I was crawling across the floor... or should I say I was trying to crawl across the floor.
Everything hurt. Every muscle twitch was excruciating.
Tears fell like hot lava from my face - and somehow, even THAT hurt. At best I was whimpering, at worst, outright wailing, as I made my way from the floor in the family room to the bathroom.
And then I had to try and stand up.
I was seriously entertaining the idea of just laying there - creating a pool of my own filth - just so I didn't need to move another millimeter.
But I kept going. I still don't know how I managed to "hold it" until I got to the toilet.
When my husband got home from work, we beelined to the ER. A few tests later confirmed that the sciatica that had disappeared months ago had come back with a vengeance. A pinched nerve that required neurosurgery to solve the problem.
Swell.
They sent me home with pain meds and told me to come back. The soonest they could get me in was 11 days away.
I'm sorry, what?!?!
Did you not hear the howling? Did you not see my wrenched up face and contorted body? I literally rode in the back seat of the car because I couldn't sit up straight, I was in so much pain.
I ended up having to reschedule my Creative Freedom Retreat because there was no way I could stand for more than a few moments at a time, never mind trying to lead a planning workshop.
At least with some pain meds, I could still get some work done. Right?
Wrong.
The meds took the edge off, but the pain was constant. I gave up trying to dress myself and ate as little as possible to minimize trips to the restroom... because said trips always required help. I practically had to be carried, it was that bad.
"Work" consisted of a handful of virtual appointments where I was strategically "propped and covered" so as not to reveal too much of myself on video. The less I moved, the less it hurt, so anything I could do without a camera on, I would attempt.
I had 4 semi-productive sessions before I finally gave up on the idea of doing anything that involved other people. The remainder of my "waiting" time, I was alone with my thoughts, wondering what would be left of my business when I was finally able to return to work.
Hustle taught me how to push — how to make things happen through grit, willpower, and sheer stamina. It trained me to override my body’s signals, distrust my intuition, and measure my worth by how much I could produce before collapsing at the end of the night.
Hustle applauds the late nights and the full calendars. It rewards the moments you say “yes” when your whole being is whispering “not now.” It’s a survival strategy dressed up as ambition.
When my kids were young, I wore busy like a badge of honor. So much so, that my kids thought I was always working and my youngest started to think his babysitter was his mom.
While I let a lot of that thinking go over the years, I was still the bottleneck in my business. I could outwork almost anyone, and I often did - until I couldn't anymore.
I told myself it was passion. Dedication. Proof that I was serious about success. And maybe that's a little bit true.... maybe.
What it really was, though, was fear.
Fear that if I slowed down, everything I’d built would crumble. Fear that if I stopped producing, people would stop paying attention... or caring about me at all.
I knew how to reach for the next milestone, but I didn’t know how to rest in what I’d already achieved. Every goal met, every box checked, every objective achieved only opened the door to the next one (and the next one, and the next).
Satisfaction never lasted long. It's a chronic condition for Fusion creatives - wind your key, put your head down, and go.
Ask for help? Naw. It's faster to just do it myself.
Celebrate? Maybe. Will there be cake?
Even with all the growth work I've done, I still didn’t realize how I’d internalized the notion that success is earned through exhaustion. That the more I sacrificed, the more I proved I was worthy of having it.
Well, crap.
It took being laid up in bed for 11 days to see how hustle had conditioned me to mistake constant output for consistent progress. To believe that if I wasn’t moving, I was somehow failing.
Double crap.
Hustle won't teach you how to hold success—how to sustain it without sacrificing yourself in the process. Because it’s one thing to climb the mountain; it’s another to live at the summit without losing your footing.
Real, sustainable success doesn’t demand more from you; it asks for something different: discernment, pacing, and the courage to stop performing your worth. It’s the quiet, grounded kind of success that expands your capacity instead of depleting it.
I knew how to climb the mountain of success. I'd been climbing my whole life. But I didn’t know how to live at the top without losing myself.
Hustle glorified the sprint and ignored the recovery.
Sustainable success is not about doing more; it’s about doing what matters with integrity and enough space to breathe. It asks you to trade urgency for rhythm, exhaustion for discernment, and constant striving for steady alignment.
