Many business owners struggle with chronic pain, whether it be physically or emotionally, and other things like anxiety and depression which can no doubt make succeeding in your business feel extra challenging.

However, just because you struggle with these types of health challenges doesn’t mean you can’t still scale your business to the level of success you want while working fewer hours. In this episode, I am joined by one of my Accelerator program members, Susi Hately, to talk about how it’s possible. 

Susi believes that healing is possible. After graduating with a B.S in Kinesiology & Exercise Physiology, she got hired at a pain clinic to help others get out of pain, but it was her own journey of overcoming pain that opened her eyes to the powers of healing. After years of recurring injuries and setbacks, she discovered yoga. It completely transformed her awareness, her breathing, and her patience with herself. So after just 4 months of consistently practicing yoga, she was able to run her first 10 km race pain-free.

She launched therapeutic trainings, her own certification programs, and a slew of new and unique offers. Two of her programs have been studied at a University level—cancer recovery and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Her clients come from a range of backgrounds and they share one common belief: They innately know that they can recover and heal.

The key is to become aware of what your body is telling you. You can use the awareness of your symptoms to set up and scale your business based on when you are feeling your best. 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The relationship between emotional and physical pain
• How business launches can affect your physical symptoms
• Why you need to listen to the “whispers” your body is telling you
• How to operate when you are in a heightened version of your symptoms
• How to intentionally plan when you do things in your business based on your symptoms
• Why our actions are influenced by our emotions
• How to move forward in your business when you’re feeling anxiety
• The way Susi leverages her knowledge to run her business
• Steps to take in your business if you are suffering from any type of chronic pain

Links & Resources:

• The Art of Online Business website
• DM me on Instagram
• Visit my YouTube channel
• The Art of Online Business clips on YouTube
• Full episodes of The Art of Online Business Podcast on YouTube
• The Art of Online Business Podcast website
• Check out my Accelerator coaching program

*Disclosure: I only recommend products I use and love and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission.

Susi Hately’s Links: 

• Visit Susi’s website
• Follow Susi on Instagram
• Check out Susi’s YouTube channel
• Follow Susi on Facebook

Got A Question You Want Answered On the Podcast?

Ask your questions or let me know if there is a topic or guest you’d like to hear from in the comments below or click here to visit my contact page and submit your question there for a chance to be featured on one of my upcoming Q&A episodes.

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Hey my friend, welcome to the Art of Online Business Podcast. My name is Rick Mulwray and I’m an online business coach. I’m an ads expert, and most importantly, I’m a dad. And this show is where we help established online course creators and coaches create more profit, more impact with less hustle. All right, let’s get into it. What’s up, my friend? Welcome to the Art of Online Business Podcast. Thank you as always for tuning in today. Appreciate that. So I want to have a conversation on the podcast here today, something that it’s a topic that we’ve never covered here on the show. And it’s frankly, it’s something that I’ve actually never really heard in relation to scaling your online business and your and your impact. And joining me today, I’m going to have a discussion with Suzy Hatley, and Suzy is a member of our accelerator coaching program and she is an expert in. And I’ll let you I’ll let her explain her background and credentials once we start here in just a minute. But what we’re going to be talking about is for those of us who experience chronic symptoms, chronic pain, whether it’s physical pain or emotional pain like anxiety or depression or something, as is very well documented here on the podcast, I talk about it a lot, how I struggle. 

I have struggled with anxiety for years and years and years and depression in the last several years. When we are experiencing those types of systems, our symptoms excuse me, it is absolutely still possible to scale your business and impact to the level of whatever it is that you define success as in your business, while also working fewer hours. Because that’s what we’re all about. Right. And I do want to you’re going to listen for the first like 4 minutes today, and you’re going to be like, what does this have to do with running an online business and stick with me? I promise that it does. And we dive into all of that here today. And at the end of this interview, I ask Susie to give you kind of a step by step by step of what to do when you are experiencing some form of pain, chronic pain or intense pain. And again, whether that is physical, emotional or what have you and it’s just a really fascinating discussion and how you can use this sort of awareness. To set up and scale your business. Based on when you were feeling the best. 

And I promise you, this is all going to make sense as we dive into this episode here today. Now, I do want to say as a sort of a trigger warning going into this episode, we don’t talk about specific trauma or although I share an experience like a physical trauma of like when I hurt myself in a hotel room years ago doing bodyweight exercises. I’ll share that story coming up here. But we talk about physical pain and emotional pain in general today. So if that’s something that you don’t even want to dive into on a podcast episode, now would be a good time to stop this episode and go back and listen to one of my previous 600 plus somewhat episodes that I have here on the show. So trigger warning for you right there. Otherwise, really, I hope you enjoy this conversation here with Susie Hateley. It’s a very eye opening conversation and one that I got a ton out of, selfishly for myself and I wanted to share with you because I think you will, too. So without further ado, let’s go hang out with Susie Hateley. Suzy, welcome to the podcast. I’m so excited to have you here. How are you doing? 

