How to Build a Business Around Your Capacity (Not Market Demands) | Gwendolyn Young

Are you tired of hearing business advice that completely ignores what real life looks like when you're navigating chronic illness, autoimmune disorders, flare-ups, medical appointments, and just life? Life-ing. Business with Chronic Illness is for entrepreneurs who know they're capable of building something meaningful but need a way to do it that actually works with their body, not against it. This podcast brings you honest conversations with founders, CEOs, and other bosses sharing their strategies, adaptations, and lessons they've learned while building businesses alongside chronic illness, including what worked, what didn't, and what they wish they had done differently before burnout forced the lesson. I'm your host, Nikita Williams, a globally ranked podcast host and entrepreneur who's built my business while navigating chronic illness and helping others do the same without sacrificing themselves. I created this show to open up the conversations most business spaces avoid. The promise of Business with Chronic Illness is simple: to show you that you can build a thriving business with chronic illness and autoimmune disorders without sacrificing your health, your peace, or your profit. You're not behind, you're building differently, and you're in the right place.

I am excited to have Gwendolyn on the show today. As you've just heard, she is the boss. She's great at what she does. And I love talking with women about business with chronic illness, obviously, but burnout and caregiving, if that looks like something. And as women of color, we really don't talk about this. We really like to almost skip over the hard stuff that we're dealing with, that we're experiencing, because, you know, We power through, we do the hard stuff. And I'm always excited when a woman raises her hand who's like, that's— I have chronic illness. I'm doing the things. Here's what it looks like actually. So thank you for being here. Thank you.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. I am excited about this conversation.

Me too. So let's get into it. I'm going to go first, first place because I'm most excited to go into this angle, which is Why is it so hard for us as women of color to talk about or admit that our varying circumstances, whether it's chronic illness, our capacity ups and downs, um, almost like they don't exist when we come into the business world space. What is your thought on that?

You know, if I have to think back just on just kind of lived experience, right? I think it's culturally for us as Black women, right? It's always, we've been the strong one, we've been the capable one, we've been the quiet one or the grateful one, right? It's the persona of never break in public. That part. And so when you shift to having open conversations around chronic illness or capacity limits or something being wrong financially or whatever it is that we need support around, right? It kind of collides with everything that we've been taught about survival and appearances and keeping the look right. And so I think we take that into business with us, and it's like, oh no, you can't You can't talk about that. Oh no, you can't show that because that shows weakness, that shows fragility, right? That shows too much vulnerability, and people are going to take advantage of that, or they're going to look at you a certain way. You're not going to be able to be in certain rooms, right? And I think that plays a lot into when we come into business.

ASHLEY BLAINE FEATHERSON JENKINS] And you're so right about this. I definitely think culturally, I always like to say we now in 2026 have a privilege in the context of being like, no, I'm not gonna— like, I get to choose how I get to talk about my story and my trauma and all those different kind of things. But I think about my mom, my grandmother, my great-grandma. They did not have that type of privilege. No privilege, right? Like they didn't have that. I like to say that option really to be like, I have to process my, my, my, my trauma and my, like how this is affecting me. Like they didn't have that capacity or even the tools to really do that because we've always been in like that, just push, grind, go, the superwoman, the cape, like we are them.

Yes.

However, now I find that we do talk about it, but it's to your point, it feels like often we We don't want to admit to ourselves in our own businesses how that actually affects. I think the narrative out in the world has put on to a lot of us, like, y'all are strong, y'all can do anything. I know it's a chronic illness. Even there's research that says, you know, people of color specifically are stronger and deal with pain different and da da da da da, and all of those things. Right. But we still deal with pain. We still bleed, you know, every day. And I think we've, uh, I think for me, I find myself, I'll say it for myself. I find myself at times allowing that narrative or that, that kind of just, I'm trying to think of the word, but allowing that like understanding to be like, oh, this is why I have to push through. My business can't even show me that kind of flexibility. Nobody else needs to even know that I need this type of flexibility in my business, but I can't operate even like that.

And so.

I find that that's the conversation I want people to have more of. It's like, I get not talking about it in public. I get it. It's not easy. It's not, it's, it's not easy, but you have to kind of like be aware how you not like living in the reality of your circumstances affects your business and how you do your business. So how has that looked for you? Like, Did you start your business off being like, no matter what's happening on in my business and in my personal life, it doesn't matter, I'm just going to run it like all the people say I have to do it by this box? We like to check boxes like 3 times over.

