Never Felt Worse-with Alexa Martinez

You can meditate for hours a day, journal every morning, see the nutritionists, take the supplements, do every single thing "right"— and still feel like absolute garbage. 

That's where guest Alexa Martinez found herself in 2023: running a successful coaching business, doing all the right things, and feeling worse than she ever had in her life. The problem wasn't her habits. It was that her business had become her God — the sun at the center of her solar system — and everything else, her relationship, her health, her community, her joy, was just orbiting it.

Alexa Martinez is a success and leadership coach, host of the Full of Herself podcast, and one of the more genuinely disruptive voices in the conversation around what it actually means to build a successful life as a self-employed woman. Her work is a direct challenge to the metrics-obsessed, productivity-worshipping framework that the online coaching industry handed her — and that she, despite knowing better, completely bought into.

I'm willing to bet you know this territory. You say you don't care about the hustle. You say you have values. But underneath it all, you've quietly reduced your worth to your output, your revenue, your numbers — and you can't figure out why none of it feels like enough. The finish line keeps moving. The milestone arrives. The feeling doesn't.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why burnout isn't a time management problem. It's what happens when your business becomes your entire sense of self and value
• How to identify your actual values versus the ones you think you should have...and why most high achievers are "full of sh*t" about this distinction
• What it means to decentralize your business and what you put at the center instead
• Why traditional success is, as Meg argues, the easy path — and what it actually costs you to stay on it
• The concrete practice Alexa uses with her clients to turn values from a one-time exercise into a daily decision-making framework

Success isn't the finish line. It's the framework — and until you build your own, you're running someone else's race.

Connect with Alexa: 

Website: https://www.alexamartinezcoaching.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexacoaches

Substack: https://substack.com/@alexamartinez

Podcast: Full of Herself

Changeology is a podcast about the real, messy, nonlinear process of personal change — hosted by Dr. Meg Trucano, developmental psychologist and change coach.

Book a free 30-minute Clarity Call here to cut through the noise and bring next steps into focus: https://www.megtrucano.com/book-a-call

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For women who know something needs to change and are ready to stop circling the decision.

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Connect with Meg:

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Meg: What if the version of success you've been chasing is the very thing burning you out? My guest on change today, Alexa Martinez isn't here to help you find balance or slow down. She's here to change the culture that defines those concepts. As a success and leadership coach, mentor, speaker, and host of the full of herself podcast, which is a delight and you should totally listen.

Alexa is leading a quiet revolution against burnout as a badge of honor. Her mission is to help self-employed women stop building lives that look good on paper, but feel like hell to actually live in and to start creating their life's best work. Only after their well. In this conversation, we unpack Alexa's own rock bottom moment when her business became her God and the center of her existence when her worth became a metric and her body finally called bullshit, and what followed was a radical redefinition of success.

Redefinition of understanding what it means to truly be integrity with your values and the courage it takes to live by them, even when it means hitting the emergency stop button on a successful business. Today's conversation centers around the concept of enough. The pursuit of enough is one of the most sophisticated traps that we fall into, especially as women who were taught that our worth is earned through output, delivered with a pretty smile.

We seek enough, right? Enough clients, enough income, enough visibility, enough proof that we're not wasting our potential. And Alexa Dismantles this entire framework, and she reminds us that enoughness is not a finish line. It's a state of being that we reclaim when we stop outsourcing our value to our productivity. What I love about Alexa and what makes her work so powerful and so beautifully disruptive is that it is not a soft rebellion against Hussle culture. It's a full on middle finger to it. Alexa is unapologetically rewriting the rules of success for women. Rest is not indulgent. Joy is not optional, and wellness is not a luxury to earn.

Once we have done enough, it's the starting point, and her message is a reminder that the most radical thing that a woman can do in a world that worships exhaustion is to be well and to build everything from there. So I hope you enjoy this deeply inspiring, juicy as hell conversation with my friend Alexa Martinez on with the episode. Welcome to the Change Ology podcast. Alexa, how are you today?

[00:03:03] Alexa: I'm really, really good and I'm super excited to be here. How are you?

[00:03:07] Meg: I'm great and I'm, I'm so delighted to talk with you today because we are going to be talking about some of the juiciest things I know of that women and female entrepreneurs struggle a lot with. And that is this idea of what success really means and this constant tension and challenge of being busy and the kind of inevitable conclusion of those two things when they kind of join forces, which is burnout.

Right?

[00:03:40] Alexa: Yeah. Yep.

[00:03:41] Meg: And I feel like everybody has a story of burnout, but your story of burnout was very powerful to me because of how you. Hold yourself out of it. And so before we begin our conversation and I ask you to tell your story, I want to kind of ground this conversation in this idea of busyness and defining success as being busy and in in our culture.

I think there's this real duality in being busy, right? On the one hand, we hate being too busy 'cause it's yucky, it feels crappy. We feel really stretched thin. We can't access ease. On the other hand, we really glorify being busy and we often consider it a badge of honor. Whoever worked the longest, whoever worked the hardest, sacrificed the most sleep.

They're the virtu, most virtuous and best. And so your pro productivity, how much you get done, that's all part of who you are and how much you're valued and how successful you are. And you are here to call bullshit on that whole thing. So I'm curious, and I'd love for you to begin by telling us your story of, of, of burnout.

[00:04:59] Alexa: Yeah. Oh gosh. I already like, I'm like wanting to like talk about all the things. I'm like, yes. Because even that like idea of like not being busy I feel like is still so rooted in like. Capitalism and like slow girl, like, you know, you're still buying all the things and doing all the things. Anyways, we'll, we'll get there.

so yes, a little bit about me and my story. So I've been self-employed for, it'll be six years in March, which is really, really crazy. just because like in my head I'm like perpetually like 25. So that just makes no sense whatsoever. yeah, yeah, yeah. But I started my business in 2020 and really on a whim, like I had absolutely no clue what I was doing.