I’m great, thank you. This is going to be fun. 

This is going to be fun. And we were just starting just before we hit record here. I told you, I said, I don’t really know where this is going to go, but I know that this is a very, very interesting topic that we’ve never covered anything like this on the podcast here before. And I think this is, you know, as somebody who has and you and I’ve talked about this has struggled with anxiety and for four years, like since I was a kid and in the more recent years, let’s just say in the past seven, eight ish years on the Depression side, and also, I don’t think you you know this and we’ll talk more a little bit more about this, but I had a low back injury back in 2013. And I can tell that story here in a couple of minutes, but I’m really excited this for this conversation. And so let’s set the foundation by having you introduce yourself and what it is that you specialize in.

So my name is Susie Hateley and I live in Calgary, Canada. So from a geographical perspective that’s above Montana and I’m a geologist by training, specializing with exercise, physiology, biomechanics, and I blended that with yoga way, way, way long ago, like about now it’s built almost 30 years ago. And I’ve utilized those skill sets to help people reduce and eradicate pain. My key thing is for people who have persistency in pain and also other symptoms. As it turns out, I’m really, really great at helping people reduce those and really tune in to their bodies and minds and even in some cases, eradicate what’s going on. 

And you define pain in a few different ways, like a physical pain, but there’s also the emotional chronic type of pain like like I just mentioned, like anxiety, depression and so forth. 

Well, when I started, because I come from a background with the body, that’s where I began. And in the industry of yoga and in the industry of like body type of rehabilitative work, it’s really clear that we are not like inner scope of practice. We are not permitted to go into the emotional side. So for years I just was I had a line in the sand and I just wouldn’t go there. But very quickly, it was clear that most people who are coming to see me for issues around physical pain, whether the emotional issues were related to the physical pain, or they were just also there, it was clear that there was a relationship. So I because I wouldn’t go over the line and I wasn’t skilled and all of the things. What I started to see is the relationship between the two very, very clearly. And I could see patterns of movement in how someone moved and how that was related to what was going on with their mind. And I would not I’m not sure what it said it that way at the time, but there was just this pattern, and I didn’t necessarily have to speak to it. 

So I never went outside my scope. But people figured it out by tuning more into their body and into what we call in our worlds the somatic or embodied experience. They started to tune in to this relationship of what was going on emotionally and mentally, to what was going on with the awareness of their body. And so then it became clearer. And then as as I went along and I started to learn more generally about cognitive processing and I realized, wait a second, this is absolutely within my scope. I’m not a psychotherapist, I’m not a counselor. I’m not a psychologist. I’ve been to those people. I know what they do. It’s not what I do. I just help people become aware. Just like if you’re meditating or you’re mindful, you become aware of things going on. And then I help them focus their attention and then just tune into some of the contributing or trigger factors that escalate their symptoms. So when they when they can tune into that, that’s when real change can start to happen. 

So it’s a combination of the emotional. Healing or awareness to help in the healing, I should say. And the physical part. Is that. Correct? Oh, yeah. 

Okay. Yeah. So somebody’s listening right now who’s you know, we’re about 4 minutes into the interview. I know they’re thinking, what the heck does this have to do with running an online business? Right. And you and I have talked about this, and I find this really, really fascinating in a way that it as an online business owner who has maybe struggled with. Chronic pain, whether it’s physical, whether it’s emotional, again, like anxiety, depression, like and I’m you know, that’s that is I mean much better now through a lot of therapy medication. But it there is a whole side to this when it comes to running a business. Talk more about that. 

Well, I think the first key part is just how depleting symptoms like this can be. They take up a lot of bandwidth, both like in the focus on them and then the impact on them. And it can be extraordinarily draining. So what I’m training my teachers, a lot of them will will say, like, I’m just I’m just too depleted to even think about it. And so I think that’s an element. I think there’s another element that the 

spikes in depressive symptoms or with anxiety can they can really escalate when when a person is in a challenging situation like they’re making a new offer or they’re getting into a lodge or they’re scared to go there because they don’t want to have the escalation of symptoms and they think that they they like they they a lot of people know their symptoms well enough to say, I can’t do that. Like, I just know that’s my limit and I’m not going to do X number of launches per year or I just know and which is great that they’re aware of that. And I also want to offer up that, that you could actually build the business of your dreams and and utilizing the awareness that you have and recognizing and knowing what those symptoms are. I like to say that symptoms are, yes, a problem to solve, and they are also messengers. And so they can really, really tune us in to our own inner knowing, which when you have that as you know, it’s like you can build your business so much more effectively. 