We do.

How has that looked like for you?

So you said so many great things, Nikita. So there's one thing I want to add to our previous conversation too, right? I think a lot of times we also don't talk about it, and this is from my, my personal experience, is because We as Black women are always conscious of how other people who play a part in our story are going to look and be affected, right? And so it's like, I'm gonna hold this because I don't want so-and-so to be shed in a light. But girl, that's a whole nother conversation.

That is literally a whole nother conversation for you, Lynn. There's a whole nother conversation.

I'm like, I'm like Yes. So, and to your point, in terms of business, originally when I started, I was like, yeah, I, I gotta do it the way that people say you're supposed to do it. But what I quickly learned was what that was doing to me mentally and physically, right? Me not living in that truth of like, this is my reality. Was causing me more harm, right? And I wasn't able to grow my business in an authentic way and really move the needle because I wasn't living in that reality. And so for me, I decided the people that are, that are attracted to me, that I really want to work with, those ideal clients for me, they're going to be understanding of my reality. They're going to align with that. And if they don't, that is perfectly okay as well. And so for me, it became sharing that truth. Not all of the gory details of it, right? But just saying, hey, I am a woman, a business owner that lives with a chronic illness. Here is what can happen sometimes. And so I want us to be proactive to prepare for those periods of time, right? And then I start building my business in a way that would help me to do that. For so long, we were taught you have to build your business around your clients, you have to build your business around the marketplace, you got to build your— like, and I was like, no, I'm going to build my business around me.

Yes, me too.

What do I need? And so I started putting systems in place because I know, especially in those first early years of diagnosis, I'm like, I could be out for 3 days easy.

Yep, yep.

So what do I put in place where it still looks like I'm responsive right? It looks like the work is still getting done, right? Who do I partner with to help me in those critical periods of times? But I made the decision that, like, no, I'm gonna build a business around me and what I need versus the other way around.

So, such a good point there. When you say you built a business around what you needed, give us an example of, like, what What is one specific way that you had to do that?

So one of the ways that I did that was I know back-to-back phone calls, especially early in those years, draining with the fatigue, right? I might need a nap in the middle of the day, right? And so I'm just being real, Nikita Williams.

No, I love it. Hey, yes.

You know what I mean? I got to go lay down in the middle of the day —like, my body is going to be like, what you doing? Because you've been in this chair for 4 hours, and now your back is locked up. Like, let's just talk about it. And so what I did was I started to build my schedule. No, I'm not taking phone calls back to back. I'm going to take phone calls on these specific days during these specific hours, right? I'm going to have an extended lunch break. It's on the calendar, so I can literally get up. There's nothing to do in that space. But to take care of myself, whether that's to take a nap, go for a walk, have lunch. Because us as Black women, when we're solving the world, we forget to eat. Go have lunch. It's on the calendar. And that was a very specific way that I made sure to take care of myself. I also started to build in the things that I needed into that schedule beforehand. So if I got doctor visits, those are going on the calendar first, and I am not overriding them because a client had a last-minute whatever, like, because my health is important.

Yeah, without you, there is no business. Yes.

And if I don't show up for this, I'm not going to be good for you for anything else, right? That was one very specific way that I was able to do that. And then the second way was understanding what my non-negotiables were. I had to literally sit down and say, okay, what are the boundaries that you need to have in place? Yeah, is that no phone calls after a certain hour? Because let's get real, in this entrepreneurship life, especially when you're first building—

oh yeah, you, you, you all— you up all day, all night, answering texts, all that part.

Uh-huh, that part. And it's like No, the world is not going to fall apart if you don't answer an email at 8 PM, right? The world is not going to fall apart if you don't take a phone call at 8 AM. Like, they can survive for another hour or two. And so understanding, like, what are my non-negotiables, and putting those boundaries in place, and not being afraid to communicate it.

