Business With Chronic Illness: Women Entrepreneurs Navigating Burnout & Autoimmune Conditions
Building a business as a woman entrepreneur with chronic illness comes with realities that most business advice never addresses — burnout, unpredictable energy, and the need to put health first while still wanting meaningful growth. Business With Chronic Illness is a globally ranked podcast featuring honest conversations with chronic illness entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs navigating business growth while living with chronic illness and autoimmune conditions. Through real stories and practical insight, the show explores how people build businesses that are sustainable, simple, and aligned with their health, not at the expense of it. Each episode centers on conversations rooted in real experience, covering: - Health-First Business Growth: growing at a pace that honors your body - Burnout & Capacity: navigating energy, flare-ups, and rest without guilt - Simple & Sustainable Business: stripping away unnecessary complexity - Success Stories: real people redefining what success looks like with chronic illness This podcast is for entrepreneurs and founders who are: - Living with chronic illness or autoimmune disease - Burned out from hustle culture or one-size-fits-all business advice - Building, growing, or reimagining a business that must work with real life - Looking for stories and strategies that feel honest, grounding, and possible Expect thoughtful, grounded conversations, not hype. This is a space for nuance in strategies and execution, for reflection and learning through real stories, not for pressure or performative success. About the Host Hosted by Nikita Williams, a globally ranked podcast host, award-winning business coach, and speaker who has built a six-figure business while navigating endometriosis, Hashimoto's, fibromyalgia, and chronic pain. Nikita brings lived experience, deep listening, and a health-first perspective to conversations that are often missing from the business world. The show has featured respected founders and thought leaders such as Jasmine Star, Danielle Bayard Jackson, Nitika Chopra, Courtney Elmer, Natasha Samuel, and Kinsey Soderberg, alongside entrepreneurs navigating business with chronic illness in real time. This podcast doesn't offer one-size-fits-all strategies or hustle narratives. Instead, it creates space for lived experience and multiple ways of defining success when the priority is to put your health first now, not later. - Listen & Connect: Follow Business With Chronic Illness to hear new conversations each month, and join the extended community through reflections and discussions connected to the show, at Built to Breathe on Substack.
Episodes
You've been posting daily. You're showing up in stories. You're creating reels that disappear into the void. And yet—it's taking more and more content just to be seen, let alone convert followers into paying clients.
If you're exhausted by social media and wondering why it's getting harder to turn all that effort into actual business growth, you're not alone. The game has changed in 2026.
In this episode (originally recorded during S...
Not everyone started this year with "new year, new you" energy. If you're a woman entrepreneur navigating grief—from a loss, a diagnosis, a relationship, or a version of yourself you had to let go—you're probably wondering: can I grieve this AND still show up for my business? Can I hold both grief and growth while building a sustainable business?
In this replay of one of 2025's most downloaded episodes, I sit down with Amanda Guin, ...
This year, expect empowering conversations with business owners navigating chronic illness and autoimmune disorders. Learn from their experiences, strategies, and lessons, with a focus on sustainability and health. Episodes will feature guests discussing new diagnoses, caregiving, and adapting business practices. Join the community on Substack for exclusive content and stay connected. Tune in for inspiration, support, and practical...
The journey of entrepreneurship can often feel at odds with the realities of living with chronic illness, particularly when it comes to the concept of capacity. In this episode, we tackle the often-misunderstood idea of capacity, shifting the narrative from a relentless push for more to a compassionate understanding of what we can realistically manage. Capacity isn't just about productivity; it's about how much our bodies and minds...
What if your business didn’t fall apart every time your life asked you to slow down?
In this episode of Business with Chronic Illness, we’re naming a hard truth many entrepreneurs live with quietly: most businesses are built to work only on your best days.
When you rest, everything stops.
When life gets real, momentum disappears.
And you’re left feeling like you’re starting over again.
That’s not a you problem.
It’s a systems problem.
Does your marketing disappear every time you take a break? You're not alone, and it's not a consistency problem. It's a systems problem disguised as a marketing problem.
In this solo episode of Business with Chronic Illness, I'm sharing why so many women entrepreneurs with chronic illness, burnout, or unpredictable capacity feel like they're constantly restarting their marketing from scratch. The truth? You don't have a marketing st...
In this replay episode, I’m sitting down with certified coach and first-gen eldest daughter Nikkei Lamodi, to talk about what it really looks like to be an eldest daughter or late bloomer living with chronic illness and running a business.
We get into the invisible pressure of being the “strong one,” why eldest daughters are so prone to people-pleasing, perfectionism, and over-responsibility, and how all of that bleeds into your bus...
If you’ve been looking at your audience lately — your email list, your downloads, your Instagram following — and thinking, “It’s just not big enough,” this episode is your gentle reset.