It calls for pacing, not pushing. For courage—not the kind that conquers, but the kind that trusts.
The world doesn’t need your burnout. It needs your brilliance: steady, embodied, and alive.
Hustle culture disguises depletion as achievement. We’ve been conditioned to believe that busyness equals importance — but as leadership coach Ray Williams notes, being “addicted to busyness” actually diminishes well-being and real productivity.
The culture of hustle convinces us that constant output, all-in commitment and “always on” momentum are the marks of real achievement. Actually, though, research shows this mindset often leads to the opposite: exhaustion, declining performance and diminished creativity. Over-working (i.e., more than ~50 hours/week) actually reduces productivity, impairs cognitive function and stifles innovation rather than increasing it.
This is how depletion gets dressed up as achievement: you check off the hours, you hit the metrics, you keep moving — but the foundational capacities for leadership (clarity, presence, deep thinking) erode. The badge of “busy” becomes a mask for being drained.
When our identity is tightly bound to what we produce, our self-worth hinges on the next "result" - another client session, another set of deliverables.
Not that I speak from experience or anything. It took a LOOONG-ASS TIME for me to figure that out... and more time to do the work of unravelling it. And yeah, it still pings me from time to time... especially when my results aren't what I expect them to be.
The first six months of our move to the Pacific Northwest have felt like I was doing everything I could to just tread water. It would have been easy to slip into old patterns of feeling crappy about how little "progress" I felt like I was making.
Two things are at play here. First, I had to acknowledge that my capacity constraints had shifted in ways I was not planning on. I knew I was leaving my gig at the radio station, packing or selling everything we owned and finding a new place out west. But I didn't plan on Jim having 4 heart procedures, a cancer diagnosis, and surgery for said diagnosis during that same time frame!
So, um, yeah... a LOT was going on and my "results" were focused in the personal part of my life, not the work part!
Second, I had to acknowledge that I was doing something - just not what I had originally planned! My container was full - with different, and equally important things!
To begin separating identity from output, you might start by asking: “Who am I when I’m not hustling? What parts of me are independent of my last result?” Then create structural practices (e.g., a weekly non-work reflection, a non-output-related role) that remind you your value isn’t tied to what you ship. This shift frees you to lead from your whole self rather than your last achievement.
When I gave myself credit for taking care of a move, my partner, our home, and that my container was full in other, equally important ways, I could let go of the notion that I had to hustle. As I tell my clients, resting is doing something! And even if I wasn't actively doing anything, I am still priceless to the people who love me most.
Having a foundation you can depend on (rest, rhythms, boundaries, mission) while continuing to evolve, expand, and learn (without spinning or burning out) creates a kind of stability that allows you to keep growing in meaningful, effective ways.
Here's what your "magic paintbrush" image might look like:
Rather than growth that feels like sprint after sprint, you’re building a resilient ecosystem — the soil is strong, the roots are deep, the trunk is steady.
Growth happens up and out, not just forward at any cost.
You wake up feeling grounded and energized instead of on the brink of burnout.
You have a business that expands - without losing your weekends, your focus, or your sense of peace.
You feel like your effort actually sticks... compounding instead of constantly resetting.
Output is transient, but belonging and worth are enduring.
Belonging to yourself, and what really matters (alignment, integrity, impact, connection) instead of the misleading signals of “more" is what I mean here. Enoughness... in life and work.
Hustle promises short-term wins, usually at a long-term cost. It teaches you to sprint every race like it’s the last one—to chase visibility, validation, and velocity over intentionality.
You can’t build longevity on adrenaline alone.
The harder you push, the less space you have to integrate what you’ve built. Eventually, your growth outpaces your grounding—and the Noble Empire you worked so hard to build starts to feel like quicksand.
“If you just work harder / longer / push through, you’ll win and you’ll be safe.”
Whatever safe means.
I've said it to myself. My own clients have said it, too. I had to invite one client recently to consider that maybe, just maybe, their brain was lying to them.
Sometimes, it's true. When you're reaching the finish line, that little extra push can be exactly what you need to get over the hump and get it done. I call that "compassionate hustle".
I'm not anti-hustle. I'm anti-hustle culture.
