Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors: Shatter Limiting Beliefs - Redefine Success - Chase Big Dreams

Burnout is a SCAM: Maegan Megginson on Redefining Success and Finding True Wealth

• Erica Rooney

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In this game-changing episode, we sit down with Maegan Megginson, therapist-turned-business-mentor, to uncover the truths about burnout and how to reclaim your life. Megan shares her powerful insights on breaking free from societal pressures and creating a life that aligns with your values. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, stuck, or just tired of the hustle, this episode is packed with actionable takeaways to help you move forward. Here’s what you’ll learn:

  • Why most burnout advice is a scam (and what really works).
  • How capitalism and patriarchy fuel perfectionism and exhaustion.
  • The difference between true burnout and just needing a vacation.
  • Why non-monetary revenue—like time and joy—is the ultimate wealth.
  • Simple, actionable micro-changes to reignite your energy and align with your values.
  • How to reconnect with joy and pleasure, even in small everyday moments.

Tune in to explore why living a life in alignment with your values is the ultimate form of success. Don’t miss this conversation—it’s time to stop surviving and start thriving!

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Quick question for y'all. Have you ever felt like you are running on empty, trying to be everything to everyone and you still feel like you're falling short? Well, today we are diving headfirst into the burnout epidemic with someone who knows it inside and out. This is a therapist turned business mentor, Megan Megginson and she is here to drop some at truth bombs. About why most burnout advice is total BS and how we can truly liberate ourselves from this hustle and grind culture. So trust me, this episode is the wake up call that you didn't know you needed. And it is so timely with the holidays amongst us. But you know where you're at. Y'all welcome to the glass ceiling and sticky floor podcast. The show, the tier to empower you to break free from the limiting beliefs, ditch toxic behaviors, and unlock the infinite possibilities waiting for you. This is your time to live your best life on apologetically. I'm Eric Rooney, your host and biggest cheerleader on a mission to get more women into positions of power and keep them there where they belong. If you're ready to shatter ceilings, crush self-doubt and build a career and life overflowing with growth and abundance. You're in the right place. Here's the deal. We talk about the hard stuff here. Imposter syndrome, perfectionism, fear, burnout, you name it. It's raw. It's honest. And it is exactly what you need to level up. So grab a seat, pop in those ear buds and let's dive in.

Maegan:

Okay.

Erica:

a seven figure business owner. Let me repeat that seven figure owner. Okay. Her unique magic weaves together the practical and the spiritual elements that we need to create successful businesses and truly wealthy lives, which let's be real, y'all. We all want and need that. And today we are going to dive all in on all the good stuff, like the bad burnout advice that we've been getting. The number one question that we want to ask ourselves to be more successful and less stressed. That's me. But then also we're going to talk about how you can generate non monetary revenue to pay yourself in rest, time, freedom, flexibility, and happiness, which y'all know what I'm going through right now, leaving corporate, starting my own business, doing all the things. So I need to go all in on some of that non monetary revenue y'all. But Megan is here to tell us something that we probably all already know, which is. That the way that we work, it's not working, but she's here to help us find a better way. So Megan, welcome to the Glass Ceiling and Sticky Floor Podcast. I'm so glad you're here.

Maegan:

Erica, thank you so much for having me and I have to say, you're giving me a real blast from the past because originally I'm from Houston, Texas and I, I moved to the West Coast, uh, almost 10 years ago now and just your y'alls are like butter on my toast this morning.

Erica:

Oh my gosh. It cracks me up because I'm in North Carolina and of course I don't think I have a Southern accent, but then when I talk to people outside of North Carolina, they come to me and they're like, wow,

Maegan:

It's strong, it's adorable, I'm here for it. This is great.

Erica:

Oh my God. Well, I would love to hear more about your story. You know, were you the business mentor first? Were you the therapist first? Like, how did we get this version of Megan today?

Maegan:

Yeah, such a great question and I'm going to give you the TLDR version of this answer. Um, so I started as a therapist first. I actually became a therapist right out of college. I was a psychology undergrad, um, and I was just totally enraptured by couples therapy in particular. So I went straight from undergrad into a grad program that specialized in couples therapy and I And came out of that program. I worked in a small group practice for a minute before I was like, what, what am I doing? Like, I'm an entrepreneur, honor who you are, go into private practice. And I was in private practice as a couples and sex therapist for many years before I moved to Portland. Like I mentioned a minute ago, back in, in 2016. Um, and when I moved to Portland, I was ready. I was ready to expand, right? There was this ambitious part of me that was just kind of itching to get out of the cage. And, uh, when we moved across the country, my husband and I, and our, our three adorable beagles, um, he quit his job. He was a corporate chemical engineer. He was totally worked, uh, burnt out on, on the corporate life. And we landed in Portland and just had this real kind of reckoning with our lives. You know, what are, what are we doing? What do we want to create for ourselves? And it felt like the next right thing to do was to start hiring other therapists and, and creating a group practice, uh, he and I working together. He was doing the more engineering type tasks, you know, things that required spreadsheets. And I was doing the people managing, I was seeing my own caseload of clients. That was going great. But I, I reached a point a couple of years later where it actually was born out of an episode of burnout, which maybe we'll talk about later. But. I realized that the way I was working wasn't sustainable and also that I was feeling called to change the way I was working. I was feeling really called to work with business owners outside of the traditional Western psychotherapy paradigm. So I started exploring business coaching and for several years I was doing both. I was seeing therapy clients. I was working with business coaching clients. I was managing this therapy center that was, you know, growing Year after year, it was getting bigger and long story short. I realized over time that I needed to let go of my role as a therapist. I needed to step away from being the leader and the manager of a business that was built on hiring more and more employees. And I needed to create something really small, really simple, but with huge impact. And, and that's where we are today with, with deeply rested, which is the name of the business where I work with business owners, less business coaching now, and more mentorship around, you know, how do we as business owners remove ourselves from some of the toxicity of capitalism, um, so that we can take good care of ourselves, our communities, while also creating businesses that are providing for us financially. And here we are having, having coffee on a Tuesday morning

Erica:

at election day at that

Maegan:

on election

Erica:

clear. This is not going to go live on election day, but this is a very high anxiety day for all of America. Okay. So we might as well be talking about burnout, right? Like,

Maegan:

might as well. Right.