Today, I’m sharing an archived audio I originally recorded for my private client podcast. It’s a quiet reminder that the size of your audience has never been the thing that determines your success… the root system of your business does.
Inside, I shar...
Tired of waiting for the perfect moment to start your creative business? Struggling with burnout from trying to follow cookie-cutter business advice that doesn't fit your life?
In this episode, I talk with Margo Tantau: creative director, licensing agent, and host of Windowsill Chats Podcast, about building a sustainable creative business by following your gut instead of formulas. Margo shares her non-linear path from corporate to r...
I feel like I'm doing everything right. I meditate. I have boundaries. My life is actually pretty good. So why do I still feel burnt out? Why can't I keep up with my business the way I want to? Why does it feel like something's still off?
If that sounds like you, this episode is going to connect some dots you didn't even know needed connecting.
Jen Yundt Coles is a functional medicine health coach, SIBO specialist, and someone who li...
What do you do when your health changes and the business you've built can't keep up?
In this episode of Business with Chronic Illness, I sit down with Jemi Crookes, founder of The Think Lab, to talk about what happens when a diagnosis forces you to redefine leadership, business, and success itself.
After a misdiagnosis of Type 2 diabetes, Jemi discovered she was actually living with Type 1.5 (LADA)—a rare form of autoimmune diabetes ...
Ever had one of those moments where you're building your business and you get a text from family, someone's sick, someone needs you, and you instantly think: "I should be there. What kind of person am I for not dropping everything?"
In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Analía Gómez Vidal career coach who built her business while being thousands of miles away from her family in Argentina. We get honest about what to do when family ne...
🌿 If you’re navigating entrepreneurship and chronic illness, or simply craving a more sustainable way to grow your business without sacrificing your health, energy, or self-care priorities, explore Chronically You & Profitable (CYAP).
About this Episode:
In this episode of Business with Chronic Illness, I'm joined by Jessica Setnick, RD, CSSD, LD—a registered dietitian, eating disorder specialist, and founder of a nonprofit maki...
Ever look at everything on your business plate and think "there's no way I can do all of this"?
This episode is for entrepreneurs with chronic illness who feel overwhelmed trying to grow their business while managing fluctuating capacity. CEO of Functional Medicine Nutritionist Andrea Nakayama shares how she built Functional Nutrition Alliance while managing Hashimoto's, grief, and single parenthood—without burning out.
We're diving ...
What if the key to building a sustainable business with chronic illness isn't working harder, but setting better boundaries? In this episode, Brenda Snow, an Amazon Best Selling Author, shares how she built a 420-person company over 30 years while managing MS (Multiple Sclerosis) - without sacrificing her health or burning out.
If you're living with chronic illness and running a business, you know the struggle:
You feel like you need...
How My Podcast Signed Clients While I Was Healing: Why Downloads Don’t Pay Your Bills (Decisions Do)
Can you really grow your business when you’re living with chronic illness, burnout, or limited capacity? Absolutely, if your content helps people make informed decisions, you don't have to focus on or obsess about downloads.
In this episode of Business with Chronic Illness, with host Nikita Williams. I’m sharing how I signed clients from my podcast while I was healing from endometriosis and recovering from surgery, and how I tu...
Think you need to work 60-hour weeks to build a successful freelance business with chronic illness or burnout? Amanda Bourbonais proves otherwise. After a severe chronic Lyme disease crisis forced her to leave corporate life, she built a six-figure copywriting business working just 20-25 hours per week, and she's maintained that rhythm for five years.
In this episode, Amanda shares how she turned rock bottom into a business foundati...
When I first started my coaching business, I had maybe 30 minutes of energy in a day. And while the online world told me I needed to post multiple times a day, go to endless networking events, and keep up with algorithms, I simply couldn’t.
What I did know? Connection creates sales.
In this episode, I’m sharing the 30-Minute-a-Day Connection Strategy I used to build a six-figure business while living with chronic illness and how it b...
In this episode of Business with Chronic Illness, I'm joined by Jason Winters, an energy alignment coach and EFT tapping practitioner, to talk about the warning signs that your business is built out of alignment, especially important for entrepreneurs managing chronic illness and unpredictable energy levels.
Jason opens up about his experience with rapid business growth that felt unsustainable, from lowering his prices out of fear t...
Selling doesn’t have to feel hard, especially when you're navigating the challenges of chronic illness or burnout.
In today’s episode, we dive into the three key problems that often keep us from converting leads into sales and how to tackle them with what I call the rooted sales process. We discuss the emotional and physical challenges that can make selling feel pushy or draining, leading to feelings of inadequacy and frustration. Y...
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