Episode Transcript
[00:00:11] Speaker A: What's worthwhile considering what we consume, believe, say and do towards peace of mind, vitality of body, and joy of spirit? I'm Ramsey Zimmerman. Here's some more healthy living, motivation and discussion.
[00:00:31] Speaker B: A high performer is somebody that is filling a lot of their day with time, that needs to be productive in some way. I think about steadiness and how I want to have a sense of reliable energy and vitality that I can draw on every single day that's consistent. And the only way that I can have that is if that foundation is there. So I look at the foundations, the boring stuff that we're talking about. It's kind of like the springboard for everything else that I want to do and accomplish in the day. And it also makes all of the other stuff, like the biohacking stuff, it makes all of that stuff so much more effective.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: Hey there, it's Ramsey here. That was Erica Jones. Erica began her career in pharmaceutical sales, but soon discovered that was out of alignment with her purpose and values. So she pivoted towards natural health and holistic wellness.
Now she helps high performers like entrepreneurs, CEOs and coaches to build simple, sustainable wellness routines that support ambitious lives without leading to burnout. Erica is herself a high performer, not only operating her company, Elevase, with her husband, but also also homeschooling their four kids and still finding time to learn how to play piano.
I was inspired by Erica, her energy, her wisdom, her authenticity and her message. I think you will be too. Let's jump in.
[00:02:08] Speaker C: Hey Erica, how are you doing today?
[00:02:10] Speaker B: I'm doing well, how are you?
[00:02:12] Speaker C: I am doing so well.
Thank you for taking the time to sit and talk with me today.
You are a wellness strategist, the co founder of Eleves, a wife and a mother of four whom you're homeschooling.
Clearly, you yourself seem like a busy high achiever and I know that you work with high achievers.
Has this all just come easily and naturally to you or did you have significant times of struggle along the way?
[00:02:50] Speaker B: Yes, to both.
I think I'm definitely naturally wired as a high achiever. I like to shoot for the stars, but there has been struggle along the way with that because I think high achievers naturally have built in strengths and those strengths can also be weaknesses when they're not controlled or they're not being leveraged for our highest purpose.
So I have. My answer is yes, I am naturally inclined to achieve and I've also struggled along the way too.
[00:03:27] Speaker C: Yeah, well, no, that makes sense.
So tell me about before we get to talking sort of about what you're doing now in your practice. What industry were you in before
[00:03:42] Speaker A: and
[00:03:43] Speaker C: what roles did you play in your previous professional life?
[00:03:49] Speaker B: Yeah, so I went to school for biology. I graduated in 06 from the University of Tennessee and my goal was to be a doctor. I wanted to go to med school and become a physician. But by the time I finished the four years, I. I said, I don't want to do more school right now. I want to take a break. I want to take a year or two off and I'll work a little bit and figure out my way from there. And so the only jobs really available at the time for a biology major was they told me I could teach biology for high school, which I didn't want to do, or go into pharmaceuticals. And so my dad was actually in the pharmaceutical industry at the time. He was, was working in biotech for a company called Genentech. And he was like, I can get you a job. And so after I got out of university, I kind of had like a year or two hiatus, but eventually I landed in the pharmaceutical industry. I worked for the second largest pharmaceutical company in the world at the time. And so I packed up my stuff, I moved from Tennessee to Orlando, Florida, where I was training and getting into the field. And it wasn't long after I got out into the field, started making calls on doctors, that I realized that this job, this role, this industry was not one that I wanted to be in. When I took the position, I thought that I was getting into an industry that was about helping people with their health.
I know people listening are probably like, oh my gosh, you're so naive. I was, I was 23, 24 at the time and, you know, was shiny eyed. The world's my oyster. I can create my path in life. And I thought, you know, hey, I'll go into this industry to help people with their health. And so I quickly discovered that it was not about that. It was more about marketing the drugs, having people stay on them, long term, company profits, all of the things that people think of when they think of pharmaceutical companies. It was all of that and more.
So I said to myself, I cannot stay in this role forever. I'm gonna have to figure out a way out of here. But to what, I didn't really know.
So I went ahead and enrolled to get my master's in health administration. So I wanted to potentially consult physicians on how to run better practices. I saw a lot of practices that weren't running well when I was out in the field.
