Hustle Culture's Hidden Cost: Finding Balance in a Busy World with Emily Guerra

Emily shares her transformative journey from wedding planner to productivity coach, revealing how the pandemic forced her to pivot and discover a passion for helping entrepreneurs create work-life balance.

• Therapy provided Emily with emotional intelligence tools needed to make her career pivot
• Most entrepreneurs struggle with work-life balance and mindset hurdles like imposter syndrome
• Productivity is about getting the right things done, not just more things
• Screen time analysis reveals most people spend 3-6 hours daily on their phones
• The Zeigarnik effect explains why our brains crave closure once we start a task
• Small pockets of time (15-20 minutes) can be incredibly productive when used intentionally
• Rest is productive and essential for peak performance
• Sleep deprivation impairs decision-making comparable to alcohol intoxication
• Personal development directly impacts professional development
• The 1% principle: small, consistent improvements compound quickly
• You don't need to do everything at once - focus on using time wisely with what's already on your plate

Find Emily on Instagram and TikTok @theproductivityflow or visit theproductivityflow.com for free resources, her coaching program, and community.

Chapters

• 0:12 Emily's Journey From Wedding Planner to Coach
• 5:11 The Therapy Breakthrough
• 7:21 Time Management: Finding Hidden Hours
• 12:36 The Zeigarnik Effect and Productivity Hacks
• 17:26 Rest as a Productivity Tool
• 22:41 Small Changes Create Big Results
• 26:31 The 1% Principle and Final Insights

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:12

Hello there and welcome back to the next episode of Overcome Yourself, the podcast. As you know, my name is Nicole and I'm so excited to be here today with Emily, and Emily has a really cool story of pivoting she. Well, I'm not going to butcher it, I'm going to go ahead and let Emily take it away. Please, emily, introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about who you are, your journey and now who you help now.

Speaker 2: 0:38

Oh, I love it. Thank you so much. Firstly, I just want to say thank you for having me. I'm so excited to chat with you and to dive deep into how I personally overcame myself in so many ways and still have to all the time, honestly. So my name is Emily. I am a certified productivity life coach and founder of the productivity flow, and I empower female solopreneurs and hybrid workers to overcome different mindset hurdles as well as systemize their work from home life so that way, they can actually achieve true, genuine work-life balance, and I do that through my one-on-one coaching, my free community, I have a bunch of free resources on my website and my blogs, and I also do a lot of public speaking at events, conferences, workshops and that whole stuff.

Speaker 2: 1:25

I will say, though, this is not what I ever thought I would be doing when I, like pre-pandemic Emily, did not expect post-pandemic Emily to be here. It was definitely, like you said, quite a pivot, quite a journey, and it really did have a lot to do with the pandemic. So, in 2020, I was actually a wedding planner and I had two different wedding planning jobs. I was loving it, and then the pandemic hit, lockdown began and weddings stopped and the entire industry was really just put on pause and for a couple months I sulked, I got mad at the world, I was angry and frustrated and I just felt really stuck and there was like a moment. And, honestly, I have been in therapy since I was a little kid. I kept up with therapy throughout this whole journey and I think that really gave me the emotional intelligence and self-empowerment tools that I needed to make this pivot Right. And so it was through, like sessions with my therapist, that I kind of realized I am not the type of person to just wait for life to happen to me Like. I want to take my power back and start moving forward again, start working again, have an actual career that I don't have to wait on anymore Right.

Speaker 2: 2:39

And so I decided to get some online certifications and I started doing social media management, actually for a handful of entrepreneurs that I knew at the time, and within a couple of months I had a full blown clientele, I had weekly deliverables and I basically built up a social media practice, a freelancing practice, which was awesome. And then, through working with all of these entrepreneurs, I realized none of us had work-life balance, none of us had good habits that enabled work-life balance right and none of us had the systems that enabled work-life balance, and we all were really struggling with a lot of different mindset hurdles whether that was imposter syndrome or procrastination or self-doubt name the hurdle we have all felt it right and I had to. I asked myself. I was like is this my future? Like there has to be a better way to do this. This can't be how every freelancer, solopreneur, entrepreneur feels. There needs to be some better way.