Yeah. So there’s so much I want to unpack there. Now, as you’re talking there, one thing that comes to mind. So, so going back to I’ll share two examples like personal examples. And one of them I think is more obvious. The first example I’ll I’ll share, which was back in 2013. I don’t know. I’d love to get your thoughts on it. So I had just left the corporate world and I was like, Oh, I’m leaving to become a quote unquote online entrepreneur. I had no idea what that really was back then. And I my my wife Amy, was on this cross-country tour that she called it she called it a 30 by 30 tour. So she went to 30 different cities and she was raising money for suicide prevention and she was doing exercise classes. She’s an online health coach. She was doing exercise classes in all these different cities to raise money for suicide prevention. And I was with her in, I believe it was Stamford, Connecticut. And I had just gotten there or something. I don’t know what I don’t remember what the situation was, but I was in a hotel room. Oh, I know what it was. She was in New England somewhere. I was there for an online conference. I was one of my very, very first people that I hired to be a coach way back then. He was having an in-person event in Connecticut.

So I was at this hotel where the event was, and I, I don’t know, I woke up and I was like, Oh, I’m going to go work out in the in the hotel gym. And then I was like, Oh, this is like this. I have to write a blog post. I’m way behind. I have to write this blog post. Like, okay, this gives you a sense of, like the type of thinking I had back then. And so I was like, Oh, I can just write this real quick. And I remember sitting at the table at the desk writing this, agonizing over it, because writing is not easy for me. And I was like, Oh, I don’t have any more time to work out. So I’ll just do some bodyweight exercises here in the hotel room. So, you know, I started to do just some lunges or what have you, and then I started to go down. I start to do some burpees. And so I went down, kick my legs back, and my low back seized up me like excruciating pain. And long story short is I got myself to the bed and I couldn’t move. I had to call 911. They had to break through the door because I had the lock on the door. And they took me to the hospital. I was all drugged up. 

I was thrown. It was terrible. It was awful. And the next day, I was flying back to L.A.. So six hour flight cross-country from Connecticut in just excruciating pain. And ever since then, I have had low back issues. And knock on wood, I’m knocking on my desk right now. It’s not as bad as it used to be. However, I do have one area in in my low back on the right side that I feel quite a bit now. Again, knock on wood. It hasn’t happened in a long time where it has that kind of intensity. But I will tell you that when I was doing launches in my business, that’s when it would happen. I was stressed out. I was like, you know, go, go, go, go, go. And I was like, oh, I don’t know how this is going to go. That’s when I found myself or found, like that’s when the low back stuff would happen. So. In this discussion that we’re having right now. What’s like, what’s the relationship there? And I’d love to know if you, you know, like just hearing that. Right. About in the hotel room. Is there any correlation there or is it just more so like, oh, I wasn’t, you know, my my body wasn’t ready to be doing that type of movement. And my lower back told me that. 

I mean, very possibly. I mean, you could go through all the layers of that to the degree that you wanted to go and find all sorts of things that you could find for sure. Yeah, I don’t like. All depends on where you want to go with that. Sure. When it comes to the online business, what I find really interesting is because launches can inherently be stressful. Yeah, there is a smaller bandwidth that we tend to have and there they do tend to take energy and so there tends to be tension and we might not breathe as well. And as a woman, we probably more in a sympathetic drive, more in a stress response. So it’s it’s not surprising for pain to go up, particularly in areas that are called the weaker areas, not because you’re not strong there. It’s just like it’s more of a of a weak link. 

Sure. 

And I also want to offer up another viewpoint, which you in your program do such a good job at, which is, well, let’s look actually consider what you think about your launches, because launches don’t have to be stressful. 

Right. 

Yeah, we we I think there’s a belief that they do have to be stressful. But I would offer up that there’s a whole other way to look at launches which don’t have to drive you into that that strain space and could actually be more of a they don’t need to deplete you so much. Sure, there might be some work and in some cases there might be some slog or there might be some pivot. But there’s a distinction between that and being really, really tense. Sure. Like that doesn’t necessarily have to exist. 

Yeah. I mean, I just got an A Vox this morning from one of our accelerator members and they were telling me about they’re in a launch right now and they were saying this has been like the most fun launch I’ve ever done in this person’s been in business for quite a while, has a very successful business. And they said, Yeah, I put, I did the webinar meaning like I created the webinar, put the slides and all the content and training and so forth together. But the team is doing everything else. And they were saying, All I have to do is show up and then I just chill out and lay on the couch after that and everything’s being taken care of and sales are going really well. And they were saying like, how energizing actually this is because that like this is the current situation. 

Mm hmm. So they’re they’re in their zone of genius, and the team is in their zone a genius. So one zone. A genius is supporting the other zone of genius. Yes. 

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So so if we are, let’s get I don’t know if tactical is the right word here, but if we are feeling. Any kind of pain, again, whether it be physical or emotional, you know, anxiety, depression, what have you. And you’re running your business. What are some of the steps that we can do to actually like when we’re in that? You know.