Erica:

a lot of people in that space today, but let's go ahead and dive into the good stuff. Like, I was so intrigued because you have said that a lot of it, of the advice that we get around burnout is total crap. Like take time off, hire help, all of that stuff that, you know, sounds good to me. So why is that bad advice? And then of course, what should we be doing?

Maegan:

Let's talk for a minute, if it's okay, about what burnout is, because I

Erica:

Yeah, let's do that because it is a buzzword right now and I think there's a lot of um, I don't know, I guess just assumptions on what burnout is and what it's not. So I would love to hear what is burnout.

Maegan:

Yeah, and I think this is a really helpful place to start because nobody, like, none of us know exactly what it, what it is to be burnt out, right? You said it is a buzzword, it's in the zeitgeist. People are talking about it, they're using the word, but we're all using the word in slightly different ways. And at the core, that's okay. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, like, what it means to be clinically burnt out or casually burnt out. It doesn't

Erica:

Potato

Maegan:

if you're, right, if you're suffering. you're suffering. But I find that when we're suffering, it can be really helpful to discern what's my unique flavor of suffering. Because the clearer I can get on what's going on for me, the easier it's going to be to find the solutions that help give me relief the quickest. Right? So sometimes people confuse burnout with depression, right? They can look really similar. It can be hard to really puzzle out which, which one am I? It can be hard to discern burnout from just being tired, right? From, from needing a break. I think the best way to think about burnout, it's the state energetically where you just stop caring about all of the things that used to really matter to you, right? So if you used to really care about your team. If you used to really care about your clients, if you, if you're, if you have a mission and used to get lit up when you talked about that mission, you wanted to get out there and talk about it and do good work in the world. If you used to love going to your kid's school recital and now all of those things make you angry, resentful, or you just like can't muster the energy to do it. It's a good sign that you might be struggling. with burnout, which you can just think like you used to be, you used to be a candle with a beautiful, strong flame. And now you've been like doused in water. And it's like, you can't get that candle to relight. Right. So it really is pretty significant when we're in burnout. We often need some type of major intervention, major support to help us get back to baseline. If you feel like you resonate with some of those qualities, But you're not at the point yet where you really can't reignite your own flame, then you might be like on the brink of burnout, right? You might be at a place where you need to make some changes. You need to recharge your batteries, but you can get yourself out of this hole without needing to make any like major massive changes. Is that making sense so far?

Erica:

It does. Let me ask you one question because I heard this definition. I don't know if it's a definition more so as One sentence about burnout, but it really resonated with me and I'd love to get your perspective on it But it's like if you just need to take like a two day Vacation for some R& R and come back at it like you were not burnt out Like if you are burnt out you are Laid out on the couch can't do anything like it takes more than just a few days off if you are in true brown Would you and to me that kind of helped clarify it because I kept showing it being like, yes, we're burnt out We're all burnt out, you know You So, would you say that that resonates with you as well, or what's your thought?

Maegan:

definitely. I think that in situation a right, you need a vacation. If you can get a little break, recharge your batteries, come back at it with a fresh perspective. What you're really looking at is like, Oh, I wonder if there's like a more sustainable for me or more sustainable way for me to show up in my work so that I don't go through these ups and downs. Energetic ups and downs. Because that's, to me, what you're describing, Erica. It's like an energetic up and down. And we want to,

Erica:

sustainable way.

Maegan:

we want a more sustainable way so that when we're engaging with our work, we don't get to the point where we're like, I can't send another email. Until I take a vacation. No, you don't need to, that's like, you don't need to feel that way. So I would say, yeah, that's like at one end of the spectrum. And then at the other end of the spectrum is I'm going to quit my job. I'm going to burn my business to the ground. I can't imagine doing this. ever again. It's, it's extreme. It's, and it's, Oh, it's so heavy. It's so sticky in the body. And if you feel like you're on that end of the spectrum, that's when I really recommend seeing a therapist if you haven't already, because we want to make sure that you're not actually clinically depressed. Right? So again, they're cousins, but they're not exactly the same. You might be experiencing depression. If you have a deep sense of hopelessness, Right? If you have kind of a skewed perspective on your relationships, if it's hard for you to like accept love from the people in your life, if you're crying a lot, right? If you're really angry because depression can go either way, again, these are all things that you can experience when you're burnout. But if that burnout has trickled down into a stickier depression, we really want to highlight that and get you to the right place to get the support that you need to come out of it. Burnout often doesn't require Therapy. I mean, to be clear, go to therapy. Therapy's awesome

Erica:

gonna say,

Maegan:

do it.

Erica:

all the time, and I need everyone who listens to this podcast to have their therapist on speed dial,

Maegan:

go to therapist, go, go to therapy, find a great therapist, but it's, it's that inner discernment, right? When we're clinically depressed, like you probably aren't going to be able to climb out of that hole yourself. You're going to need professional support to do it. When you're really burnt out, get professional support. If you can afford it, if it's available to you, but if it's not, don't worry because we can crawl our way out of burnout on our own, right? Listening to this conversation is, is a great. place to start. What can we do when we're burnt out to get to a better place, to reignite our flame, to get to a point where we can take a deep breath again, kind of see the forest for the trees? What can we do that's helpful and what do people tell us to do that is actually Counterproductive.

Erica:

That's where I wanna start. Let's talk about the BS that's actually pulling us through. further down the burnout rabbit hole.

Maegan:

Alright, so in order to do that, we do have to talk for a minute about capitalism and patriarchy.

Erica:

I actually am so glad you brought that up because I wrote down earlier that you said the toxicity of capitalism and I was like, ooh, we're gonna go big

Maegan:

Yeah, we gotta go big. We have to go big because if we don't, we, it's like we're trying to solve a problem without the proper tools.

