Emily Reuschel: [00:00:00] Those are moments in time, and we should absolutely celebrate them, but our life happens everywhere in between. So one thing that my clients hear me say, till I’m blue in the face, is what does your average Tuesday look like? When you wake up, how are you spending your time? How are you spending your energy?

How do you feel about yourself when your head hits the pillow, what’s your inner dialogue? That is actually our life.

Jade Boyd: Welcome to the business edit podcast, a podcast about redefining productivity for the modern woman in business and finding ways to work smarter, not harder in business and life. I’m your host, Jade Boyd, an MBA business minimalist and productivity coach. I help overwhelmed business owners simplify and scale their service based businesses by doing less but better.

I help my clients create business minimalist strategies and systems that allow them to pursue ambitious goals while working at a human pace. On this. podcast. We’ll explore simple ways to grow your business with a life first approach. [00:01:00] If you’re ready to scale your business, bring order to chaos, ditch the busy work and spend more time living your life than managing your life.

You’ve come to the right place. Welcome to the business edit podcast.

Welcome to the podcast, Emily.

Emily Reuschel: I’m so excited to be here. This has been a long time coming.

Jade Boyd: I know that’s what I was just thinking. I have had you on my mind to invite the podcast for a long time. So it’s exciting that you’re finally here. And for anyone who doesn’t know you yet, I would like to just dive right in because your work is all about helping women kind of come home to themselves.

And I would love for you to share a little bit about your journey and your story of what that’s looked like for you to find alignment in your own life and kind of what has brought you to where you are today and what you do today.

Emily Reuschel: Oh my goodness. Literally, where do we begin? But I think if I had to give an overarching concept that ultimately brought me to where I’m at today, it’s this constant re [00:02:00] evaluation of expectations and priorities and who I am in the absence of what other people told me I needed to be in order to be a good, you know, X, Y, and Z.

And so, you know, if we reel all the way back for me professionally and also personally, I was an elementary school teacher. I taught fourth grade for five years and I thought that was going to be it forever. And no doubt that if that is the path I continue to pursue, I would have a full, beautiful life.

I’m married to a farmer. We live on his multi generational family farm in the middle of nowhere, West Central Illinois, a town of 42 people. And they write country songs about this, right? The teacher and the farmer. And we all live happily ever after. Amen, right? I’m an Enneagram three. I checked all of the boxes.

I went to college. I got the degree. I got the husband. We had babies and life was perfect. According to what everyone else told me, I should win. Until I had a moment of realization of like, I am so obsessed [00:03:00] and grateful for all of these beautiful blessings and also I hate the way that I’m showing up in my life.

You know, I’m exhausted. I’m tired. I’m burnt out. I’m stressed. And so, you know, that led me to a career change in the nonprofit space. I was a program director for our local YMCA, and it was there that I embarked on a health journey that brought me to the world of personal growth and development. And I kind of had this light bulb realization of I can’t be the only you know, mom that lives in the middle of nowhere that’s starting to think about habits and dreams and goals and running a half marathon and reading all of these personal development books. And so that’s ultimately what turned on the lights to bring me to the work that I’m doing today. I did what any sane person did in the middle of the pandemic and I started an Instagram account.

Purely just to connect with other small town gals around those concepts. And a couple of years later took a total leap of faith into the world of entrepreneurship. And since that time, I’ve created a lot of content online. I’m the host of the Gather in Growth podcast. I facilitated a lot of different types [00:04:00] of masterminds in small groups, virtually along with in person retreats and traveling across the country to speak.

And, you know, through that journey have, you know, as you opened up with, have really come home to myself of this continual process of shedding who I thought I needed to be in order to be a successful entrepreneur or who I needed to be as a mom or who I needed to be as whatever. And it’s just been this really beautiful journey through therapy, working with a lot of different coaches and really allowing myself to explore my own journey to release those limiting beliefs, external expectations of who society, our teachers, the church, our neighbors, our peers, like that girl on Instagram, tell us we need to be in order to show up as our full authentic selves.

Jade Boyd: So when we first started talking, I was like, okay, I have a list of questions because I had no idea. There’s so many different directions we could take this conversation. And even in what you just said, I have 20 follow up questions, but I would love to [00:05:00] just dig deeper into that idea of connecting with yourself.

Because I do think so many women are in that state without even recognizing they’re in that state. Like you said, living in denial, like everything’s fine, right? This is the way things should be. I’m good. I should just be grateful for what I have and where I’m at. And not to say that there isn’t a role for contentment and gratitude, but where does someone even start with first recognizing that there’s that disquiet within themselves?

And second, Making changes to actually connect with like, okay, who am I? Regardless of what other people say and what do I actually want regardless of other people telling me what I should want.