And along the way I meet this doctor who is actually running a practice that's in my territory. And he's telling me how he's getting great results with all of his patients seeing chronic diseases reversed. Things like heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer, even all kinds of ailments and problems that people are commonly dealing with that they were having great success within this clinic. And so I was intrigued.
And so we struck up a friendship and I ended up falling in love with this doctor. He's my now husband, but he was the one who brought me into the world of holistic natural health and really opened my eyes to this entire world of, hey, there's a way to heal the body and so support the body that's, that's natural, that uses natural mechanisms as a first line of defense, uses your lifestyle habits and all these things as a first line of defense as opposed to waiting to get sick and then dealing with drugs and surgery and that being the thing that you do. And so from there we, we got married in 2010 and we started a, a health coaching practice. He's trained in functional medicine. And so what we did was we started a practice where we would help people with their health issues, whether they were dealing with energy problems, sleep issues, or if it was more serious, like they were having fertility problems, heart disease, or people that just like high performers that really just wanted to optimize their health. We were working with all kinds of people all over the world. So we did that for five years and then launched our doctor coaching business, which is what we mainly do today. But that's kind of how I got from pharmaceuticals into the natural health world. I was really led and guided by my amazing husband who taught me a lot of what I know.
[00:08:27] Speaker C: Well, that is a lovely story.
[00:08:30] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:08:31] Speaker C: It's a great journey, professionally and personally. And you sort of started out, it sounds like, with some expectations or thoughts around know what the pharmaceutical world might, might be about and then you ended up somewhere very, very different.
[00:08:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:52] Speaker C: So it sounds like you work a lot with doctors specifically and doctors are certainly a form of high achievers, probably in their own kind of niche.
But do high achievers and doctors specifically, do they typically take really great care of themselves or do you find that many of them are too busy taking care of everything and everyone else?
[00:09:22] Speaker B: It's definitely the latter and not the former. I think doctors are like most of us, especially if you're a high achieving individual.
A lot of people have a lot on their plate, a lot that they're responsible for. And so oftentimes people get over committed and then the things that they value most don't get prioritized. And so I like to look at that from a lens of kind of like an energy misalignment where we all want our energy to be directed and our attention to be directed towards the things that we value most in life. But that requires a lot of thought and intention to really do that well consistently. And so what I see with a lot of doctors and high performance performers is that they're kind of stuck on autopilot of whatever the daily habits and patterns that are ingrained, they just keep doing those.
But in order to get a better result, you kind of have to take yourself out of the ingrained patterns and really look at where's my attention and energy going. And is that really aligned, is that truly aligned to what I say that I value? And if it's not, then you need to fix it. So what I see is a lot of, a lot of doctors, a lot of high performers are just kind of in the same routine of I got to get the business up, I got to make this milestone, I've got to, you know, hire this next person. They're so focused on their mission, their vision, that they sometimes lose the ability to see. Well, there's a bigger picture here. There's other things that I value, including my health. And so how does that all fit into there?
[00:11:03] Speaker C: And how do you start getting people to see beyond that and get. Starting to focus on what they need to focus on?
[00:11:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I think there's a couple of ways.
One is to identify what you truly value. So that's, that's a deeper conversation. But I think a lot of people aren't truly clear about where their values lie. I'm very clear about where mine lie. Mine's God, family, wellness, contributing in my mission in the earth. Like those are the things that I value. I value beauty about. I value creativity. So all of my actions in a day, I look at my day. If I look at my day in a, in a pie, and I want most of my attention, my energy going to what I value. I'm constantly vetting the things that I'm doing and making sure that they're aligning to those things in the majority of the time, that's a deeper conversation. But if I wanted to bring it up to a little bit more surface level of what's accessible, I think most people are making three key mistakes when it comes to their energy and it being misaligned. And the first is that we often overcomplicate health and wellness.
So especially high performers, they think that the bigger the goal, the more difficult it is, the more effective. And that's just not always true. And so that can present a hurdle for results.
The second thing is that there's a lack of strategy. So we're all so used to now with social media, seeing what everybody else is doing, this person with the red light therapy, this person doing the cold plunge, this person over here doing this or that, but then all of this extra information comes in and it starts informing us, well, maybe you should be doing that, maybe you should buy that, maybe you should try that. But there's not really a thought process of okay, does this align strategically for me with my health? So for example, if I'm a woman struggling with fertility, for example, buying a red light therapy device is not the most strategic choice for me to overcome that issue. I'm not saying it won't help at all, but, but it's not the most direct route. So there's a lack of simplicity, a lack of strategy. And then thirdly, I'd say there's a lack of sustainability.