Erica:

Got

Maegan:

you can't do that. You can't light a candle without a match. And we have to be honest about why aren't, like, why? Why are we burnt out in the first place? Like, what is going on in the way my life is constructed that leads me to the point where I am hopeless, demotivated? Depressed, anxious, fill in the blank, whatever it might be. Why is this happening? Well, it's happening because we're operating inside of some really oppressive societal systems, right? Capitalism is here to tell us that your worth is based on your productivity, right? That we need to treat our bodies like we are robots, that we are here to produce, produce, produce, produce. And capitalism is built on the foundation of exponential growth. Right. So quarter after quarter, year after year, we need to be doing more, making more, being more. It is absolutely unsustainable. It's killing our planet. It's killing our bodies. And yet we're all operating inside this very toxic system. And then as women, we match that up with patriarchy, right? Which is a system of power that is really organized around the wounded masculine. And men are just as just as much victims to the system of patriarchy as women are, but since mostly women are here listening to this podcast, like, let's just talk for a minute about the unique experience that we have as women operating within a system that is really ruled by by men, by dysfunction, masculine values. These are values that make us feel like we're here to serve, right? That our job is to be in service to someone else, not to be in service to ourself. And that we need to stay busy because there's so much to do. And there are so many people to please. And if we don't please somebody, we're going to get kicked down the ladder. So whatever progress we've made as women to empower ourselves, to become financially independent, to create businesses or work our way up. in whatever corporation we might be a part of. It's constantly at risk of being taken away from us if we don't perform in the right way.

Erica:

And then too, I would say double down on that if you are a woman who is a mother or a caregiver, right? Because we also then tack on all of these other responsibilities and expectations that we get. Essentially grade ourselves on, right? Like, how good of a mom am I if I do all of these things,

Maegan:

Mm hmm.

Erica:

does my kid show up to school with homemade chocolate chip cookies? Or do I just send in paper plates, right? Like, let's be clear, I send in the paper plates. But, I remember those days thinking of like, if it wasn't perfect, it wasn't good enough. And it, and it, that just compounds it,

Maegan:

So perfectionism is a symptom of patriarchy, to be clear, right? Every single time we are struggling with perfectionism, it is because we are feeling the squeeze of patriarchal expectations. Um, you know, like you said, be more, do more, be the best all the time, be the best caretaker at home, be the best employee at work, be the best, most successful business owner. All of these pressures are getting pushed down on us because Listen, when we're tired, when we're exhausted, when we're burnt out, when we don't have the mental capacity to have conversations like this, we just keep playing the game by the rules that have been given to us. And that's what they want, right? That's what our society, our society wants us to be compliant, but being compliant leads to burnout. So here's where we, here's where the puzzle shows up, Erica. We're being compliant. We're getting burnt out. Society as a whole wants us to continue being compliant. So they're not going to give us the real, they're not going to give us the real solutions to burnout because when you really start to heal your burnout, you go through a whole liberation process. Where you really start deprogramming from some of these toxic belief systems that you're ready to just throw in the garbage can. So this system is, it's a little bit invested in making sure that we're too busy to think about this, but we have enough energy to be productive. And that's what most of, The burnout advice out there really aims to do, right? It doesn't aim to heal the root cause of why I am draining myself dry, why I am extracting my own precious resources. No, they don't want us to look at that. They just want us to feel just better enough so that we can keep producing, keep being more, keep being perfect. Does that make sense?

Erica:

It does. And I just, it's a little sad, you know, I'm like, damn, all that makes so much sense. And I keep thinking back to all of the women that I know who are so successful, who have just been chasing and climbing the corporate ladder. And like, that's why we see so many women who actually get to the top of this ladder. It's like, we finally have a clear view and we look around at the patriarchy and all the other bullshit that's there. And we're like, This is what I've been working my ass off for. But I'm really interested because yes, I can now very clearly see how all of those tactics like taking time off are just stop gaps. You know, it's like the workaround, whatever you want to call it. But then what should we be doing?

Maegan:

Yeah, so let me just say one more thing about, like, the bad burnout advice. You know that burnout advice, like, is, you should be skeptical about any piece of burnout advice that asks you to do more or to pay for something. Okay. Like

Erica:

that's pretty clear. Don't do more and don't pay for shit you don't need.

Maegan:

that's right. Right. Cause so a lot, let's think about this for a minute. Like for example, um, burnout advice, especially for high achieving, perfectionistic women will be like, well, you need to hire some support, right? You need to outsource, you need to delegate. Okay. Listen, this is, this is nuanced because like, if you can afford to hire someone to clean your house and do your laundry and prep your meals, and you want to do that, fuck yeah, do it. That's great. That's awesome. But what happens is that a lot of women are pressured into making these decisions when they're in places where it's not actually financially responsible for them to do that, right? Or, or it's not where they want their money to go in their life. So we start feeling really pressured to, to do that. Dish out money to hire support so that we can keep doing more. Okay. If I hire someone to clean my house, if I hire a virtual assistant to manage my inbox, if I, you know, hire someone to prep my meals, then I'll have more energy to. Work harder, achieve more, make more money. If you find yourself in that paradigm, you need to hit pause because you are just running faster on the hamster wheel. Like that's all you're doing in that situation. It's not gonna lead to you feeling better in a, in a sustainable way. It's a quick fix that's just, you're just kicking the can down the road.

Erica:

I love that you said that because I cannot tell you how many people have told me to get a house cleaner like

Maegan:

Mm-hmm

Erica:

Years people have been telling me to get a house cleaner and could I afford one? Sure, but when I really sat down and I looked at it, Megan, I was like, that's not going to solve any of my problems. Like, I'm not stressed out about my house. Now, if I was, maybe that would have been Been a solution, you know, but that wasn't something that was going to solve any problem for me. So I love that you bring that up because you're right. It's not a solution.

Maegan:

It's what I, to be dramatic, what I like to say is it's a band aid on a fatal wound.

Erica:

Yeah. Well, and not only that, but then you're actually adding like the mental workload of, is my house clean before the house cleaner is dumb? Like, have I put away everything? I don't want them to see. Did I pay them? Are they here? Oh, they can't come. I have to reschedule. And there's. even more stuff that you're

Maegan:

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Erica:

that's supposed to make your life easier.

