April 18, 2025 • 27 mins
In this episode of Business with Chronic Illness, I’m unpacking the unseen, unspoken emotional workload that so many of us carry before we ever open our laptops or talk to a client. From managing symptoms in silence, to performing “fine” for others, to overthinking how we’re perceived — this episode is about the labor that never makes it on our to-do list, but deeply impacts every part of how we run our businesses.
I’ll share personal stories, client moments, and the powerful mindset shifts that have helped my clients reclaim their capacity, set true boundaries, and build businesses that actually honor their health — not compete with it.
What You’ll Learn:
- Why your emotional labor counts (even if you don't see it, if no one else sees it)
- How the invisible cost of “being fine” shows up in pricing, planning, and perfectionism
- The real reason you’re tired — and why it’s not your fault
- A simple question to help you design your business around your actual capacity
- How to build in space for recovery, without guilt or shame
🔗 Resources & Next Steps:
- Research mentioned in this episode - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6430278/
- 🎧 Listen to more episodes of Business with Chronic Illness
- 💬 DM me the word GENTLE or Thrive on Instagram to learn about Chronically You & Profitable — my program for building a sustainable coaching business with chronic illness.
✨ I use HoneyBook to simplify client onboarding, automate my calendar, and keep my business flowing—even on low-energy days. Check it out here to save 50%.
Send Me A Text & Share Your QA's or Thoughts
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Products We Love + Special Guest Gifts → Want to support the show and treat yourself? We’ve created a quick-access list of products I personally use and love, exclusive savings from podcast guests, and other gems that can help you live well and do business with chronic illness. Explore our faves + savings here!
Subscribe HERE to Chronically Profitable, A free exclusive weekly email series designed for creatives and women with chronic illnesses. You'll learn how to make a liveable income with your hobbies, professional skills, and innate talents by building a successful online coaching business with simple strategies that work for you, even on flare days, and feel better living with chronic illness.
To Start and Grow A Coaching or Service-Based Business with Chronic Illness, Book A Free Sales Call With Nikita Here.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Nikita (00:00):
Hey guys.
(00:00):
We're gonna talk about theinvisible workload of being
quote unquote fine, and howchronic illness shapes our
business decisions before weeven notice and how to be more
aware of that.
This is for the woman whoselooks fine, right?
Who shows up when her body saysno, who moves through the day
(00:21):
doing 10 invisible things beforegetting to the thing that she
actually is doing that's visibleto everybody else.
I.
Today we're going to unpacksomething we rarely name, and
it's the emotional and energeticcost of holding it to quote
unquote gather when you livewith chronic illness and how
that silent weight shapes yourbusiness more than you think.
(00:46):
Welcome to Business with ChronicIllness, the Globally Ranked
podcast for women living withchronic illness who want to
start and grow a businessonline.
I'm your host, Nikita Williamsand I went from living a normal
life to all of a sudden being inconstant pain with no answers to
being diagnosed with multiplechronic illnesses.
And trying to make a livableincome.
I faced the challenge ofadapting traditional business
(01:09):
advice to fit my uniquecircumstances with chronic
illness, feeling frustrated andmore burned out than I already
was while managing my chronicillness to becoming an
award-winning coach with aflexible, sustainable online
coaching business.
I found the surprisingly simplesteps to starting growing a
profitable business withoutcompromising my health or my
(01:30):
peace.
Since then, I've helped dozensof women just like you learn how
to do the same.
If you're ready to create athriving business that aligns
with your lifestyle andwellbeing, you're in the right
place.
Together, we're shifting thenarrative of what's possible for
women with chronic illness andhow we make a living.
This is business with chronicillness.
(01:59):
Now I am, I, I consider myselfthe queen of the word fine.
I have felt like I've said thatsince I was a child.
I'm fine.
In conversations, I'm fine.
I am actively working on not.
Always saying that and reallysharing and being vulnerable of
what I'm feeling and what'sactually going on, because it's
(02:22):
really important because at theend of my day, there have been
times with my day where I'm moretired, and it's not just because
of the physical things.
It's this invisible workload oflike trying to manage living
with chronic illness and theoverall emotional stressors that
are happening in the world.
(02:42):
And so I really wanted to talkabout this because this came up
in my, group program at thistime, chronically you and
profitable, where I coach womenwho want to start and grow a
business based off theprofession or hobbies that they
have or who are currently in abusiness and they're burnt out
and they don't wanna be anymore.
They wanna build a moresustainable business, and
they're wanting to learn how toheal from that.
(03:04):
But inside of that program,we've been talking about this
invisible load, and I want toshare this from.
A layer of their story as wellas my story to give you context
on how this is actuallyaffecting your ability to make
more money, your ability to growyour business when you don't
take into account or you are notaware of this invisible
(03:27):
workload.
Now, another way of saying this,invisible workload is actually a
scientific term and it isrelated to what.
The National Institution ofHealth and it was a study on
what is called the AllostaticLoad.
So.
Basically, what is that?
(03:48):
Right?
Nobody really talks about this.
I actually heard thisterminology first from a, one of
my coaches and I kind ofdismissed it'cause I just was
like, oh, that's some morestress stuff, right?
Some more stress stuff thatwe're not accounting for.
Then I heard it in anotherpodcast episode by another coach
and I, I'm gonna say her name.
I can't remember her name rightnow, but another coach that I
(04:09):
was listening to and then also Istarted.
Like realizing, I actually havemy own terminology of this,
which was like the invisibleload.
Like we have this invisible loadthat nobody else is seeing,
nobody else experiencing or evennotices except us, and that's
what I considered it.
But there is actually ascientific term for this, and
it's called allostatic load.
(04:31):
And this refers to thecumulative physical wear and
tear on your body resulting fromchronic stress.
Now.
Obviously all people experiencethis to some degree, but what's
most important, and what I foundreally interesting is that for
women of color, this is actuallysomething that is more, we have
a higher aesthetic load markersand the score and, and than
(04:54):
anyone else, most minoritieshave a higher aesthetic load.