Speaker 2: 3:41

And that's when I really started diving into the mindset work and understanding what mindset has to do with productivity and work-life balance and how can we kind of holistically approach productivity so that way it's not just about getting more done, but it's about getting the right things done that actually move our goals forward, that actually grow the business and grow our personal lives too. So I naturally started coaching my social media freelance clients on how to boost their mindset and how to boost their productivity and create these systems, which all enabled all of them to have better work-life balance. And they actually came to me and they were like you helped me so much, like you need to start a coaching business. This was awesome. Please do this more. So I did, I got certified and in 2022, I officially started coaching, and the rest is history.

Speaker 1: 4:30

That is amazing. I love a few things that you mentioned, like therapy, right, because everyone's like you got to go to therapy, right. But there's a few things that you need to be able to do that and to be able to do that regularly, and that is well. First of all, you have to like admit hey, like I got to do this, like let's do this.

Speaker 2: 4:54

Oh yeah, no, that's the toughest part, right, like actually admitting to yourself, and there have been. So when I was originally starting therapy, I was around 10 years old and my parents put me in therapy because they were going through a divorce and they wanted to just help me cope and thrive. And there were. I stuck with it, you know. And then I got into high school and I was like I don't need therapy, I'm good, like okay. Well, a couple of years later I was like, oh no, I need therapy. I got to go back Like mom you were right, Like kind of thing.

Speaker 2: 5:27

And I remember that battle of like do why do I need it? Like I'm fine, I should be able to do this on my own. That was like my thought, like I should be able to do this, but I'm, you know, and I think it's that should that really holds people back from asking for help from you know, expanding your horizons a little bit on the personal development front, and I think that challenge right there, it takes a lot of just honesty and working through it and really asking yourself do I want to keep beating around the bush and like kind of repeating the same mistakes and taking two steps forward, five steps back, or do I want to try something different?

Speaker 1: 6:01

Right, yeah, the question that I had to ask myself mid panic attack. I had a conversation about this earlier. You know cause they were happening to me because of a vitamin deficiency, right. So there was a lot of factors that I couldn't just think myself out of. But when I was in one of those and I call it my full Disney princess, and you're like on the rock, just crying your eyes out, everything's dark.

Speaker 1: 6:27

You know, do I like this right, and I had to have a hard conversation. But then back to your point of work-life balance. Right, once we admit that to ourselves, we need the money to be able to, like pay for the appointments, right, because it's a regular thing, so it adds up. But also, very importantly, we need to have time, time that we can step away from our businesses, time that we don't have to be doing anything, and so that's a challenge in itself, is like, well, I've got to be working. I'm just going to go talk to this person and cry my eyes out for a little while, or whatever. I should be working. So can you talk to me a little bit about that perspective?

Speaker 2: 7:15

Oh, I love that you brought this up, because there is there. You really brought up like two big things. So I think the big one big thing that you brought up is this notion that we all are asking for more time. None of us feel like we have enough time in the day to do the things that we already have on our calendar and our to-do list, in our you know, in our mirror. And then you want me to add something more. You're crazy. There's no way I'm going to do that, right?

Speaker 2: 7:38

So that's one leg of it, and then I think the other leg that you're really talking about is the guilt of not working, of actually taking that time that you do have and spending it on something else that's not on your to-do list or in your calendar. Right? That guilt really does stem from this hustle culture mentality that we all have. So does this idea that we don't have enough time. Because this hustle culture the really especially American society, we are really stuck in it in the sense that being busy is kind of like a badge of honor, like, oh, I'm so busy, how have you been? I've been so busy, like that's everybody's answer, right, because it's a sign that we're successful somehow. Yet in reality you could be busy and working on the wrong things and not actually move yourself forward. And you can be busy in all the distractions, right. And so you probably are not actually using the 24 hours in your day that you already have to your best ability, right. So that comes with a piece of honesty there too, and that's a big thing that my my coaching clients come to me with. They always the number one, like most common denominator between all of my coaching clients. They always say in our first call I don't have enough time. Like, I want to do coaching. I don't know how I'm going to make time for it. Like it's not in, it's not possible, it's not doable. And then you know how I kind of get them to realize that they do have enough time. I love doing this.