Like most people who start businesses, I was like, sure, I can, I can do this. and it really was just like pure, like let's give it a crack like determination. And yeah, just really in awe of that version of myself who just like went all in. it wasn't long until I kind of got really immersed in the online space and the coaching space.

I didn't even really have social media before I started a business, and so I had no idea that there was this whole world of Instagram coaches and, you know, this whole thing happening. And just for context, I've been a coach, you know, the whole five years that I've been running a business. And so it wasn't long until I got really, really wrapped up in a lot of the rhetoric, especially of that time if you were around the coaching industry and the.

20 20, 20 21, 20 22. It was like all about the money. It was like all about like how, what milestone are you hitting? Like what, how much like cash months have you had? Are you having the six figure, the seven figure year? And I had a really successful corporate job before where I was making really good money.

And so, you know, my, my original intent was like, I will be so happy if I could just make my salary back. Like that felt like, whoa, that's a win. And that soon got bulldozed by like all of these outlandish ideas of like what success was, what it meant to be a successful coach. Well you're hitting this number and you're constantly outdoing yourself and so on and so forth, right?

And I just absolutely got swallowed in it. And it was years truly like where I was just so immersed. And even though, because I think a lot of people who probably listen to your podcast and who are in your world, we are not people who are like. Who give a shit, you know, like we don't care about keeping up with the Joneses.

We like, kind of have like outlier energy, you know? We're like people who say that we're about integrity, say we have values, right? And that was very much me. Like, I was like, oh, I don't care about that. Like, that's so toxic. That's so bullshit. But internally, I was absolutely eating it all up. Like I had absolutely.

Reduced my success down to, you know, how much money are we making this month? You know, what are our numbers? It was just numbers, numbers, numbers, numbers. And my business morphed into something that was so much more than a business. It was my entire sense of self. It was my entire sense of value. And in that process of it becoming bigger and bigger and bigger, I always like to use the analogy of like a solar system, right?

You have like all of the planets and you have the sun in the center. Like my business was the sun. Everything revolved around it, right? so every decision that I made, and, you know, when I would spend time with friends, when I wouldn't and present, I was how relaxed I was, how stressed I was. Like everything just stemmed from the sun being in the center and that being my business.

And so as time went on, I just started neglecting. My life more and more, and running a business is stressful. Like, like we can just, let's call a spade a spade. Like it's beautiful and it's amazing and it creates so much beautiful opportunity and freedom for so many, so much of so many of us. But it also requires a real, a real amount of commitment, a real amount of self-leadership, a real amount of like truly knowing yourself and being able to manage stress.

And in 20 22, 20 23, I just didn't have those skills yet. And I became chronically stressed, which is really what burnout is, right? so much so that it started impacting my physical health. It was like eating away at my gut health, which then started impacting my skin. I started having rashes. Like there was all, it was just this like domino effect, right?

But because I was so consumed, because I was so just absolutely immersed in like trying to survive, truly survival, I just like, that was the one thing that I couldn't let go of. Like, it was like anything else, community, friends, fun. Like all of those things could go right. I need to focus on me self care, but the business, like, it was truly like, my God, it was like my, my like religion at that point.

And so, everything fell to the wayside. My relationship, like just anything you can imagine. Right? And, I kind of reached this point, and I call it my, my rock bottom moment in 2023 where I was doing everything right. I was, you know, at this point I, I knew how to make money in business. I was doing all the things right.

I was, you know, meditating every day and journaling, like, and I was feeling just absolutely manic, like the amount of stress in my body. I truly like look back at that version of myself. And it, it, it like makes me so sad because I just, I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know that, oh, like your cortisol levels are just absolutely through the roof and.

The thing that is fueling that is the thing. The only thing that you have and the only thing you're spending time with. And so I was, you know, I was like taking supplements to like try and make myself better, seeing doctors, seeing nutritionists, like doing all of the ticking every box, when really all I needed to do was like take a step back and really start to redefine, you know, and the conversation that we're gonna have today.

And so I called this moment, my rock bottom moment because I was doing everything, but I felt like absolute shit. Like I felt horrendous physically, emotionally, mentally. I was meditating for hours a day, journaling for hours a day. Like, you know, my practice that's supposed to keep me grounded and all these things, like I was barely hanging on.

And as you do when you're in a moment of despair and freaking the fuck out, I met with a psychic and I was like, okay. As one does when you're losing your shit and you're like, I don't need more business advice. I don't need anyone to tell me what to do. I need someone to read the fucking future to tell me like, what's happening.

And so I meet with this psychic and, you know, she didn't say anything that was crazy or outlandish. a big thing that she focuses on in her session is kind of like connecting you with your guides, right? And so I'm sitting there, we're chatting, and mind you, I've like never done anything like this before.

Like, but I'm like, whatever. Fuck it. I have nothing to lose at this point. And I'm sitting there and she's saying something and all of a sudden this voice, like this audible voice just drops into my head. And it was like, do you really wanna be a fucking coach on Instagram for the rest of your life? And that just, that's it.

Just mic drops me. And I was like, okay. Whoa. And this, there's nothing wrong with me in a coach on Instagram. I am literally a coach on Instagram. But it was basically like. You're focusing on the wrong thing, idiot. Like you're becoming obsessed with like this bullshit world when like, you're here to create impact.

You're here to create freedom for yourself. You're here to create this beautiful success that, you know, was the original intent of why you did all of this. And it was just this moment of like, wow, I just had this, this realization. Like the penny finally dropped and I was like, okay, I see it. And I realized and I was burnt out.