So this invisible when I like tocall this invisible.
Load this invisible workloadthat nobody is even accounting
for before we walk into a room,before we go to an event, before
we get on an airplane.
No one else is like reallyunderstanding this and we aren't
even understanding this, right?
(05:15):
We just know it happens.
It's something that's just we'reexperiencing and when we start
talking about this it from ascience standpoint.
This shows up in differentaspects of our body.
So I'm gonna talk about this alittle geeky, just a little bit,
because I find it veryfascinating and I think it adds
to the conversation we need tohave with in our own communities
(05:37):
and our families aroundunderstanding what this means
and how it affects us.
And I'm actually going to linkthis research point from the
National Institution of Health,and it's talking about the, this
CE load.
And again, I.
It is something that has aneffect on our nervous system and
(06:00):
it actually has an effect overtime, and it has an effect over
our, like our health situations,our chronic situations is what
we might be having.
It affects our hearts, Ourmetabolic infrastructure, our
inflammatory system, ourneuroendocrine system.
So it affects so many differentaspects of our body and
psychologically it affects howwe think, how we operate, and
(06:23):
how sustainable or unsustainableour things that we are trying to
do can and will be.
So.
It's so important because thesethings cumulatively, like
literally allostatic load is acumulative experience, like
something that's happeningeither short term.
Like pretty quickly.
It can be added upon by suddenshifts or long-term shifts and
(06:48):
challenges that are happening inour environment that can affect
our body and our mind.
And so obviously we live in aworld where there's so many
things happen all of the time,and.
It's a lot.
It's a lot.
And so I think we kind ofdismiss this allot ness.
We, dismiss our invisibleworkload and then we get
(07:08):
frustrated in our businesses andin our lives when they don't
work the way we want to becauseof a couple different things.
So I can't wait to talk aboutthis on how this shapes our
businesses.
And I wanna give you some waysto start shifting the pattern
and some potential things thatmight help you.
Overcome or not even overcome.
'cause Allo static load is justkind of what's gonna happen in
(07:31):
this system of where we live in.
But how can we counterbalance?
That's really what we're talkingabout is how can we
counterbalance this?
And there's a couple differentways we can do that.
But before we get into that,let's paint a picture of what
this invisible workload lookslike.
Okay.
Because how this is, it silentlyshapes our business decisions
(07:52):
before we even realize it.
So let me be real.
There are some days that Irecord a podcast episode, send
two emails, check in on aclient, and then I feel like.
Doing all of that.
I ran a marathon.
Like at the end of the day I'mexhausted and I'm like, I ran a
marathon and I did one or twothings for my business.
(08:14):
Right?
Or maybe I did a lot of thingsfor my business and it still
feels like a marathon.
It doesn't matter how much workI actually do in my business, I
can always in at the end of theday or the week or something and
feeling like.
Dog that was tired.
Sometimes like that's a realthing.
And for me, that happens alittle bit more in my personal
life and in my business becauseof me being aware of this
(08:35):
allostatic load or thisinvisible workload that I know
happens.
And this taps into what I alwaystalk about here in the show is
your return of energy.
What are you doing tocounterbalance this?
But why does this happen?
Well, it's because of this thingwe've done before we actually
even get to the quote, quotework before we even clean the
(08:55):
kitchen before we even go to theJOB that you might go to, like
before you send that email.
These are some of the invisiblethings that might be happening.
You're managing pain that didn'tshow up on your calendar.
You know, like you're dealingwith pain that maybe is new.
Like this week I.
I did something to my wrist acouple weeks ago, and I think
(09:16):
just now I'm starting to like,my body's starting to be like,
Hey, this was hurting.
This is hurting, and it's likeloud and it's a pain that has
literally made me have to adjustand compensate.
So I'm.
Constantly, my brain isconstantly going back to that
pain.
Like I feel it when I stand up,when I move, like when I'm even
moving my hands in this, in theshow right now.
(09:37):
So there's just, that'ssomething that shows up on, on
your calendar, quote unquote,without you even realizing it.
That's an invisible load.
Pep talking yourself through athree day, you know, migraine or
flare up hangover.
Like, you've had this pain oryou've had this cold.
I had a client, towards the endof last year who had like got
(09:59):
caught this cold that lasted forlike three months.
Right.
And she would still show up tothe calls, which was amazing in
her own capacity, in the waythat she felt like she could,
and sometimes she didn't.
Sometimes she would send me amessage, she'd be like, girl, I
can't make it today.
And I'm like, totally.
You don't even have to explain,but that's a load, right?
While she's still being amother, while she's still taking
(10:20):
care of the things she's gottatake care of.
That was a load.
Right.
Trying to remember if you tookyour meds.
I, for me, this is a real thing.
I have a couple meds.
I don't have, I don't take alot, a lot of meds, but I have a
couple meds that's not somethingyou take every single day.
It's something you take everyfew, like few weeks.
And it's like, it's like, did Itake that?
(10:41):
Like, even though I have acalendar, like there's, there's
a load to that.
Or it could be writing a captionthree times because, you know,
brain fog made you feel likewhat you were seeing was
completely incoherent.
Right?
And another invisible load couldbe negotiating with yourself.
Like, do I push this orreschedule this?
(11:02):
Or I might feel guilty aboutthis.
Do I do this now or do I do thislater?
And all that happens before youprobably, I.
Open up Zoom to record anepisode or have a conversation
with a client, right?
I know I'm not the only one, andI know clients aren't the only
ones that are experiencing this.
You are experiencing this for somany of the women I coach.
(11:25):
The real work isn't thebusiness.
It's the silent effort beforethe business.
It's the prepping our energy tosound quote unquote good on a
client call.
Even though our body'sscreaming, it's.
Overthinking how to respond to aDM because we don't want to come
off like it's cancelingsomething and then spiraling
(11:46):
into guilt because it doesn'tfeel quote unquote,
professional.