Hustle culture sells the notion that exhaustion is a sign of commitment, that sacrifice equals reward. You're always "on" you can never rest, never quit, never replenish.
But the evidence says this isn’t reliable. It's not sustainable. Extended working hours correlate with worse health outcomes and reduced productivity — the premise of “more hours = more success” is flawed.
Because effort looks like virtue, it’s socially rewarded. It perpetuates the “ideal leader” myth of being tireless.
Also we lack good signals: when you’re busy and “on,” you might still hit goals, so the erosion is gradual — creativity diminishes, relationships strain, presence fades — but you still check the boxes that make it look like you're successful... while you don't feel successful at all. Meanwhile, culture normalizes overworking. One rocket-launching billionaire once tweeted that "nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week."
I call bullshit.
Working within your capacity means you’re not doing more — you’re becoming more effective, generative and whole. You're making space for what really matters so that you can grow with more ease - if you even want to grow in the first place!
Building from capacity (what I call your Conditions For Success) unlocks greater creativity and innovation. When you stop frantically "producing for the algo" and allow space (for reflection, rest, and integration) your mind generates richer ideas, your leadership voice deepens, your presence becomes magnetic rather than frantic. One report says that constant “output” pressure stifles the very creativity that innovation demands.
It’s built inside seven domains:
When these conditions work together in your favor, growth stops feeling like a tug-of-war—and starts feeling like a rising tide. Just knowing that they exist can make a big difference in how you choose to show up and what you choose to take on in your life and work.
Imagine building your business from stability instead of strain. Growing with rhythm, not reactivity.
You don’t have to chase balance because your systems and energy naturally support it. Opportunities flow because you’re operating in resonance—not resistance.
To slow down enough to hold what you’ve built.
To lead with clarity instead of compulsion.
To measure your worth by your alignment, not your exhaustion.
Become a member of my Rising Tide community (it's free, yo!) and you'll get access to my upcoming Conditions for Success workshop. Together we'll walk through the seven domains of sustainable growth, so you can build momentum that lasts, without losing yourself in the process, and create growth that doesn’t drain you.
Early morning. You roll out of bed, feeling heavier than you did when you went to sleep. You got your 8 hours, but your brain is already racing through the daily to-do's before your feet even hit the floor.
“Let me check my email,” you mutter under your breath. But the thought of doing even that feels exhausting.
On your phone (because you're so "efficient"), you open your calendar and see all the tasks you planned yesterday—and start putting things off. Not because you don’t care, but because your mental energy is already taxed. That important client follow-up gets pushed to “later,” and you justify it:
“I’ll do it after I finish this big project.”
So, you skip breakfast and jump into that project, but your excitement is gone. Questions that used to energize you now feel irritating, and you find yourself thinking, “Why am I even doing this?” Small frustrations feel magnified, and the enthusiasm that once fueled your vision feels muted.
You grab food and eat lunch at your desk to squeeze in another task. Coffee replaces nourishment. A walk or a moment to breathe feels impossible. Energy dips, muscles ache, and your patience thins—yet you keep pushing.
By early afternoon, even simple decisions feel heavy. Should you reply to that email now or wait? Should you tackle marketing or bookkeeping first? Your mind cycles endlessly, and your usual creative solutions feel out of reach.
Headaches creep in, shoulders tighten, and stomach discomfort reminds you that stress is taking its toll. You notice the small signs, but there’s no time to pause. You push through anyway, hoping it will pass.
"There's too much to do. I'll sleep when I'm dead," you joke.
But that joke's not funny anymore, and you're starting to think you're calling something into existence.
If this feels eerily familiar, you're not alone. What looks like just another day "on your hustle and grind" could also be the red flags of something else that's going to keep you stuck at a plateau indefinitely.
You’re working harder, thinking you’re “doing what it takes,” but results stall—or worse, regress.
More effort doesn't always leads to more success.
Leaders often focus on enhancing their competencies—skills and knowledge—believing learning more or doing more will solve the problem. Fusion Creatives are known to be "credential collectors". And my neurospicy and multipassionate folks may also find it challenging to accept that knowing more isn't insurance against burnout. In my experience, it can sometimes even hasten the onset!
I kind of blame Einstein for this. He's the one who said we can't solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them. This leads a lot of people to think that more thinking is the solution.
