ADHD Burnout: Why the Easy Stuff Gets Hard (ft. Gabrielle Juliano-Villani)

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (00:00)
I I remember my business, the revenue and billing that month being a hundred thousand dollars. And I was like, and yet I can’t [bleep] scan this thing that’s sitting on my desk and I am literally

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (00:09)
Yeah. Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (00:11)
running a seven figure business and I can’t do it.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (00:13)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (00:14)
Welcome to The Vibe With Ky Podcast, the show where we talk openly and honestly about mental health and the beautiful mess of being an adult in today’s world. My name is Kyrus Keenan Westcott. Thank you so much for being here.

Today we’re talking about the shame of not being able to do the easy stuff. The email, the phone call, the document that’s been sitting on your desk for two weeks. When you can handle the big hard things, but a five-minute task keeps beating you up.

Your brain starts telling you that you’re a fraud. And if nobody explains what’s really going on, that story can quietly build into full burnout. My guest today is Gabrielle Juliano-Villani.

She is a licensed clinical social worker and the founder of GJV Consulting and Training. She built a group therapy practice to 15 therapists. Burnt out completely and then sold it.

Then she was diagnosed with ADHD, and the small stuff that kept her out finally made sense. If you ever called yourself a fraud over something that should be easy, this conversation is going to feel like someone finally explaining it to you. Before we get started, if you want more mental health conversations and resources just like this, make sure you visit my website at thevibewithky.com or follow me @TheVibeWithKy on your favorite social media platform.

With that said, sit back, relax, and enjoy my chat with Gabrielle Juliano-Villani on The Vibe With Ky Podcast.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (01:39)
I’m so happy that you’re here. and and I I wanna I wanna jump right into this because there’s there’s a lot that I want to pick your brain about today. you describe what you do as helping therapists and businesses, business owners make money without losing their money, their minds.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (01:55)
Yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (01:56)
And then you add this line that I find fascinating. You you had this line, it says, Do as I say, not as I originally did, because you built a a seven-figure group practice, and then in your words, burned it straight to the ground. I wanna start I wanna start with both halves of that at the same time.

How do you introduce yourself these days, the version of you that that that holds the woman who that that built the thing and the woman who had to let it go. In other words, who is Gabrielle today after building the practice and after burning it down?

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (02:37)
That is a good question and a difficult one as somebody

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (02:40)
Sure.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (02:42)
who likes to do all of the things. But I think how

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (02:45)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (02:45)
I introduce myself now is that I am somebody who helps people live their best lives and helps them achieve the transformations that they want. And

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (02:58)
Right.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (02:58)
it’s hard for me to say that because I still have lots of ideas about how, I’m a loser. I’m just a little baby. But if

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (03:06)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (03:06)
our mutual friend Patrick were sitting here right now, he would tell me to remember who the fuck I am and not to say things like that.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (03:09)
Love him. Yeah. Yes. I can hear him saying that too. That’s the thing.

And and you you’ve said you’ve said that for about a decade. You were quietly convinced, like you said, you were that you were a loser who did not belong anywhere, anywhere near specifically a leadership role, all while you were actually running running something in a leadership role. And that gap.

Between what you were pulling off on the outside and what you believed about yourself on the inside, I think that’s where a lot of my audience lives in in that gap right there. What was it actually like to lead a whole team of therapists while privately being sure that you were the one person in the room who did not belong there?

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (03:57)
Yeah, I definitely felt uncomfortable. And I remember I had scaled my business the way that you shouldn’t. I had a

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (04:06)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (04:06)
private practice. I got full. I actually a Zumba student of mine who’s an occupational therapist was like, You should hire somebody because that’s what you that’s how you scale. And I was like, okay, that sounds like a good idea.

So, we didn’t have ChatGPT back then, so I had to

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (04:24)
Hmm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (04:25)
figure all this stuff out as I do. And

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (04:27)
Yes. Yes. Back in the day when we had to actually read the books for our book reports. We had to actually read it because we couldn’t we couldn’t get it online or nothing.