Emily Reuschel: Oh my goodness. We could record a whole episode just on this topic. And I have in fact, head over to Gather in Growth. But here’s, here’s what I know is a lot of women in specifically looking at approximately our age demographic and perhaps a little bit older. If you ask the average person, what brings them joy? What do they do for fun? A lot of women can’t answer that question, because we [00:06:00] care so much, we give so much of ourselves to our friends, to our spouses, to our farms, to our businesses, to our careers, to our kids, that we’re so far on the back burner, we’re out of the kitchen.

And so someone asks oh, what makes you happy? And a lot of women are like, I actually don’t know. Or my kid’s going to Soccer just brings me so much joy, and maybe that is true for you, but, you know, and for me, I had this moment of realization of I’ve checked all of the boxes and I am really grateful for my life.

But at the time, I didn’t have the language for the level of burnout that I was experiencing or really what I was internally going through and I turned it back on myself from a place of shame. Why can’t you just be happy? Why can’t you just get your shit together? This used to be so easy. Look, you have so many things.

People would do anything to have your life. And instead of getting curious around where is this misalignment coming from and what changes can I make around it? I see a lot of women sink themselves deeper into shame of just be happy. Just be grateful. And I [00:07:00] was grateful. And my life was great.

But, you know, One of many times that I’ve actually leaned in to trust that there is something else that’s meant for me. So from a really tactical standpoint, the way I like to approach goal setting with my clients is kind of backwards compared to what I have seen represented a lot of other places.

A lot of times when we think about goal setting we’re like, Where do you see yourself in five years? What, you know, or where do you see yourself in the next quarter? Let’s hash out all the goals and That all has a time and a place. But what I see a lot of women do myself included, it’s just arbitrarily start picking something that we think is going to get us further down the checklist or that we’ve seen someone else do, or that we think is going to change the way that we feel about ourselves, right?

If I just launched this program, if I write the book, if I lose 20 pounds, once we get married, once we have the kid, once we move into the house, whatever it is, and those are all good and fine and well, but so often, consciously or subconsciously, they’re rooted in other people’s expectations. So I like to scrap all of that out the window to begin with.

And I like to start with the question, [00:08:00] wouldn’t it be cool if, and just give yourself a blank piece of paper and set a timer for no joke, 10 or 15 minutes and write the whole. time. And it will be very uncomfortable if you’ve never done anything like this before. But throw all the rules out the window of, you know, your education, what’s possible because of your kids, or how much money you have.

wouldn’t it be cool if, and this could be, you wake up tomorrow and these things are true. This could be 90 years from now looking back on your life. Wouldn’t it be cool if, through the lens of your relationships, the way you feel about yourself, your bank account, your career, your body, your marriage, whatever that looks like.

Wave a magic wand. What would you love to be true? And then from there, I have a lot of different activities that we can actually pull on threads from that to bring it down to tangible goals because it is really important to have that concrete goal. And then here are the action steps attached to it.

But I have found that that simple activity really helps us tap into what’s below the [00:09:00] surface. What are those core desires for the way we want to experience the world on a day to day basis? Right? , we hit these, these goal milestones, you know, marriage, baby, house launch the business, get the promotion, buy the land, whatever.

Those are moments in time, and we should absolutely celebrate them, but our life happens everywhere in between. So one thing that my clients hear me say, till I’m blue in the face, is , what does your average Tuesday look like? When you wake up, how are you spending your time? How are you spending your energy?

How do you feel about yourself when your head hits the pillow? what’s your inner dialogue? Like, that is actually our life.

Jade Boyd: I love how you brought it back to the average Tuesday because I think often when we dream or have these big visions for what I want my life to look like, even if you’re having that moment of realization of , Oh, this is what I actually want. Sometimes we also burn ourselves out pursuing that, right?

And don’t take into account, not only what is my life [00:10:00] going to look like. Once that is true, but also what does it look like as I pursue that goal? And so I would love to hear your perspective from, you know, the burnout perspective of what it actually takes to make our dreams come true without burning ourselves out in the process.

Emily Reuschel: Yes, this is something I have gotten a crash course in. You know, I burned myself out in education, and then I burned myself out in my second career, and then I jumped into my business and accidentally did the exact same thing. You know, and in retrospect, I wouldn’t change the way it panned out because it ultimately taught me the lessons and set me on the trajectory that makes me really good at what I do now, but I jumped straight into this and I need to make money.

I need to prove that I can do this. I need to show everyone that I’m not crazy. And I just like launching programs, one on one coaching, launched the website, launched the podcast, rebranded the habit challenge. I did so many things where I got to this point of , this is all good and fine and well, but again, I now hate this.

I have recreated this burnout for myself and I have a lot of [00:11:00] gratitude for that time because it is what got me into therapy and seeking functional health and actually asking for help and admitting I did not want to exist in my life and in my business any longer where I was just constantly rushing to try to check all of the boxes in order to be good enough at whatever it is.