Maegan:

It's too much. We're over complicating in an effort to simplify and it's a trick, you know, it's like, it's a scam! Back away! Run in the other direction!

Erica:

is a scam.

Maegan:

The other big one is Burnout advice that requires you to, like, read a book about productivity. Or, like, learn this new method of, like, how to be less stressed out, right? If you have to do work, if you have to buy something, or learn something, or implement some new system to make your life more efficient, you're kicking that can down the road. Again, it might make you feel momentarily better. But actually you're just doubling down on how much is expected of you because we also get caught caught in some cost fallacy when we start implementing these like burnout interventions where we're putting so much time and money and energy into ways to make our life better, that we think our life should be getting better. And when it doesn't get better, instead of shifting gears and trying a different approach, we're like, Oh my God, but I've already done all, I've already like, now I like have the housekeeper. I don't want to fire them. You know, it's like,

Erica:

Right? Then I gotta do that?

Maegan:

Yeah, that makes me feel bad. So then we're just like doubling down. We're doubling down on our own suffering. And the only people who are benefiting are that this is this larger societal system of capitalism and patriarchy. And we don't have to do that. We can step away from that. We can step in another direction, but it's going to ruffle some feathers. That's what I want to say before we start talking about. Um, You know, the other side of this coin that when you decide, I want to step out of this toxicity, I want to step out of this dysfunctional way of living, of existing, the people who are still mired in it, who are still committed to it, they're not going to like you, they're not going to like what you represent. you are going to feel really threatening to them. So you have to really shore yourself up internally to make sure that you're strong enough and you're grounded enough to do the liberation work of removing yourself from some of these toxic ways of living.

Erica:

And I would also just caution that these people will be very close in your inner circle too, because they all benefit from it as well. And when you start to change, not everybody is ready for that change. So

Maegan:

that's right.

Erica:

just a little disclaimer from my own lived experiences,

Maegan:

Mine too. I'm sure you experience that. I mean, you said earlier that you're moving out of corporate into working for yourself. Like, I'm sure that there are people in your corporate circles who have a lot of judgments about the

Erica:

Oh, yes, girl. Oh, yes, girl.

Maegan:

Right. That's what we in the therapy space call shadow work, right? That like when we get really irritated or have big reactions about things other people are doing, decisions other people are making, it's often an indicator that that, that represents a shadow within myself, some part of me that I'm not ready to look at or get to know or face. Right. And that's a great example. Like if someone in your corporate circle says, I'm out of here. You know, I'm, I'm going to do my own business. I'm going to liberate myself from this system. And you feel tons of judgment towards her. That probably means there's a part of you that wants that freedom and flexibility as well, but it feels too scary to look at it just yet.

Erica:

Hmm. Yeah, I would say spot on and I would say spot on from my own judgments that I've put on other people, too.

Maegan:

A hundred percent, yeah. I've got, I, I, I mean, I'm not perfect by any means, but I've gotten better at this point in my life at, at more quickly recognizing when I'm judging someone else. And then going like, hmm, what is, what is it about, what am I judging about them that I secretly harbor within myself? And Can I spend some time exploring that? Anyways, separate, separate podcast

Erica:

We're going down a rabbit hole here, but do your shadow work. Back to burnout.

Maegan:

that's right. Yeah. Do your shadow work back to burnout. Um, yes. Okay. So should we talk about Some

Erica:

Yes, girl. I'm dying to know because I, I already want to hang up with you and stardom and I don't even know what they are

Maegan:

Yeah. Well, I think you're I mean from what I'm hearing you're already doing a great job Erica So kudos to you Okay, so in order to really remove ourself from these paradigms to heal burnout within ourselves We have to first do some deep self inquiry, right? We have to like written this is where therapy can be really helpful But also like you, you are, you can do this yourself. You can do this with a friend. You have so many options of like how you can do this work. I think it starts with some deep breaths and some deep questions, right? What do I really value in my life? Right? What really matters to me? What do I feel sad about not experiencing or not doing in my life right now? If we can start with some of those reflection questions, and if we can be really honest with ourself, what we do is we begin to create our own roadmap for what kind of changes we need to make in our lives. Right. So maybe you ask yourself those questions and, uh, well, I mean, I was going to just make up an answer, but I'm, I'm curious for you, Erica, like what, what would some of those answers be for you? Like when you really kind of think about what you value and what's most important to you, what comes up?

Erica:

Yeah. Well, I love the values question. I'm a big values person. So for me, obviously family, my kids, they're, uh, six and nine. So making sure that I'm present for them and focused on them. Family for sure. I'm a very big growth minded person. So making sure that I'm always growing, learning new things. And then I always, uh, one of my values is also like health and wellness and making sure that we always take care of ourselves emotionally, mentally, physically, all of the things. Um, but when you talk about what do I think? feel sad about not doing if I rewind like to a month ago when I was back in corporate, I was always sad that I felt, uh, preoccupied with work all the time.

Maegan:

mm

Erica:

even when I wasn't working, my brain was still on and still going, and being preoccupied about work meant I couldn't be focused on my kids and my family, right? Because I was always stressed. And that's what also made me sad about what I was not doing, is I noticed that because I was always preoccupied, my stress levels were high, which meant I wasn't having the type of relationship that I wanted with my kids, because I was more short tempered, more

Maegan:

right. Yeah.

Erica:

even go a little bit deeper and like what, what I find interesting about it and maybe can help somebody else is when I was so unhappy in corporate, and this was two years ago when I first really started feeling unhappy, I went out and I got an executive coaching certification because growth. Step one, but then I was like, well, maybe it will just help me with my job. And so I did it, but to do what I had to do, some pro bono coaching hours with other women. And when I did that, I could not ignore how lit up and happy I felt type of

Maegan:

Mm.

