[INTERVIEW]
Ronda Nelson: Have you ever wondered if all of this business thing is worth it? I mean, seeing patients, owning your own business, having to do all of the work, the patient work and the business work. Have you ever wondered that? Have you ever hit the wall where you think, “I don’t know if this is worth it”? Well, I did.
About two weeks ago, I had what I’m calling a business breakdown. Yep, I did. And I came home from work, I laid on the couch for six hours — no phone, no TV, no noise, no nothing — and I just had to work through it. I’m gonna tell you what happened, and I’m gonna tell you what the conclusion was that I came to and why I believe that this is so important for all of us. All right, let’s go.
Well, hello. Welcome to today’s episode. I’m a bit somber-ish today. I don’t know if I’m — maybe, maybe not somber is right, but I’m very thoughtful. I’m very contemplative today. Um, as I mentioned, a couple weeks ago I kinda had, you know, a moment. I just had a moment. I had a night where I was up and I couldn’t sleep, and then you know how that works, right?
You wake up, and then you go, “Oh no, I forgot to” — fill in the blank. And then your brain just conveniently reminds you of all the other things that you have not done and you should have done. I needed to get back to that person, I forgot to order this, or I forgot to set that up, or I forgot to get that protocol to… All the things. And then you’re wondering, like, “Okay, what’s happening with my staff? Is that working? Do I need to make adjustments? Where’s the SOP?” Like, I just — my brain, I just can’t stop it. And so then I’m awake for two hours thinking about it. So this went on for a couple of nights.
And I, I mean, admittedly, there was a lot going on and I have two businesses, you know? There’s just always a lot going on. And so after a couple nights of this, I don’t know what happened. I can’t tell you what happened. But I just had a moment where I thought, I don’t know if I wanna do this. I don’t know if I wanna do this anymore. I value my sleep, that’s for sure. And I don’t think I am poor at managing stress. I mean, I think all of you would probably say the same thing about yourself. Like, you know, you do what you have to do. You pony up. It’s kind of like being a parent or having a newborn, right? You can be exhausted, tired, but you still get up and you do the thing. You do what you have to do. And I think that was just true. Like, I just sort of get up and just keep going.
But the question that I really had to ask myself is, like — ’cause I could kind of feel the walls closing in a little bit. Like, I’ve only had one emotional — I would call it, I don’t wanna say nervous breakdown, but I’ve only had that happen once, and it was a specific time when all… I was exhausted, I was getting ready to leave on a vacation, and all the things came crashing down all at one time, and my poor little nervous system just went, “And we’re done.” It kind of felt like that, except it was more related to doing what I’m doing in business.
And so I thought about, like, if I didn’t do this anymore, I would never have to worry about cash flow. Now, cash flow is typically good for me, but you know, every once in a while something will come up and you think, “Yikes, what happened?” But do I wanna manage that anymore? Do I wanna deal with staff turnover? Do I want to deal with somebody who calls out sick, or being short-staffed, or having to manage patients that like to complain, or, you know, you didn’t get a supplement right or something didn’t get ordered right. Like, all of that — do I need this? And maybe this is partly being my age, I don’t really know. But I just know that I was really calling it a business breakdown, like emotional breakdown kind of, but it wasn’t that, it was business-wise. And I couldn’t really identify where the issue was coming from.
So this is a little bit hard for me to talk about, because so many of you — those of you that know me from CBA, you know that I’m like a business coach and mentor. I love working with wellness practitioners, and I’m really good at it. But therein lies the conflict, because I know that I’m good at it, but why am I struggling? Why am I not feeling like I wanna do this anymore?
And so I don’t really think it was a business breakdown, and looking back at it, it felt like it in the moment, but a six-hour lay-down-on-the-couch session with no TV, no phone, no sound, no music, no nothing. I literally laid there for six hours and stared at the ceiling. I did that. And my whole — I felt like my whole life was in question. You know, you start questioning every decision you’ve ever made. It was one of those moments.