Speaker 2: 9:05

I ask everybody to pull out their phone and go to their screen usage and look at how many hours a day they are actually spending scrolling on social media, checking emails, being on their phone, right, and every single time they're always like oh my God, I'm spending that many hours Like. I just did this yesterday with a client and she was like I'm spending six hours a day. Three of those hours are on Tik TOK, like I can't believe that's where I'm spending my time. So I'm like, okay, so now let's take that. What if we take one of those hours away from TikTok and put it towards a coaching session or put it towards a therapy session? Do you think that's going to enable you to do, to hit your goal and to do your things? And then they're always like you know what that's realistic. I can actually do that, right.

Speaker 2: 9:50

So I think it's really important to kind of break down how you're actually spending your time right now. Get realistic with yourself. 24 hours, it's a lot of time in a day, and so are you actually using it to the best of your ability? When you start to use it to the best of your ability, your guilt starts to fade away, because you know that you are doing what's best for you, that you are putting your best foot forward each and every day, and you are, you know, doing it to the best of your ability. That's all we can ever ask for, right? But it's when we have that guilt and that notion like, oh, I don't have enough time, it's more, you're not spending the time wisely and you know you aren't, and you feel kind of guilty about it, so you force yourself to keep working Right. So it's kind of like a two legged race right there, honestly.

Speaker 1: 10:40

Yes, well, I really, I really like how you are able to to like quantify this with numbers. They just pull out your phone and take a look. It's not about, oh well, estimating, and I think that also speaks to the power of pockets of time that we have, because I'm willing to bet that you're not sitting there for three hours in a row.

Speaker 1: 11:05

No, probably not 40 minutes here, like an hour before bed or whatever it is, and then imagine using those same pockets, right, Because you don. You don't have to sit down for an entire hour. You could do something here for 20 minutes, something here for 20 minutes, something here for 20 minutes, and you've done an hour of something, right? Oh?

Speaker 2: 11:25

I love that you said that, Cause I feel like so often we will look at our like. I actually did this to myself today, literally Right. But I was in between calls, I had 15 minutes and I was like, okay, I have a choice here. I could either try to work on something for 15 minutes I can take a mindful 15 minute break, which is always good or I could scroll on my phone and for a split second there, for like two minutes, I honestly I started scrolling on my phone and then I caught myself and I was like, oh, this is not the best use of my time or my energy. I'm going to instead choose to just get started on something, Right. And so then I set a 10 minute timer.

Speaker 2: 12:00

I got started on something and I felt really confident and good going into my next meeting, but I had to stop myself and make that choice, Right. That's the tough part, honestly is like stopping yourself and being like no, like I can use these 20 minutes. Even it might seem small, but let's kind of, let's turn it into experiment. How much can I get done in 20 minutes? Let's find this out. I'm curious, right, Get a little curious and suddenly you kind of gamify your task list and it gets more fun and easier to follow through on.

Speaker 1: 12:31

Yes, I like to race against the clock right, like if you're like doing something.

Speaker 1: 12:35

You're making coffee. I love to set my coffee and I'm like, let's see how fast I can do the dishes. Oh, I love that. You know right. And even if the coffee's done and I just have a few dishes left, I'm like, well, let me just knock this out, because now like, oh, look, how clean the counter is. Let me just wipe everything down, um, and it's like the snowball, but it's a good snowball, right, like you're, you're intentional and you're leaving surprises for yourself. To talk about this playfulness, I am so forgetful and so it's like a surprise, because I walked back into the kitchen. I'm like it's clean. Oh my God, this is amazing.