And I won’t say that I have navigated the perfect formula for it. But I have done a lot of work over the last couple of years to really untangle where these expectations are coming from, like untangling a very unhealthy addiction to approval and achievement as a means of earning love. You know, but when we’re addicted to things like, You know, drugs or gambling, things like that, we can see it like, oh, that’s negative. That’s not healthy. But when achievers do really impressive things, we celebrate them. We double down on it. Oh my gosh, look what’s on her resume. She gives so much to everyone, she’s so accomplished and it [00:12:00] is great and can be inspiring, but if it’s coming from a place of lack and scarcity and needing to earn love, that is also deeply unhealthy.

And so I’ve really had to navigate over the past couple of years, especially with throwing an unexpected baby into the mix of like, what does my day look like where I’m feeling really good about the work that I’m doing? I’m making the kind of money that I want to make. I’m serving in the way that I want to serve while also prioritizing my physical, mental, and emotional health, my energetic boundaries and building my business in a way that’s sustainable and supports my nervous system for a long time.

,God willing, I want to be doing this work forever. And I have no doubt that it will evolve in 200 different directions over the rest of my life, but , I don’t want to feel the way that I have felt in other periods of time, so it’s a continuous work in progress, but I also have a lot of comfort around that, because as I change, as my circumstances change, as my energy changes, I’m willing [00:13:00] to follow that, and I know that in the periods of time where I you know, maybe scale less and have less on my calendar, it has no, you know, effect on the outcome of the totality of my life or my business. there are truly seasons for everything.

Jade Boyd: Mhm. I’m very curious as somebody who’s grown, I mean, quite a big audience for you going back to what you said about separating your identity and your worth from achievements and other people’s approval. And I feel like social media is just designed to have, you know, those dopamine hits and the social approval and for business owners, that can be a really dangerous line to walk of how am I showing up to serve other people, but also disconnecting how I feel about myself or how I feel about my worthiness from how big this post gets, or how people react to the things that I have to say about my niche. And as someone who creates content and has a lot of eyes, and I’m sure a lot of comments and feedback [00:14:00] from the pieces of content you create, I’m curious what that journey has looked like for you and if you have any advice for business owners who are struggling or are hearing this and being like, Oh yeah, I really love other people’s approval.

Emily Reuschel: yeah, it is. It’s hard. Let’s just let’s just call it that. I think for me, and I’m sure that there’s better language for this if someone listening to this is in the realm of psychology, there’s probably better names for this. But here’s how it makes sense for me is like, there is this conscious knowing I have of , the number of likes doesn’t matter. You know, I’m saying what’s true for me. I’m doing the very best that I can. I have disconnected and untangled this worthiness complex. I’m going to be okay. And then there’s also this subconscious driver that pops out.

It’s like, Oh my God, everybody hates you. You suck at life. This tends to align with your cycle, by the way. But for me, I think a lot of it has come, a lot of the confidence that I have around that has come on the other side of doing some really intentional work of like, who am I in the [00:15:00] absence of how other people perceive me or how other people need me or how I show up for other people.

And that’s including my husband and my children and my friends. who am I at my core? What are my values at my core regardless? For a while I went through this huge complex of how I needed to show up based on how other people were going to perceive me, right? Like working with a client one on one or in a small group setting or from the stage or in my friendships or even as a mom you know, as an Enneagram three, I felt like I had all of these masks that I was wearing and my therapist really helped me you know, unravel that and figure out what is true for me regardless of what I’m doing and just understanding that I know that it is required to have different energy for those situations. But that was part of the coming home of who am I regardless of what situation I’m showing up in.

Jade Boyd: So speaking of what you know to be true of yourself, just to give us an example of , what does that even look [00:16:00] like? What are the things that you tell yourself or the things that you discovered are true of yourself or the things that you can hold on to as far as your identity goes that are not achievements?

Emily Reuschel: Oh, this is such a good question. I wish I had my notebook from that original therapy session. Okay, here’s actually a really, Simple example. When my husband and I originally renovated our house in 2019, we made it gray and white like Joanna Gaines would be so proud.

Like millennial gray, aesthetic. We freaking nailed it and so many people will walk in our house and be like, it’s so pretty It looks like a magazine and I loved it, right? And in this process of coming home to myself first of all like getting my colors done through house of color and other things Like that I realized wow, I have actually always loved really bright vibrant things and my closet three or four years ago was black, navy, gray, olive, brown, like basically from what I was [00:17:00] wearing to what I was looking at on a day to day basis, I had just tried to erase any part of my personality that set me different or made me stand out in any way.

If you meet me in real life, I am an incredibly high energy, infectious. positive, sunshiny person. And so to be, like, physically wearing things that are so the opposite of that, looking back was such a juxtaposition. But I had absorbed this mentality that showing up in a big, bold way wasn’t safe and that people wouldn’t like it, and it’s just easier to blend in than be weird or stand out. And now you can’t see it on video, but I have a literal sunset rainbow wall in my office. Like I am a walking talking bag of Skittles. And it is just so prevalent in my brand and in my personality now that people see super bright colors and sunsets and send me pictures like this looks like you.