But I realized — and I just kept saying why. You know, “Why am I feeling this way? Why am I feeling overwhelmed? Why do I feel like I’m inferior? Why do I feel like I’m not enough? Why do I have guilt? Why do I resent the patients sometimes when they don’t show up? Why do I get mad inside?” Like, I never would let anybody see it, but why do I get upset when someone doesn’t meet my expectations? I just kept asking myself why. Why, why, why? ‘Cause I knew the why question would get me closer to what the real issue was.
And so I think all of that had been building, and then when this particular night happened, which was sort of the trigger for me, it kind of led me down this breakdown. But what I actually realized is that it wasn’t all the things and stuff. It wasn’t that I had a lot to do, that my to-do list was high, that I needed to show up and be on with a client or a patient, or I needed to adjust a protocol for them, or I needed to hire new people or manage. It really wasn’t any of that. It was just because I realized that it was more because I was lonely.
And you have to really understand — I did not want to record this podcast. I really did not want to, because it feels really vulnerable to me. I feel like, in my mind I’m thinking, “Well, what are they gonna think if they know that I struggle and I kind of wanted to check out for a hot minute? What are y’all gonna think? What are all of you CBA people that are listening thinking? Like, ‘Oh, there goes our fearless leader. She’s bagging out.'” But I think that this is common for all of us, which is why I literally have kind of a lump in my throat just talking about this ’cause, like — oh, kinda like laying it all out here.
But I think we all have those moments when we think, maybe not as dramatic as mine, “Is it really worth it? Is this really all worth it?” But I think the underneath thing that we have to keep peeling the layers back is that we don’t feel sure about what we’re doing — ever. I mean, when was the last time you could say, “I feel 100% confident about whatever decision I’m going to make”? I mean, maybe there’s times when you do that. You know that X supplement is gonna do Y thing, but what happens when it doesn’t? What happens when you think your protocol is spot on and perfect, and it doesn’t work? Don’t you start to kinda question yourself? Maybe you don’t, but me, I do. And I think, “Well, what did I miss? How did I miss that there was a blank and I should’ve done that first,” and then I feel bad ’cause I spent their money and had them buy supplements. It didn’t work, and I don’t like that.
And then there’s the business side. I’m really good — I mean, I gotta say, I am very, very good at business. I understand marketing. I understand business. That’s what I do inside CBA. But it is so much easier to see it in someone else’s business than to see it in your own, because blind spots are what blind spots are. That’s why they call them blind spots, because you can’t see them. You can’t see them for yourself. You can’t see in a protocol what might be missing. You can’t see in your business what might be missing, and that was what I realized in my six hours on the couch. I kept asking why. Why am I feeling this way? Why do I feel inferior? Even as I’m just talking about this, I’m feeling all of that emotion a little bit again. Why do I feel like I’m not doing a good job? I’m not a good clinician. I don’t know how to run a business — which everything in my life would tell me that’s not true, but that was just my experience at the moment.
Which is why, I don’t know, I thought that maybe taking the easy way out would be just… it was fleeting. Don’t panic. I’m not going anywhere. End of the story. Spoiler alert, I’m not going anywhere. But at the moment, I thought, “Okay, maybe I just shut all this down. I’ll just shut down my programs, call it a day, walk away, retire, be done. Maybe that’s the answer.” And then I said, “But why would I think that’s the answer?” You see, I just kept going and going and going. So it was kind of a, I don’t know, six-hour dark night of the soul for a minute.
And by the time I was done, I just realized that the issue is that I’m lonely. I’m lonely. I need companionship. Not in a spouse — I have that. I have a wonderful husband. I have amazing kids. I’ve got 14 grandkids. Like, my life is amazing. It’s so good and so rich and wonderful. So how do you have a really rich, wonderful life and you’re still super lonely? Well, it was because I don’t feel like I have anyone I can talk to.
Now, let me explain this in a second, ’cause you’re all thinking, “What do you mean? You got so many people.” Okay, here’s the thing. Let me ask you this. When you bump up against something in your business and you don’t know what to do — you don’t know whether do I trust my gut and hire this person, or do I do a couple more interviews with them, or do I keep looking? Are they the right person? Are they gonna quit? Those decisions — we all make them, right? When you have those decisions, who do you go to? Who do you talk to about them? Do you go home and talk to your spouse? Maybe. Maybe you have a spouse that works with you, in which case, two heads are better than one, right? You are blessed. I don’t have that.