Yes, so So true. I, I'm with you. Um, there is no, there is no about what if when you're not going to feel well, it's like the idea that we don't know that we're going to have things come up. It's just, it, it doesn't make sense that we would build a business that doesn't include space for the things we know are going to show up. Right. And I, I have felt, Gwendolyn, too, that The marketing messages we hear often, especially when you're just starting or when you're scaling, is that the things that you as a person really need in your life often are said, well, you just have to sacrifice that for right now. Yes. And I've personally felt like, but that's something I can't afford to sacrifice right now. So how else are we going to do that thing that we're trying to do? And in that context, is there things in your business as you've grown? Because when we first started talking before we started pressing record, you were like, I'm in the middle of, you know, being the CEO, giving things away to people. What has been the transition or the resistance in this space of being like, I know I need to do this thing and it's important so that I don't sacrifice what's important to me. What has been like the resisting things in the middle of that?

Me.

I love your honesty, but it's always us.

It is completely me. It's this thing of it's got to be me. The client wants me, right? They don't— like, let me let you in on a secret. They don't. They don't. They want the thing done. Right? They want it done well. It doesn't necessarily have to be you. It's this thing of, are they going to do it like me, the person that I give it to, right? It's, it's, what does that say about me if I am not the one executing? Am I as important in this new space as I am in the old space of the doing? Right? And it's this transition in so many things that I went through of like, I think my identity was really tied to being the doer. Like, if we gonna talk about it, let's talk about it. That's, that's the—

look, me and my therapist on a daily, this is a thing. It is, it, it really is the do. It is. It also has become our coping mechanism. It's our cape. It is our It is our— like, we've wrapped our resilience in our doing.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Almost as if the resilience was required, right? And it's not. For some reason, we thought that was our protection. But it's not. We can let go. There are people who want to support us, right? Clients want to be fully supported. And here's the truth of it. Sometimes when we keep ourselves in that place, we're just adding on to the thing that we're really trying to get away from, right? The more doing I'm doing creates more fatigue, right? The more doing that I'm doing is creating havoc in some other place, right? Yeah. And so we just— because it's taking away.

Yes. Right. It's taking away from a thing that you actually do need. Yes.

And we continue to betray ourselves in that way because we think that, oh no, I have to be here. It has to be me. What does that say about me? I don't want to look fragile. Because the assumption is, oh, they're going to think something's wrong if I'm not the one doing it. But it's not. It's OK. And so the biggest piece was just dealing with my own mindset. Mm-hmm. How do I shift away from that? How do I trust the people who are on my team to support me in that way? And what's out there that I'm missing that I really should be focused on? Yeah. And once I started to lean into that, I was like, okay, this is scary, but I think I could get used to it. But I'm like, it's so quiet. Like, I'm not talking to the people every day. I'm not like doing all the things. And I'm like, is everything okay? Like, is everything okay? Yeah, it is. Yeah.

And you know, I love that you are giving yourself the space to not know. Like, I think we go into these transitions being like, I should know how to be the CEO of my business because I just, you know, became a CEO of my business. Like, no, for like however long you have been, you were like a solopreneur trying to figure it out, all of these kinds of things. And now this is a different skillset. And I think a part of that process is resili— to me, resilience is going to happen regardless, but it doesn't have to have, like, you don't have to make it happen by sacrificing things, by creating distrust with your, with within you. Like, you know what I'm saying? And I think to your point that we have to allow time and space to figure some of these things out. And I think. That's hard, right? That's really hard for a lot of us to do, I think, with chronic illness. Absolutely. How has that looked like— did you learn this lesson of allowing time to take the time it needs outside of your business when it came to living with chronic illness?

Yeah, I think so. I have to say that my chronic illness was really a driver of like some things you just can't control. I was a born— I like to say born perfectionist. I'm going to blame it on my parents.

Oh, okay.

You know, this perfectionist, A-type, everything has to be perfect. I need to always be in control, right? And chronic illness taught me you are not in control. Mm-hmm. You are, you are not in control, girl. And so I learned to adapt and pivot and be flexible and learn that things were still okay, right? I think there was this fear around, will my clients still trust me with high-level decisions, right? Will they still trust me? Are they going to question my capacity or my ability or my expertise because I have this chronic illness and I have to deal with these things sometimes, right? But it really taught me, like, some things just take time to evolve. And I realized I've never been a CEO. Before. I started a business, right? But when I started that business, it was from survival. It was from a need of like, I just left a 15-year corporate career and I want to still contribute to my family, right? I still want to do meaningful work, but I need to do it in a way that allows me to take care of myself at the same I don't know what that looks like. I'd never had a chronic illness before then. I had never run a business before then. I was never a CEO before then. And I think sometimes we come down so hard on ourselves, we don't extend ourselves the same grace that we give to others. And so for me, a huge part of that was my mother, my husband. My mom is like, she's the one that's like, how would you know? You've never done this before. And I would be like, that is very true.