Well, I would back it up a little bit to before or if you’ve already been in that situation a few times. And so you know that that’s the experience you’re going to have. Can you notice the whispers before the screams? So there’s a there’s a great line out there that I’m not sure who it’s attributed to, but it’s listen to your body when it whispers so you don’t have to hear the screams. And that relates both to anxiety and depression as well, and what I call them yellow lights. Like, if you think about a traffic standard, so red is screams, yellow is like if you keep going at the rate you’re going, then you’re going to get to scream. So it lets you know just where your band with this and a lot of people blow by the yellow light like think about it when you drive in a city like you kind of time the yellow light and the gas line is a little bit harder. So some people do that and then they get to the red a little faster or they get through it. But what’s interesting is I’ve had trainees who have anxiety and when I’ve asked them to pay attention to the whispers, one of the pieces of feedback they give me is that when they’re in a higher level of anxiety, that’s like capital, a anxiety I’m not talking about. 

Like I am feeling anxious right now. I am talking about like capital, a anxiety. Sure. And and they would did they describe it as being when they’re there, it’s really about other people and taking care of other people and that when they can get into the space, when they recognize a space where an anxiety is either way, way less or not existent, but then they start to notice the whisper of it. That’s like the whisper telling them to take care of themselves. And if they follow that particular whisper of taking care of themselves and learning what taking care of themselves actually means, which might mean self care, but it also might mean something different depending on the person. Then they notice that they don’t go into the capital anxiety as much because they’re paying attention to those whispers. So then as they start to recognize and understand those things, then when they set up their launch, when they set up whatever new thing or or what thing that might they might think will create some level of stress. They can design it to serve themselves, but they can design it in a way that’s unique to them. 

So let’s unpack that a little bit, because that’s really interesting to me. So what what do you mean exactly? Like when you are becoming more aware of the whispers, if you will, and start to understand this, these types of processes for yourself. You mentioned like now you can set up doing things in your business, whether it be a launch, whether it be. I mean, does it even have to be something stressful? Because like, let’s just say, you know, one one thing is batching content. Yeah. For example, you know, people are like, oh, no, like and I’m raising my head to like, oh, no. Like I’m behind on creating content. I got to bash content. And so it’s kind of like timing those sorts of things so that you can be setting yourself up for the most success. Meaning like being at your best. Is that what, sometimes? 

A little bit, yes. I think the key is, is that in business, so many industries have like the right way of doing it and the online space is no different. Like there’s the right way to do funnels and there’s the right way to do podcasts is and the right way to do this and that. And the reality is the only right way is the way that works for you. Sure. And with if I could say it this way, the great thing about having persistent symptoms or things like anxiety and depression is you get to do it exactly the way that works for you. And so you really tune yourself into how your energy flows and when you are at your best and when you would not be at your best and you can set your wake up to really serve you and what you are like, what you’re about, and really guide, guide the mission that you’re on in a way that is really about the way that you do. You Yeah. 

So I can imagine that somebody’s listening right now who really struggled with struggles with some. Again, go back to the pain, whether it be physical or emotional. They’d be thinking like, okay, yes, you see, that’s all sounds well and good, but like I’m like, this is a big problem for me that I really struggle with and I could totally relate to that. How do we operate from, you know, from that perspective or from that point? 

Like when they’re when they’re in that when they’re when they’re in the heightened version of it? Yeah. And so there’s a couple of things to think about. I think the first one is that there’s a lot of people who are very good at enduring the symptom, and sometimes that might be something one has to do. And so then you learn the strategies to support yourself in that space. And then if you’re somebody who is really curious about. Like there’s an innate knowing that the symptom is here more than just to be here. That it’s not about getting your body back on board. It’s not about. Having had a fight with your body that that there’s this innate knowing that you have. I think that’s what’s really key is that we can go into these scenarios trying to fix them. And then we can go into these scenarios with a curiosity. 

And I am sorry to interrupt, because I am the former. I am like, I don’t like this. Mm hmm. I need to beat it down to fix it.

Right. And here’s here is where. That way. When that way there’s a time where that way stops working. Yeah, there’s a time when it works and there’s a time when it stops working. And when it stops working is when it doesn’t work. Yeah. Right. And so and it could be that you just haven’t found the right solution yet, but but typically the body is not broken unless it’s actually like you have a broken bone. The body is not, in fact broken. And when there’s a persistency of issues, the the issue tends to be that you’re chasing after symptoms. And the symptoms are an expression of the problem, but they’re not at this point the problem itself. And the problem where the problem lies is this is this is the rub is is what you’re not aware of. And so the reason why you’re not solving it is because you’re not aware of it. And so when you start to become aware of what’s going on and like and if it’s under your awareness, if it’s not in your, in your consciousness, when you start to become aware of what’s what is, what’s what’s there, then now you can start to solve it a bit more effectively, but it’s recognizing that the pain is not actually the problem, even though it feels very much like the problem. But if you’re consistently trying to do something and the symptoms aren’t changing, then it’s not. 