Erica:

corporate job. And I think that contrast. You know, really showed me that like all of the things I was doing in my nine to five were not lighting me up, bringing me joy, making me feel fulfilled. They weren't even making me feel productive. Right. So like I was going to this job, nothing was getting resolved. More loops just kept getting opened. Nothing kept getting closed. Um, so yeah, a lot of it is about like my emotional availability for my family, I think.

Maegan:

Mm hmm. Whoa, this is

Erica:

I know it was a lot. It was a lot. We're turning it into a therapy

Maegan:

great. I'm here for it. I'm I'm here for it. I mean, this is how we learn right? So I just want to thank thank you for I as I was asking that question. I was like, I didn't ask Erica if I was allowed to ask her personal question. So thanks for diving into that to me. I should have.

Erica:

listen to this show on the reg, they know all the

Maegan:

Great. Good, good, good. So I think that quick side comment in order to recover from burnout, we have to tell honest stories about ourself. We have to come back to a really ancient tradition of storytelling in our circles, in our communities. That's why I love podcasts so much, right? Cause it gives us a way to tell really vulnerable stories that so many people have access to. So when we get real with each other and when, when we say like my business or my corporate job was robbing me, of my ability to be a good mom to my kids. I have a client who calls her, she's working on this in her business right now. She calls herself monster mom. She's like, when I'm like over focused on my business, I turn into monster mom. You know, I'm like, I'm cranky. I have, so I have little patience with my kids. She's like, I hate that. I hate who I am when that's all I have to give them. And when we start saying, These kind of truths to each other, you can imagine like we're all just like standing at like the cage of, of capitalism and patriarchy with little chisels, you know, and we're just starting to chisel holes in the wall or putting cracks in the foundation and eventually we're going to tear it all to the ground. And it's not going to be some big dramatic flourish. It's going to be all of us telling these kind of stories and making these type of micro shifts in our lives together. Like this is huge. The story you just shared is so incredibly important for the liberation of all of us who are feeling trapped in this way. So thank you for your service. Now, taking this a little bit deeper. We start to get clear just like you're doing on, yeah, it's a, it's a hard question, but it's a great question. Like, what am I sad about? Where do I feel grief? Where do I feel regret? And we start to see, we start to get honest with ourselves about like, okay, I'm, I'm so preoccupied with this shit that like, I don't even care about. Like on my deathbed, I'm not even going to remember that I did this. I'm not even going to remember that this like was a project that I gave so much of my life force energy to and look at the cost. So this is another great question when you're in this exploration phase to ask yourself, like, what is the cost of of the decisions that I'm making. What's the cost to my body? What's the cost to my family? What's the cost to the planet? What's the cost to the people who work under me, in my team, or in my business? We want to start to look at ways that we are participating in an extractive process. An extractive way of existing on this planet where we are just taking, taking, taking from ourself, from our, from others, from the earth. That's another way to sort of deepen this exploration of really noticing what's out of alignment for me. What is out of alignment for me? And once we get clear on what's out of alignment, then we can start to make micro changes to bring ourselves back into alignment. And I say microchanges because most people don't have the privilege or the luxury of snapping their fingers and changing their entire lives overnight. You know, it took you two years.

Erica:

your job guys. Don't go run out and quit your day

Maegan:

Right, right. Unless you have a trust fund or a partner who doesn't require income, in which case quit that fucking job, you know, like

Erica:

Get out of there.

Maegan:

make a drastic change. Like I'm all for drastic changes when your life can support the weight of your drastic change. So if that's you, awesome. I'm excited for you. But most of us don't fall into that category, right? Most of us like really

Erica:

of us got to do the micro changes.

Maegan:

of us have to do the microchanges. I've had to do the microchanges. You're, you know, you're two

Erica:

too, girl.

Maegan:

doing the microchanges. Microchanges are beautiful. And this is where you really get to start playing with your life and with your work, you know, and asking yourself. So let's use preoccupation as, as, you know, a word. Let's workshop preoccupation, if we can. So you're like, I'm preoccupied. Okay, so let's think about this. Like, what are you preoccupied with? And where can we remove stimulus or expectations from your plate? Again, I don't want you to buy anything. I don't want you to add anything onto your plate. So what, let's, let's talk to the you of 18 months ago, two years ago, right? Like, what was maybe like one small thing you could remove from your plate that was really feeding your preoccupation?

Erica:

I'll tell you one. I mean, it's little, but it was a big impact for me and it was taking. My slack and my work email off my phone.

Maegan:

is such a brilliant place to start. That is such a good place to start.

Erica:

that was hard as hell,

Maegan:

So hard.

Erica:

it's mind boggling to me how hard that is and what a mental fricking mind fuck it is to take that off your phone. And I added it and removed it and added it back and removed it 27 times y'all. But that really made the biggest shift for me when it came to not being so preoccupied with work.

Maegan:

Such a brilliant example, and I have full body chills because it is so hard. Like our addiction to being constantly available is intense. It is intense. And I do the same thing. I go through phases where like I delete my email app off my phone and then I'll like add it back, but only for a minute and then I'll delete it again. I do the same thing with Instagram where I'm like, get it off my phone and then I'll add it back for like 15 minutes and be like, what am I doing here? This is terrible. I'll delete it. So like we get to be imperfect in this process.

Erica:

Okay, I have to share another tip though that I haven't done yet. I just learned it yesterday from someone else and I'm going to do it. I'm a little scared, but I'm also going to do it. And that is changing the settings on your phone to gray scale so that everything is black and white because you're not so stimulated by all of the graphics on Instagram and LinkedIn and social media. And so I was like, Oh my God, that's brilliant. So I'm going to try it. Okay. But I am a little scared because I love my Instagram, y'all.