Like that was like the very moment where I was like, oh, like I started using the word burnout. And the fun thing about that time is, is that that was just the first domino. It was like the universe just had this really. Awful amazing plan for me where it was like, cool, you're gonna recognize that you're burnt out.

You're gonna recognize everything you're doing wrong, and then the consequences of the last two years are going to going to happen. So basically a week later, my relationship nearly falls apart. Me and my partner almost broke up, like just like everything wrong that you could think about happening in that time.

Like it all came to a head and like I look back and it's like kind of just beautiful and horrible and all the things, but it was like literally rock bottom. Like I had absolutely nothing left. Like it was like cool. The business that you killed yourself to create is not gonna work. Like this isn't sustainable, it's not working.

Like killing yourself isn't working your relationship, which is one of the most important things to you not working your health. Not also number one, like my number one biggest value is like physical health, like feeling it not working. And so the most important things to me, I look around and everything's like in shambles, right?

So I'm like, okay. Cool rock bottom and actually for like a very like, you know, high achieving girlies who have everything together, rock bottom is kind of like amazing because you're like, okay, like great, everything went wrong, everything has gone wrong. So like we truly have nothing left to lose. And so that was like my rock bottom moment.

And honestly, I kind of thought I was done with entrepreneurship. I kind of thought like, I think I'm good. Like I think I've like created something really cool and I'm really proud of the work that I did. And I actually started applying for jobs. I was like, yeah, like I'll keep my coaching businesses like a little side thing, but like I think I'm ready to like be employed and just like chill out for a bit.

And I closed all of my programs. I off boarded all of my clients. Like literally basically nearly closed my business and. The way that the universe does. I got an opportunity from Carly who, you know, who runs the Midas coach, and she asked me to be her co-coach in that program. And it was just enough money to like cover my bills.

Like it was just enough money. And I was like, okay, this is like, should I do this? Should I not do this? Am I closing the business? Am I not closing the business? And so I was like, okay, I'm gonna do it. And I just started to have those thoughts of like, okay, well what if I stayed in business and it wasn't burnout?

What if I stayed in business and it was amazing? What if, what if I stayed in this and it wasn't my whole life? What if I stayed in business and it wasn't, you know, what it was before and it was actually just this small part of my life And what if I started, you know, all the things. And in that moment as well, that time where I was reflecting and you know, I had so much space, I just started to see like how I had put my life to the back burner, my community, my friends, my health, my relationship, all of these things.

And so I was really like. Rock bottom was such a catalyst for me because I was like, Ooh, this is terrifying. I don't want this life. I want this life. I want this big, beautiful, full life. I'm such a community person. And so I just started sprinting towards that, right? And it was like, I'll figure out the business thing later.

Like if I need to go get a job in a cafe, like fine, I'll, I'll do that, right? And so I started having those thoughts of like, okay, well what if the business could be amazing? What if I didn't have to like tick all of these boxes and talk about the shit that I can't stand? What if I could just talk about success and vision and leadership, like the themes that really light me up?

And so we started to play with that. I started to explore with one friend in particular who's a copywriter. I jumped into one of her spaces and I was like, cool, I just need you to find, help me find my words. Like I need you to help me find my words and help me find like what I'm really here to talk about right now.

And her space was really, really beautiful. I basically just wrote for like four weeks straight, and I was off Instagram. I wasn't like first time in three years that I ever took a break. And I started to find my words and I was like, okay, like I think I want to talk about this conversation around success.

I think I wanna talk about, you know, how we idolize our businesses and like how we give up our life for these businesses when the whole point was to have these really full lives. And so, I came back online and I just shared the headlines. Like I didn't share, like, you know, my relationships falling apart.

Like it wasn't like that. I was like, you know, I was like, I'm burnt out. My business has really taken over my life. You know, just sharing kind of like. The main topics and my dms were so full, like a message after message of people who were running like seven figure businesses to like six figure, like all, all the spectrum of entrepreneurs being like, wow, I like resonate with this so much.

I'm not happy. I'm not enjoying this. I don't feel safe. I feel like I'm like just building things to burn down. I don't feel successful like it, I can, like is this the point of all that? And just starting to have these conversations with, I'm talking like 20, 30 leaders, like people who I like admired in business who I was like, whoa, okay, there's something happening here.

This isn't just a me problem, this is like an industry problem, right? And so obviously started to just get so much amazing feedback and, and really realizing like, okay, there's like a cultural issue here, right? And. That kind of led to the last, like, that was in the end of 2023, beginning of 2024, and that's really led to the last 18 months, you know, nearly two years now, once we get into 2026 of like firstly my recovery journey from burnout and what that's looked like, and then really building an entire business around radically anti burnout business strategy, even though I'm not necessarily a business coach anymore, I focus more so on leadership and success.

But yeah, it started this, this kind of like shift in my world and it, I, I teach very much from my experience. Like everything that I create, everything that I put out into the world is because I've firsthand experienced it. That's just like so much of my strategy and so. It's been so interesting to, to walk through the industry and to, to work with people who, honestly, I would've never dreamt of working with before because, you know, this hierarchy or this idea of what success is, but then being brought into people's businesses and being brought into people's world and realizing like people are struggling.

Like it doesn't matter how much money you've made, it doesn't matter how much money you haven't made, like people are struggling and it all comes back to you've drank the Kool-Aid. You think success is this idea. You've abandoned your values, you don't even know what your values are. That, that's my main takeaway is people don't even know what their values are.

We're all calling ourselves leaders, but like no one actually even knows what they stand for. and it's just been this wild ride of like, obviously rebuilding my life, rebuilding my sense of self, rebuilding my business, but also. I'm gonna, I'm just gonna claim this reintroducing or introducing the coaching space to this concept of like, decentralizing your business.