Speaker 2: 13:08

Thank you Pass. Nicole, I know I love that feeling and you know what you're describing right now is actually like your brain really working in its favor. So let me break that down. I number one I'm kind of obsessed with learning about neuroscience and how the brain works, how we can change the brain, really just understanding it, because if we can understand it and actually learn ourselves a bit better, we can stop fighting against ourselves and learn how to work with ourselves. That's really the foundation of my coaching, right? And so what you were just describing is like you kind of were describing you started something and, let's say, you wanted to finish it, but you saw that there was just a little bit left to do and you're like, no, I just need, let me finish this, let me get it done.

Speaker 2: 13:49

That concept, right there, is actually called the Zygunart effect and it's the fact that our brain craves closure. So if you start a task, if getting started is always the toughest part, just get started, set a five minute timer, even a two minute timer, just get started, and suddenly your brain is going to see that you got started and your brain is going to be the one that's like hey, we can finish this. Like, come on, just wrap it up. You're all good. It's almost there, like and that's kind of why we actually can we binge TV because an episode ends and we're like, wait, what happened next? I really want to know. That's the Zygonart effect, right? So let's just apply that to our work and help ourselves gain momentum. That's what you were just describing right there, so love it.

Speaker 1: 14:35

That is fantastic. That's amazing. I didn't know how to name, now I do, and I'm going to go research that, because I also love learning about like quantum physics and neuroscience and like let's get down to the bottom of this. Like what?

Speaker 2: 14:51

This is not woo woo, exactly. Right.

Speaker 1: 14:55

We're looking at science, you know, and so I think that's that's amazing Talk to me about, because I'm I'm neurodivergent. I have a lot of friends, we have chronic pain and the we all have 24 hours in a day can sound not very helpful to someone who's dealing with a lot of things. So I want you to talk to me about how rest and taking care of yourself can be an income producing activity and how that counts towards those 24 hours too. It's okay.

Speaker 2: 15:28

I love that you brought this up. So something, a reframe that I number one need to remind myself all the time, but that I also really share with my clients over and over again, is just a simple phrase Rest is productive, right, if we can understand that rest is productive and kind of going back to the science, why, let's actually understand why rest is productive. Well, if you think about a car, right, and you go to the gas station, you fill up the fuel and you use the car for I don't know, you go on a road trip, let's say, and you just go straight for hours and hours and suddenly your car is on empty. It can't run anymore, can it? It slows to a stop and pretty soon it can't even go at all. That's us, that's our brain, right, we need to fuel it with sleep, with nutrients, with self-empowerment, and it's all of these little things that movement, movement, oh, so true. Thank you so much. Movement is a huge one, right, like we really need to give ourselves these little things to enable ourselves to be our most productive self, to actually have the energy and the brain power to do an hour of deep focus, right, if we avoid getting, let's say, you know that you need seven hours of sleep and you are consistently getting five to six and you wake up groggy and you wake up a little in a bad mood, not the happiest self, and it feels like you're dreading your day and you're kind of forcing yourself to go through the motions and then you can't wait until it hits five o'clock and then you're dreading the fact that you have to repeat it all again tomorrow. If you're like stuck in that cycle, that's when you need to kind of like ask yourself what am I missing out of? Like okay, obviously, work is here. That's never leaving. That's here to stay. We got that covered. What else right? Is it the sleep? Is it the nutrients? Is it the movement?

Speaker 2: 17:32

Let me try adding, focusing on just one of these things. Right? I don't want to overhaul our routine. That's a recipe for unsustainable mishaps. Right? We want to get sustainable here and get realistic.

Speaker 2: 17:45

So choose just one thing. So if you are only sleeping five hours and you know you need seven, sleep should be that thing that you choose. Right, and you will notice a difference within a couple of days. Honestly, that's the kind of crazy part about our body and our brain. It doesn't take that long. We just have to try and get consistent with it.