Yeah, yeah.

I think— so I was like, OK, I have to learn. I have to learn. And so I committed to learning, right? Researching. And realized once I started working behind the scenes in people's businesses, I think this is what really gave me— I don't know the word for it, Nikita, but I think this is what helped me to get settled with it. They didn't know what they were doing either. They just looked good on the front part. And I was like, oh, we all trying to figure it out.

Exactly. Exactly. Absolutely. Uh-huh. Yes.

So you've got to give yourself grace. You've got to let time. But I think you need to commit to learning. Right? And adapting, you're going to learn as you grow, especially if you are a woman of color with a chronic illness running a business. As things happen, you're going to learn, oh, OK. You know, a 3-day hospital stay taught me that, oh, you need to have a system in place for this. Because if I'm in the hospital for 3 days, but people are inquiring about working with me, if I go 3 days without responding, I'm— You basically can say that's a, that's lost, that's a lost opportunity. And so I was like, oh, I need to have systems in place. So there is an autoresponder that responds on my behalf and can keep the process rolling, right? They can— I'm responding, they can schedule the meeting, and then by the time the meeting comes, I'm up and available. Yeah. And so those were the things that time taught me.

Time teaching you. You know, we can't get time back, but I feel like it's a, it's a big waste of time if we don't learn from the time we are, we've already had, right? We don't look back and filter some of those decisions that's going forward that will affect your time, capacity, energy. Then to me, that's truly like a devaluing of your time. Absolutely. When I hear you talk about setting up systems, and this comes into your world of what you do, right? Like, this is what you help people with. When you see people who are in that space of scaling from where they were to where they're trying to go, what are some things that you feel that people miss often that needs to be in place for allowing their capacity to grow? Along with their business, like growth as well. I find like a lot of people think about capacity so fixed. We hear that a lot in marketing and I'm like, oh, you just need to increase your capacity. I'm like, but that has to happen over time. Right? Like it doesn't happen every— it's not a, it's not a line in the sand that just stays there. Right? So when you're looking at people's systems and they want to do this, what are systems in their personal life that they need to actually also consider in order to see that expansion in their business? That's the question I really meant to ask.

Yeah, but I love this question, and I love what you said, right? Because what does increase your capacity really mean, and which type of capacity are we talking about?

Okay, I had a whole— I had a whole Soul episode on this, y'all. Y'all can go check them out in the show. I think it's and the 2:10, 2:20. Yes, girl, we talked about this. Exactly.

You know what I'm saying? What are we talking about? And so that's the first thing we have to recognize is when I say my capacity, what am I referring to? Because I may have time capacity, but I may not have mental capacity. I may have time capacity, but I may not have physical. Capacity. This is very true for us as Black women who deal with chronic illness. So I may have all the time in the world, but my body is like, have a seat. Okay. My mind is like, you so overwhelmed, what you going to do? You going to sit there for 60 minutes staring off into space? Like, what we doing? And so what does that look like? And so one of the biggest things that I see people miss is understanding why am I scaling, what am I scaling to, what are the things in my business that I need to be focused on first, right? How do we operate, right? You want to put a process in place that you don't fully understand it, you don't really fully understand what all goes into it. You have this shiny new syndrome. Oh, so-and-so implemented X, Y, and Z to do their email marketing, or, you know, X, Y, and Z. But you haven't sat down to look at what that looks like. So you first need to define what are those workflows, how do we work, and then what needs to be put in place and looking at it holistically, right? So for me as a solopreneur at that time, it was, okay, what is the goal? I want to be responsive. I want to still move business along. I want to look like a full functioning company that is not solely dependent on me. Like, I don't want anybody on the outside to know that it's just me be behind these things doing 55 things. And so it was like, what is the journey I wanted the client to have? And I mapped the journey first and then built the process and then implemented the system to go with it so that it worked around where I was going, what I wanted to do, and included what I needed in the process. And so we have to do those things. We also have to have conversations if we're working with teams or partners or whomever. We have to have those conversations with the people who are actually doing the work. So if you have a team, you can't implement without them. You can't scale without their feedback because you're creating unnecessary stress on the back end and you don't know if they have the capacity. Mm-hmm. And so when we look at that, especially when we're adding new clients to the mix, we're talking to our team to say, what is your true capacity? And I'm not just talking about time. Are you mentally able to do this right now? Because some of you are caring for aging parents, right? Some of you have 3 school-age children at home, right? Like, what is really happening? Sometimes it's a personal thing that you're going through. It could be finances are super tight right now, and that's creating a lot of anxiety. Where are you right now in your real capacity to be able to do this work? And so people need to really sit down and look at your business holistically. Where are the gaps? What is the journey you want the person on the other side to experience and build from there? The thing— there's this thing that I used to hear all the time, Nikita Williams. Success loves speed.