Second guessing your pricesbecause your energy's
inconsistent.
So you feel like, what are wedoing?
These are like things thatyou're doing that you're
constantly thinking about.
This is the cost of what we,what I say, of being fine.
(12:09):
And what happens is clients cometo me and they're like, Nikita,
I don't know why I'm not movingthe needle.
Like I feel like I'm crawling ata snail space, a snails pace.
And often I'm like, you're notcrawling.
You're doing baby steps ormoving, but what's actually
making you feel like you'redoing so much?
And it's like everything is thisinvisible load.
(12:30):
And it's, it's, it goes unnamed.
Sometimes we internalize thesefeelings to mean that we're lazy
and consistent, we're failures.
We aren't smart, we aren'tbeautiful.
We, internalize all of thisstuff and none of that is true.
It's just that our real workstarts before we actually began
the work, right?
We had all of these things inour minds.
(12:51):
We had all of these feelings andthings that we were juggling all
the time.
So let me tell you about one ofthe tools that has quietly
become the heartbeat of mybusiness over the years.
It's HoneyBook.
I use it for everything.
No, seriously everything.
It's how I book my podcastguests, bring on new one-on-one
clients, even manage groupcoaching calls when my other
(13:13):
platforms decide that they wannahave a meltdown from contracts
and payments to contact forms,to task reminders.
HoneyBook keeps all of themoving parts in one place, and
it is all automated.
And here's the real kicker.
It works with my capacity.
Whether I'm having a low energyweek or need to automate a bunch
of stuff in one go, or justcreate a system that makes it
(13:34):
easy for me to run a flexiblebusiness, HoneyBook gives me
that freedom to still move mybusiness forward if you are
looking for a central hub tohelp you work smarter.
Not harder.
I highly recommend you checkingit out.
So if you head on over to theshow notes, you'll get 50% off
your first year.
And yes, that's my affiliatelink, but I only share what I
actually use in love.
HoneyBook is my jam and I hopeyou check it out.
(13:57):
And by the way.
I want you guys to think aboutthis too when it comes to your
marketing.
I didn't intend to bring this upin this episode, but it just
dawned on me this is somethingreally important.
You may be becoming more awareof your own invisible workload
right now, but everyone has aversion of this.
(14:18):
Everyone has a version of this.
So when you are tellingyourself, when you're marketing
something and you're creatingsomething and you're like, oh,
I've done it enough times, theyshould know already people
should get it already.
It hasn't been like, when isenough time?
Enough time.
Remember that the world thatyou're probably talking to are
(14:40):
also experiencing this invisibleworkload, right?
And that is consuming theirability to really hear
everything that you may havebeen saying.
So the more you repeat, the moreyou keep talking about something
you're not annoying anybody.
You're really not, you're notannoying anybody because they're
so consumed with their invisibleworkload that they may see your,
(15:01):
like your offering and thenforget about it because they're
dealing with their invisibleworkload.
So that's why we say, and that'swhy you hear oftentimes in
marketing's like repetition iseverything people need to hear
and see it in multiple differentways because they are also
dealing with an allostatic load.
It's not about you.
The reason why someone didn't.
Sign up for your offer or didn'tsign up for the thing most often
isn't because you are not enoughand it's because everybody else
(15:25):
is dealing with their stuff,right?
That's invisible to everybodyelse.
So I just wanna put that inthere.
For those of you who are likelistening to this and thinking,
I.
Yes, I totally relate to thisfeeling of having this invisible
workload, and it feels likethere's so much, and again, for
women of color, I feel like wehave this astronomically big
because we have social thingsthat we're dealing with.
(15:46):
We have our family, things thatwe're dealing with.
We have our trauma, we haveepigenics, we have all of this
stuff, right, that it's like I.
Invisible to everybody else.
And then we're trying to operatea business and then we're act,
then we're frustrated'causewe're like, we're putting all
this effort out there on top ofthis invisible workload that we
are not acknowledging ourselvesand then not acknowledging that
(16:07):
other people have a similaraspect of that and being
frustrated and mad and thinkingit's about us, that our offer
isn't getting out there or thatpeople don't like us, or that I
shouldn't be wasting my timetalking about this over and over
again.
But in reality, we also wouldwant that type of support.
We would also want someone tokeep sharing with us something
(16:28):
that's valuable that we justhaven't had time to consume yet
or say yes yet, but we want to.
Okay.
Okay, so how does this invisibleworkload shape our businesses
and what can we do about it?
The invisible workload startsshaping how we price, what we
yes to, and how we show uponline.
(16:50):
I've seen it in myself and I'veseen it in my clients where we
start undercharging because wefeel unreliable, right?
Because we're looking at likeall of the things that we're
doing.
We're thinking it's not a, we'renot doing enough.
So if I'm gonna charge more,like if I ask the client to
charge more for somethingbecause they're ready and
they're at capacity, they don'tfeel like they can because they
think.
(17:10):
Because they haven'tacknowledged this invisible
workload.
They think, well, I'm alreadyunreliable, so I can't charge
more.
But in fact, the fact that theyhave clients and the fact that
they stay with them and the factthat they keep re like renewing
or sending referrals says thatthey can charge more.
They won't, or they haven'tgiven themselves permission to
(17:31):
because they view themselves asunreliable because of this
invisible workload.
Right.
We over schedule because we'retrying to prove we can keep up.
Like that one always gets melike we.
Are adding so many things to ourplate.
We're adding so many things toour calendar because we are
trying to prove that we can domore.
(17:54):
When in actuality because ofthis invisible workload, you are
already doing more and youactually don't have capacity to
do more.
So you trying to stuff moremeans you actually create a
self-fulfilling prophecy of notbeing actually able to do more.
Right.
So this is, this is justsomething to keep in mind.
We build business models basedon shame and not capacity.
(18:17):
I'm gonna say that again.
Sometimes we're buildingbusiness models based on shame,
quote unquote, I am wrong and Ihave to fix it.