Speaker 2: 18:05

And if we can actually like, have that self-care mindset, what do I need in order to be my most successful version of myself? Right? That's kind of the lens that I want you to look at self-care with, not of like, oh, let me go take a three hour bath, or let me have a three hour morning routine, or no, no, no, no, no. It's the simple, small, basic things that is your fuel that gets you moving, right? So I always like to kind of ask my coaching clients to choose just one, one thing that you know you're not giving it to yourself, that you know would make a major difference. Test it out for two weeks, let's see how it goes, and normally after that two week period they're glued to it. They can't believe that they lived a life without it, because it really does make that much of a difference.

Speaker 1: 18:52

Yes, and you know what? The little things, right, what we're talking about here, and I'm sure that you would agree with me, right? I talk about this in my book when I talk about my success habits, and it starts with things like drinking water or drinking more water, walking or moving around, however you can yes, exactly, walking or moving around. However you can, yes, exactly. Gratitude, practicing gratitude, writing down three things, thinking of three things that you're grateful for. They are the big dominoes, right, because when we knock out that big domino, everything else kind of handles itself. If you are rested, you got the amount of sleep you needed. You got those two extra hours. Well, what if you were more productive in the six hours that you're working? And now you're getting more stuff done. You're actually excited about it. You have more time now because you're just doing it faster, because you're energized. You got food, you got rest. That changes your whole life.

Speaker 2: 19:55

It really does. No, it really does it's. I always say, like, balance is a choice, and it's many choices that you make all day long. Right, it's never just one thing, it's little things that compound and stack up right. Progress does not happen overnight. It happens through small, consistent actions and when you can like commit to just one that feels doable, that you know you're going to get a benefit out of, you're going to want to follow through Like something kind of changes within you, you like get a lot more motivation because you're like oh my gosh, wait, that's what I've always wanted and you're telling me I can actually get there.

Speaker 2: 20:35

Like that's realistic. For me it totally is, as long as you break it down. And my motto it's move just 1% forward each day, right, so if you can push yourself one extra percent each and every day, you're going to hit a hundred percent before you even know it. Right, way faster than you think. And that's like what my coaching clients always tell me is like I did not expect to hit my goal this quick or to hit my complete, my vision, this quick, because I always thought like I was just so stuck in, just in this cycle that I couldn't step out of, you got to step out and then you got to ask yourself okay, what's my 1%? My 1% today is this I'm just going to commit to that today, right, yes.

Speaker 1: 21:14

And those tiny, the little things are the big things, right, cause it's those things that we do day in and day out. You could, you could drink a soda, like I used to drink a lot of soda, and so I switched over to water. Right, I'd be like, no I'm, I want to rest. I just want to, like, sit on the couch and watch TV. Well, when I go for a walk, guess what, I sleep better, because now you know, like, I used up some energy, right? And so, yeah, it's leaning into those things, and setting good boundaries, like it's working on all of those little things, and you know when you were talking about sleep right.

Speaker 1: 21:51

like truck, drivers are not allowed to drive after a certain number of hours because at some point you start acting drunk if you haven't slept. So if you haven't slept and you're trying to run your business and you're literally on hour 36, you're literally making drunk decisions right now. This is not going to be good for me, I know. That's so true.

Speaker 2: 22:11

I mean also like, think about little kids, right Like. When little kids don't get enough sleep, don't be around them. They're scary, right Like. And I know, when I don't get enough sleep, I get triggered way more easily. I am, I get annoyed way more easily. I get like all these negative emotions that I swear I'm normally pretty on top of If I don't have enough sleep. All of my control kind of goes out the window and it's really it's not my fault, it's because I didn't excuse me, it's because I didn't provide enough fuel for my brain. That, ultimately, is like the big reason, and that fuel is going to be different for everybody.