Actually those symptoms that are the thing. There is the expression of the thing. Yeah, and I can’t tell someone where the thing is. Like at this moment on this podcast, what I can say is when you start to pay attention to the times where the pain doesn’t exist, when the symptoms are down, a lot of times what people do is they say, okay, great, they’re down. I better get everything I need to get done now because I don’t know when they’re going to come back. And I get that. And the additional part to that is, okay, hold on a second here. Rather than saying the pain is not there. Or rather than saying the anxiety is not there. Or the depression is not there, how about asking yourself, what is there? And so when I’m working with a client and their pain goes down or their anxiety goes down or the depression goes down, I then ask them, Okay, what? Tell me what this is. Tell me what this feels like now. And they usually struggle. At first they’re like, Well, it’s just not there. I’m like, okay, great. But what is what is there? And so when they can start to name like, Oh, my feet feel relaxed or my breathing is softer or my eyes are more clear or my jaw is not as tight, like where they can start to name and put things into place. 

Now they can label what feels good, and what becomes important is recognizing that what feels good will fade. And I realize that sounds odd for me to say that, but it will because it’s a new pattern that needs to grow. So so my, my ask of them is, okay, I want you now to notice when that good feeling fades, what else happens before. Before the rise of the anxiety. Before the rise of the pain, before the rise of. So this can even happen when there’s a slight dip of symptoms, it’s like, okay, then what’s there? And it takes some attention and it takes some awareness. But when you start to recognize that, then when they come back, I say, All right, so how long did the symptoms go down for? And then they’ll come back and say, 2 hours, two days, one day a week. It’s like, okay, so now let’s extend that, okay? Now let’s, let’s, let’s get to the next level. Let’s get the let’s get to the quieter whisper. Let’s get to the quieter whisper. So now I’m like, I’m off screen now. Like now we’re operating in this place where we’re so paying attention to the whispers, we’re not blowing by them that we don’t actually have to hear the screams. Yeah. Yeah. Which I understand for a lot of people is a different way of paying attention to their body. 

Well, I think that’s really what was one big interest of having you on the show here to have this conversation, because this is a different way of thinking and also selfish reasons, too, because this is something that, again, it’s not as bad as it used to be. But like, you know, there and I, I had somebody tell me a few years ago. And not in like a weird way. They said, Rick, you operate with a low level like this, underlying low level of fight or flight. Each day. And I it was I, I found oddly some comfort in that because I was like, oh, yeah, that’s right. I was able to sort of identify it. And it’s not nearly as bad as it used to be. But. How do we become how do we hear the whisper? You talk about creating that awareness. Is this is this really like a mindfulness exercise? 

You could you can name it that I want to tell one quick story is what’s really really common is by the time people come to me is that they a lot of my clients are very driven. And they have tried everything. And they are the kind of kinds of people who. Something gets them down to pick themselves back up again. They get them down and feeling their body has not been their go to. In fact, like why on earth would you let let’s just control the body, get on with it, clear our mind, go forward and then it stops working. And I’ve had some people whose physicians have actually said to them, you’ve got to quit your job or the job’s going to kill you. Like quite literally, that is what they’ve said to me. And I remember one story where the person said to me, Well, what do you think? And I’m like, Well, it’s not up to me to tell you what I think about that. That’s your decision. However, what I do want to say is this You can go and rest. You can you can take the summer off, you can rest yourself up and you’ll walk down the street or something will come across your desk. 

And because your DNA is wired to do what you do in the work you do, you will find something that will fire you up. And you’ll be right back to where you are now. You’ll feel better and you’ll have a little juice in your tank, but you haven’t actually resolved what got you here in the first place. You’re going to land right back to where you are. So you could actually take the time now, which is it’s a bit hard. I get it. You can take the time now, have the lifestyle you want, do all the things just we’re going to re channel your energy so it actually serves you not against you. So it’s like for you you have a you’re not dissimilar in the sense that you’ve got the drive and that drive comes from perhaps some push energy that tends to be a bit more like fight or flight and pushing against something. So we can just like re help you re channel the way that energy is so that it’s still you, you are still you. It’s just working for you rather than against you.

Hmm. And then from that point right there, that’s where you are sort of intentionally planning when you’re doing things in your business, for example, like, oh, I’m going to create this content, oh, this is what I’m going to do in my coaching calls, or this is when I’m going to create you offer whatever it might be. 

Yeah. And then you’re just, you have such a rather than the body being something against you, you actually begin to really feel your body as, Oh, my body is a messenger, my body’s a barometer. It lets me know, it lets me know the weather system’s coming through and then gives me the indicators of like, Oh, I’m going to push now, I can push now, oh, I should rest now. I can actually go harder now and that or you can even do this. All my body’s telling me I should probably rest, but I’m right in the middle of this thing and I need like think of it. I need to pivot like a, you know, like, quick. So sometimes we like that had to happen and you just had to like say, okay, body, I know I’m doing something I probably got not to do. But here’s what’s interesting is oftentimes when there’s that, I know I probably ought not to, but I’m going to do it and I’ll take care of you later. Their result is not nearly as awful than when we just kind of shove the symptoms aside and do it anyway. Right? Like when there’s that conscious relationship with our body. Yeah. 