Oh, oh yes. Or another version of it is, um, build the plane as you jump off or something like that. I never— I'm horrible at these. Everybody knows it's a thing of— I don't know, but it's like something like that, like build the plane as you're like jumping off the cliff or something.

And I'm like, yeah. And I'm like, I said it loves it until you crash and burn.

That part, Gwendolyn, that part.

Because you're so busy thinking about speed, speed, speed, you're implementing, implementing, implementing, doing, doing, doing. But the person on the other side is harmed. How is that success?

And the person on the other side is— and so are you. Like, it's equally— y'all both being harmed at this point.

It's like, I'm like, can we just pause for 5 minutes and think about this? Like, 5 minutes. Can we just stop and pause and think about what is our true intent and what is it that we really want to happen? And then can we build it? It may take us an extra 5 days. Yeah, that is worth it to me, right? If it doesn't create more chaos, more stress, people working for 24 hours straight, which creates more errors, and now they burned out.

Exactly. Or you are ready to burn your business down by the end of it, or your body says, I can't ever launch or do this ever again. It will literally self-sabotage you from ever accomplishing that big goal that you sacrifice speed for.

I'm like, what is the price we're willing to pay for speed?

That is a great question. Everybody, write it down.

Great question.

What are we doing?

And so for me, I'm like, OK, Lord, you telling me I ain't going to be successful because I don't move at the speed of lightning, right? Because to me, there's a difference between being responsive and just like, trying to put something out, put something out to keep up with whatever the marketplace is doing. Yeah.

And I think—

I don't operate that way.

I think the reason why we all like lean into that comes from a space of scarcity. It comes from the space of— That's good. —survival thinking, right? Like that's survival mode thinking. That's scarcity operation. Like that's what that is. And it works until it doesn't.

Yeah, you, you pay the price eventually somehow.

And I agree with you. I, I've heard so many podcast episodes, and I was listening to an older IMO, the Michelle Obama and her brother podcast, um, and they did an episode with Taraji P. Is it Taraji P. Henson? Is that her last name? Taraji. Yeah, Taraji. And She was— she was talking— they were talking about this concept of, you know, working really hard and grinding it out and why mental health just in general in the Black community has been such a faux pas. Shh, shh, shh. And we just grind it, hustle, and we've glorified all of these things, right? But at the same time, we're like dying literally from mental health situations and just like just struggling to live. And part of the reason, you know, they mentioned in the episode was the world didn't care. So we felt like it wasn't important, but that's not what it actually meant. Like our, our, you know, our mental health is just as important. Other people just made us believe that it wasn't important. Other people made us believe that, oh, we're stronger and we can push through and we can do all of these things. And what you're experiencing doesn't matter, but they will never care until we care. And I was like, that's a, That's something to keep in mind because your audience— and the same thing in your business— if you can't take care of you, how can they trust you to take care of them?

Absolutely. And if they don't care that you're not taking care of you, they're probably not taking care of themselves. And if they are, it's probably to somebody else's detriment. And so it's like, I want to be connected to people who share that same value, right? They share that value that rest is important, right? They share that value that, that your mental health and wellness is important. They share that value with me. And, and I think once we make that decision for ourselves that it's important, then it becomes important to the people that we align with. And at the very least, they learn to respect it. Exactly.

Yeah, I agree. I wonder, Gwendolyn, for you, have you found that this approach— and to me, this really is an approach, right, in business, a values-driven business, um, around what we're talking about right now— is align capacity decisions slowing down so you can go fast, uh, taking care of yourself and rest as a priority, not a maybe suggestion, has either hindered or made it more difficult or made it— made you more creative in how you show up? And how has that positively or negatively affected your business?