We had to go to the library and actually read it. Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (04:38)
was the different time. So I was just like, okay, let’s like see how this goes. And the person that I hired just happened to be really chill.

And she was like, I just want to see a couple clients and I’m going to be here while you figure this out. But she got full. So then I hired somebody else.

And so as I kept scaling, I just kept doing it the same way where I was like, I’m the cool boss. And whatever they

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (05:03)
Mm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (05:03)
want to do, they can do. And yet they were looking to me For answers. And I remember that

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (05:10)
Mm-hmm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (05:11)
this sounds so dumb. But I remember the first time that I realized I was like, I’m their boss. I have

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (05:18)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (05:19)
to be the one to tell them what to do. And I have to be in this leadership role. And I remember talking to one of my best friends who also happened to be my bookkeeper.

And she was like, You’re your one clinician isn’t seeing enough clients. And I was like, okay, what am I supposed to do about that? And she was like, You’re their boss.

Tell them to see more clients. And I was like, Me? Me. I’m just the little girl.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (05:40)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (05:44)
So it was a it was a lot of learning lessons. A friend of mine says that owning her group practice showed her all of her unhealed attachment wounds. And I feel the

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (05:55)
Mm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (05:55)
same. It helped me. I at the time I didn’t see it this way. I see it this way now.

Those were all the things that needed to be figured out. My own people pleasing and my own codependency and my fear of

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (06:07)
Mm-hmm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (06:08)
being perceived, which continues to be a problem, but in a different way. all of those things were necessary for me to grow. And I feel like it was just like a slap in the face and a mirror being held up to me.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (06:20)
Yeah. I know that feeling. I know because I so I where I work, I I am a senior director at my at my job and I also have this weird imposter syndrome feeling sometimes that there’s a lot of people that look up to me.

And I’m in a position now where, the people that I I manage, they’re not just here in the States. I have a team in in Canada and a team in the UK, a team in in Spain and and Japan, all of these places. And then and I’m I’m in charge of them.

And that blows my mind. who’s leaving me on unsupervised? I don’t I don’t know.

it’s just it’s hard for me to fathom that. But like like you said, this would be the point that Patrick would be like. Ky, no,

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (07:08)
Yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (07:09)
you earned this shit. You earned it. You worked hard to get here.

But let me tell you, this is the part that gets me about you, is that you were the person that other, as you said, that other clinicians that other clinicians came came to for help while touring, like in your words, every shame spiral that there is out there, which I I know that feeling all too well. And out of all of that, you built a a free, I’m gonna reiterate free. burnout recovery toolkit that actually has that has actual tangible steps and and you just you just give it away.

Now for the person who is too fried to even know where to start, what did you want that toolkit to put in their hands? What what what did what did that free burnout k toolkit, what what does that give a person who is too depleted to know where to begin?

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (08:00)
Yeah. I wanted to create something because the narrative around burnout has changed and continues to change, which is good. However, there is still, I think, a lot of people, especially if you’re not in my world, which is like a lot of therapy, everybody’s different,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (08:15)
Mm-hmm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (08:16)
right? we are starting to know that it’s not all about lavender essential oils and getting a massage

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (08:22)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (08:23)
and all of these things. And so I wanted to make something that was accessible to everybody that was like This is the real shit. And

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (08:30)
Mm-hmm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (08:31)
you can simply just pick one little thing and just start with one little thing. Because when you feel overwhelmed, we don’t want to add more. It’s actually better to take away and to reduce your demands and make your life as easy as possible.

But we have it in our heads that more is better. If I’m burnt out, then I have to fix it. It’s a me problem when in the reality it’s a systemic problem, which is a different conversation.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (08:55)
Yes.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (08:55)
But There are small things that you can do. And that’s why I’m so passionate about this, which you could probably tell, is because I have lived through this and I have

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (09:05)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (09:06)
done the clinical work on nervous system regulation. And I can tell you all about polyvagal theory if people really want to get into

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (09:13)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (09:13)
the deep clinical stuff of it. But that’s why I

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (09:16)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (09:16)
put this out there because I was like, you just need to know that you can start small. And small shifts make really huge differences in your life. So.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (09:26)
Agreed. Agreed. I w I wanna rewind for a little bit. I wanna rewind to to how the whole thing broke open because there’s a specific moment where the exit door appeared and you took it.