Like what if your business wasn't the center of everything? What if, what if living by your values day to day and really understanding explicitly in great detail what success looks like was actually how you move through this world? and so, yeah. I mean, I could obviously like go into so much more detail, but that's like the long and the long and medium of it

[00:19:35] Meg: So much in there. So I, I think this point about decentralizing. Your business. So as an entrepreneur, there is this, you, most people I will venture, I guess to say most people quit corporate so that they can have more freedom, more space, more time, more energy. We're both doing a little dance here with our hands, and you get into it and you're like, oh my God, this is just, even to show up is, can be if you let it, so much work, right?

And then it becomes your baby, and then it becomes, as you mentioned earlier, it becomes your identity, right? You are everything else after you are a business owner and a coach in our, in our case, I, this, this comes at such an important time for this conversation comes at such an important time for me because I, I recently had.

A similar kind of epiphany moment where I'm doing all the things and I am, I'm realizing that all the other things, my being a mother, being a wife, to someone I adore, to, being involved with my friends, all of these things that are so crucially important to me, being an artist, all of this stuff was taking, it was like trying to find time for that.

When I'm not working, when the reality is and how I want it to look is kind of this, this almost like spokes in a wheel, right? You have have these chunks of your life and I want work to slot in there and support these things. I don't want it to be the thing, right?And so I think you and I have have had similar experiences mine very recently, and I am, I would say I'm, I'm still kind of coming through that, but of the keys that you mentioned as being really critical to kind of your evolution coming back around to this decentralization is this understanding of values.

And I want to hear a little bit about what you landed on, if you feel like sharing your values and how you changed things to, to align with them and tell us a little bit about that process.

[00:22:08] Alexa: Yeah. So it's so funny because before this process, I never spoke about values, like ever. Like I, it wasn't something that I like used in my life. It wasn't something that I used in my process. but for some reason when I was kind of walking through my own healing process and kind of, you know, detangling this huge web that, I had created for myself.

Values were the thing that just were like, you need to know your values. Like, we need an anchor here. And like, seriously, I, I have no idea where that came from. I have, I don't know if I like read something in passing or, yeah, but values were the thing where it was like, we're going all in on values. And so for me it was really, really simple.

It was like decentralizing the business. At first it was like, you know, life first, business second, which now I don't necessarily. Agree. Like, not that I don't agree with it absolutely life first, but I think life is so much more nuanced than that. Like there's just so much more to it, right? And I think like life is business.

Business is life, family is life, family is business. You know, like it all, like you said, it's like this beautiful pie chart, right? And everything has, its like slot and it all kind of like changes in priority constantly. That is what it is like to be human. I wish that it was as simple as black and white of like business, you know, third and this second and this fourth, you know?

But like life doesn't necessarily work that way. And so for me, I think it was just articulation. Articulation of what actually matters to me. Right. And as I said before, which probably a lot of people who listen to this podcast agree with, like, we are not people who want to be about the bullshit, who wanna give in to like the status quo and obsess about money and sell our soul for X, y, or Z.

Like very much outlier energy. I, I feel the people who had listen to this podcast and also my audience as well, right. But at the same time, we're still following these like basic bitch rules and we're still like giving in. Yeah. And we're like, you know, we say we don't care, but we really fucking care.

Right? And we actually really care about the money. And that's like a whole other conversation. And you're absolutely allowed to care about the money, but it's like changing our relationship with it. So for me it was like, cool, what does a business look like? What does a life look like? A successful business, a successful life, right?

That is radically anti burnout. Right? I refuse to ever burnout again, like. I will nev. That will never ever happen. Like, because I just have created so much structure in my life and just so many like checks and balances. But for me it was really about articulation. So basically my process, and if you are in this process, I highly recommend following.

This is first articulating your values, right? So what are the values that matter to to you, right? So for me it was like evolution, decentralizing your business joy. Like joy was such a huge one for me. I wanna enjoy my life. I wanna have fun like community, right? I'm such, I'm a four, six projector. Like community is literally my life force.

Like without people I'm dead. Like truly. So the fact that for three years I had completely neglected community, sure I had a few friends, but like I am a, I am a community facilitator. Like in my soul, in my bones, I am here to facilitate community, right? Not necessarily for business, but for life, right? I'm the person planning dinners, I'm the person organizing the girls.

I'm the, you know, that's just me, right? I was not doing that anymore. Right? And so I started to see like success is so much bigger. And for those three years, the only place that I had set goals in was my business. Let's hit this amount of money, let's get this amount of followers, let's grow this way.

Right? I hadn't set a goal for my life, right? Let me plan girls' dinner. Let me save this amount of money so I can, you know, go on this trip with Aidan. Let no. Not, I didn't set a goal in my personal life for three years. I only set goals for my business. And so when I started to look at my, when I started to look at my values, I was like, whoa, okay.

Yeah, I wanna have a successful business. I want it to be really potent and impactful and transformational. I want it to speak about these topics, right? but I want it to not be at the center, like I said, the solar system analogy, right? So when we take the business away from being the sun, what do we put there?

Instead? We put our values, and then all of the planets revolve around our values. All of the planets revolve around our definition of success, right? And so I clarified these values. That was step number one. I really saw like, wow, I'm full of shit. Like I say, I care about all these things. I say, I, I don't care about this.

I say that, you know, this is what really matters to me, but my life doesn't show this. My life doesn't show any of this, right? All I do. Whether it's physically or internally is think about my business and work on my business. Like I could not let go. And so it was such a huge practice of closing my laptop at the end of the day, going to have dinner with Aiden and being like, I'm safe to just be present here and not think about my work.