My husband, he is an amazing human being. Love him so much. He’s retired. He plays golf. He loves his retired life, and he’s been really honest with me. He’s like, “I’ll help you however I can, but my brain is not there. I just can’t — I spent too many years working and being in business and owning a big, huge business and I’m done.” So as much as he loves me, he supports me in other ways, but that’s not where his strength is, that’s not what he does.
But who else do I go to? Like — my apprehension was, where I felt like the biggest failure is, I felt like, well, here I have CBA. Super successful, everybody’s making great gains and wins and learning about their business, and it’s wonderful. It’s a great community, and there’s so much great happening. People are growing, businesses are growing, et cetera. But I also felt like I can’t tell them. I can’t tell my people, because I’m supposed to be their fearless leader. What happens when your fearless leader is struggling? I think, “Well, that doesn’t make them trust me anymore, so I have to kinda have it all together.”
And I think we think that even with patients, you know? We think we make them think that, “Oh, yeah, I know exactly what I’m doing,” and in your mind you’re like, “Holy crap, I don’t have a clue. I don’t know if this is gonna work or not work.” I get it. But it doesn’t matter. It could be with kids even, you know? You think you made the right decision about not letting your teenager go somewhere, but then you find out later that they were telling the truth, and you thought they were lying. All of life is like this. Everything we do, we’re always faced with questions and things that we’re not sure about — challenges, and am I making the right decision? And we doubt ourselves.
I just, in my little business breakdown, I just had to get up close and admit all of that. But it all came down to the fact that I don’t have a community that I can go to, to talk about this stuff with. I have my people in CBA, and that’s probably a really safe place for me to go, but in my mind I felt like, well, I’ll let them down if I let them know that I don’t have it all together. Because everyone’s business is different, you know? It’s easy to look at someone else’s business, a lot harder to look in your own. You need someone outside who can look in objectively and say, “Oh, well, do this.” But for me, I can’t look at my business objectively. I can’t look at my experience in my business objectively. And just like you can’t deal with your health objectively as well — if you have someone else helping you, it’s way better. That’s why patients come to us, because they can’t figure it out. They need somebody else that has some knowledge and experience to help them figure it out.
So my business breakdown, dark night of the soul, ended up where I really realized that some things needed to change, but more so, I needed to change. First, I needed to be vulnerable, which is why I decided to tell you where I was at. But I also realized that I need to make an effort to find people that I can be in community with, that I can run decisions past, that I can talk about it with. Is this right? Am I missing something? What’s gonna jump out of the bushes and get me that I don’t really know about? Because if I can find that community — and I believe, honestly, I believe that inside CBA, that is the community that the practitioners have with one another, is that they don’t feel alone. But I realize that I kind of feel alone with what I’m doing in my own businesses.
And I’ve got a med spa, and then I also own the coaching, consulting, practitioner business. So I kind of have both things going on, but I realized that I feel alone too. So in the last two weeks, I have made a concerted effort to reach out, to start making connections in the industry. I actually joined a coaching program for people that own med spas — I mean, that’s not you, I understand, but I’m just telling you that’s what I did. And then as far as on the business side, I’ve got the CBA community, and I know that I can lean on them if I need to, but it’s just hard to kind of admit that this is hard, and we feel like we have to put it all together.
Maybe I’m talking to no one. I mean, maybe this podcast is landing flat. You guys are like, “What is wrong with you, girl? You are showing up with your insecurities.” Well, they just are what they are. I don’t want to be a failure. I want to do a good job. I’m committed to doing a good job. But you know when your mind just starts to kick in, and all of a sudden the imposter thing starts to show up, and the guilt? And then I’m thinking, “Well, why do I get frustrated when something doesn’t happen the way I think it does?” And I realized it’s because I blame myself for it. I just think, “Oh, well, that’s just because you made a wrong decision,” when I don’t think that’s true.