You’ve talked about getting the acquisition offer for your practice while you were on while you were on vacation and so and and you could barely enjoy that because you were you were so depleted and And saying yes to that acquisition almost right away, not just because it was the the smart move, but because some part of you knew that if you if you didn’t take the exit right then, there might not be a you left later to take it. Walk me back to that exact moment. Where were you?

What was happening in your body? when you realized that you were about to say yes.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (10:23)
I was in Hawaii and I was actually at a therapist conference and it was in 2021. So this was the first vacation post-COVID, if you want to call it that. It was still

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (10:34)
When the world caught on fire, yes.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (10:36)
like you were there were still all these restrictions, and but I was like, I just need to get away. So this was

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (10:44)
Mm-hmm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (10:44)
the first vacation in over a year. And I was still working, I was at a conference, and I also was not really relaxing because I remember being on vacation and bringing my laptop so that I could do billing. And I remember talking to my clinicians on the phone and being like, Did you call this client back?

Did you do this? And it just happened that I got a voicemail from somebody and they said, We represent this practice who wants to acquire Colorado In-Home Counseling, which was the name of my business. And I was like, this seems like spam.

And I also hope that it’s real because I want to get the fuck out. So I had been

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (11:22)
Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (11:27)
having this conversation. It’s like maybe I manifested it. Because I had talked

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (11:30)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (11:31)
to my friend six months ago, who’s an an MBA in a different field, and she was like, Why you sell your business? And I was like, Nobody buys therapy practices. That’s not something that happens in our field.

And she was like, Well, you never know. Yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (11:41)
Yeah. Seems pretty niche. Seems like a like a niche thing to buy, yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (11:45)
And apparently it is a thing. And

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (11:48)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (11:48)
she was like, just think about it. she was helping me delegate a little bit more. She was like, that might help.

But I just I really remember through that time, even before that vacation, just anything my staff asked me. I literally in my head, my first response would be like, fuck you. how dare

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (12:07)
Mm-hmm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (12:08)
you ask me anything? And that is not a good leader.

It’s not a good supervisor. That’s not a good therapist.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (12:14)
Sure, yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (12:16)
And I was just so even beyond burnout at this point, I think. I just really remember the anger and the apathy.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (12:24)
Mm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (12:24)
And I was like, is this life? Is this how I want to live?

I don’t think so. So anyway, fast forward,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (12:30)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (12:30)
I’m in Hawaii. I get that phone call. And my friend was like, you should Google them and make sure it’s legit and then get on a call and see what happens.

And they were legit. And that’s who bought my practice.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (12:43)
I love it. I love it. You you have this you have this reframe that if a small if if small easy tasks are the ones that are taking you down, that’s not laziness, it’s information. And there there’s real biology under that.

the the tasks that feel small, things like scanning scanning a document, answering an email, all of those things lean pretty hard on executive functions. task initiation, working memory, all of which run through the prefrontal cortex and depend on dopamine and and norepinephrine. and and those work differently in an ADHD brain.

So the boring five minute task is the exact one that the brain has the least fuel to start. So a lot of my audience are are late diagnosed women. that are just either discovering or or really accepting their mental health journey here.