So people trying things or instilling habits that they cannot sustain for the long term. And in order for us to get results that last, wellness has to be a lifestyle. And so I can't do a 30 day sprint and expect that to give me long term results that I can live with for years and years to come.
So that's where we see things like people doing the carnivore diet. I have nothing wrong with that. If it's working for people, great. But most people cannot live like that forever and ever. So there's a thought of is what I'm doing simple, is it strategic for me and is it sustainable? Is it something that I can do long term? And if it's not all three of those, then there's usually a break in the process. And then people are like, man, I need more discipline or I'm not good at health or whatever. And it's really not any of those things. It's that there's a break in one of those three.
[00:14:31] Speaker C: So simple, strategic and long term.
But with a lot of those things that you mentioned, they are sort of flashy and glitzy and exciting and you know, they oh, that sounds neat. I want to try that.
And I think, you know, lots of us get sort of wrapped up in that kind of excitement and attention. Whereas what you're describing, the everyday, consistent, basic, sustainable, you know, a lot less interesting, less exciting, and you know, it's hard. It's so ironic, isn't it, that, you know, and I, I teach this too, that it's really the basic stuff that we ought to be doing. It's the same things that, you know, people have been doing since the dawn of time, but we just haven't been as good at doing the last couple hundred years because of the way society has been.
How do you sort of work with people? How do you help them to, you know, do the boring, basic fundamental things that they really ought to be doing? Like how do we, how do we do those things, do them consistently and get them to stick when all of the glitzy, exciting, sugary things are just always dancing in front of us.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: I love that you brought this out because this is something that I'm really passionate about.
And you're right, it's, you know, especially when you, there's so much we're being marketed to all the time.
It's really easy to get excited about all of the new techniques, technologies, what's trending, the hot right now things.
And really the change is made in the day to day consistency. And I hate to say this, but I keep my health routine boring. I just, I do like the fundamentals. I keep it boring. Yes, I use some biohacking stuff. My husband is like the biggest biohacking geek. He loves all that stuff. We have gadgets all over the place, but the things that I use consistently are boring. It's hydration, it's like a big water bottle. I fill up twice a day. It's, it's working out, it's going to bed on time, it's sticking to my supplementation regimen. And so I think the way that I see it is I'm always looking for how I can leverage my energy. How do I, how do I get the most out of my inputs? So I know that if I have a strong base for foundation with those things that I just mentioned, like hydration and sleep and movement and my basic supplementation, if I know that all of that foundation is there, then I'm really setting myself up to win for the day. And so as a high performer, we're people that need, we need mental clarity, we need energy available. We can't be waking up feeling like we're dragging, like we, there's a certain amount of energy that's needed for the output that the day requires. And so when I think about the quote unquote boring things, I think about steadiness and how I want to have a sense of reliable energy. And vitality that I can draw on every single day that's consistent. And the only way that I can have that is if that foundation is there. Because if I'm. If I don't. I don't have a good sleep regimen. I'm up all hours of the night.
Well, now my energy is volatile. I don't have a reliable sense of that vitality that's there for me to draw on every single day. So I look at the foundations, the boring stuff that we're talking about. It's kind of like the springboard for everything else that I want to do and accomplish in the day. And it also makes all of the other stuff, like the biohacking stuff, it makes all of that stuff so much more effective. Because what is the point of me having all of this biohacking gear? I can do all the things and chart all the things, but if I'm not taking care of my sleep or I'm not taking care of my hydration, like those basic fundamentals, then all of that other stuff is not leveraged at the level that it could be. So from my point of view, I'm looking at where. Where can I find reliable energy performance that I can draw on, and how do I get the most ROI out of my actions? And it's. It is. It's in the boring stuff.
[00:19:13] Speaker A: Look, we all deal with stress. Stress is not the problem.
The problem is that our body's innate stress response is built for physical challenges instead of the mostly mental, emotional, and virtual stresses that we face today. In my book, Stress Response, you'll learn to manage your response to stress in order to reduce anxiety, avoid burnout, and find calm and steady focus. The ebook is available on Amazon and only 99 cents for a limited time. After you download, please don't forget to leave an honest review and rating so that others will find it too.