And so my offer should reflectthat I am wrong and this is how
I am fixing me and not oncapacity.
Okay.
(18:38):
Ugh.
So here's what I want to tellyou.
Just because no one else seesyour labor and sometimes you
don't even see your own labor,doesn't mean it's not actually
there.
It doesn't mean that it's notvalid.
It doesn't mean that all ofthose things that we talked
about at the top of this episodeare not happening, and you're
(18:59):
juggling while doing the thing.
Here's the thing.
You deserve and need to factorthis invisible workload into
your pre-work, into your energymanagement strategy.
You have to, because you willrun yourself ragged.
You will not be able to expand,you will not be able to receive
(19:21):
more.
And that's why inside of myChronically You and Profitable
program, we don't just createoffers and systems and be like,
this is what you're offeringyour systems should look like.
We actually look at what yourbusiness costs you energetically
and other things that areinvisible that cost you
energetically.
And then we build from there.
(19:43):
Right.
I just was on a call with aclient and in our group call,
and one of the things she hadmentioned, she's like, yeah, I
think I need to add more to,like, I need to do more.
And my first question wasn't,okay, yeah, let's do it.
Or like, what's working?
What's not working?
My first question was, how isthe doing actually doing?
Right.
How is what you're doingactually working?
(20:05):
How are you feeling while you'redoing it?
What cap, like what energy, whatcapacity, what results are you
receiving from what you'redoing?
Right?
And after coaching and talkingwith her through that, she
realized, oh no, I I, I'm stilldoing my steps.
I have enough and it's stillcreating results, but I cannot
add to this right now.
I will see results and she'sseeing results, but it's just,
(20:26):
I, I don't need to add to this.
So here's a small shift I wantto offer you this week or
whenever you're listening tothis.
When it comes to bringingawareness to this invisible
workload, to bring awareness tohow you wanna show up in your
business for longevity purposesis ask yourself, what does it
(20:46):
take?
For me to get to the startingline each day before I'm at the
line.
So for you, if you're having abusiness, if you are thinking
about starting a business, likethink about what does it take me
to get to that point before I'mactually there, and then ask
yourself, have I built space forthat in my business or am I
(21:07):
punishing myself for needing it?
That part right there.
Are you punishing yourself forneeding it?
What I mean by that, and I'lluse myself for an example, is
that I am not really a morningperson.
Like I'm I'm.
I am.
I am.
I have tried.
I can be, I'm sure if I put mymind to it, if it was something
(21:28):
that I wanted to be, I can be,but it's not something that I
need to worry about.
At this time of my life.
For a while there, I spent timetrying to force myself to have
calls early in the morning, likenine 10, and have conversations
with people.
And then by the midday I wouldbe so exhausted mentally and
(21:49):
fatigued.
I would be like so frustrated,but I would still be sitting
there trying to force myself tocatch up.
'cause I slowed down in themiddle of the day because I
didn't give myself the morningtime that I needed.
In order to do the work, I cando the same work in the
afternoon and half the timewithout the type of time I need
(22:09):
to give myself in the morning todo that.
So I was punishing myself andtrying to force myself to be
still doing it at the same pace,same time, but it was taking me
longer.
See how that's like a cycle?
I don't know if you got that orif you understood that, but what
I'm trying to say is thatsometimes we're trying to force
ourselves to build a business ina space.
(22:29):
That does not work for us, andthen we punish ourselves for
doing it on repeat.
That's what the invisibleworkload will do if you don't
acknowledge it and allow spaceand capacity for it.
So now for me, at this point inmy life, I give myself until 11,
right?
Usually until 11, I don't takecalls, I don't do anything.
(22:49):
I take my time to get up in themorning, do my routine, my
rituals of what I do for myself,and then I jump into my work,
right?
Because it's just easier thatway.
And I don't beat myself up forit.
I don't beat myself up for beingnot a morning person.
I'm just not a morning personright now.
And that's okay.
(23:10):
So where can you give yourselfthat type of permission?
So again, the way to startshifting and acknowledging the
space of the invisible workloadis to start asking yourself how
you are coming to theseactivities in your life and in
your business.
This is the real work, and youdon't actually have to do this
(23:30):
alone.
This is something we do a lot ofinside of the program because.
It's so important.
Like we can, I can give, anybodycan give you a strategy.
You can ask Chad GPT to give youa strategy.
You can ask anybody to give youa strategy.
But are you telling them aboutthe invisible workload that you
actually have and how thataffects your energy and capacity
(23:52):
to actually do the strategy?
Probably not.
Probably not.
And then you're beating yourselfup later for not having done it.
Let's stop it because that aswell as adding to the fact that
you don't have the capacity forany growth or sustainability in
where you're trying to go.
So.
If this episode brought up adeep yes, this is me.
(24:15):
I want you to know that you'renot invisible here.
You're not invisible here onthis show.
You're not invisible in myworld.
You're not invisible.
Share this episode with a friendwho's holding it together, quote
unquote, silently.
Usually, these are what I callyour strong friends.
Let them know you see themright.
And if you're ready to build abusiness that finally factors in
(24:37):
you, even on your low capacitydays, I'd love to support you
inside of my group programcalled Chronically You and
Profitable.
You can go to my Instagram atThrive with Nikita, and I can
send you the details.
You can just DM me the wordgentle or thrive, and I can give
you some more information thatway.
(24:59):
I know you came from thepodcast.
Here's what I want you also tojust remember, you are not
behind.
I think in, in, in, in thenarrative of businesses,
oftentimes we hear, I'm behind.
I'm guilty of this.
I feel like this often, this iswhy I have a therapist and why I
have coaches that support mebecause that is a true feeling.
(25:20):
And we live in a world that'sconstantly telling us that we're
quote unquote behind.
You know, that's a constantinformation, but your pace is
your pace.
I.
Your pace is your pace, andthat's nothing to snuff at.
It's nothing to beat yourself upabout.
It's something to live and feeland be grateful for.