So for the late-diagnosed woman who’s listening, who looks completely capable from the outside and is privately certain that she’s a fraud because she cannot make herself send one email, how do you help her hear hear that kind of struggle as quote information? Instead of proof that something is wrong with her.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (14:06)
Yeah, I relate to that obviously. And

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (14:10)
Sure, sure.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (14:11)
I I remember my business, the revenue and billing that month being a hundred thousand dollars. And I was like, and yet I can’t fucking scan this thing that’s sitting on my desk and I am literally

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (14:22)
Yeah. Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (14:24)
running a seven figure business and I can’t do it.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (14:26)
Mm-hmm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (14:26)
So all that to say is there’s a couple things that help me that I think can be helpful. One is whenever I say should, I I have trained myself like Pavlovian. It’s taken time, but when I say should,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (14:43)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (14:44)
I’m like, should I? Shoulds are judgments that we put on ourselves or that society puts on us about expectations.

I should do the dishes, I should put the laundry away, I should scan the fucking thing. So, first of all,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (14:56)
Yeah. Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (14:58)
that’s a reframe. And really just having grace for yourself. And again, reframing it that all of those things mean nothing. They have no

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (15:09)
Mm-hmm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (15:10)
moral value. They are morally neutral. It doesn’t mean that you are a good or a bad person because you can or can’t do those things and that our brains do work differently.

You have a disability. And so there’s

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (15:22)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (15:23)
also internalized ableism. Again, another conversation, but those are all things that

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (15:29)
we can do one. Yeah, we should do one in the future about that for sure. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (15:33)
All things

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (15:33)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (15:34)
and patterns and things that need to be rewired. And so again, just slowing down because that is information for you to take. And

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (15:43)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (15:44)
this is so high level five minute conversation. And this is honestly years and years and years of work that I’ve had to do myself since getting diagnosed of trying to reframe it differently. Even

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (15:57)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (15:58)
simple things. well, simple. Getting sometimes I just get my prescriptions delivered. And I used to feel really guilty about that.

Cause I’m like, this is for people who actually can’t go to the pharmacy and you can drive and you have a car and you can get your little ass over to Walgreens and just pick the shit up. But then I just keep pushing it off and pushing it off. And then I don’t have my meds and then I don’t feel good.

So I’m like, I’m get the fucking delivery. That’s why it exists.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (16:25)
You are describing me to a T, because that’s how I am with my groceries. Cause there’s a grocery store right up the street. And it it’s very easy for me.

Easy quote to go to the grocery store. But it’s it’s it’s hard to push that start button. And so I get my groceries delivered, even though I am fully capable of of bringing myself to the grocery store.

to to buy my food, I just I I I just have a lot of trouble hitting that that start button. And so I try to work with my brain instead of against it. Cause I know that this is a major struggle of mine, task initiation.

And so I I get it delivered because it just it it lessens the friction. It lessens the hurdle that I have to jump over. Because if I don’t do that, I eat like crap.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (17:19)
Yeah, mission.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (17:19)
And I get DoorDash and I and I don’t eat healthy. And and and it’s it’s it’s insane. But even ADHD aside, there’s a lot of comorbidities here, that that overlap with ADHD.

I was reading this this study at that the National Comorbidity Survey Replication study, and they found that close to half of adults with ADHD, about 47%. Also live with anxiety. they they live with with mood disorders stacking on top of that for for a lot of those people.

So for a lot of late diagnosed women, it was never just about ADHD. It was ADHD plus anxiety plus depression, all braided together

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (18:02)
Yes.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (18:04)
for years with no name on any of it. From where you sit, both as a clinician and as someone who has lived it and lives it. Why does the anxiety so often show up riding right alongside ADHD, especially for the woman who spent decades a lot of times not knowing?

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (18:24)
Yeah. Well we’re very high masking and we love to push through.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (18:30)
Sure, sure. I hear that story all the time. That’s probably one of the number one stories that I get in my in DMs and emails or particularly from mothers that that are working full time, a lot of them, but just like women in general that are just high functioning and high masking. Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (18:46)
We I think it’s a lot of things. I think it’s our brains obviously are wired differently and those things just happen to go hand in hand.