Right? But I know that in whatever situation I’m in, I’m a deeply [00:18:00] empathetic person. I can see multiple sides to just about any situation. I can apply critical thinking to take in information from a huge variety of perspectives and synthesize it in a way that makes sense for me. I’m a person that can connect with someone on a soul level really quickly and deeply.

Like we go straight in and people will be like, I don’t even know how you drew that out or saw that piece of me. And I think, you know, just even going back to the expectations, like I used to struggle a little bit as a speaker because I felt like I needed to have this really rigid outline for my keynote or for a workshop or something like that, but every single time that I have tried to use slides in a speaking engagement, I get all kinds of jumbled up and messed up because I’m a deeply intuitive person and Whatever comes out is what’s meant to come out and I can read the energy and change the energy of a room whether it is in a group of friends or in a you know, small virtual group [00:19:00] or in a room of 400 and anytime I try to stick to this super rigid outline, I do not do my best work.

So I guess those are just some, some examples of You know, kind of the ways that I have really figured out who I am and how I show up that are different than what I was told,

Jade Boyd: Mm hmm.

Emily Reuschel: either intentionally or did that I just societally absorbed as being the right way to do things.

Jade Boyd: It’s so funny going back to the house of color thing because for me it was the exact opposite feeling like I should wear my colors and don’t get me wrong I do love color sometimes but I feel most myself I mean look where I am I have like white walls neutral furniture I’m wearing tan and black and white stripes.

And this is how I feel most myself, but I felt pressure in the opposite direction of like, don’t be boring, choose something with more personality, you know, but this is how I feel most myself and most comfortable. And I love what you said also about recognizing what you’re good [00:20:00] at, because especially as business owners, I mean, everybody is telling you what works, right?

If you want to achieve this, this is how I did it. If you want to achieve that. That’s what you should do. And just filtering all of the advice that we’re giving through that lens of , okay, that worked for that person and their business, but why? And will that actually work for me and my business or not?

And I think that’s so important to point out. When we’re applying, like, okay, who are we apart from our businesses? You don’t have to step into what you think a business owner should look like to run a successful business. And when you do so many business owners have that experience of like, oh, wow. I just feel so inauthentic and salesy.

I don’t like what I’m doing anymore. It’s not working. And then they burn out.

Emily Reuschel: Yeah. And honestly, if I look back in my business, everything that has worked the best has been when I was doing something with no context and information or how I should like the harder I have double drowned to try to follow someone else’s plan, the more misaligned [00:21:00] I have felt along the way.

And that’s really where I’ve kind of found my sweet spot. in the way that I coach and what my business looks like is like, I’m not the coach who has the 10 step program. Here’s the steps that you need to follow in order to do whatever. I know my magic comes from being able to sit in intimate conversations with someone or a group of people and draw out to get them closer to who they really are and how they really want to show up and what unique gifts they bring to the world.

And that’s just, you know, my special sauce. I don’t know why I was going to say that. That’s a weird thing to say, is like not the plan, but for some other people, like that does make sense. And that is what they need. And there truly is a seasonality to what that looks like.

Jade Boyd: Speaking of seasonality, another thing that we’re both passionate about is honoring the season that you’re in and, recognizing, okay, this is a season, which is really annoying to say and really annoying to tell ourselves. But what advice do you have for women who are kind of, struggling to either [00:22:00] accept their current season or actually enjoy the season that they’re in?

Emily Reuschel: you know just as soon as I was starting to unpack all of this and be like, okay there’s a season for everything. And like, maybe I need to slow down or scale back or reevaluate what my life looks like. I think, like I said, I unexpectedly got pregnant with our third and it was the first pregnancy I did experience as a business owner and it forced me to walk the talk in like really scaling back to the bare minimum in my business. What do I need to do to show up to keep this thing afloat? I do not have one ounce of capacity for any level of forward thinking. It is the best that I can do to show up for the calls that I have and record a podcast episode probably five days late.

You know which was really hard. Especially as someone who has always. You know, just tried to do the best and make everyone [00:23:00] happy and burn myself out so bad. And it was such a beautiful gift to learn that. And then after she was born, just as I thought, okay, I’m like a gonna be getting my life together.

Now our house flooded. We had 38, 000 gallons of water go through our house over Christmas while we were gone. And everything. I mean, had to totally redo our house while living in a haunted cabin with no Wi Fi or cell phone service with a four and six year old and a two month old baby. And so talk about running an online business without cell phone service or Wi Fi for two months. It was like, okay, wow. I really do not have the time energy or capacity to do 90% of my to-do lists. What is the path of least resistance to be able to tell people that these programs exist and convert?