(25:44):
And oftentimes the real reasonwhy we feel behind is that
you're just doing more than mostpeople ever understand and that
you give yourself credit for.
And that my friend is a thingthat's holding you back by not
acknowledging that.
So I hope this episode servedyou.
(26:05):
I hope it gave you someawareness about some things
that's going on in your life andyour business potentially.
And remember, there is aninvisible workload of being
quote unquote fine and how itshapes your business decisions
and all of the things thatyou're trying to accomplish in
your life.
I will see you in the nextepisode.
(26:32):
That's a wrap for this episodeof Business with Chronic
Illness.
If you would like to start andgrow an online coaching business
with me, head to the show notesto click a link to book a sales
call, and learn how to makemoney with chronic illness.
You can also check out ourwebsite at ww dot crafted to
thrive.com.
For this episode's, show notesand join our email list to.
Get exclusive content where Icoach you on how to chronically
(26:54):
grow a profitable business whileliving with chronic illness.
Until next time, remember, yes,you are crafted to thrive.
Hey guys.
(00:00):
We're gonna talk about theinvisible workload of being
quote unquote fine, and howchronic illness shapes our
business decisions before weeven notice and how to be more
aware of that.
This is for the woman whoselooks fine, right?
Who shows up when her body saysno, who moves through the day
(00:21):
doing 10 invisible things beforegetting to the thing that she
actually is doing that's visibleto everybody else.
I.
Today we're going to unpacksomething we rarely name, and
it's the emotional and energeticcost of holding it to quote
unquote gather when you livewith chronic illness and how
that silent weight shapes yourbusiness more than you think.
(00:46):
Welcome to Business with ChronicIllness, the Globally Ranked
podcast for women living withchronic illness who want to
start and grow a businessonline.
I'm your host, Nikita Williamsand I went from living a normal
life to all of a sudden being inconstant pain with no answers to
being diagnosed with multiplechronic illnesses.
And trying to make a livableincome.
I faced the challenge ofadapting traditional business
(01:09):
advice to fit my uniquecircumstances with chronic
illness, feeling frustrated andmore burned out than I already
was while managing my chronicillness to becoming an
award-winning coach with aflexible, sustainable online
coaching business.
I found the surprisingly simplesteps to starting growing a
profitable business withoutcompromising my health or my
(01:30):
peace.
Since then, I've helped dozensof women just like you learn how
to do the same.
If you're ready to create athriving business that aligns
with your lifestyle andwellbeing, you're in the right
place.
Together, we're shifting thenarrative of what's possible for
women with chronic illness andhow we make a living.
This is business with chronicillness.
(01:59):
Now I am, I, I consider myselfthe queen of the word fine.
I have felt like I've said thatsince I was a child.
I'm fine.
In conversations, I'm fine.
I am actively working on not.
Always saying that and reallysharing and being vulnerable of
what I'm feeling and what'sactually going on, because it's
(02:22):
really important because at theend of my day, there have been
times with my day where I'm moretired, and it's not just because
of the physical things.
It's this invisible workload oflike trying to manage living
with chronic illness and theoverall emotional stressors that
are happening in the world.
(02:42):
And so I really wanted to talkabout this because this came up
in my, group program at thistime, chronically you and
profitable, where I coach womenwho want to start and grow a
business based off theprofession or hobbies that they
have or who are currently in abusiness and they're burnt out
and they don't wanna be anymore.
They wanna build a moresustainable business, and
they're wanting to learn how toheal from that.
(03:04):
But inside of that program,we've been talking about this
invisible load, and I want toshare this from.
A layer of their story as wellas my story to give you context
on how this is actuallyaffecting your ability to make
more money, your ability to growyour business when you don't
take into account or you are notaware of this invisible
(03:27):
workload.
Now, another way of saying this,invisible workload is actually a
scientific term and it isrelated to what.
The National Institution ofHealth and it was a study on
what is called the AllostaticLoad.
So.
Basically, what is that?
(03:48):
Right?
Nobody really talks about this.
I actually heard thisterminology first from a, one of
my coaches and I kind ofdismissed it'cause I just was
like, oh, that's some morestress stuff, right?
Some more stress stuff thatwe're not accounting for.
Then I heard it in anotherpodcast episode by another coach
and I, I'm gonna say her name.
I can't remember her name rightnow, but another coach that I
(04:09):
was listening to and then also Istarted.
Like realizing, I actually havemy own terminology of this,
which was like the invisibleload.
Like we have this invisible loadthat nobody else is seeing,
nobody else experiencing or evennotices except us, and that's
what I considered it.
But there is actually ascientific term for this, and
it's called allostatic load.
(04:31):
And this refers to thecumulative physical wear and
tear on your body resulting fromchronic stress.
Now.
Obviously all people experiencethis to some degree, but what's
most important, and what I foundreally interesting is that for
women of color, this is actuallysomething that is more, we have
a higher aesthetic load markersand the score and, and than
(04:54):
anyone else, most minoritieshave a higher aesthetic load.
So this invisible when I like tocall this invisible.
Load this invisible workloadthat nobody is even accounting
for before we walk into a room,before we go to an event, before
we get on an airplane.
No one else is like reallyunderstanding this and we aren't
even understanding this, right?
(05:15):
We just know it happens.
It's something that's just we'reexperiencing and when we start
talking about this it from ascience standpoint.
This shows up in differentaspects of our body.
So I'm gonna talk about this alittle geeky, just a little bit,
because I find it veryfascinating and I think it adds
to the conversation we need tohave with in our own communities
(05:37):
and our families aroundunderstanding what this means
and how it affects us.
And I'm actually going to linkthis research point from the
National Institution of Health,and it's talking about the, this
CE load.
And again, I.
It is something that has aneffect on our nervous system and
(06:00):
it actually has an effect overtime, and it has an effect over
our, like our health situations,our chronic situations is what
we might be having.
It affects our hearts, Ourmetabolic infrastructure, our
inflammatory system, ourneuroendocrine system.