And when you have one thing, it’s a lot easier to have, I shouldn’t say it that way, but to have another thing, right? So a lot of times, when people have one mental health disorder or even talking about health, one autoimmune disorder, which also happens to go along with all of these things, you will have more

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (19:10)
Sure, sure.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (19:12)
than one. And our our brains work differently. And even just thinking about our nervous systems and what stage we’re at and when our brain is online and when it’s offline.

So, you were just talking before about our prefrontal cortex and how that’s where our executive functioning lives and how our rational decision making is all there. there are studies that show that ADHD brains have are smaller and that they’re prefrontal cortex

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (19:38)
Mm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (19:39)
is smaller and that there’s less blood flow to that area. So that could also be part of it from a nervous system perspective. When we are in fight or flight, that’s where anxiety lives.

That’s where we are thinking with the backside of our brain. And we happen to cycle through that very quickly as ADHDers as well. We also don’t have great interoception.

So we don’t know the signals

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (20:04)
Mm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (20:05)
that our body is giving us until

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (20:07)
Yep.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (20:07)
Brown for too long, right? if you’re listening to this, you might

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (20:10)
Mm-hmm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (20:11)
be able to relate to not realizing you’re hungry or having to pee or that you’re thirsty. I do that all

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (20:15)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (20:18)
the time. I’m like, God, I’m really tired and I’m in a bad mood. And I’m like So yeah, I’ll

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (20:21)
I was about to say, yeah, you don’t even realize that you’re tired. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I I just I just learned that word interoception not too long ago, actually. So I’m glad you I I’m glad you brought it up.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (20:33)
Yeah, it’s that was one of those moments where I was like, I’m a therapist, I should know this, but I know it now. And it was like life changing

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (20:38)
Mm. Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (20:40)
for me where I was like, that’s why.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (20:42)
Yeah. Yeah. It’s like putting on glasses for the first time and then being able to see and you’re like, that’s what it looks like. Okay, I get it. Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (20:49)
That’s now

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (20:52)
Yeah. You You say that that burnout recovery is not a a one-time fix. It’s this ongoing relationship with your nervous system.

And and yours looks like sound healing and is it is it pronounced polyvagal informed practices? Is that how say it? Yeah.

that and and and building your income so so no single thing has the power to burn you out again. And I have to be honest, I I I love that that you are, again, your words, banging out banging gongs at at at burned out clinicians in Costa Rica, because that is the the least clinical sentence a clinician has ever said, ever, I think. But I love it.

So so take me off take me take me off the the retreat for a second, right? what does what does regulation like what does regulation what Does regulation come before motivation actually look like on an average, unglamorous Tuesday evening like we’re on right now?

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (21:54)
Yeah. Well, to be completely honest, I’m not wearing a bra, I’m in sweatpants. So

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (22:00)
Neither am I. I’m yeah, I’m actually I what’s funny? I actually literally am obviously not wearing a bra and I’m actually also wearing sweatpants. So cheers

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (22:11)
Yes, I love that for us. I needed to be comfortable. It’s

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (22:15)
Yes, yes.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (22:16)
nine o’clock at night. So I need to be comfy. So that’s

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (22:20)
Mm-hmm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (22:20)
one of those things that’s like a built-in accommodation for me. And I think we always

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (22:24)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (22:24)
have we’re always talking about motivation. I gotta be motivated to do this. It doesn’t work that way. You need to

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (22:29)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (22:31)
take, especially for us, you need to take action.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (22:35)
Mm-hmm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (22:35)
so and that’s easier said than done. But for me, first

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (22:39)
Mm-hmm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (22:41)
of all, I want to say when we talk about regulation, because I know if you be scrolling on TikTok and Instagram and you get a lot of shit about nervous system regulation and somatic practice

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (22:51)
yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (22:51)
and da da da da da da, this is not about being completely zen and like calm 24

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (22:58)
Mm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (22:58)
7. That is not what, at least to me, nervous system regulation means. It means understanding when you are activated or triggered.

what that feels like for you and what you need in those moments to take care of yourself. And when you are pushed too far and you’re in more of a shutdown state, what you need in those

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (23:20)
Right.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (23:20)
senses. So it’s not about trying to force yourself to be Zen. It is about knowing what you need in all of those things.