What is what? This is just. And I have no idea if this is even remotely. I think it might. Pertain to what we’re talking about have some relevance here. But what just came up for me too, is this whole notion of perfectionism. Is it? And if we’re not like again, I’m speaking to my and perfect example is this morning I woke up really tired this morning and I was and I want I want peak performance of my body every single day. That’s just my like that’s what I want. And when it’s not that way, I start beating myself up over it, just to be completely honest. And I woke up this morning, I was super tired and I was like, Why am I so tired? Like, I didn’t go to bed super late. Like the yesterday wasn’t, you know, I was just trying to and I honestly don’t know at this point, but there was that, you know, few minutes there of beating myself up because I didn’t feel like I was my brain was super turned on my like at quote unquote peak, you know, whatever that means. Is there relevance there to what we’re talking about? 

Well, what’s curious about it is the fuel that it provides you. So our actions are driven by our emotions. And so noticing that thought emotion loop and how that generates a fuel to drive you. And when you start to recognize the fuel that’s driving you, then you can actually be clear of how it’s serving you or not. So it’s not necessarily your body that’s not on board. It might be just how we’re driving it and really cluing into it. So I’m going to give you an example that’s related. So I was having a conversation with a client, a client before she became a client. And she was concerned about becoming a client because she hadn’t done any of the exercises the PT had given her, and she had to tend not follow through. And I said, All right, well, let’s have a conversation about it. And so then we started to recognize some of the things that she was doing, and then she all of a sudden had this, like, gobsmacking ofof like, oh, my Lord, if I actually get better, I have to deal with my primary relationship. And I’m like, Well, that’s interesting. No kidding. You’re not doing your exercises then, because why would you want to get better if that’s what you’re going to have to deal with? Now, I can’t work. I’m not someone who can work with you around the primary relationship. That’s something you need to go work with somewhere else. 

But I can refer you to somebody and like, now what? Right. Like, now that you know this. Now what? And so that that’s where it becomes really interesting is to notice the fuel. She had no clue. It was just a matter of like talking out. What like what’s contributing to this? Like, what are you thinking about this? Like, what’s the fuel here that’s driving you against or toward whatever it is that you’re wanting and then like that’s what leads to the Aha. Because again, it’s, it’s oftentimes what’s driving us is not in our conscious awareness. So we don’t even know what’s, what’s kind of pushing us. And so when you take that, that time and take a peek at that, then it becomes a lot clearer about what’s about why you’re pushing that way. Right? So rather than just say, oh, stop doing that or keep doing that, it’s like, well, like why? Like, what’s contributing to that? It starts to become really, really curious. And frankly, a lot of people don’t spend a lot of time considering their thoughts. And that’s another great thing about your program, is that you’ve got Neil there, who is awesome at helping people really tune into what’s actually driving you here. Like what’s what’s the thinking, the emotional fuel, which is huge for someone tuning into like the components that like that are leading them in the direction that they’re going. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. 

Well, thank you for saying that. And, and. Another example that pops up is again for me, my current example, like literally we’re recording this, what is today, June 22nd? I am leaving tomorrow morning. Amy, Maya and I are leaving tomorrow morning to fly back to New Hampshire. My mom is not doing well. Second trip back to visit her in the past five weeks. And this is more of a last minute kind of like we need to get back there. And so this is, you know, stressful on my mind and it is making anxious. When people are when we’re in these types of I don’t mean necessarily, you know, a sick family member or anything like that when we’re in these types of angst, these situations that can make us anxious, anxious or depressed or what have you, but yet knowing that we still need to move forward in in the business, how do we deal with that?

I think there’s two key things. The first the first statement, I love, love, love, love, which is, of course, you feel that way. Mm hmm. Like, of course. Of course. Of course. Yeah. And I find that when when we begin with, of course, they make so much sense that the experience is what the experience is. It gives us permission to feel it. 

Mm hmm. 

And however, your feeling is perfect because that’s what you’re feeling. So the reason that whoever is feeling what they’re feeling well, the reason why you’re feeling what you’re feeling is because it makes absolute sense that you’re feeling it like it’s what you’re feeling. Right. So so if that’s what’s arising, that’s what’s arising. And so we get to feel it. And here’s some that can be hard, right? 

Because it’s your mom. And it sounds like that this is, you know, a quick trip for a reason. It’s not easy. And the other thing we need to remember is that what science tells us. Is that? Emotions move through us in 90 seconds if we allow them. But so often what people do is they like have this caught this quick loop that’s like, I don’t want to feel that that’s too hard to feel. I’ve got to get on with something. So they actually suppress it, poop, move it aside, they don’t actually process through it. And then they’re off doing something else, but it’s still sitting in them. And so then it starts the tension. Like when you feel an emotion and you feel the vibration of that emotion in your system, you’ll feel it somewhere, right? So when you feel sadness or grief or whatever inside of you, there’s an area in your body where you feel it. If you don’t allow it to go through, which can sometimes be difficult, right? We’re humans and then we just kind of shift our gear. That doesn’t actually change. It’s still there. Right. So sometimes when we’re just on our own or watching a movie that causes us to cry or something that all of a sudden we get into these, like, bawling fits, right? But now it’s starting to move. Yeah, right. And so I think there’s just a recognition that sometimes it’s, it’s just it’s okay to feel that way. And then some sometimes it’s like. And I need to do this or it’s sometimes I just can’t do it. Like, Yeah, I just can’t do it. And, and, and recognizing that you can’t do it, you just don’t have the bandwidth for it. 