Right? Or you know, taking a morning off and going on like a really long walk. I mean, I didn't have that much work to do anyway, so at that time it was like totally fine. But it's still active work that I do right now. I was telling Meg before, like I'm in a slow week this week and even this week alone, I've just worked my ass off for four weeks, creating two launches back to back.

I'm still having to tell myself, Hey, you are so safe to take today and rest. Right? But we are so conditioned for busyness. We are so conditioned for doing and productivity. So please know, like, I swear my burnout, like healing from burnout is like, I almost feel like a lifelong journey. It like, yeah, it starts as like a very me center thing.

Like, you know, changing your habits, changing your mindset, all of these things. And now, two years later, I'm very much in the like cultural, like societal, like seeing all of these huge themes and like really having to change my relationship with the world. Having to change, like really having to make sure that I'm in relationships.

That, you know, I'm a, I'm friends with incredibly smart humans who are so fucking ambitious and I'm constantly having to remind them because, you know, of course they're struggling with burnout too. And, you know, all, I feel like every, all of our girlfriends are like going through the same thing, whether they're self-employed or not.

Of like really not being afraid to hold this standard for my community, whether it's my partner, whether it's my friends. And so I'm kind of in that stage of, of burnout at the moment. But, yeah, it was, it was really this process of like actively allowing myself to start to feel safe with not having the business at the center.

And I think that, you know, I, I've really seen that at the core of, the core of the core of burnout is just fear, right? Like, it's, it's fear. It's just I'm scared. I'm scared to let go. I'm scared to not do the thing. I'm scared of being broke. I'm scared of not being seen. And so I'm gonna do, do, do, do do, do, do.

Because at least that will create some type of outcome you hope, right? Oftentimes it doesn't create the outcome we want. But, you know, that's what we've been taught. Like more is more, right? The more you do, the more valuable you are. And you know, I think that we, we come to the end of that rope or we come to the end of that strategy.

And whether you create success or not, I find that we all kind of find ourselves at, at the end of it going, wow, I never realized how unsuccessful success would feel.

[00:29:31] Meg: Yes. Oh my gosh, yes. So there, there's so much in there that I think resonates with me personally, but also with my audience is like this idea of of more is more. And I know for me, and maybe you experienced this too. There always was this assumption underpinning success and busyness, that the more you did, the more you would get at the end of it.

Right? And so there was this direct connection of like, okay, you want this outcome. You just have to work more to get that outcome right. And this narrative, and again, this is very recent for me, this narrative of like, okay, you don't have the outcome that you want. You just need to work more, do something different, or be like, work harder.

And like this is very like Protestant, work ethic, capitalist nonsense, right? And again. When you get to burnout and as you start to recover, and I love this idea of burnout being a lifelong recovery process because once you're in burnout and you realize how shitty it feels and how you absolutely never want to feel that way again, you transformed your life.

I started a business to help other women not not feel this way, and to, to coach them around it. So once you get to a point after your burnout and when you're in recovery, where you look at these systems and this, this large scale, you buy into it. You buy into it. When you realize that you get to opt out of the things that are actively undermining your health, your own.you know, call it success, whatever definition of success you want to, to roll with. But, and the other thing that I want to just kind of come back to that you said that I, I think is just brilliant, is this fear burnout, working too much.

Having this inextricable link between who you are and what you're worth and being enough, right? Is fear. You're afraid of not being enough. You're afraid of, you know, people that I coach, right? People are afraid to take that jump away from, from a career that they've cultivated over years and years, decades, oftentimes.

And they're afraid that if they're no longer, I am so and so, I'm the, I'm the CEO of whatever business, or I am the, the lawyer that has made all these, you know, that I'm a, I'm the partner at this law firm. Who am I? If I don't have that,

[00:32:28] Alexa: Yeah.

[00:32:29] Meg: I think that there is, this idea that earned enoughness is just horse shit. And I know you and I are both really actively trying to do what we can in our own corners to, to bring that conversation to light.

[00:32:48] Alexa: Yeah. Yeah.yeah, I think I just, there's so many things I wanna say. So I think the, the realization of opting out is such a huge thing and a huge moment. And I hope that whoever listens to this, I hope that's your moment of like, realizing like, oh shit. And not only is it that you have the choice to opt out, if you want to live a life that feels successful and that has fulfillment and that isn't completely wrapped up in all of the bullshit of like, productivity, capitalism, just cultural toxic shit.

The only choice you have is to opt out. Like you can keep trying to jump through hoops. You can keep trying to tick the boxes. You can keep trying to be like the good girl.But how's that going? You know, like, how's that going so far? Right. And of course I know that being the good girl, ticking the boxes, you know, being busy, it can feel so good for the ego momentarily.

It can feel so good, you know, moment by moment throughout the day or throughout the week when you get that little pat on the head or. You know, you see your friends and you're like, I'm just so busy. Like, you know, this little like, bullshit pat on the back that we give ourselves. But like, is that really what you want your life to be summed up to?

Is she was so busy, she was just always so busy. She just always had something on, you know? And it's like when I take a step back and I think about the life that I wanna lead, and, you know, when I'm 80, 90 years old and I look back, I can tell you the one fucking thing that I didn't want to be was busy. I, but I can tell you that I wanted to like, have lots of long dinners and I wanted to create really fucking cool shit that like changed people's lives and that I like was madly in love with my partner and that I was a great mother.

You know, all of these things, right? And here's, here's really where that nuance piece goes is like, it's not about not wanting to work. And I think that we just have this absolute fucking obsession with like, needing to work and needing to do things. It's like, okay, yes. Like you still get to work, you still get to create shit and like.