I think there's been a little bit of both positive and negative, if I'm honest., right? There have been clients where they're like, you just don't move fast enough for me. Okay, it's a blow, but I'm like, do I really want to kill myself for you? Like, are you paying me enough to kill myself? Like, to be like that, right? Like, there— I literally had a client one time, Nikita Williams, who said, well, you know, the, um, executive assistants in the startup world that's working with our clients, they respond in 5 minutes every time they get an email. And I said, that's amazing.

That's such an awesome response. I did.

I said, that is amazing. I said, and they're being paid $90,000 to $120,000 a year, and they have one person to focus on. So that is perfect. Yes. I said, that is not how I work. And if that is what you need, then you can pay me $125,000 a year, or we can just call it quits and you can go find the person who will do that for you. And he was just like, did she really just say that to me? And so it was a— that was a negative and a positive, right? It was scary to say that. I had never I guess so-called fired a client before, but it wasn't worth it. I could feel the stress in my body every time I got an email, every time I got a phone call, my body would just be like, oh my gosh, right? And then I was working from this place of constant fear and second-guessing myself. Am I moving fast enough? Blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, I can't. Like, this is just adding on to everything else that I got going on, and I can't do it. But the stronger I got in recognizing that and putting those boundaries in place, I started to get clients who were aligned. And it's been amazing, right? And they're like, no, you need to take the time. I just had a client just came back from Kersau. I was getting ready to leave. I'm like, okay, let's make sure you got all your things together. And she was like, girl, go be on vacation. She's like, don't think about me. Like, don't call me. She's like, don't text me. She's like, I'm going to be OK until you come back, right? And now I have a whole roster of clients who are like, oh, you finna be gone? Cool. I'll see you when you get back. Yeah. And so I think it's a matter of knowing what we need, right? Being courageous enough to hold the line with our boundaries and clearly communicating that with our people, right? So you put things in place to help make it easier, right? We do quarterly reminders. Remember, Gwen's going to be gone and so-and-so, right? If you need something, get it to her by X, Y, and Z deadline, right? You put those things in place. But I release the fear of that, like, people are not going to want to work with me. I release the fear of like, I'm not going to be able to do— like, I just released the fear. And I'm like, either we can work together, because what I'm not saying is that I'm not going to serve you well. What I'm saying is I will serve you better if you allow me the space to rest and do what I need to do to take care of myself. And so it became easier for me. And so I started to turn those boundaries into official processes and systems, right? It's in our onboarding welcome email. Hey, we want to let you know we observe every federal holiday. Don't look for us, right? Hey, at the end of the year, we take a 2-week winter break so that the team can rest and reset. So don't look for us after December 18th, 19th. We'll see you in the new year, right? We learned to communicate these things early, but I'm not apologizing for it. Ooh.

Oh, so I'm still working on that. The apologizing part I have from the start of my business, for sure, for sure. The reason we start, just like you mentioned at the beginning, is like, I know I cannot run a business as if I don't have a chronic illness. It doesn't work. It didn't work working in a business for somebody else, building their dream. It didn't work then, and it's definitely not going to work the other way around. So I have been, personally, I have definitely led with, you know, this is my boundaries. This is what it is. But there's always that little, I call her a little Kita girl in the background saying, yes, but they're, they, they're going to need you. Or like you, you're like, there's that little bit of you. I've worked on it for over 8 years. It's gotten a lot quieter. I don't focus too much on it. When I hear her, I'm just like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. You'll be all right. Let's go. Really? Because it's not going to help, but for someone who is listening and also feeling like, but you guys tell your clients that you're not going to be available for 2 weeks or this or that, and they're okay with it and they still pay you and they still refer you and you still have business coming in. Yeah. How did you get there? Like how, what are some steps someone would need to take right now? Who is having that hard within themselves to be like, I deserve to have these boundaries in space and place for my business and for my clients. And it doesn't automatically mean that I'm just like going to fail.