Maegan:

Right. It's big. So, this is such a great, um, example of like meeting yourself with grace, right? Meet yourself with grace. It's like, okay, this is scary. Let me just try it as an experiment. I'm going to change it to grayscale. It'll take literally 2. 5 seconds to change it back. You know, like we're not making life altering commitments here. We're just trying little experiments to see like, well, how does my nervous system respond? If I change my phone to grayscale, how does my nervous system respond? If I take Instagram off my phone for the weekend, Right. How does my nervous system respond if I take slack off my phone and only look at it when I'm on my laptop, right? We're just, we're starting to notice, you're gathering data about like, where has my body been conditioned to be on, to be responding, to be perfect all of the time. And what happens in my body when I step away? from some of those obligations and expectations. And you are going to start to learn about your own system. And then you get to start making more and more personalized decisions about where your energy is going and what your boundaries are, because like my boundaries aren't going to be the same as your boundaries. So there's no checklist of like 10 things, 10 boundaries to set. So you feel less burned out. No, it doesn't exist. My values are different than your values. Right? My desires in life are different than your desires in life. My boundaries with my phone are different than your boundaries with your phone. So when you are working on your own relationship with burnout, you have to give up on the fantasy of there being a quick fix, of there being an easy solution, of there being some like pre printed roadmap you can follow that's going to work for you. No.

Erica:

That's all we all want.

Maegan:

true. I know, I want it too! Like, to be clear, I want it too. But that, okay, coming back to the toxic system of capitalism, those are beliefs that we internalize because we operate inside of capitalism, right? Capitalism says everything should be easy. Everything should be fast. Progress should be quick. There's a, you know, you can pay for any solution you want to find, right? That kind of, that fast, fast, fast. Easy, easy, easy. That's not real. That's not real. And part of like the sinking down back into the earth, into your body, into the land, right? This is all part of the deconditioning process. You are deconditioning from capitalism. And as you slow down and sink into yourself, you start to see that a garden doesn't grow overnight. Right? A garden takes an entire year. It takes four complete seasons for the garden to do what it needs to do to create fresh tomatoes in the summertime. Right? You can't say to the garden like, okay, done with tomatoes. Green beans. Now. Go. You have 30 seconds. Figure it out.

Erica:

sweet numbers.

Maegan:

me some cucumbers. No. And you are a garden. Your body is a garden. Your life is a garden. So anything that you're asking yourself to do, or you're expecting yourself to do, that is like instantaneous, or easy, or simple, you gotta step far away from that, because you're literally asking your body to do something she is not designed to do. And that's what I call an abusive relationship.

Erica:

I think that's such a great reminder because it's like our conscious mind knows that these things take time. But unconsciously, we're like, Oh, great. Let me fix, like, it should be easy peasy lemon squeezy to fix. And it's not so like, keep that as a reminder, but let's talk about also like how, go back to how can we do more generation of the non monetary revenue? Right. Because that is like the catalyst, the turning point. That is what we, I want to focus on in this new era of my life. So tell me more about that.

Maegan:

Okay. Non monetary revenue. Okay, real quick, before that, I want to give you two more quick burnout recovery tips that I think are vital and no one's talking about them. Uh,

Erica:

hear

Maegan:

just one is joy, right? Joy is the medicine for all things. So if you're really struggling with burnout, what that means to me, what that says to me is that you have very little joy. You have very little pleasure in your life. Pleasure can be non sexual. It can be sexual. It's all of it. So if you're burnt out, one of the easiest things. That you can do today is to search for joy, to search for pleasure and see, can you bring a little bit more joy, a little bit more pleasure into your body? The more you do in simple ways, it can take 30 seconds, right? The more you do that, the more you're reorganizing your system and the easier it's going to be to do some of this deeper, heavier work that we're talking about. So find joy, find pleasure. And the last thing I'll say about burnout for today, let yourself be yourself. Self expression, burnout. Is an antidote to burnout. Right. When we're burnt out, just like you were saying we're burnt out because we've gotten so far away from our values, from our desires, from who we really are. We're pretending to be somebody else. I've never met a person who's burnt out. Who's not pretending to be somebody else. So the more you can really clarify, like, wait, who am I? Who was I when I was 13 years old, when I was seven, when I was four? And can I bring some of those parts of me back into the world again? Right? Let your freak flag fly. Right? The more yourself you can be in the world, I guarantee you the less you're going to struggle with burnout. So just planting those seeds in the garden, um, the garden of the mind, and you can see if they

Erica:

of the mind before you. I mean, I want to get to these non monetary revenue things, but I have to share this joy tip that this comes from my friend, Jessica Janssen. She talks all about joy, but a lot of time we're like, but I don't have joy in my life or there is no joy. She does a monthly. post on Instagram and you can do it monthly, weekly, whatever works for you. But she just calls them like it's November now. So her November joy starters, and she goes back to the previous month and she looks through her phone because we all take pictures of fabulous things on our phone. And she worked through those moments. So like when she posted her November joy starters, she had like her kids in their Halloween costumes and volunteering and speaking on stages. And for her, and she's had like a really tragic thing in her life happened. She lost one of her Children, and so you can imagine if anyone is struggling with joy, it would be her. But she looked back for these joy starters as evidence that life still have beautiful moments. And so if you're struggling to find that joy, Yes, grab your phone right

Maegan:

finger roll. Uh.

Erica:

through your camera row to font to remember that you have those joy starters But I love the let yourself be yourself I feel like that's an area where I really struggled because you know You talked about who are you pretending to be y'all? I was always pretending to have all my shit together all the time and I did not and that is what led me to the burnout, but Back to you, Megan Meganson. I

Maegan:

Yeah, no, thank you. Your examples are so helpful. What a beautiful invitation, right? Like it proof, proof to yourself that joy is there. I'm also gonna say, because I'll never not be a sex therapist at heart, that what I, one of the things I learned as a sex therapist is, is the power of pleasure and how pleasure and joy are so interconnected and how so many women, especially those of us who are ambitious, busy, trying to do it all. One thing that we do to, to operate. Uh, quote efficiently in the world is we cut off connection to our bodies from the neck down, right? Because what's happening often from the neck down are signals that say, slow down, don't do so much, think twice about this. And that gets in our way. So we shut down, literally, we shut down our ability to have sensation in the body as a sex therapist. I'll just throw this out there. I saw hundreds and hundreds of women who came in with low sexual desire. And almost all of them had low sexual desire because they were trying to do so much externally in the world that they had to cut off sensation below the neck in order to get it done. So when we start to bring sensation back into our body, I'm picking up my cup of coffee right now as an example. And when I say like, okay, I'm going to let myself feel the warmth of this mug in my hand. Right now, I'm going to smell the aroma of a coffee and I'm going to feel the pleasure of that. Then I'm going to take a sip and I'm going to taste the coffee on my tongue. And I allow myself to really be physically present with the pleasure of sensation, joy. You did it. You did it. And who doesn't have a cup of coffee in the morning, right? Or a little snack in the afternoon. Food is a group. Things you put in your mouth are great ways to reconnect yourself to joy. Enjoy. Right? Sip it. Oh, it just like, enjoy it. Like let it wash over you. Let the pleasure wash over you. Bam. You've just given yourself a little dose of joy medicine. Pick up your phone, go through your camera roll, look at how many beautiful photos that you took and then move on with your day and do it again tomorrow. Over time, you will reprogram the way you operate in the world. It takes time, it's a little bit at a time. You can do it. I just like, I so believe we all have the capacity to change the way we relate to joy and pleasure in our bodies. Okay. You want to talk about non monetary revenue? One of my favorite topics? I have a lot of favorites. I have a lot of favorite topics, Erica, if you can't tell. I have a lot of favorite

Erica:

like, look, I don't, I normally try to keep these podcasts episodes 30 minutes, but we are like talking about all some amazing shit

Maegan:

Great. Yeah.

Erica:

long one.

Maegan:

Sorry. I often say

Erica:

work on the block

Maegan:

is not my gift. Brevity is we're not, we're not even related. Uh, we've never met. Uh, okay. Non monetary revenue. So this is more applicable. I'm going to say this for business owners than, than people who, you know, have jobs for big corporations. But I think that there are some creative ways that we, we can apply this, you know, across, across cultures, if you will. Um, I believe as a business owner that I went into this for myself. And I believe that's true for most business owners, right? That we go into business ownership and to entrepreneurship because we want more freedom and flexibility. We want to be our own bosses. We want something. And then we go into business for ourself and we quickly become like the worst bosses we've ever had. And all of a sudden it's like we're working for our businesses and our businesses aren't actually serving us in any real or meaningful way. So one of the first thing, things I do with my clients is to take a couple of deep breaths and to say, your business is for you first and foremost. It's not for your clients. It's for you, your clients and your community. They get to be beneficiaries of the business that you're creating, but your business needs to pay you and all of the things that you want in your life. So when we go back to the question from earlier about values, about desires, right? About like, what is it that I really want in my life? You didn't say. A shit ton of cash. You said time with my kids. Yes, totally. Exactly. Exactly. We like it. Money's not the enemy here. Money. We need money. We do live in a capitalistic society, right? Whether we like it or not, we're playing on this playground, but we get to make our own games. Right. And we get to make our own rules on this playground. So money is important. Absolutely. We need money to survive. We don't need to shy away from that. Our business needs to create revenue, revenue in the form of cash in the bank. But the problem in my opinion is that because we live in capitalism, we've been taught that the only kind of revenue that matters is cash in the bank. So I like to zoom out and say, Well, what other kind of revenue can my business generate for me? It often has to do with time, right? I want my business to generate time. For me to pick my kids up from school. I want my business to generate creative freedom so that I can write that novel. I've been dreaming about, I want my business to support me and, and giving me time in the middle of the day to go work out with a trainer, right. Or to go to couples therapy. I want time to read a book, right? We can brainstorm this forever, but it's like non monetary revenue, right? This is, can I start thinking about what I desire most in my life and then reverse engineer to say, how can my business pay me in that? How can time with my kids be a currency just as much as the U. S. dollar is a currency? What do you think about that idea? Sure.

Erica:

mean, I love it. One of the exercises that I was really, and still am kind of working on is, Not always thinking that it has to be about the money, right? Because I left a very lucrative, stupid cash money paying job to being my own boss, right? And it's a scary thing to do, but I was walking with a friend and we were talking about it and I've known this for years, but it's like, we have to really get it deeply ingrained into our systems that like, I don't need that much money to be happy. I don't need that much money To do anything that I want to do. Like, of course money is great. And like that money has allowed me the freedom to have what I call fuck you money, which is quit your job and leave. So it absolutely serves a purpose, but really getting real with yourself about what do you actually need? Like you don't need to go get a manicure every week, right? And actually that's just adding more shit to do on your to do list of things you got to get done. So. Really taking a minute and establishing, like, what do I need versus what is society telling me I need, you know, what is that message of like, cause initially when I quit, I'm like, okay, I've got to make X amount of dollars to replace my corporate income. And it's like, but I don't have to replace my corporate income. Why am I so worried about that? You know? And it's, it's getting real with me in that sense. And so again, since I've only been out for a month, it's really, I keep reminding myself of all of that,

Maegan:

This is good. This is good. Like, write it down, put it on the mirror, because it fades over time. And I think the clearer you can get about this at the beginning, the easier it is to circle back to it. When you're, you know, you're in the mud, you're in the, you know, you're in the weeds of growing your business. There's a quote I love by a philosopher named Alan Watts. And he said, as a society, we've confused money with wealth.

Erica:

Mm hmm.

Maegan:

And I think that, I'm gonna just say it again, we've confused money with wealth. And this is what I want everybody to stop and pause and think about. We've confused money with wealth. Because this society has trained us to believe that to be wealthy is to be financially rich. Which creates a whole lot of people, like you're saying, with more money than they actually need. Because true wealth isn't about how much money you have in the bank. True wealth is about how aligned you are. Am I with myself, right? True wealth is like, I have enough money to pay the bills. We're totally secure. We're living a comfortable life. And I also get to pick my kids up from school and I also get to explore my creative projects. And I also get to invest in my own healing work. And I also get to do this and I also get to do that. Insert whatever your values are, whatever is important to you. Like that's wealth. When people are on their deathbed in hospice, they never ever talk about how much money they had in the bank.

Erica:

Nope.