So for example, with my business, I know I’m super introverted, even though it probably doesn’t seem like it. I know I was actually

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (23:33)
I’m with ya. Yeah. I’m with ya.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (23:36)
When I read that about you, I was like, No

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (23:39)
yeah. absolutely. Absolutely. A hundred percent. Actually my shirt, actually, I don’t know if you can see it.

It says my introvert battery. Yes. Yes, I love that.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (23:45)
I have a pen that is that and you can move it based on where you’re at. So I’m the same. So if

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (23:52)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (23:52)
I and I do a lot of training, a lot of speaking. If I have

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (23:56)
Mm-hmm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (23:56)
a big training, I’m gonna move my schedule if I can. So that’s the one big thing I do for that day. Because

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (24:02)
Sure.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (24:02)
if I have to do something else after that, I’m gonna be completely dead. So I know that.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (24:07)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (24:08)
I know that if I’m Have had a long busy day that I’m gonna need rest at the end. I know on retreats, Patrick and I host retreats together and we both say this if we’re gone at the end of the night, it has nothing to do with all of you. It’s just us decompressing and that’s the way that I am, and I

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (24:23)
Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (24:27)
am going to be stimming. And if I again leave and walk away, I just need some quiet time. So just

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (24:33)
Mm-hmm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (24:33)
being aware of that and learning to set those boundaries and those accommodations for yourself.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (24:38)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (24:38)
I don’t know if I answered your question because I feel like I went on a T

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (24:40)
You did. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And and and and I I wanna I wanna put something to the to the woman listening right now that looks capable and put together to everyone around her and is sitting in her car after work because there is one specific small task she cannot make herself do and she’s calling herself a fraud for it. Here is what I want.

Here’s what I want her sitting with. And I’m gonna ask, I’m gonna ask her to actually tell us what is the small, easy task that has taken you down this week. Is for anybody that’s listening right now, what is the one small task that has taken you down this week?

The one that makes no logical sense that it is this hard. So Anybody that’s listening right now, if if you happen to be in that position, I want you to wherever you’re watching or listening right now, just put that in the comments. Let me know what is that one task that you’re struggling with that you probably feel you feel like you probably sh shouldn’t struggle with and you feel like a fraud because of it.

Gabrielle, when you hear someone name that task out loud for the first time in your sessions, what do you see shift for them?

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (25:55)
I think it’s powerful because it’s there’s a level of vulnerability there when you share things like that. Because again, right, we have this spiral of like I’m a loser.

I can’t unpack after a trip, which by the way is one of my biggest problems. And

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (26:11)
Sure. Mm-hmm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (26:12)
or you can’t go to the grocery store or make the phone call. just naming it and saying it out loud gives you so much

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (26:21)
Mm-hmm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (26:21)
power over something like that.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (26:23)
Yes.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (26:24)
And I think that dulls it a little bit, right? Because in our head we have our own narrative of again, it’s so silly, da da da.

But when you put it out there, it does have power. And I feel like it when you can

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (26:36)
Mm-hmm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (26:37)
be vulnerable vulnerable about that, there’s just such a shift when you can

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (26:40)
Mm-hmm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (26:43)
own it and be like, okay, this is

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (26:45)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (26:45)
a real thing. And does it make me a loser? Probably not.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (26:50)
Right, right, right. I I also I also want to give the the woman who is nodding along something that she can actually do before she even finishes this episode today, something small that that needs no extra time, no money, nobody’s permission. In your free burnout recovery toolkit, you you provide tangible steps for exactly that type of thing.

What is the one thing From it that someone could do maybe in the next 10 minutes today that starts to tell their nervous system that it’s safe to slow down.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (27:25)
I am gonna give you one that I could give you a couple, but I’m gonna start with the one that first.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (27:29)
Sure, yeah, give as many as you’d like, yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (27:31)
because this can also be triggering for people. So

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (27:34)
Mm-hmm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (27:35)
take with it what you will. But the fastest way to regulate your nervous system, tell your body that you’re safe, is to take a deep breath. One.