That only works if you've got the capacity to execute on that new way of thinking!
Capacity development involves building the internal resources to handle complexity and change. Without developing the capacity to manage increased demands, even the most competent leaders can struggle to maintain performance (source).
When your effort outpaces your capacity, you create drag. Systems strain, decision quality drops, and your creativity - the very thing that built your success - gets buried under exhaustion.
Before you know it, effort is outpacing capacity, and your business suffers. Recognizing this early can allow you to course-correct before burnout hits.
It starts small... procrastination or task avoidance (source)—but then it compounds. Decision fatigue. Emotional friction, self-neglect, and physical fatigue slowly creep in.
Here's another scenario:
A colleague invites you to a connect. You decline. A friend texts to check in. You don’t respond. Engaging socially feels like extra work. Your world narrows to your tasks, leaving less energy for connection.
You feel like you’ve run a marathon in slow motion. Your mind is foggy, and your body aches. Sleep might come tonight, but even rest won’t fully restore you—because the cycle has been building for weeks.
Maybe months.
Mistakes you normally wouldn’t make have slipped through the cracks. Deadlines are missed or postponed. You know you’re capable of more, but your current capacity isn’t enough to support the level of effort you’re putting in. Anxiety creeps in as you think about tomorrow—and the day after.
This is the pattern your business can fall into when effort outpaces capacity. It starts small—a skipped break, a postponed task—but compounds into a full-blown misalignment between energy, attention, and output.
The good news? You don’t have to reach this point.
Many leaders equate increased effort with greater impact, assuming that doing more (working harder or longer) will yield better results. However, this overlooks the importance of aligning effort with capacity.
Without sufficient capacity (resources like time, energy, and money, among others), additional effort can lead to burnout, not to mention losing your effectiveness (source). Success, then is not just a function of effort. It's also a function of the capacity to execute effectively.
Or said differently, your strategy has to match your capacity.
"Success ...is not just a function of effort. It's also a function of the capacity to execute effectively."
- Lisa Robbin Young
Look, I get it. When things get stressful, we often look to what we can do to fix things. Because not doing something feels wrong. We've heard "somebody do something" in so many crisis scenarios - in life and on TV - that it has become sort of a cultural default setting.
According to an article in the Harvard Business review, busyness has become some sort of status symbol. The article mentions research report that shows how, in various parts of the world, "people consider those who exert high effort to be 'morally admirable,' regardless of their output." So, this isn't just a U.S. phenomenon.
The past 6 months have been an emotional and physical roller coaster for me. Moving from Bloomington, Indiana to the Pacific Northwest was just the tip of the iceberg. The stress of caregiving for my partner after 4 heart procedures and surgery for cancer was a lot. Oh, and I am filming for a reality show while also trying to find a new editor for said show, because my editor went back to school to pursue an IT degree when federal funding for public media was cut.
Clients don't stop needing support just because things in my life go off the rails. There are still sessions, deliverables, and meetings that have to happen. And they do. And I still have to take care of myself.
Which... to be honest... wasn't happening. I was waking up with a sense of dread - not because I didn't love my work, but because it all felt like too much for one person to carry. I stopped saying yes to social invitations. Me. An extrovert who mostly LOVES being where people are.
That's when I remembered to review my Conditions for Success.
I'd fooled around with this concept in workshops in the past, in a somewhat generic way. There's a sheet in my annual planner where you record the things that help set you up for success. That helps you be intentional about creating an Environment of Empowerment that gives you as many advantages as possible.
Maybe that means starting the morning with coffee in your favorite mug. Or maybe that means getting the right amount of sleep in a bed that's actually comfortable. Whatever those things are for you, document them and start arranging your life to include them.
But this time, instead of just making a quick list, I went deeper. Because I'd seen where this surface-level ideation wasn't always helping my clients. Sure, a good cup of coffee can start you off right, but those effects wear off. What about things that would have more of a lingering effect?
Yes, your environment, but what else?
Turns out, your Conditions for Success aren’t just about energy, tools, or mindset—they include the world you choose to live and work in. Sometimes, the smartest move isn’t more effort, it’s moving toward contexts that naturally amplify your zone of genius or your ability to find success for yourself or your work.