So it affects so many differentaspects of our body and
psychologically it affects howwe think, how we operate, and
(06:23):
how sustainable or unsustainableour things that we are trying to
do can and will be.
So.
It's so important because thesethings cumulatively, like
literally allostatic load is acumulative experience, like
something that's happeningeither short term.
Like pretty quickly.
It can be added upon by suddenshifts or long-term shifts and
(06:48):
challenges that are happening inour environment that can affect
our body and our mind.
And so obviously we live in aworld where there's so many
things happen all of the time,and.
It's a lot.
It's a lot.
And so I think we kind ofdismiss this allot ness.
We, dismiss our invisibleworkload and then we get
(07:08):
frustrated in our businesses andin our lives when they don't
work the way we want to becauseof a couple different things.
So I can't wait to talk aboutthis on how this shapes our
businesses.
And I wanna give you some waysto start shifting the pattern
and some potential things thatmight help you.
Overcome or not even overcome.
'cause Allo static load is justkind of what's gonna happen in
(07:31):
this system of where we live in.
But how can we counterbalance?
That's really what we're talkingabout is how can we
counterbalance this?
And there's a couple differentways we can do that.
But before we get into that,let's paint a picture of what
this invisible workload lookslike.
Okay.
Because how this is, it silentlyshapes our business decisions
(07:52):
before we even realize it.
So let me be real.
There are some days that Irecord a podcast episode, send
two emails, check in on aclient, and then I feel like.
Doing all of that.
I ran a marathon.
Like at the end of the day I'mexhausted and I'm like, I ran a
marathon and I did one or twothings for my business.
(08:14):
Right?
Or maybe I did a lot of thingsfor my business and it still
feels like a marathon.
It doesn't matter how much workI actually do in my business, I
can always in at the end of theday or the week or something and
feeling like.
Dog that was tired.
Sometimes like that's a realthing.
And for me, that happens alittle bit more in my personal
life and in my business becauseof me being aware of this
(08:35):
allostatic load or thisinvisible workload that I know
happens.
And this taps into what I alwaystalk about here in the show is
your return of energy.
What are you doing tocounterbalance this?
But why does this happen?
Well, it's because of this thingwe've done before we actually
even get to the quote, quotework before we even clean the
(08:55):
kitchen before we even go to theJOB that you might go to, like
before you send that email.
These are some of the invisiblethings that might be happening.
You're managing pain that didn'tshow up on your calendar.
You know, like you're dealingwith pain that maybe is new.
Like this week I.
I did something to my wrist acouple weeks ago, and I think
(09:16):
just now I'm starting to like,my body's starting to be like,
Hey, this was hurting.
This is hurting, and it's likeloud and it's a pain that has
literally made me have to adjustand compensate.
So I'm.
Constantly, my brain isconstantly going back to that
pain.
Like I feel it when I stand up,when I move, like when I'm even
moving my hands in this, in theshow right now.
(09:37):
So there's just, that'ssomething that shows up on, on
your calendar, quote unquote,without you even realizing it.
That's an invisible load.
Pep talking yourself through athree day, you know, migraine or
flare up hangover.
Like, you've had this pain oryou've had this cold.
I had a client, towards the endof last year who had like got
(09:59):
caught this cold that lasted forlike three months.
Right.
And she would still show up tothe calls, which was amazing in
her own capacity, in the waythat she felt like she could,
and sometimes she didn't.
Sometimes she would send me amessage, she'd be like, girl, I
can't make it today.
And I'm like, totally.
You don't even have to explain,but that's a load, right?
While she's still being amother, while she's still taking
(10:20):
care of the things she's gottatake care of.
That was a load.
Right.
Trying to remember if you tookyour meds.
I, for me, this is a real thing.
I have a couple meds.
I don't have, I don't take alot, a lot of meds, but I have a
couple meds that's not somethingyou take every single day.
It's something you take everyfew, like few weeks.
And it's like, it's like, did Itake that?
(10:41):
Like, even though I have acalendar, like there's, there's
a load to that.
Or it could be writing a captionthree times because, you know,
brain fog made you feel likewhat you were seeing was
completely incoherent.
Right?
And another invisible load couldbe negotiating with yourself.
Like, do I push this orreschedule this?
(11:02):
Or I might feel guilty aboutthis.
Do I do this now or do I do thislater?
And all that happens before youprobably, I.
Open up Zoom to record anepisode or have a conversation
with a client, right?
I know I'm not the only one, andI know clients aren't the only
ones that are experiencing this.
You are experiencing this for somany of the women I coach.
(11:25):
The real work isn't thebusiness.
It's the silent effort beforethe business.
It's the prepping our energy tosound quote unquote good on a
client call.
Even though our body'sscreaming, it's.
Overthinking how to respond to aDM because we don't want to come
off like it's cancelingsomething and then spiraling
(11:46):
into guilt because it doesn'tfeel quote unquote,
professional.
Second guessing your pricesbecause your energy's
inconsistent.
So you feel like, what are wedoing?
These are like things thatyou're doing that you're
constantly thinking about.
This is the cost of what we,what I say, of being fine.
(12:09):
And what happens is clients cometo me and they're like, Nikita,
I don't know why I'm not movingthe needle.
Like I feel like I'm crawling ata snail space, a snails pace.
And often I'm like, you're notcrawling.
You're doing baby steps ormoving, but what's actually
making you feel like you'redoing so much?
And it's like everything is thisinvisible load.
(12:30):
And it's, it's, it goes unnamed.
Sometimes we internalize thesefeelings to mean that we're lazy
and consistent, we're failures.
We aren't smart, we aren'tbeautiful.
We, internalize all of thisstuff and none of that is true.
It's just that our real workstarts before we actually began
the work, right?
We had all of these things inour minds.
(12:51):
We had all of these feelings andthings that we were juggling all
the time.
So let me tell you about one ofthe tools that has quietly
become the heartbeat of mybusiness over the years.