We're leaders. We absolutely should. You absolutely should be. The lawyers should be the CEO. Abso freaking. But it's like completely changing our relationship with that and going, oh, success is so much bigger, right? Like my work, my professional career, my ambitions amazing. They get to fit in this beautiful mosaic of everything else.

And I think, you know, when I said I stopped setting goals for three years for my personal life, but I was, you know, hitting all of the milestones in my business, I never fucking felt worse. And we've all been here like it's the classic tale as old this time, right? You have the amazing salary or crushing it at work, but like your life is in shambles.

Like how is that going? How is that going for you? Right? And we're such an all or nothing society. We're we, we, it's this or it's that, right? And we see so few people doing this. Well, we, so we see so few people actually having the capacity and the courage. And even just like the curiosity to try and hold both.

And I'm not saying that I'm perfect, and I'm not saying that it doesn't come with lots of trial and error, but what I am saying is I've never felt more successful and I've never felt more fulfilled than the current iteration of my business and the current iteration of my life. And that's the work that we do, you know, with with my clients is like, how do we expand our capacity for more?

This isn't about wanting less, this is actually about wanting more. This isn't about lowering your standards, this is actually about raising your standards. And I always joke with my clients because you know, they're all like self acclaimed, high aachi high, you know, high achieving women. And I'm like, can you actually call yourself a high achiever when you've only like high achieved in one area of your life?

But everything else is like falling to the wayside. Like, you know, like I'm like, no, we're gonna need some like consistency here. Yeah. Like, I'm gonna need to see like you kicking goals in other places. Right. And so, yeah, it's really about expanding our capacity, like. And you know, I think so much of this is nervous system.

So much of this is like mindset. Like there's so, there's so much to it. But the first, for the first and foremost thing is like really realizing that like no one is going to give you your value. Like no one is going to, give you your success. No one, like, it's, it will never be enough, right? And so until you take a step back and go, yeah, I'm not playing this game.

I'm not playing by the rules of my parents, corporate, whatever it is, entrepreneurship, coaching industry. Like, you know, there's just bullshit everywhere. You have to define that for yourself. You have to take a, you have to, you have to be bothered to be able to take a step back and clarify your values and radically redefine success.

And I always say, because I'm sure a lot of the people who listen to this podcast identify as leaders or are leaders of groups or leaders of people. What do you mean you're a leader and you do not know your values in a real way? What do you mean you're a leader? And you have not radically redefined success.

I'm sorry, but that is a bare minimum standard. It is bare minimum because if you do not clarify those things, you will fall on your default settings. And that is rooted in so much toxic conditioned bullshit. And once you see it, you can un see it. So I'm sorry for you listening to this podcast because now you're never gonna be able to unsee it.

You're going to notice now, moving forward when you make a decision or you react, that's rooted. Some bullshit that's rooted in a life of conditioning that's rooted in a life of fear, which we all grew up in, right? So if you want to live an empowered life, if you want to be truly autonomous and free, and I don't care what your definition of success is, it can be anything, right?

But until you radically redefine it for your, for yourself, you will fall on default settings. And those default settings are rooted in keeping women small, keeping people not happy, keeping people exhausted and sick and ill, and jumping through hoops. So it's such a, like, personal conversation of course, but it's also such a sus systemic conversation.

Like it can, we can go so macro here of like, you know, going into culture and all these things, but yeah, it's, it's, I don't even remember what the original question was, but yes.

[00:38:55] Meg: So this concept of, of enoughness, the radical redefinition of our own personal success and our own values, and I could not agree more about the values thing, and you, you're totally right. You, you think you know, and, but if you haven't done it, you haven't sat down with pen and paper with the intention of really fucking outlining your values.

You haven't done the work

[00:39:26] Alexa: yeah,

[00:39:27] Meg: and. That, that reminds me of, of something that I, I happen to, to believe, and it, it's kind of controversial, but I think traditional success, like your high achievers, I think that's a cop out.

[00:39:45] Alexa: Mm,

[00:39:45] Meg: I think a lot of times it's a cop out because it's easy, right? It's, it's a well worn path, you know how to quote unquote succeed, right?

You know how to blow that meaning out of the water. You know how to turn in an excellent product. You know how to do all that stuff. What you don't know is how to create a life that's juicy and that you love living and having your work slot into that. How, how your identity that exists beyond that, slots into that, right?

That's the work, and that is why I think so many people. Who are just on this, call it the hamster wheel of traditional success. Like you haven't taken the time to actually do these exercises of defining your values and living in integrity with them. And I know that's a, that's a big part of your, your, message is you have to know your values to live your values and to stay in integrity with them.

[00:40:51] Alexa: Yeah, well, it's a practice, you know, like I, I always say to, to my clients, and, and they know this, like, I call it like toilet time. 'cause like, everyone's busy, everyone's got shit on. But like, if you can just sit on the toilet and read your values once a day, a couple times, like, you know, for three minutes, however long you're on the toilet for, because you have to remember them.

Just because you wrote them once does not mean they're yours. Just because you redefined success once does not mean. It's yours. And because we are up against a lifetime of conditioning as well as living in populations where most people don't know their values, where most people are just reacting, where most people are walking, the very wor path we have to be.

So, we have to be radical. There's a reason that I use the word radical. Radical is the requirement. If you wanna break out of the shit, you have to fucking walk your talk, right? And so integrity is always at the center, right? Like I said, I realized I was full of shit. I said that I cared about X, Y, or Z. I said that, that annoyed me.

I said that blah, blah, blah, blah, right? But I wasn't walking my talk. I wasn't practicing my values. I didn't even know my values. Right? And so it's, it's. It's, it's clarifying, but then it's also coming back to it every single day. And I could not agree more that traditional success is absolutely the easy path.