Speaker 2: 22:48

Because if you are consistently getting eight hours of sleep but you're still feeling really agitated or really exhausted or just full of dread, then maybe it's time to look at the movement. Are you actually getting up and exerting that negative energy and channeling it into somewhere beyond your work and your relationships, right? Or maybe it's your food and your nutrients? Are you actually eating fruits and veggies? What are these little small things, these tiny changes that you can make in your personal life that will automatically, without you even trying, improve your professional life, improve your professional development, improve your work performance, improve your productivity. That's the misconception that the hustle culture has. It's that all of the personal development stuff has nothing to do with professional development. But that's just so not true. It's. It's not science, right? I always say like you cannot have professional development without having personal development, and every successful entrepreneur, every successful person, will tell you the same, because they had to really work on themselves, overcome themselves in some sort of way in order to actually reach that level of success.

Speaker 1: 24:00

And you know what? What is the saying? A rising tide lifts all ships. Like, if you're developing, you know personally, of course that's going to be reflected professionally, because you can't just leave it at the door, right, it does, it's overflow and it affects everything that you do. Um, and so that's what I was looking for when I was writing my book. I was like what, what is the common denominator here? Like, whether you are the CEO of a company, or the salesperson, or the janitor, or you're in a hospital, or you're a new mom, like what is a universal principle? We all need to practice gratitude, we all need water, we all need to move. And that's where I came up, you know, and I was like, let me start from the base and then we can go up from there. Right, yeah, 1% habits. You don't need to change everything, everything you said just dead on.

Speaker 2: 25:02

Talk to me about where we can stay in touch with you and I think you mentioned you had a gift for the audience. Oh my gosh, yes, okay. So firstly, where you can find me? You can find me on Instagram and on TikTok at the productivity flow. You can also find my website, where I have tons of free resources and blogs and a lot more podcast episodes like this one, as well as my coaching program and my free community. You can find all of that at theproductivityflowcom.

Speaker 2: 25:30

And, given our conversation today, how we really like talked about I love what you were just saying about boundaries. I actually think boundaries is like one of the ways that enables you to make all of these changes Right. And we also talked a lot about like having that self-care mindset. So I actually have a guide that goes deep into self-care how do you set boundaries for yourself so that way you can do the self-care that you know will make you more productive, will make you have that work-life balance and just be your most successful version of yourself. So I will definitely send you the link. That way the link can go into the show description awesome.

Speaker 1: 26:05

Thank you so much. You know what, like what you just said made me think of doing things like, like self-care, like going to get a haircut and then every time you wash your hair, you blow dry it. Well, I'm, I'm ready, to go Right, I'm, camera ready, and so I don't have to invest tons of hours Like, oh, I got to straighten this guy out, no, and so creating those boundaries, to be able to do things like that for yourself, so that you can stay ready and you don't have to waste time and just implement systems.

Speaker 1: 26:34

All amazing, love, everything you've talked about, emily. Give us one last final tip, like what's? Like the big, big tip that your clients I think you might've touched on it already, but just the biggest aha moment.

Speaker 2: 26:47

Oh my God. So the biggest aha moment is that you do not have to do it all right now. Right, what you are doing, number one is enough and it will always be enough, and you do not have to add more to your plate. What you should focus on instead is figuring out how to actually use your time wisely for what is currently on your plate. Don't add more. Don't worry about that. That's the hustle culture mentality seeping into you. You can ignore that right. Instead, focus on what makes you your 1%. That's what I always tell my coaching clients. What's your 1% today? What's that 1%? Push that you can just grow a little bit each and every day and you will achieve your goals, boost your balance, boost your productivity and all the rest that you want to do way quicker than you think. As long as you can just focus on that 1%, I love it.

Speaker 1: 27:40

That is fantastic and it's so true. I love it, I love it. So thank you so much for joining us today, emily. This has been absolutely fantastic and we will catch you guys next time on the next episode of Overcome Yourself, the podcast. Bye, thank you.