It's HoneyBook.
I use it for everything.
No, seriously everything.
It's how I book my podcastguests, bring on new one-on-one
clients, even manage groupcoaching calls when my other
(13:13):
platforms decide that they wannahave a meltdown from contracts
and payments to contact forms,to task reminders.
HoneyBook keeps all of themoving parts in one place, and
it is all automated.
And here's the real kicker.
It works with my capacity.
Whether I'm having a low energyweek or need to automate a bunch
of stuff in one go, or justcreate a system that makes it
(13:34):
easy for me to run a flexiblebusiness, HoneyBook gives me
that freedom to still move mybusiness forward if you are
looking for a central hub tohelp you work smarter.
Not harder.
I highly recommend you checkingit out.
So if you head on over to theshow notes, you'll get 50% off
your first year.
And yes, that's my affiliatelink, but I only share what I
actually use in love.
HoneyBook is my jam and I hopeyou check it out.
(13:57):
And by the way.
I want you guys to think aboutthis too when it comes to your
marketing.
I didn't intend to bring this upin this episode, but it just
dawned on me this is somethingreally important.
You may be becoming more awareof your own invisible workload
right now, but everyone has aversion of this.
(14:18):
Everyone has a version of this.
So when you are tellingyourself, when you're marketing
something and you're creatingsomething and you're like, oh,
I've done it enough times, theyshould know already people
should get it already.
It hasn't been like, when isenough time?
Enough time.
Remember that the world thatyou're probably talking to are
(14:40):
also experiencing this invisibleworkload, right?
And that is consuming theirability to really hear
everything that you may havebeen saying.
So the more you repeat, the moreyou keep talking about something
you're not annoying anybody.
You're really not, you're notannoying anybody because they're
so consumed with their invisibleworkload that they may see your,
(15:01):
like your offering and thenforget about it because they're
dealing with their invisibleworkload.
So that's why we say, and that'swhy you hear oftentimes in
marketing's like repetition iseverything people need to hear
and see it in multiple differentways because they are also
dealing with an allostatic load.
It's not about you.
The reason why someone didn't.
Sign up for your offer or didn'tsign up for the thing most often
isn't because you are not enoughand it's because everybody else
(15:25):
is dealing with their stuff,right?
That's invisible to everybodyelse.
So I just wanna put that inthere.
For those of you who are likelistening to this and thinking,
I.
Yes, I totally relate to thisfeeling of having this invisible
workload, and it feels likethere's so much, and again, for
women of color, I feel like wehave this astronomically big
because we have social thingsthat we're dealing with.
(15:46):
We have our family, things thatwe're dealing with.
We have our trauma, we haveepigenics, we have all of this
stuff, right, that it's like I.
Invisible to everybody else.
And then we're trying to operatea business and then we're act,
then we're frustrated'causewe're like, we're putting all
this effort out there on top ofthis invisible workload that we
are not acknowledging ourselvesand then not acknowledging that
(16:07):
other people have a similaraspect of that and being
frustrated and mad and thinkingit's about us, that our offer
isn't getting out there or thatpeople don't like us, or that I
shouldn't be wasting my timetalking about this over and over
again.
But in reality, we also wouldwant that type of support.
We would also want someone tokeep sharing with us something
(16:28):
that's valuable that we justhaven't had time to consume yet
or say yes yet, but we want to.
Okay.
Okay, so how does this invisibleworkload shape our businesses
and what can we do about it?
The invisible workload startsshaping how we price, what we
yes to, and how we show uponline.
(16:50):
I've seen it in myself and I'veseen it in my clients where we
start undercharging because wefeel unreliable, right?
Because we're looking at likeall of the things that we're
doing.
We're thinking it's not a, we'renot doing enough.
So if I'm gonna charge more,like if I ask the client to
charge more for somethingbecause they're ready and
they're at capacity, they don'tfeel like they can because they
think.
(17:10):
Because they haven'tacknowledged this invisible
workload.
They think, well, I'm alreadyunreliable, so I can't charge
more.
But in fact, the fact that theyhave clients and the fact that
they stay with them and the factthat they keep re like renewing
or sending referrals says thatthey can charge more.
They won't, or they haven'tgiven themselves permission to
(17:31):
because they view themselves asunreliable because of this
invisible workload.
Right.
We over schedule because we'retrying to prove we can keep up.
Like that one always gets melike we.
Are adding so many things to ourplate.
We're adding so many things toour calendar because we are
trying to prove that we can domore.
(17:54):
When in actuality because ofthis invisible workload, you are
already doing more and youactually don't have capacity to
do more.
So you trying to stuff moremeans you actually create a
self-fulfilling prophecy of notbeing actually able to do more.
Right.
So this is, this is justsomething to keep in mind.
We build business models basedon shame and not capacity.
(18:17):
I'm gonna say that again.
Sometimes we're buildingbusiness models based on shame,
quote unquote, I am wrong and Ihave to fix it.
And so my offer should reflectthat I am wrong and this is how
I am fixing me and not oncapacity.
Okay.
(18:38):
Ugh.
So here's what I want to tellyou.
Just because no one else seesyour labor and sometimes you
don't even see your own labor,doesn't mean it's not actually
there.
It doesn't mean that it's notvalid.
It doesn't mean that all ofthose things that we talked
about at the top of this episodeare not happening, and you're
(18:59):
juggling while doing the thing.
Here's the thing.
You deserve and need to factorthis invisible workload into
your pre-work, into your energymanagement strategy.
You have to, because you willrun yourself ragged.
You will not be able to expand,you will not be able to receive
(19:21):
more.
And that's why inside of myChronically You and Profitable
program, we don't just createoffers and systems and be like,
this is what you're offeringyour systems should look like.
We actually look at what yourbusiness costs you energetically
and other things that areinvisible that cost you
energetically.
And then we build from there.
(19:43):
Right.
I just was on a call with aclient and in our group call,
and one of the things she hadmentioned, she's like, yeah, I
think I need to add more to,like, I need to do more.
