunity for you. Yes, you, it's a chance that's too good to pass up. A chance to work with me one-on-one, practically for free. Imagine waving a magic wand and saying goodbye to feeling completely Overwhelmed, anxious and all those feelings that keep you stuck from selling your services. You know that feeling where you can't make decisions. You're on the hamster wheel. I know I was there. But what if I told you I can help you get rid of that feeling forever. Not only five minutes, ten minutes, but forever. Yes, to the point. We're working on your newsletter website.

Nikisha:

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