Because let me tell you something. Living a life that you love and building community and being in love with your partner and being a beautiful friend and being, I'm not a mother, but I can imagine being a present mother and having a business absolutely. A million times harder than just being on autopilot.

Absolutely. However, so much richer, so much deeper, so much fuller, so much more joy, so much more presence. Right. and so I, I could not agree more that traditional success is a cop out and we all get to the end of that rope and we're all so. Surprised and confused about why, what did I do wrong? And it's, I mean, we've just been handed a lie.

That's really the truth, is you were told, you were told that it was gonna be one thing, and it's not actually that thing. Right? And you were told that this really matters, and you were told that this was gonna make you feel like enough and you were told that this was gonna be the thing. Eventually, once you get to the number, once you get to the title, or once you get to the, you know, certain people, a nu a number of people under you, right?

When really it's so stupidly simple, we just wanna be happy. We just wanna be surrounded by people that we love. We wanna be seen, we wanna be known, we wanna be well rested, we wanna be well, right? And yes, of course, we want to create bodies of work that feel really exciting and fulfilling that too, right?

And so, again, it's not black or white, it's not no business, all life, you know, it's, it's really this beautiful, you know, mosaic that is just being a human right. So absolutely the, the traditional success path is this really beautiful, worn, well, not beautiful, this really worn path that's really easy and we can walk down.

And of course it comes with this challenges, but no one's doing this. How many people, specifically women, do you know that are well, that you know, that are vivacious, that you know, that are, you know, actually having sex with their partners that, you know, are actually like, you know, surrounded by community that they feel really support?

Very few. Very, very few.

[00:44:24] Meg: So sad to.

[00:44:25] Alexa: It's, yeah. It, it is really, really sad and it, it, it kills me. And this is why. These conversations are so important and it's why, you know, sometimes I almost feel like, am I banging on this drum too much? Like, you know, is is it all, is it all really? I, yes. It's that really fucking important.

It really actually is that important because women are starving for community connection to be known, to have fun. I'm hosting an, I host something called Success Experiment a couple times a year. And this y this round, the theme was being well lived, which is kind of like what I believe kind of the antithesis of burnout is.

Like there's burnout and then there's being well lived, right? and this round we didn't focus on business at all. We focused on the decentralization of business, but like not really any business names. And we had one week that was completely dedicated to fun. So every single day you had to do an intentional fun act.

And that's the hardest week. It's the hardest week. For everyone. You know, there's like first week radically redefining success, fun week, decentralized. Like the hardest week is how does it feel to prioritize fun? How does it feel to have a fun life and to really make that important. And it rubs up against everything that we have been

[00:45:40] Meg: man.

[00:45:41] Alexa: Being a good girl, being successful, being productive, right? tells us. And so women are starving for enjoyment and fun and freedom and just being relaxed. God, how many relaxed women do you know? Like we're all up tight and you know, just all the things. So it's like, yeah, anyways, I could go forever. But yeah,

[00:46:03] Meg: We try, we are trying over here, but your point is taken. And, just a one quick story before we get into our rapid fire SEC section. this idea of play and like fun and all of that being just really hard for a lot of women. I was in a period, this was a couple of years ago, before you and I met and before, I had started to kind of do things differently in my business.

I was in the habit of drawing an Oracle card every morning to kind of like, it was a fun way for me to like ground into kind of what I should be doing that day. And I remember thinking. Okay, I, whatever this card this morning gets pulled, like I'm, I'm ready to get the death card, or I'm ready to get like, the void, you know, like something big and like, just

[00:46:55] Alexa: Growth rebirth.

[00:46:57] Meg: And I drew play and I was pissed. I was absolutely pissed because I was like, I am fully prepared to do any hard work at all of any kind. Was not prepared to have fun. And I didn't, it took me, I actually worked through it with my coach and I was like, this pisses me off. I'm like, this, this is so hard for me.

How can, how come I can't relax and have fun? I don't even know what brings me joy anymore. And so that, that's a really important conversation to have as well. but I completely agree with you. I think. The women that I work with, the women you work with, the women I know, the women. The women that I sometimes am myself.

We are starved for connection and meaning and a way to stitch all of the parts of ourself together in one meaningful. I am enough as I am. Package. Right? And as you, as you have beautifully articulated today, this is, this is the work that we're doing and we need to keep banging that drum because we're not there yet.

There are so many people that are still on that treadmill being fed these lies about success, what it means, what it will give you, because none of it's true. And defining success for yourself, really understanding who you are and your values. That is what will. Is what will help you live that well lived life.

[00:48:41] Alexa: Yeah, well, it's, it's amazing because once you clarify those two things, your values or your values, what success is and what failure is, that's a beautiful place to start. You now have a framework for every single decision you need to make. Does it align with my values? Does it feel like success? Right. And.

When we redefine those things and we get really, really clear on them, making decisions that change our lives become really, really easy. I mean, they might be difficult to make, but it's very clear, right? When we, when we articulate our values and we, we reference them, we have them, we use them, we take the legwork out of like needing to figure it out, and we kind of have like a cheat sheet of like, oh, cool.

No, this is the life that I said that I wanted. This is the person who I said that I wanted to be. This is what I said mattered to me. So does this decision, does this choice align with that? And sometimes you have to make really hard decisions, right? But when we redefine success, and it's about. Living in alignment with our values.

Those decisions are a success. Those decisions that are counter-cultural and really difficult, and maybe make no fucking sense to the old version of you, or to your friends, or to your family, or to your job, or to your clients, their success because they align with your values and they align with what you're building, right?