Everybody can do that. Most people, unless you, if you have COPD or emphysema again, take care of yourself. And again, if you have trauma.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (27:50)
Sure.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (27:51)
doesn’t feel good, then don’t do it. But most of us can do that. You don’t need special training.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (27:55)
Mm-hmm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (27:56)
You don’t need to excuse yourself and go to another room. You can simply just take a deep breath and that’s it. Just one.

Cause when your diaphragm expands, it touches your vagus nerve and that lets your body know it’s safe, which is again very high level. But that’s one. another one that I really like is finding glimmers.

And glimmers are the opposite of triggers and they are micro moments of joy. So what were your glimmers of the day? mine usually is making my coffee in the morning because it’s like a ritual and it smells good and I’m not on my phone.

And even though my Nespresso makes this annoying sound, it’s like I know that the day is starting. So that’s

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (28:39)
Yeah. Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (28:41)
one of my glimmers. And when you have those little micro moments of joy. you are creating new neural pathways in your brain to feel that joy and that happiness.

And it can be again, it could be the smallest thing in the world. You can if you like the way your shirt feels, if you have a fidget that you like, if it’s looking at a picture of the beach on your phone, it can be so small. And in fact, I encourage it to be the smallest thing ever and just notice it and just pay attention to it and work that into your day.

And that literally could take 30 seconds.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (29:15)
I love that. I love that. Friends, I hope you’re listening right now. I hope you hope you wrote that down because there’s some good stuff that’s coming from this right now.

I I I love that. Thank you so much for for sharing that. I know that people are gonna really get something like really good out of that.

I’m gonna shift the gears completely on you right now because I put every guest through this. I wanna play a little game. It’s called This or That.

And what I’m going to do is I’m going to give you two choices, and all you have to choose is one. Or both or neither. It’s it’s not it’s not deep.

There’s no wrong answers. So you can answer however you’d like. I’m just gonna give you two choices and then you give me your thoughts, okay?

Okay, all right, you go. First one. Number one, done is better than perfect, or one more pass just to be safe.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (30:02)
Done is better than perfect.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (30:03)
Yes. You see how I teed that up? Tell me why.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (30:07)
Right. Because nothing is ever perfect. Perfection is the enemy of good enough.

Nothing is ever perfect. It’s never gonna be good, especially in entrepreneurship and for us for small

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (30:19)
Yes.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (30:21)
business owners. the shit doesn’t happen if it’s just shitty shitting sitting in your Google Docs, okay? If it’s not out there, it’s not

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (30:27)
It doesn’t happen it doesn’t happen if it’s shitting in either. So yeah, it’s it doesn’t. Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (30:32)
Either way. So just do it. This is like people

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (30:38)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (30:39)
and this is one of those things we’re going back to leadership and stuff where people are like, my God, you’ve done all these things. And I’m like, Have I? I guess I have. And

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (30:48)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (30:49)
I just I do them and I do

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (30:52)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (30:52)
them afraid and I just keep moving forward. So and if you have ADHD, then you have a lot of risk tolerance. So

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (31:02)
I love it. I love it. Here we go. Number two, a gong or a singing bowl.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (31:09)
A singing bowl.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (31:10)
Yeah, why’s that?

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (31:12)
Gongs trigger me, even though I do use them. The

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (31:14)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (31:16)
sound is very deep. I probably need to do some my own inner work around this, but the sound

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (31:22)
Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (31:23)
is very intense and it scares me sometimes.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (31:25)
Mm-hmm. Okay, fair enough. Number three, Medicare paperwork or a room full of people at a networking event.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (31:34)
Medicare paperwork all the way.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (31:36)
I’m right there with you. I know some people are gonna be like, wait, what? Yes.

If you the real introverts out there are just gonna be like, yes, absolutely. Don’t put me in that situation, please. God, please.