And when we’re suppressing those feelings, which I’m very good at, is that am I correct in assuming that’s where a lot of the other, you know, like the physical pain starts, the physical symptoms start to show up or the emotional symptoms start to show up. 

Yes, because there’s now the whispers start to get louder and then louder and then louder and then louder and then louder. I remember saying when I was first learning this concept, I remember talking to a teacher of mine and I said, These things just should get louder. Like, why do I have to get quieter to feel them? And she’s like, Oh, Suzy, I’m like, They get louder by screaming at you, right? They don’t go away. I mean, they go away, but then they come back in another way and they come back louder. Yeah. But again, I think what’s really important is I don’t want people to think that there’s there’s something wrong with them for not listening to them. It’s a human phenomenon that this happens. Where are power lies is being able to tune into them and gain the awareness with them. And I recognize that for like I operate in a bit of an, a bit of a space where there’s a lot of people who recognize this to be true because they’ve learned from me or their practitioners in this kind of work. And we, they, we get that the mind and the body are one. And, and yet there’s a lot of people out there who who don’t. And so it makes it makes sense that this is either really new for people or it feels really like you’d listen to the body. Like, why wouldn’t you? Just what you can do, like people have been successful doing that and there’s a, there’s burnout thing and yeah, there can be a cost. And so if, if there’s a cost, if there’s a burnout, if there’s like so much symptom that it’s getting you down and you’re not living your dreams, that’s when we can kind of step back and look a second here. There’s a different possibility available. Are you interested in it? Because it’s available if he would like it. It takes a bit of work. Yeah, but it’s available. And it will likely lead to a better result. Like you’ll probably end up running your business even better and making more money as a result of it. 

Yeah, that’s. And that leads me to. That’s. I’m so glad you brought that up, because. Two more things I want to cover before we wrap up. Number one is you have a very successful online business. How do you I mean, obviously, you’re teaching that you’re an expert in this, what we’re talking about here. Mm hmm. How do you leverage the knowledge that you have to run your very successful business? 

So I learned a long time ago through a lot of starts and stops and mistakes made that in leveraging that it wasn’t about hiring other people to do what I do. So it wasn’t about McDonnell izing what I do, because what I realized is that I was the product, which can be tricky when we’re trying to scale, right? Sure. So then what I what I opted for is in the certification training that Iran is to find the subject matter experts who did the work that I, I liked that I needed to teach, but I didn’t love. So then I found the people who were awesome at that to do that. And then I found the people who were way better at operations and administration than I was. And so then I’ve been I leverage that way as well. So I’ve just I found and we were talking about this before, before that the session began, which is it’s like I have a very, very small team. It’s not a big team, but it’s a very specific team in terms of people being in their zone of genius so that I can be in my zone of genius. 

Yeah. 

Yeah.

And how do you leverage? Knowing because again, because you’re you’re so aware of yourself and your body and how you feel and all that stuff. How do you leverage that in terms of when you do things in your business, whether it’s creating content, whether it’s coaching, whether it’s whatever it might be? 

Yes. And so I tuned in really early on that my best work happens in the morning. So I am one of those people who’s a 4 a.m. riser. And and so some people may think that’s amazing or not amazing, but I go to bed right up. I’ve got five year old twins and they go to sleep at about 830 and I’m shortly behind them. And so that’s where I spend like my my time. And so I’m up early in the morning when they’re still asleep and and that I get a big chunk of my really key activity work done in the early morning. And then I’m often complete, complete my day at one in the afternoon, and then I have my other family stuff that I do. So it works. I’ve learned now. Do I go past 1 p.m. sometimes? Yeah, absolutely I do. But not not hugely often. And so I’ve just I’ve learned and on those weeks where they are bigger pushes, then I recognize that I need to have that downtime later on. So I’ve come to feel the ebb and the flow that when I’m, when I, when there is a bit of a push that sometimes happens in life because other stuff like whether something happens to my kids or my husband or something that can, that can weigh in on the, the scenario and, and I call it like I just I do my best. I don’t do it perfectly, but I give myself a lot of grace. I think I think that’s what I’ve that what I’ve really, really, really learned over the years is that there’s not a perfect way of doing it. There are my tendencies for where I do my best, and I don’t hold rigid and firm to them. But generally speaking, I end up being in those tendencies. 

When you were not doing that schedule, when you were like in the process of figuring like, oh, I, I perform really well in the morning. Were you were you experiencing symptoms of something as a result of being in that like, oh, no, I’m not. This is not working for me? 