And integrity is everything. If we don't have integrity, what do we have? Right? and so it's a practice. It's a constant practice. But the more that you do it, the more time that you spend with it, the more toilet time that you have just reading your values, it becomes easier and easier. And one day you will not even have to reference your values because you'll be so solid in who you are.

You will be able to make decisions quicker, you'll be more confident, you'll be more fearless, and your life will look a lot different because you'll have made, you'll made, you'll have made a whole set of decisions that have just like completely changed everything.

[00:50:26] Meg: Ugh. That's so beautiful. And I love that you have given us a way to kind of establish a framework for making these decisions, because it's one thing to, you know, come up with your values and then it's totally another to be like, oh, now what do I do with this? And so

[00:50:40] Alexa: Now we have to remember.

[00:50:41] Meg: now, now we have to actually do the work of living your life in accordance with them.

So, okay, Alexa, we have a section at the end of this podcast. Rapid fire questions. These are off the cuff. Don't think too hard. so what's bringing you joy right now? What.

[00:51:01] Alexa: What's bringing me joy right now is I am starting to host my like little girl dinners again that I used to do. So when I first healed from burnout, I started like a cookbook club, which really wasn't a cookbook club, it was just like basically women come together and like drinking wine and eating cheese.

and we took a little bit of break and I'm hosting my first one next week for Halloween, so I'm like so excited. There is no dress up, but you do have to wear a wig. So I'm really

[00:51:29] Meg: I mean, it's amazing. I love it.

[00:51:31] Alexa: Anytime you get to wear a wig, I'm like, I'm there. I'm absolutely there.

[00:51:35] Meg: Love it. What is something big or small that you're celebrating right now?

[00:51:41] Alexa: I am celebrating just a lot of growth, a lot of expanded capacity to be able to hold a really big life and a much bigger business than I've ever had before. and so I've been actively working a lot with my nervous system and my values and all these things and really pushing up against, pushing up a lot of edges recently.

and I'm actually just really proud of myself. Like I've really just, I've really just held such a high standard these last, specifically these last few weeks. And, I'm in a slow week, as I mentioned a couple times throughout the, the episode and just taking some time to reflect on that has been really cool to just be like, wow, I'm, I'm really growing and expanding and not just in business, but in life too.

And that's really, that's really cool to see.

[00:52:27] Meg: Oh, beautiful answer. I love it. What is one book that changed the way you think?

[00:52:35] Alexa: Oh gosh. I'm not much of a reader to be honest, but, I'm really trying to read more fiction. I've actually read two books this year, which is like really big deal for me. this has nothing to do with mindset or business, but the best book I've ever read was Educated, which is a memoir by, let me remember her name.

I'm gonna look this up really quick. Tara Westover. It is the best book I've ever read. Not that I'm like a hardcore reader, but educated Tara Westover. It's a memoir. She made me wanna write a memoir, which I actually have decided that I'm going to do.

[00:53:11] Meg: I love it.

[00:53:12] Alexa: yes. yes. So that book is amazing. Like if you're looking for.

It's not fiction, but it could basically be fiction. Her story is absolutely wild. It just was an just so well written, such an incredible story of such an amazing, an amazing, brilliant woman. So I highly recommend

[00:53:30] Meg: Great one. Okay. What's one thing that we can do today to, or the audience can do today to unhook themselves a tiny bit more from hustle culture.

[00:53:44] Alexa: a tiny thing. I mean, just set your values. Just, just start with your values. Just start with your fucking values. and if that feels too big, just start with one. Just literally start, like literally, this is how powerful this work is, is that if you just set one value, let's say you're like, I want more joy in my life.

Let's say that's your value that you do, and you just set that one value. Right? And you start to practice it every day. Okay, what does it look like to infuse more joy in my life? What does it, what does it look like to choose the joyful thing? What does it look like to prioritize my joy that will change your fucking life?

Now imagine if you did that for like four to six values, right? And imagine then if you redefine success. So, there's that. But also if you're like, that's not just go have fun. Just go, go have some fun today. Go have some fun this week. Go get a cocktail with your girlfriends. Or go, you know, call the babysitter or whatever it is that you need to do and just go have some fun.

Because women's joy is actually like so radical and we just need so much more of it. And so if values feel like too big of a step, just go have some fucking fun.

[00:54:48] Meg: Love that answer. Such good, such a good answer. Okay, Alexa, I want to hear you share with our audience where they can find you, where they can connect with you. What do you have going on?

[00:55:02] Alexa: Amazing. well, I hang out mainly on Instagram and substack and Threads. So if you're really into this burnout conversation, that's what my entire substack is about. It's called Well-Lived. So I write exclusively about burnout, healing from burnout, success culture. I really, I really love that space.

So if you're a substack girly and you like to read, that's a great space to come over. Instagram, obviously threads obviously also have a podcast called full of herself. and in terms of what we have going on, as I said, I do lots of different things, but I run these things called success experiments.

We'll probably be doing one. In the new year, where basically for a month we radically redefine success every time there's a different theme. so who knows what the next one will be, but they're always really beautiful. There's like always like an amazing group of aligned women who are just like, wow, this is like, it's just such radical, cool work.

and that's pretty much it. Like, we've always got things happening in the background. If you wanna learn more about like, my work or anything that I do, there's like so many different ways to come and play. So, but I would love to meet you if you, if you enjoyed the episode, seriously, jump into my dms.

Always just love to like chat to people and connect and yeah, so I'm sure we'll leave all the links in the show notes and you can just figure out, you can figure out which path is best for you.

[00:56:16] Meg: everything will be in the show notes, and what a delicious conversation. Alexa, thank you so much for your time today

[00:56:25] Alexa: Thank you.

[00:56:27] Meg: and thank you so much for listening to this episode of Change and I will see you on the next one.