And it was there that I realized that so many of the things that I thought I needed to do, like actually didn’t, not that they didn’t matter, but they weren’t necessary. [00:24:00] I had the biggest monetary launch, up to that date, in the week after our house flooded

Jade Boyd: Mm hmm.

Emily Reuschel: with the least amount of effort I’d ever put forth towards anything.

I mean, not that there wasn’t the compound of years of work leading up to it. you know, if we look to the natural world. Duh. We are nature. Like, we think we’re separate from nature. We are nature. Nature doesn’t summer all the time. We go through periods of winter where we are quiet and dormant and introspective.

And that’s kind of what that season was for me of , I’m just kind of internal. I’m processing a lot. And then all of a sudden there is, we have a spring where like the seeds are being planted the sun shining a little bit more. We have a little bit more capacity. We’re kind of warming up and then We have these beautiful summers where like the fruits of our labor where you’re so high energy. We have all these new ideas, new perspectives, and we have the gumption to bring it to fruition. And then we kind of had this cycle where we’re, you know, becoming more autumn. We’re letting things go. We’re shedding what’s no longer serving us. We’re kind of like burning [00:25:00] everything to the ground and going internal again.

And you know, in the years that I’ve been in business, I can recognize these cycles within myself. But, you know, if we’re looking at a patriarchal system of productivity. We should be on all the time. We should be outputting at the same level, right? If we’re in a corporate environment, like that’s not run on a cyclical nature.

It’s like, what’s the highest level of output that you can produce in a single day week? quarter year, right? And so deconditioning that and really embracing the seasonality in ourselves, like in our monthly cycle on a day to day basis or within, you know, several months or years of our business has been so life giving to me to just understand, , I don’t have to output all of the time, there are things that I will continue doing and showing up for, but not every season of business is for explosive growth or massive new ideas and implementation, like in order to be really good at what I do, [00:26:00] I have to nurture my seasonality and embrace it and therefore give a lot of other women permission to do the same.

Jade Boyd: A friend was talking about how their workplace doesn’t let them get off for like the day before Christmas. It was either Christmas Eve or something around the holidays. I can’t remember what day it was. And I was just saying , what employer thinks that their employees are going to show up on Christmas Eve and be super productive? Like what is the point? But then as business owners, I feel like we do shove ourselves into that same cycle of like, if I have work hours, of course I’m going to be productive and get things done. So the more work hours I schedule on my calendar, the more productive I’m going to be.

And it just does not work like that. Productivity is definitely not linear. And I love your description of each of the seasons, like the natural seasons, but then as women, I feel like, you know, this, like they correlate to our cycles in the seasons that we go through every month. And it is so hard to try to be consistently productive.

However, you [00:27:00] quantify that, like the amount of work you’re outputting each month or each week or each hour, because it changes, but we do tell ourselves, at least I struggle with this, if I have an off day, it’s like, Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you wasted that amount of time, especially now when the time is more limited.

And when you’re actually able to accept the season that you’re in, which is something that I’ve also struggled with. When we’re talking about seasons of business, like you said, there’s that season where you’re just kind of like, okay, what the heck have I

Emily Reuschel: Yeah.

Jade Boyd: now it’s time to pivot again. And you and I have talked about this a lot, how you think that when you’re in business, once you reach that milestone, you’re like, oh yeah, once I get there, that’s the thing.

And then you realize that you know nothing and you have a whole different business and you’re almost like a newbie again, trying to do something even more challenging for the first time. And so there’s no magical season. That’s going to be better or easier. And so accepting , okay, this is the season I’m in.

It’s the only season that you get to enjoy. So nothing is going to be the better version or the easier [00:28:00] version. It’s just going to be different. So you have to, you have to just accept , this is my season and this is the only time I truly get to enjoy. So how am I going to enjoy it?

Emily Reuschel: Yeah. And I think the longer I’ve been in this, the less personally I take it when I’m in different types of seasons. Like I think entrepreneurship kind of comes through this spiral or rollercoaster of , Oh my gosh, I’m changing the world. This is so good. Look at all this money and all this impact and I’m on fire and I’m so aligned.

Then a couple of days later, you’re like, ah, what am I even doing with my life? Would it just be easier if I got a job? Like nobody wants this. Everybody hates me. Again, you’re probably about to start your period. But you know, one thing I’ve coached a lot of my clients through is that spiral doesn’t necessarily go away.

There is no magical making it in life or in business or in your career. We are constantly evolving and ebbing and flowing, and I think that once we start to feel that tension of , something’s not right, instead of taking it personally and be like, oh, I’m really bad at what I do. It’s leading with the [00:29:00] curiosity of what is this trying to tell me? Is this something new that I meant to explore? Is this like a whole nother program or offer or content that idea that I meant to explore? And just actually feeling those feelings. I know, right? And letting them move through us rather than trying to band aid them or immediately fix it to make it better I think it just changes our bandwidth and the speed at which we move through those cycles or ride the roller coaster, right? I just don’t take it as personally now when I’m having a quote unquote off day as I did in, you know, my first couple of months or even year of business.