[00:19:50] Speaker C: No, those are all great. Really, really great points.
You know, all of that boring stuff is your foundation. That's where you're starting from. It's where you're getting your reliable energy and basis from. And then it, like you were saying, it frees up.
Frees up your time and attention for other exciting things, for other exciting things that are more, you know, connected to what you're trying to accomplish and, um, what's out there. So that makes a ton of sense to me.
When.
When you think about high achievers, high performers, are there fundamental ways, are there ways that they are different from just, you know, your. Your kind of normal, average, everyday person?
And how are Those differences related to their health and wellness, how does it sort of make their needs different? How does it make their activities different? What really sets them apart, do you think?
[00:21:04] Speaker B: I think this is great that you mentioned this because one thing that I talk about is that the mainstream or traditional health advice, oftentimes it falls flat for a high performer because they're people that are highly committed, they have a lot going on, a lot. They're responsible for a lot of balls in the air oftentimes.
Whereas other people might structure their lives where they have a lot more downtime or leisure time, a high performer is somebody that is filling a lot of their day with time, that needs to be productive in some way.
And so for that reason, their approach to health and wellness, it has to be different.
They're not necessarily somebody who is going to wake up and do like a two hour morning routine, like a marathon morning routine. I'm going to journal for 30 minutes and breath work for 30 minutes and this and that and that is great. If people can do that and it works for them, wonderful. Most high performers I know can't sustain that.
So they have to think of, okay, what where again, I'm going to come back to leveraging time and the input and outputs that you're getting. So If I have 30, 45 minutes in my morning and I need to fit in my wellness before I get into my office, what are the key things that I'm doing before I get down there? Well, I'm going to, I'm going to get myself ready, but I'm going to fill up my water. Maybe I'm going to.
For me, I ground myself spiritually, so I'm always reading a few pages of my Bible in the morning.
I might, if I want to jot something quickly in my gratitude journal, maybe I do that, maybe I do some stretches. But now I need to go from this marathon two hour morning routine. I need to tighten that because my reality as a high performer is such that I don't have two hours in the morning.
I need to figure out how to bring wellness into the timeframe that I have. So what I see is people seeing others.
There is a lot of information coming through the wellness culture of what we should and should not be doing. So they'll see others who are.
Their workout is two hours. They train for X amount of time and then they do sauna and cold plunge and they have all this time. The high performer person has to be thinking of how do I oftentimes need to condense this and then do it in such a way where I'm getting a good output for what I'm giving and putting into it.
I don't think, to answer your question, I don't think that high performers can just take traditional wellness advice and apply it all to their own lives. They really need to customize and tailor it to their schedule, what they have room for and what they have the capacity to consistently do. So asking those questions helps to really create something that is long term sustainable.
[00:24:08] Speaker C: So high performers, high achievers, they are short on time, they have a lot going on, lots of activities, A lot of people count on them for things and they have a lot of demands.
Do you see much burnout in that situation?
And you know, I've been thinking in a lot about burnout lately. I've been doing a lot of work around that.
And there it seems like there's really two kinds of ideas about burnout in the sense that, you know, it's either the responsibility of the person to be strong and resilient against the demands on their time. And the other group of thought is that it's the responsibility of the, you know, the company or the situation in order to make the business environment conducive to people so that they don't burn out.
I'd be curious on your thoughts about that dichotomy and also just about the idea of burnout resilience so being, having people or helping people to become more resilient to burnout really taking place.
[00:25:38] Speaker A: What.
[00:25:39] Speaker C: Do you have some thoughts on all of that?
[00:25:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I think, I think those are great questions. I think to your question, the first piece about whose responsibility is burnout, is it the, the, the worker? Let's just kind of use a generic example of employer to employee.
Business owners can kind of see themselves in both, wearing both hats, but I think it's both responsible responsibility. I think one of the, one of the major breakthroughs for me as a, as a mom of four young kids at the time, they're a little bit older now, they're all elementary. But one of the major breakthroughs for me was the realization that nobody was coming to save me, that my stress levels and my ability to recover is my responsibility. Now, thankfully, I have a husband who's very supportive. I have parents that are very supportive and they'll come and help with our kids whenever they can. But I had to, I had to shift my thinking because there was a period of time where I just, I just saw myself as a victim of stress and overwhelm and there's. There's always something in life. And I was just kind of in this pattern of like, woe is me.