Yes. Yes. So I think the first part is exactly what you said, Nikita Williams Williams. Talking to yourself. Telling yourself, I deserve this. I am worth this. I don't need to earn my rest, right? I don't need to earn the opportunity to take care of me. That's the first thing. We got to continue to do that mindset work because that little voice still comes up. I'm 12 years in, and she'll still show up. And I'm like— Shush. But then the second thing is identify what it is that you need, right? Like, really spend some time and sit with what is it that I need in my business? What does that look like for me, right? 2 weeks off at the end of the year is what that looks like for me, because at the end of my fourth quarter, this chick is exhausted and she like, baby, If y'all don't let her go somewhere and not talk to the people, y'all is not going to like her very much. Okay? That's what works for me. And again, we built up to that, right? That's not something that we came out the gate doing. That was earning the trust of the clients, delivering great work over and over and over again, right? That was communicating. So also make sure that you have a clear communication process., right? We communicate very early in the year. So it's January. Our clients are already aware that we're going to be off in December, right? They're already aware of all the dates that are coming up. And we don't just do it one time. We say it over and over and over again, right? So you want to work on your mindset. You want to understand what is really important to you. What is it that you need? Define that. And then put processes in place, have clear conversations with your clients, right? We took the time to understand how does us taking 2 weeks off at the end of the year impact our clients and their work, right?

And we learned they ain't here either. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it was like I've been worrying about being off for 2 weeks, and they not even here because they gone too. Mm-hmm. So then again, it aligns. So we have to have conversations so that we can understand what it is, because sometimes we tell ourselves these stories, right? We can't do it. It's not going to work. And that may not be the case. If we have the conversation, we learn what's important to them, and then we adapt and build around it., right? Maybe you don't start with 2 weeks. Maybe you start with 4 days, a long weekend, right? Yeah. Maybe you start with 1 week. But what's important to your clients, right? Are your processes and systems in place that will allow you to be off for that period of time, right? What is the— set the standard, right? Our team knows that before that last day, whether it's December 18th or 19th, Your task list should be clear. You should have communicated with your clients before then. All of your projects are cemented, right? All of that has to be done. So we built these processes in place. So you've got to deal with your mindset. You have to know what it is that you need for you, not looking at anybody else's business, right? What do you need in your business? What do you need for you. And then clear communication with the people that you are serving. You will be surprised at how gracious people are when they know.

Yes. When you set the expectation, you set the— you set the what-if, you set the like, if this happens, this will happen. If this doesn't happen, this will happen. Like, you set it up right. Absolutely.

And you, and you start small, right? You start small. You start with, let me test the waters with 2 days and see how that goes, right? You make sure that your client still has everything they need. There's an autoresponder on their email to say, hey, I'm out until X, Y, and Z, so that even the people that are responding with me on the client's behalf, they're clear and they understand. Right? So you start small. Yeah, take the risk and trust yourself. Trust, trust that the people that you support, that you work with, that you partner with, are just as much invested in your well-being as you are in theirs. And that kind of genuinely surprised—

yeah, and that goes back to what you said earlier, is like when those boundaries come in place, those values, the way you market, the way you show up. Yes, there's going to be— maybe they're going to be more nos to clients. That's— yeah, some people might consider that a negative. I feel like that's just alignment. That's just alignment in practice. Like, it's just happening. So you might have to let a client go because it doesn't work. But that's just like every relationship that we have in the world with doctors, with our spouses, or like, there are boundaries in place. And sometimes there is there is a consequence. My mom used to say— says this— used to say this to me all the time, which is like, there's bad consequences for the perfect decision. You cannot— you cannot negate that there's going to be some kind of fallout in the way that doesn't always work the way you think it does. But that doesn't mean it was a bad decision. It doesn't mean it was a bad value. It doesn't mean that your business is going to fall apart. It just means that people are people.

Absolutely. And Here's the thing, think about the way other businesses operate, right? This was a big thing for me. I started looking at other businesses. I was like, oh, Walmart ain't opening the doors at 5 AM just because that's the time I need to go get something. They like, no, we open at so-and-so, right? The gym is like, you gotta pay us every month whether you come 1 day or 31 days, but we want the same amount of money because we made the resources and the access available to you, right? And I was like, so why do we as entrepreneurs, small businesses, women of color, think that we have to now downgrade what we need and the way that we work to accommodate somebody else? Mm-hmm. Why do we do that? We can do good business and still have boundaries. Yes, we can still do good business and need to rest.

And it's not— it's like, it's not— it's not an option, right?

Because for us, we like we can work together to do this, or my body is gonna be like, she tried to tell you. That part.

Okay, Gwendolyn, our body will say, we'll sit you down if you don't want to be sat down. That's fine, you can do that. We'll see you. You'll see what that looks like in a couple of days.