Jade Boyd: Mm hmm. I think adopting that mindset of just being curious about what you’re feeling instead of , like you said, trying to shove it down or like, I’m just not going to think about it or I don’t want to feel that way, so I’m not going to go there, but actually just getting curious of, okay, I’m having this inkling that this doesn’t feel right.

Why? It’s such a simple, but yet it’s such a hard question, [00:30:00] especially when you don’t want to know the answer.

Emily Reuschel: Yeah. Well, I mean, systemically, we have been taught to not feel our feelings. I mean, this is going down a whole nother rabbit hole, but like, you know, stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about or whatever. Just that kind of stuff is so deeply ingrained in us that when we feel discomfort, we immediately feel shame or we feel guilt or we feel wrong or we feel bad.

And it’s like, you know, if you look at my toddler or even my five year old, when they are experiencing a negative emotion, their bodies feel it to the full extent. They’re kicking, they’re screaming, they’re crying, like that is their body’s way of moving the emotion through them and re regulating and then like five minutes later they’re fine, right?

But we have, you know, so many women in this generation have learned to internalize and stuff down our feelings. And so, We don’t like the discomfort because it turns into shame and that we hold on to it. Then we wonder why we’re so chronically stressed and burnt out and sick and frustrated. Oh, [00:31:00] this is a whole nother, a whole nother

Jade Boyd: Yes, we could probably go on that for a while,

Emily Reuschel: Yes! Out anyway! Follow Jada Dobesh.

Jade Boyd: I do want to get into connecting with nature, which is another thing that you talk about. And like you said, we are nature, but oftentimes, I mean, hello, Midwest and winter, we can feel so disconnected from it or, you know, not be in nature for several weeks if you work inside your home and have a baby like I do.

So I want you to talk about first, why is nature so powerful? Because I know you’ve experienced this in your own life and like kind of going back to when I was a business consultant at Grand Canyon. There is no other time in my life where I have been more in tune with myself or my relationships living at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon with no Wi Fi and no cellular data for 10 weeks. 12 weeks. So, why is nature so powerful and what can it do for us when it comes to living in alignment and feeling more connected?

Emily Reuschel: I mean, first I just want to set the perspective of [00:32:00] if you go back to any early civilization before the industrial revolution, before colonization, before technology, whatever, we were communal people who lived outside in connection and alignment with nature in whatever capacity. So You know, our day to day interactions were intertangled with people around us and reliant on the seasonality and the natural world in so many different ways.

And now we live in these little concrete boxes and stare at small screen, medium screen and big screen all day. And they wonder why we’re so burnt out and frustrated. And so I know it sounds so like, Oh, I’m going to go hug trees and woo woo and whatever. But , again, we are nature. And I think we overcomplicate what that needs to look like on a day to day basis. Like you said, it is undeniable that if you are in a national park, standing on a mountain or standing on the side of the ocean or like whatever your favorite place is, you [00:33:00] feel it. And whatever, you know, higher power you believe in, like that is within you when you are in circumstances like that.

And then we fly back home to the Midwest and we’re like, well, I got corn and it’s cold outside. I can’t access that, I’m going to plan my next trip. By all means, plan the trip, because it’s amazing. But especially this year, I, you know, on the topic of winter, have embraced just the daily practice of being outside.

It sounds so simple. And for me, that looks like putting my kids on the bus and sending my daughter to daycare or hanging out with a babysitter, whatever makes sense for us that day, and going on a walk. And for me, that’s an hour now, but maybe you’re like, I literally don’t have an hour, give it 15 minutes.

And of course, we all love that idea when it’s sunny and 75, who doesn’t love that? But you will find me walking when it is below zero. And people are like, you’re crazy, that’s so [00:34:00] hard. But doing hard things builds our capacity to do hard things. And when you build something into your life as a routine and habit, it It doesn’t actually feel that impossible anymore.

If you put on your snow pants, and you put on a heavy coat, and you put on your scarf, and you put on your hat, and you put on your gloves, and you put on a podcast, , that is my favorite hour of the day, even, and actually especially, for me. When it is so hot or so cold outside. Fresh air is good for your face. Sunshine is good for your body. Like, just being outside, whether you live in a suburb or around Corn, is the most simple way to tap into this. Of course, there’s all sorts of other practices like grounding, like going outside on a day to day basis and putting your feet or body onto the earth, whether it’s stone or grass or sand, wherever you live.

You know, right now, a lot of people are talking about red light therapy, like those little, little boxes. I haven’t gotten one yet. I’m not opposed to it, but like. [00:35:00] Go start a fire outside, that is the OG red light therapy, okay? there is actually nothing that makes me happier than sitting next to a fire.