Maegan:

Now it's, again, it matters. There's some research about this. I can't quote it off the top of my head. I'm not that kind of person, but there's some really great research about like the threshold, the point at which more money actually causes more problems in someone's life.

Erica:

It's so funny that you bring that up because I'm just sitting here and I'm like, but think about all the really wealthy, really stupid people out there, right? And my brain automatically went to, and I'm not speaking ill of the dead here, people, but like, why would you go down in a tin can all the way to the Titanic submarine and pay a couple mil to do it?

Maegan:

Right.

Erica:

You're bored. You're not finding those non monetary revenue things that you're talking about, like happiness, right? Like, those people, they have all the time, the freedom, and the flexibility in the world, but they're not happy. And so you've gotta have that great blend of all of that non monetary revenue.

Maegan:

you, yes, I hope so. And that, and again, everyone's blend is going to look different, right? So we can't compare ourselves to each other because what I need to be in alignment with myself, my values and my desires is going to look totally different than yours. Thanks. But we start with the question, where am I out of alignment? And when I think about people who work for corporations, obviously you have less control over the expectations for your job, less control than you and I do as business owners, right? We have a lot of control. We have a lot of flexibility, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't ask yourself these exact same questions. Just like you're saying so many, actually, let me give you a quick side story. The past, the last couple of years. In my role as a couples and sex therapist, I was working with highly successful people, right? Top, top of the, top of the ladder, these people, surgeons, lawyers, politicians, whatever, corporate executives. And what I found in my career as a couples therapist is that as my fee went up as a therapist and the SES of my clientele went up proportionally, I found that people got more and more and more and more miserable.

Erica:

Mm. Mm

Maegan:

And that they had to work harder and harder and harder to hide it. Because, on the outside, they were supposed to have it all together, right? So, and I was just like, Something's wrong here. Like, what is happening? Like, this is wild. And it was really my introduction to capitalism, really. Of being like, wow, look at this. There is a point at which the super rich are so dysfunctionally miserable and they feel like they have to hide the truth of that from everybody in their lives because they should be happy. They've reached the top of the ladder, they're rich, you know, they're checking all the boxes. So I do feel like that's the golden handcuff trap that so many people in corporate jobs find themselves in. I mean, just like you said earlier, you're making great money, you have great benefits, but what's the cost? What is the cost of all of that money that you're making? That's what you have to ask yourself, right? The cost is your monster mom in the mornings trying to get your kids to school, right? The cost is you're missing out on healing yourself, on exploring your own personal growth because you don't have time, you don't have bandwidth. The cost is you're gonna get divorced. Because you and your partner have had no time to nurture your relationship. And then you can think even broader than that if you want to. Like, what's the cost of the work that this corporation is doing on the planet? Right? We can, we can keep going.

Erica:

could go, we could go for hours

Maegan:

we can go for hours and, and go as deep as you can go without flooding your nervous system. But get really honest with yourself. What is the cost? Because it's only when you get clear about the cost, That you can really get honest with yourself about what you need to live a truly wealthy life. And that's what I want for everybody. I want us all to live the wealthiest lives. And isn't it funny that that means we all have less money in the bank than we thought we should ten

Erica:

you know what it is? It is. It's hysterical, but this is the truth. And it's like, is if we can just come to grips with that reality, we will be happier than ever. Megan, if somebody wants to work with you because you're amazing and they're like, holy shit, I'm burnt out. I'm all these things. Where can they find you? How can they get in touch with you?

Maegan:

Thank you so much for asking. You are amazing. This conversation was so much fun and so important. So thank you for having me. Um, and yeah, if you want to learn about me and my work, you can find me at deeplyrested. com. I would love for you to join my newsletter. You can sign up at deeplyrested. com slash newsletter and since you're obviously a podcast listener, you can hop over and listen to my podcast

Erica:

Well, yeah,

Maegan:

com slash podcast.

Erica:

I love it. And then Megan, I got to ask you this one last question. It's my favorite to ask everybody. If you could go back in time to the Megan with the burnt out husband, who's all in on the couple therapy, you know, just getting started, what piece of advice would you give that Megan today? Let's do it.

Maegan:

like most things you've asked me I'm gonna give you a sideways answer Something I've learned on my own journey my own healing journey, professional journey, is that there's no such thing as a mistake. Like the very idea of mistakes is an illusion. Every single thing that happens in your life is perfect. There is, I believe, that there is a divine timing to every single thing that happens. And that every single mistake or challenge that you face, it's an important part of your process that's getting you to where you're meant to go. And the more I have embraced this idea that there's no such thing as mistakes, the more I can look back at my past and say, Megan, you have done everything absolutely perfect. And there's nothing that you need to do different. And you met yourself exactly as you were able to meet yourself in the moment. And I'm so proud of you. And keep making decisions. That confuse you or feel wrong or make you doubt yourself, keep doing that because they're all getting you to where you need to go. So if I could go back in time and look my younger self in the eye, I think that's what I would, I would just say you're doing an absolutely brilliant job and there's nothing you need to fix and there are no problems you need to solve. Like relax, you're doing great.

Erica:

Well, that's great advice. And I think it's advice that we all need to hear. So I'm glad you shared that with us. But thank you, Megan. This was an amazing, amazing podcast. I hope everyone listening really enjoyed it. I know it's longer than our usuals, but y'all I'm not cutting anything out of this episode is too good. So Megan, thank you.

All right. Y'all didn't I tell you that that was going to be a conversation that was just filled with aha moments. So, if you're feeling inspired to redefine what wealth and success mean to you, or maybe you just needed a roadmap to step off the hamster wheel. Megan's got you covered. Go ahead and head to her website, check it out. It's deeply rested.com and connect with her. Join up on her newsletter, or just dive into more conversations like this. On her podcast. And don't forget. You are enough just as you are burnout does not stand a chance when you are living in alignment. All right. Y'all. If you enjoyed this podcast, please make sure that you rate review and subscribe to the show as it truly helps it land in the hands of the woman that needs to hear it most. And until next time, remember this, the only limit is the one you set. So let's break through them together.

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Erica Anderson Rooney

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