In my exploration and research, I've identified 7 domains that range from the highly personal (that we can control) to the more global (where we have minimal individual influence).
In all, there are about 25 different things inside these 7 domains to consider in your Conditions for Success. Even though you can't control or directly influence all of them, awareness that they even exist gives you the ability to better design your Conditions for Success.
By assessing your 7 Domains, you can identify where effort is exceeding capacity and course-correct before burnout, inefficiency, or frustration take hold.
When you operate in full alignment - meaning your values, goals, energy, resources, and client work are all moving in sync - a number of shifts happen. These changes are often subtle at first but become deeply impactful over time, both internally (how you feel, how the team functions) and externally (client results, reputation, growth).
When your values and purpose are aligned, leaders report much greater clarity. Decisions become easier because they have a filter: does this align with what I care about? What I stand for?(source) You waste less time on deliberation - playing “should I or shouldn't I?” - because you have internal criteria for what fits.
Doing work that aligns with your values ignites intrinsic motivation — doing things because they matter, not just for money or recognition (though, that's great, too!). That gives you the ability to stick with things when it gets hard.
When your work, your client relationships, and your schedule all align with your values and capacity, you reduce internal friction. You tend to take more sustainable care of yourself: rest, breaks, saying “no” more often (because misalignment often forces those to fall by the wayside). Full alignment supports self-care, which helps you replenish your capacity (source).
Being aligned means you're more likely to show up as your true self. That builds credibility. Teams, clients, collaborators sense authenticity, and trust increases. when you are clear about your values, your way of working, and your goals, you attract clients who match (source). That means fewer misalignments over deliverables or expectations. Relationships become more collaborative and less draining.
That’s exactly what the Conditions for Success workshop will help you do: spot the gaps, understand the root causes, and create a plan to work smarter, not harder.
Give yourself the gift of commitment to YOU. Set aside a minimum of 15 minutes in your weekly calendar. Treat this pause like a meeting with your most important client - you (or your business). Honor this commitment as best as you can.
Review your tasks and calendar commitments for the urgent and the important. What tasks are sucking up energy without delivering proportional value (busy work, low-leverage admin, etc.)? Be ruthless. Especially if you've got extra capacity constraints, it's important to focus your resources on the items you know are the most impactful and require the fewest resources. I call this HI-MR-C. You can see it in action in my One Move That Matters for Greater Visibility workbook. While that version is for your visibility efforts, the concept applies to any situation where you need to invest limited resources and need a positive return on that investment. So, really, anywhere. Focus, as much as you are able, on things that are high impact that also require the fewest resources.
Will other things slip onto your radar? Probably.
Sometimes you'll need all your spoons for something unexpected. That doesn't mean throw out your regular plan, it just means pause it, for now. Set a boundary to protect your capacity as you are able. And give yourself recovery time - even something small like a 5-minute reflection, stretching, or journaling.
Humans are not machines. We are not always predictable nor are we always built to be efficient. We are complex organisms, functioning inside a complex ecosystem. Hijinks will ensue.
-Lisa Robbin Young
Notice, I keep saying "as you are able" - because our capacity to "do" varies from day to day. Society wants us to believe something very different than that.
Why?
It's called the Capitalist "machine" for a reason. Machines are often predictable and built to be efficient, so creating metrics around "machine-like precision" are very attractive. But they also set up the very unrealistic expectations that underpin many of the problems with Capitalism.
Humans are not machines. We are not always predictable nor are we always built to be efficient. We are complex organisms, functioning inside a complex ecosystem. Hijinks will ensue.
The goal then, isn't to eliminate the complexity so much as to work with it. To have a strategy that matches the flexing capacity of our very human nature.
Make the commitment to take time for yourself... even small "stolen" moments make a difference and help build momentum. Over time, as your alignment improves, you'll find yourself "finding" more time and adjusting your capacity. Maybe even growing it.
But for now, awareness is a good place to start.
My latest workshop, Conditions For Success: The 7 Domains That Shape Sustainable Growth is happening Friday, November 7 at 11am Pacific US Time (2pm Eastern). It's free to all members of the Rising Tide community. Not a member? That's also free (for now)! Get signed up and save your spot!