It’s why it’s part of my logo, right? Because women are meant to gather around fires. And there are, I mean, you can trace this back to nervous system regulation. I mean, walking brings out bilateral stimulation in our brain. So it’s literally where we fire up new ideas and make connections and re regulate it.

Walking is one of the most fundamentally simple things that you can do for your physical, mental, and emotional health, all of the above. So this year I’m actually doing the 1000 hours outside challenge. It’s a totally free challenge that has existed for years and years and years. I’ve been in the Facebook group for a long, long while, and the premise is just spending 1000 hours outside in a calendar year. A lot of families do it together but I’m personally tracking my own hours knowing my kids will benefit from that because I didn’t want to go down the whole [00:36:00] rabbit hole of , okay, does it count if two people in our family are outside?

Jade Boyd: Yep.

Emily Reuschel: Feels like a mess but it doesn’t, it doesn’t have to be complicated.

Of course, like, I love hiking. I love going to the beach. That’s all good and fine and well, but just getting outside, especially for women like you and I, who are, you know, sitting in our dining rooms or in our basements doing online work, it is so life giving to just go get fresh air on your face.

Jade Boyd: Mm hmm. I recently listened to a podcast about all of the benefits that come with even a 12 minute walk, which seems like why would I even bother doing that for 12 minutes? does that make a difference at all? But like you said, there are so many crazy things happening in your body. It’s not a HIIT workout. It’s not, you know, you’re not going to be sweating, especially in the winter. And I mean, depending on how bundled up you are, but. Also, under the surface, so many different things are happening, and I think this kind of comes back to the all or nothing mindset, which is something that you’re also really passionate about.

[00:37:00] And I mean, after this conversation, I’m sure that a lot of people are having the feelings of , Oh my gosh, this is a lot, right? And oftentimes when we feel overwhelmed, we’re like, well, I’m just not going to do anything like, Why even bother starting small? And so I would love, in closing, for the person who’s listening who is feeling a little bit stuck or maybe a little bit misaligned, what is the best thing to do to just start?

Emily Reuschel: Mm hmm. This is a wound that so many of us carry, of , if I don’t do it perfectly, then I can’t do it at all. And that starts when we’re like five years old in school. We want to get the A we want to get the gold star, we want to get our name on the board, we want to be recognized over the announcements, we want to have the best resume, we want to get in the best college.

So I think first just acknowledging , of course, I feel this way, like there’s nothing wrong with me for feeling like I want to excel, especially for women who are driven who are passionate about what they do, we want to do good. So first of [00:38:00] all, you are good and worthy and enough exactly as you are today.

And also, if you’re feeling pulled towards something, whether it’s going outside on a walk, or a new business idea, or whatever it is I know it’s so freaking cliche, but that progress over perfection mentality will actually change your life. In motherhood, in your marriage, in the way that you show up in your career, , The compound effect of seemingly insignificant steps after a month, two months, six months, three years is actually what transforms your life from the inside out, right?

Really intense sprints can be helpful, but ultimately if you can just commit to I’m going to go outside as many days as possible through the lens of progress over perfection, it will continue to get easier and easier and easier. But for so many of us, we like, Oh, I missed a day. I’m a piece of trash.

Emily Reuschel: I should have never started this in the first place. I’m just going to [00:39:00] rip up this habit tracker and throw it in the trash. I should move on with my life. We apply that to exercise. We apply that to a course or whatever it looks like. But please don’t discredit how much just the recommitment to showing up for yourself imperfectly and embracing that mindset and letting go of expectations.

Once again, challenging the idea of , Oh, if I don’t do this, I’m not a good mom. Or if I don’t do this, then I’m not a good wife. If I don’t do this, then I’m never going to be successful in business. I want you to stop and ask yourself, , Where does that belief come from? Who told me that? And do I actually want to believe that that is true? And if that is not, if I don’t believe that that has to be true, then what actually is true for me? You know, I work with so many women who say , I don’t feel like I’m a good mom. I’m like, well, have you even defined what a good mom means to you? Because if you’re chasing this ever moving target based on the 200, 000 people you’ve seen on Instagram over the past six months of your life, [00:40:00] you are never going to feel like a good mom.

So what actually does that mean to you on a day to day basis to show up well for your kids and in a way that feels right for your family? Because chances are, you’re already probably doing nine out of ten of those things. And that tenth one, you can just, start weaving and The mix, right?

And I think that’s applicable to anything any role that you have, any, any goal that you want to bring to fruition of , have you defined what that actually means to you? A really powerful exercise that I’ve done with women is on a piece of paper or on a big chart, I want you to write down every single thing you are responsible for.

Every single thing that takes up your to do list on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, right? Like, who’s scheduling the doctor’s appointments? Who’s keeping track of the birthday presents? all of that. And if you look at it and you’re like, oh, I’m so busy. My gosh, I am doing way too much. Chances are you are doing way too much.