So my business breakdown, dark night of the soul, really turned into a kind of a business reset for me. It reset the way that I’m viewing myself in the business, in that I don’t have to have it all together. I don’t have to know the answers to everything, and it’s okay if stuff gets dropped and missed, because I’m only one person. And that doesn’t mean that I’m not doing a good job. I am doing the best job that I can do. I’m just working my hardest to make sure that I’m taking care of my people in the most integrity-filled way that I can — loving them, caring for them. It’s what I want to do. But at the end of the day, I realized that I just needed people in my life, people that can have these conversations with me. A sounding board, so to speak. “What do you think about this? I’m questioning that. Do I want to use CellCore here, or do I want to use a stealth pathogen protocol? Because there’s this thing going on and that thing going on, and I’m not sure which one to do.” It could be something as simple as that, or it could be something like, “I need somebody else to help me interview. Could you please do an interview with this person, just to flush out and see if you pick up anything, so that I can make sure that I’m making the right hiring decision?”
We need people. We need each other. We need to be in a community. We aren’t meant to do this business thing alone, because none of us know what we’re doing. I still come up against things and I think, “Man, I don’t know how to do this.” Like right now in my CRM, I’m trying to figure something out. I don’t know how to do it. I need to find someone who can help me figure out how to do this thing. So we all need community. We all need to be in relationship with each other. It just makes the process of not knowing what you’re doing all the time a little less lonely and more supportive. Because again, those blind spots are called blind spots for a reason, and I have them, and I realized that I was just — my little breakdown was because I was trying to carry it all by myself. And you don’t have to do that. You don’t have to do it by yourself.
I’m here for you. If you’re in CBA, love you so much, and that community’s there for you. If you’re in Clinical Academy, that community’s there for you. If you don’t have a community, come join one of my communities, or find a community that fits for you, or a person that you can talk to — someone that you can bounce things off of as you’re learning and you’re growing and you’re sharpening your clinical skills and your business skills.
[CLOSING]
Ronda Nelson: So thank you for listening. Thank you for letting me be vulnerable about where I have recently really struggled, but I’m on the other side. I figured out that it really was just the reset that I needed. I needed to get clear. Is this what I want to do? And the answer was absolutely yes. I don’t wanna do anything different except help you. I wanna help practitioners, and I wanna be the best clinician I can be, and I wanna be the best leader I can be. Those are like my three things, and if I can do that, then my heart is happy. I couldn’t walk away from that. I couldn’t go work for someone else and punch their clock and go get some high-paying consulting thing. It’s not about the money. It’s about the satisfaction in my soul, and I was meant to do this thing.
And if you own your own practice, imagine what would it be like if you had to go to work for someone else? Could you do it? Probably no. For me, it’s a hard no. But I had to explore that possibility. But at the end of the day, it came back to: I really do love what I do. I love all of you. I love working with practitioners. It just, every day it makes my heart so happy, and that’s why I just needed a mental business reset. I just had to get clear again on my why, clear again on what I wanted, and clearer about what I needed in order to continue doing what I’m doing in the best possible way that I can.
So if this resonated with you, I really would love to know. You can put it in the comments here on YouTube — I read them all. You can also hit me up over on a DM on Facebook or Instagram. I’d love to hear from you. I know I’m not alone in this, but talking through a microphone looking at a camera is a little different than hearing from you directly, so I would love to hear from you. Let me know if this landed for you, if this is where you’re at as well. If I can help you, I’m happy to help you.
But nonetheless, you know you’ve got a friend in me. I’m cheering you on. You’ve got this. We have a big health issue we need to solve, and we can only do that by being the best versions of ourselves in our practices, and we need to connect together so that we can arm in arm support each other, so that when one person is like, “I don’t know if this is the right thing to do, I don’t know what to do in this situation,” we can help and support one another.
So find your person, find your people, find your tribe. Don’t isolate yourself, because it makes the journey a lot harder. Together, we can all go further. Thanks for being here. I’ll see you next week.
[END]