Well, I’ve always known I was a I was a lightweight rower when I was younger, so I always gravitated towards early mornings anyway. I would say that there have been periods of times in my business where I’ve had to fire people and then I’ve had to do it all early on. And so then I end up doing wrecking in like late, late, late hours and knowing like, Oh boy, this isn’t working anymore as I figured it out again and then hired people. Sure. And so I would say that I experienced tiredness, I would say experience, like whey being weighed down. Yeah, but those were those were moments where I knew the end. There was, there was an end. Yeah. And so it was, it, it wasn’t that I’ve learned this because I went through a massive stage of burnout. I had a scenario where I had my twin sister, she passed away somewhat tragically, and it was one of those like, whew! Moments where that sort of deviated my path a little bit. But there hasn’t been a like a I’m not I’m not like a burnout survivor, if I could say that. It’s it’s more that I’ve just learned to listen and keep listening and refining the listening. 

So thank you for sharing that. And I’m very sorry. I don’t know if I know that about your sister. I’m sorry to hear that. As we wrap up here. I do like to give my audience like a very kind of like how to when appropriate. And maybe you might be like, well, this isn’t necessarily a how to like step one, step two, step three, but let’s try, right? So if somebody is listening right now and being like, yeah, I’m like, this is me, what you’re describing is me. I, you know, I identify as somebody that struggles with anxiety or depression or yeah, I have a chronic pain and it is hindering me in some way from running the business that I really want. What is step one for them to do? And then is there a step to step three, etc.? 

Thus the steps that I would suggest. Is. To first pay attention to when your symptoms are a little bit lower? A little bit because there is a fluctuation. And then even if it’s not a huge flux fluctuation and can you notice what is present when you have those fluctuations or what or when they were when they’re lower and what not, what caused them, but what was sort of in and around the environment when it was lower. And like, did you notice that you had a weekend off or you had better sleep or you ate something, or because all of those things can be triggers and so can you notice what is related? And I’m really clear that it’s not causal, but it’s correlated. So you’re using the idea of mindfulness to really tune into what is contributing to the experience that you’re having. And so to believe that there’s got to be a belief that you’re noticing that there’s a fluctuation. So first of all, pay attention to the flux fluctuation. Then when you start to get some data of like what it’s contributing, then start to notice when that fades, like what’s that period of time? And then start to experiment. Like just experiment with like is adding more mindfulness into your day or if adding more like fill in the blank like something you really that you that you like, you’re realizing helps you with managing whatever it is that you do. 

So maybe it’s like having a tea in the afternoon or the meditation in the morning, or when you plan your day or like think about the things that you know you already do that already work or in the past worked and start with one thing and then see if that intervention makes a difference. And then look at the results and then notice, does that fluctuation change in quality or in quantity? Like does it get longer? And then you start to then you have more data and then you take the data again and then you look at the results and then you just kind of keep going from there and, and, and you’ll start to pick up on what’s more and more and more and more the contributors. And I just I fundamentally and firmly believe the body does not lie and we just need to pay attention and we just keep paying attention. And it’s a little bit challenging at first, no doubt. But as you build up that data, you’ll get a way better understanding of what’s contributing to what you’re experiencing.

Hmm. I love this topic. So fascinating to me. Thank you for sharing all of this. Like I said, I had no idea where we would go with this, but I knew that we would, like, come to the end of this discussion. Making, I think making a ton of sense for how we as online business owners can leverage this knowledge to. Not only obviously improve our our business, but most importantly, our life right in our self. So thank you. Excuse me for sharing. I want to make sure that people know how to connect with you, learn more from you if they’re interested. What are all the ways? 

So they can find me on my website. Functional synergy dot com. You can find me over at Instagram. Susie. Susie Hateley. That’s probably the best place to DM me and happy to have a conversation. 

You guys let Susie know that you heard her on the podcast here. I’ll link everything up in the show notes for today’s episode over on my website, Ric Morcombe in the podcast section there. Susie, thank you again for coming on and really, really appreciate it. 

Great. Thank you. It was fun. 

Hey, thanks for listening today. Really appreciate it as always, if you’d like to support the podcast. One of the best ways that you can do that is to a subscribe to this show on whatever platform that you’re listening on, whether it’s Apple podcast or following the show on Spotify or what have you also. Yes, it still helps if you would leave a quick rating and review for the show over on Apple Podcasts. 

I read all of those reviews and it’s super helpful for me in delivering this show to you. Secondly, if you would like my eyes as well as my team’s eyes on your business, if you’re an established online course creator, maybe you’ve got a membership or you’re an online coach and you want to scale your business and impact while working no more than a 25 hour work week, then two different, two different ways to connect. Number one, shoot me an email, Rick at Rick Walmart.com and let’s chat about your business. I’d love to learn more about your business and what’s going on. You can also go over to our accelerator coaching program page, Rick Mul Radio.com Sports Accelerator, where you can learn all more about our program and hear from current and past students and how we help you get the results that you uniquely are looking for. It’s a very personalized coaching program in a group coaching and mastermind experience. So again, that’s Rick Mul Radio.com Forward Slash Accelerator. Thank you again my friend for listening today. Super. Appreciate you. Until next time, be well and I’ll talk to you soon.