Yes, because this body is gonna tell the truth no matter what. Like, it ain't negotiating. There's no, okay, like, can this be the hard day tomorrow instead of today? Like, it's not negotiating, right? Right. It's like, no, I showed up today, and that's what it is. And you're like, oh, okay. And so we have to allow it to sharpen our vision. Sharpen what we need, right? That's instead of shrinking. I will say this for me. I won't say we, but I will say for me, in the beginning, it was like I thought dealing with this chronic illness, I had to shrink myself. I was somehow less worthy. Oh, you get me emotional, Nikita Williams Williams. Somehow less capable because of this, right? And I'm not. You're not. Your audience isn't, right? Allow it to sharpen us, to sharpen the vision, to sharpen the processes we put in place, sharpen our discernment of the people we want to align ourselves with, right?

There we go. Yep, that part is true.

Yeah, it's so true because for us, we have to build in a way that our bodies and our minds and our spirits can survive.

Yeah, we have to. We— and I, it's the same reason why, like, for me, I think about, like, just like in a corporate environment I have literally been in a job where I felt like if I don't leave this job, I will literally die. Like every aspect of me will die. It caused so much more physical pain, more depression, more all of these things. And it's like, is that really worth it? Mm-hmm. And if we're building our businesses with that same mentality of like, I can just push through all of this, at some point you will not. And it will break you. It will break you. And you are, you're worth more than allowing something like that to break you. You know, and I, I love that you shared that, like, let it sharpen you. I like, I always say, let it clarify and allow you to leverage, right? Because to me, I feel like the fact that I have chronic illness has made me a better business owner. Has made me be even more crystal clear on my strengths and how to leverage my weaknesses to increase my strengths. Like, it is just like, okay, this is what it is. And I think as women of color, we do that really well of being like creative and thinking about it. But I don't think we do that as well often with the businesses we're building because we are dealing with a lot of external thoughts and just drama. But I think it still starts with us to rewrite that narrative for our own selves and how we show up. And then that's how things work. And that's what we talked about today. I mean, so many good points here today.

This was so amazing. I am— I'm just full. I'm so glad. I'm so full because I don't think we talk about it enough in this way. Right. And so thank you for creating space and holding space to have this conversation, because I think we are all rock stars, right? Yes, I think we're rock stars. If you tell me we are the cream of the crop, because tell me, you know, who can build a business while negotiating with their body, right? Like That is rockstar material right there, while supporting other people in getting their vision and their mission out into the world. Yeah, that is dope human behavior right there. Dope. I love it.

I need that on a shirt. Dope human behavior. Yes, that is like dope human behavior.

What am I talking about?

I love that. Yes. Well, I appreciate everything that you're doing in the world and bringing in the spaces in the community. I know that, you know, you're building and that you're a part of. Thank you for having— raising your hand. I just— thanks for raising your hand, say, yes, I'll come and talk about these different topics and how it's looked like. I really appreciate you. Please tell everyone who's listening how they can find you, what it is that you can support them with specifically that you're looking for in your business right now. And we'll have all of that information in the show notes and in the emails and all the stuff that we send out.

Awesome. So you guys can find me across all socials at Your Admin Expert. The handle is the same across IG, Facebook, LinkedIn, all the things. Um, you can also visit us on the web at yourvirtualadminexpert.com, and I would love to connect with you and have a conversation if you are a business owner who is overwhelmed or struggling with your backend systems, keeping up with your own time capacity, um, I would love to have a conversation with you. We love to support visionary CEOs in helping them to build infrastructure to protect their time and to build sustainably. And so please seek me out, let's have a conversation. I would love to get to know you. Or if you're just a fellow you know, Black woman who is struggling with this, let's connect to have a virtual coffee or something. Send me a message.

Yes, I love this. Well, thank you again so much for being on and taking time to talk with us. I so appreciate it.

Yes, thank you for having me.

That's a wrap for this episode of Business with Chronic Illness. If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review. It helps more entrepreneurs living with chronic illness and autoimmune disorders find these conversations. You can check the show notes for links, resources, and ways to stay connected. And if you have a question or story you'd like to share, visit craftedtothrive.com to leave a voice message for the podcast. I'd love to hear from you. Until next time, remember, you can build a thriving business without sacrificing your health, your peace, or your profit.