I can I I do well in in networking situations if I know the people there. If I’m like a stranger and they’re all strangers and I have to introduce myself, is that no, absolutely not. No.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (32:01)
the same way. I’m like, it’s the initiation of well, what do I say to them? How do we start the conversation?

What do I ask them? And then what

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (32:05)
Mm-hmm. Yes. Mm-hmm. Yes. And and and avoiding small talk.

I like small talk literally pains me. I can’t do it. I hate it with a passion.

I can’t do it. Drives me insane.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (32:19)
I am the same. I love deep existential conversations. I want

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (32:24)
Same, same.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (32:26)
to go deep. I don’t wanna talk about your day, tell me about your drama.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (32:27)
Yes. No. Yes. Tell me about your daddy issues, please.

I want to know all of it. I love it. number four, cancel the plans or or cancel the plans and feel relieved or push through and go anyway.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (32:48)
cancel the plans and feel relieved. That was easy. And I just did that

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (32:50)
I know that one that one was easy. That was an easy one. Yeah.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (32:54)
and I felt guilty for a second and then I was like, nope, this was the right thing to do.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (32:59)
It’s sometimes sometimes that it happens, there’s there’s been plenty

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (33:03)
Yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (33:04)
of times when I’ll be like, I don’t know if I want to do this right now. And then and then once it starts, I’m like, I’m fine. I’m fine. yeah, but sometimes

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (33:11)
Yep. Yeah. Sometimes it is not

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (33:14)
yeah, yeah, I’m with you there.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (33:17)
Yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (33:17)
last one, Costa Rica or a totally empty weekend at home with your phone off.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (33:24)
I want both of those.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (33:25)
That’s okay. You’re there’s no wrong answers and you are allowed to choose both. I have one more question to ask you, and it’s a it’s a question that I ask all of my guests.

If there’s one thing that you want the audience to take away from our conversation today, what is that one thing?

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (33:41)
I hate it. I think I actually

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (33:42)
Ha ha ha.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (33:44)
I think I put the answer in your thing or I was like thinking about it, but

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (33:48)
Mm-hmm.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (33:49)
I really just hope that this conversation shows you that change is possible and that you get to live life on your terms. Your cats are proving that for us right now.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (34:02)
Yes, there there it’s always happens. Always happens. It was only a matter of time.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (34:04)
And if you are feeling ashamed or burnt out that there is a way out and you need to I shouldn’t say you need to, but will be helpful if you do start to make those small little shifts, the glimmers. Pets are glimmers, by the way. We just had one in this podcast. So

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (34:26)
Yes. If you if you’re listening and you can’t see it, you just miss some glimmers that just took place behind me. Yes.

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani (34:33)
I love it. I love animals. And so that is always a huge glimmer for me. But start paying attention, writing them down, noticing them, make a list in your phone, text your friend about it, whatever.

Start slowing down a little bit because this the slowness and the pauses are where the magic and the shifts happen.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (34:54)
I love it. I love it. Thank you for for all of that. honestly, thank you for that.

Thank you for your honesty. for thank you for for touring the every shame spiral out loud so the rest of us can feel a little less alone in our own shame spiral. So thank you.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (35:11)
A huge thank you to Gabrielle Juliano-Villani for being a guest on The Vibe With Ky Podcast today. If you enjoyed Gabrielle today, be sure to check her out at gabriellejulianovillani.com and on Instagram @gjvconsulting. She also has a free burnout recovery toolkit on her website with small, simple things you can start with today.

All of those links are in the show notes of this episode. If you enjoyed today’s episode, make sure you visit my website thevibewithky.com or follow me @TheVibeWithKy on your favorite social media platform for even more conversations and content just like this episode. And if you haven’t already, subscribe so you never miss an episode and leave a review so more people can find episodes and can join you in listening and all of that jazz.

So I really appreciate it if you did that. With that said, my friends, thank you so much for watching and for listening. As always, much love, good vibes.

I’ll catch you next time. Bye.