So , what is the low hanging fruit that you can actually start culling out that no one even cares about that you can easily [00:41:00] outsource, that you can ask someone to support you in? , If there isn’t stuff on there that you have a really solid reason why you have to be the person to do it all the time, I encourage you to reevaluate what that looks like.

And that’s how we can start weaving some of this new stuff into the mix. See, we listen to podcasts like this and we’re like, yeah, it’s a really good idea for me to go outside. I should do that. But when you’re already so stressed and your to do list is Unnecessarily long and you’re already drowning like jade saying go outside for 12 minutes feels like one more thing That you have to do and so let’s start with taking some of that stuff off And then adding in the things that actually nurture your physical mental and emotional health or feel your spirit or make you feel like yourself Or like awaken your soul and make you feel alive and happy and joyful and all of the above.

Jade Boyd: I think this is the perfect place to end the conversation. And I love how you talked about changing your mindset specifically with progress over perfection, because it really does start with your mindset and getting clearer within yourself before you start doing things. Cause I think that’s how [00:42:00] we fall into that trap.

Like you said of , okay, burn myself out as a teacher. Now I started a business, fell into the same cycle. Cause it really does start with the internal work of changing your mindset before you start taking the actions, which I am definitely, I’m an action oriented person. So I’m like, let’s just break it down. What’s the next thing I need to do? Not anything within myself. So I love that you just reiterated that. And I think it’s a great place to, to close specifically for the person who is feeling a little bit misaligned and is maybe leaning towards, well, how do I Fix it. Right. And just looking for that magic bullet.

So I would love for you to share a little bit for anyone who is listening, who wants to find you and learn more from you after the show, where’s the best place to find you.

Emily Reuschel: Ah, the place I hang out the most online is definitely Instagram. You can find me at Emily Rushell, E M I L Y R E U S C H E L. Of course, if you are a Facebook person, everything there is just a kickback from Instagram. Otherwise, go ahead and find the Gather in [00:43:00] Growth podcast available on all podcast platforms.

I do have a website, emilyrushel. com, that’s about to be massively overhauled. So it’s under construction depending on when this episode comes out. But otherwise that’s, that’s where you can find me.

Jade Boyd: And you have a retreat coming up that I would love for you to give a little ditty about too.

Emily Reuschel: do. Okay, we just filled the last spot, but I’m going to tell you about it because it’s going to be amazing and I plan to do more things like this next year but I am taking 11 women to Yellowstone National Park for an adventure of you know, hiking and chasing waterfalls and camping and sitting around the fire and doing personal growth workshops and everything in between. I’m calling it Align for this whole reason of just really bringing women back home to themselves and to each other, into this natural world that we are meant to exist in.

And my favorite part about this trip is that I really believe things happen exactly as they’re meant to. I was on the [00:44:00] end of a whole strategic planning business weekend situation at the very last minute. I’m like, I just, I just go to the mountains and take women with me. And then it was just the quickest series of events that made this all fall right into line.

And just the most amazing group of are coming on that. And so I’m looking at some Itineraries for 2026 along the same lines of , it’s really time to break out of our comfort zones. And like I said, these little concrete boxes and just get back out into the wild and embrace the true essence of who we are.

And so I’m pumped.

Jade Boyd: I have FOMO as I’m sure a lot of other people will listening to this, but definitely go follow Emily. Definitely listen to her podcast and maybe join her email list, follow her on Instagram so that you know when the next retreat is coming because you, you create such special environments and such special I don’t even know the word for it, just like little capsules for women to connect and [00:45:00] gather and grow like your podcast says, and I know it’s going to be really, really special. And even though this is the first one done in National Park, which is going to be even more special, any retreat you throw is going to be a blast. So I hope people really will go follow you.

Emily Reuschel: Mm. Well, thank you. I thank you. I owe so much of, the confidence and clarity in the work that I’m doing today to when we worked together, I don’t even, I was pregnant with that unexpected baby. And you just had such a way of taking what felt like the chaos in my brain and making sense of it and me being like, yeah, that is what I do.

And I am really good at that. And there is a framework for it. This is why our brains are so different, and I appreciate you so

Jade Boyd: Yep. And that’s why we need coaches who have different skill sets than we do sometimes.

Emily Reuschel: absolutely. And I think there’s such a seasonality, right? We find the right people in our life when we’re meant to work and learn alongside of them.

And so, I’m just really grateful for you and the role that you played

Jade Boyd: Oh, I appreciate that. Thank you. And thank you so much for being here. Like I said, it [00:46:00] was a long time coming, but I’m glad we could finally make it happen.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the business edit podcast. If you enjoyed today’s episode, I’d be so grateful if you take a screenshot and share it on Instagram, tagging me at jadeboyd. co. I’m on a mission to empower a new generation of women to become the type. Of wives, moms, and business owners that they’ve always wanted to be because empowered women change their families and communities for the better, and this is how we’ll change the world.

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Action does. I’ll see you next time on The Business Edit podcast.