And my first question wasn't,okay, yeah, let's do it.
Or like, what's working?
What's not working?
My first question was, how isthe doing actually doing?
Right.
How is what you're doingactually working?
(20:05):
How are you feeling while you'redoing it?
What cap, like what energy, whatcapacity, what results are you
receiving from what you'redoing?
Right?
And after coaching and talkingwith her through that, she
realized, oh no, I I, I'm stilldoing my steps.
I have enough and it's stillcreating results, but I cannot
add to this right now.
I will see results and she'sseeing results, but it's just,
(20:26):
I, I don't need to add to this.
So here's a small shift I wantto offer you this week or
whenever you're listening tothis.
When it comes to bringingawareness to this invisible
workload, to bring awareness tohow you wanna show up in your
business for longevity purposesis ask yourself, what does it
(20:46):
take?
For me to get to the startingline each day before I'm at the
line.
So for you, if you're having abusiness, if you are thinking
about starting a business, likethink about what does it take me
to get to that point before I'mactually there, and then ask
yourself, have I built space forthat in my business or am I
(21:07):
punishing myself for needing it?
That part right there.
Are you punishing yourself forneeding it?
What I mean by that, and I'lluse myself for an example, is
that I am not really a morningperson.
Like I'm I'm.
I am.
I am.
I have tried.
I can be, I'm sure if I put mymind to it, if it was something
(21:28):
that I wanted to be, I can be,but it's not something that I
need to worry about.
At this time of my life.
For a while there, I spent timetrying to force myself to have
calls early in the morning, likenine 10, and have conversations
with people.
And then by the midday I wouldbe so exhausted mentally and
(21:49):
fatigued.
I would be like so frustrated,but I would still be sitting
there trying to force myself tocatch up.
'cause I slowed down in themiddle of the day because I
didn't give myself the morningtime that I needed.
In order to do the work, I cando the same work in the
afternoon and half the timewithout the type of time I need
(22:09):
to give myself in the morning todo that.
So I was punishing myself andtrying to force myself to be
still doing it at the same pace,same time, but it was taking me
longer.
See how that's like a cycle?
I don't know if you got that orif you understood that, but what
I'm trying to say is thatsometimes we're trying to force
ourselves to build a business ina space.
(22:29):
That does not work for us, andthen we punish ourselves for
doing it on repeat.
That's what the invisibleworkload will do if you don't
acknowledge it and allow spaceand capacity for it.
So now for me, at this point inmy life, I give myself until 11,
right?
Usually until 11, I don't takecalls, I don't do anything.
(22:49):
I take my time to get up in themorning, do my routine, my
rituals of what I do for myself,and then I jump into my work,
right?
Because it's just easier thatway.
And I don't beat myself up forit.
I don't beat myself up for beingnot a morning person.
I'm just not a morning personright now.
And that's okay.
(23:10):
So where can you give yourselfthat type of permission?
So again, the way to startshifting and acknowledging the
space of the invisible workloadis to start asking yourself how
you are coming to theseactivities in your life and in
your business.
This is the real work, and youdon't actually have to do this
(23:30):
alone.
This is something we do a lot ofinside of the program because.
It's so important.
Like we can, I can give, anybodycan give you a strategy.
You can ask Chad GPT to give youa strategy.
You can ask anybody to give youa strategy.
But are you telling them aboutthe invisible workload that you
actually have and how thataffects your energy and capacity
(23:52):
to actually do the strategy?
Probably not.
Probably not.
And then you're beating yourselfup later for not having done it.
Let's stop it because that aswell as adding to the fact that
you don't have the capacity forany growth or sustainability in
where you're trying to go.
So.
If this episode brought up adeep yes, this is me.
(24:15):
I want you to know that you'renot invisible here.
You're not invisible here onthis show.
You're not invisible in myworld.
You're not invisible.
Share this episode with a friendwho's holding it together, quote
unquote, silently.
Usually, these are what I callyour strong friends.
Let them know you see themright.
And if you're ready to build abusiness that finally factors in
(24:37):
you, even on your low capacitydays, I'd love to support you
inside of my group programcalled Chronically You and
Profitable.
You can go to my Instagram atThrive with Nikita, and I can
send you the details.
You can just DM me the wordgentle or thrive, and I can give
you some more information thatway.
(24:59):
I know you came from thepodcast.
Here's what I want you also tojust remember, you are not
behind.
I think in, in, in, in thenarrative of businesses,
oftentimes we hear, I'm behind.
I'm guilty of this.
I feel like this often, this iswhy I have a therapist and why I
have coaches that support mebecause that is a true feeling.
(25:20):
And we live in a world that'sconstantly telling us that we're
quote unquote behind.
You know, that's a constantinformation, but your pace is
your pace.
I.
Your pace is your pace, andthat's nothing to snuff at.
It's nothing to beat yourself upabout.
It's something to live and feeland be grateful for.
(25:44):
And oftentimes the real reasonwhy we feel behind is that
you're just doing more than mostpeople ever understand and that
you give yourself credit for.
And that my friend is a thingthat's holding you back by not
acknowledging that.
So I hope this episode servedyou.
(26:05):
I hope it gave you someawareness about some things
that's going on in your life andyour business potentially.
And remember, there is aninvisible workload of being
quote unquote fine and how itshapes your business decisions
and all of the things thatyou're trying to accomplish in
your life.
I will see you in the nextepisode.
(26:32):
That's a wrap for this episodeof Business with Chronic
Illness.
If you would like to start andgrow an online coaching business
with me, head to the show notesto click a link to book a sales
call, and learn how to makemoney with chronic illness.
You can also check out ourwebsite at ww dot crafted to
thrive.com.
For this episode's, show notesand join our email list to.
Get exclusive content where Icoach you on how to chronically
(26:54):
grow a profitable business whileliving with chronic illness.
Until next time, remember, yes,you are crafted to thrive.
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