And I remember clearly my dad was kind of like, nobody's coming to save you. You know, if you, if you need rest and recovery time, you are going to have to advocate for yourself and create that. Because no one's living in your body. Nobody knows what exactly what you're experiencing, feeling and needing. You have to advocate for yourself. So that's the first thing I would say to the, to the listener who's feeling like they're so overwhelmed, there's nothing they can do. They're just kind of a victim of their circumstances. I would ask the question, well, what can you do? What is the one step that you can take to advocate for yourself and your own self care, because that is our responsibility as human beings is to take care of ourselves
[00:27:52] Speaker A: here on what's worthwhile. We've spoken a lot about burnout and why it's important to avoid it. So now let's talk about burnout resilience. Burnout resilience is your capacity to handle stress without losing your clarity, your energy or your sense of purpose. It is the ability to recover well, stay steady under pressure and keep moving forward when life gets demanding. And the good news is it can be built by strengthening the foundations of holistic health. I created the Burnout Resilience Zone assessment to help you see where you stand and which foundations may need attention. It takes just a few minutes and gives you a personalized breakdown with clear recommendations. Go to burnout.whatsworthwhile.net and learn which zone your burnout resilience is in.
[00:28:38] Speaker B: But then the other piece of that is, well, what is also the responsibility of organizations that may hire employees?
We own a business. We have 30 plus people that work with us. And that's a conversation that we have regularly. We are checking in with our team. We do a survey multiple times a year to find out how our team is feeling about their workload. Are they feeling burned out? Are they feeling like they can work with us and also maintain a high quality of life?
These are things that are not just like fluffy questions to ask. These are things that promote the longevity of a team staying with you. We are huge believers in people and creating culture. So for anyone who's an employer, an entrepreneur, listening, that's one of the best investments you can make as an, as an employer is into your people and making sure that they're taken care of.
So that those are my thoughts on the philosophy of whose responsibility is it? I really believe that it's both.
[00:29:48] Speaker C: Yeah.
No, and it's.
It seems like everything in life is yes. And.
And there's, you know, elements of both that play into both.
[00:30:01] Speaker A: And
[00:30:04] Speaker C: I really think that building those foundations, doing all the boring stuff like we talked about earlier, that really sets us up for success and is able to, you know, help stave off those kinds of burnout, types of dangers. Because a lot of the danger of the burnout is the notion of getting to a place where you just don't care anymore because it's so difficult.
[00:30:36] Speaker B: And I think that's why, too. This is why health and wellness cannot feel like another stressor. It's supposed to feel like an oasis for us. It's supposed to feel like a place of recovery. But it's gotten so overcomplicated and people are, you know, they're just stressed about the fact that they're. They don't have the latest thing or, you know, they're trying this, you know,
[00:31:00] Speaker C: gotta get my steps in.
[00:31:02] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, this diet, I can't. I can't have a social life anymore on it. It's.
Wellness cannot be the thing. Another thing that's stressing us out. It's supposed to be the refresher, the oasis. And so if it's not feeling like that, and I'm not saying, like, every moment has to feel like, oh, yeah, I'm excited to do this. There's some days where I'm just like, I don't want to work out, you know, but that's not every day. This, occasionally. But if your routine has you feeling like, oh, my gosh, like, I'm so stressed out, there's something that needs to be tweaked or changed because it's supposed to be life giving, not draining.
[00:31:40] Speaker C: Yeah, life giving. And life has many different aspects to it. We've got, you know, the different things that we enjoy. Like, for you, for you personally, you are, you know, a business co owner and you have, you know, a family. You're a wife and a mom. You're homeschooling your kids. You have your own interests in life, your own hobbies and pursuits.
How do you balance all of that and how do you show up for those things in a focused way for each one of those without, you know, having the.
The thoughts or maybe the worries of a different life role sort of cave in and distract you from the things that you want to be focused on in the moment?
[00:32:28] Speaker B: I think that's a great question.
I kind of look at my priorities and like, a Hierarchy, at least that's how I have it in my head. So I'm God first, family second. So when I. When I'm thinking about what I have to do in a day, I'm showing up for my husband and my kids, like, they get. They get the best of me before anybody else. And then after that, I'm showing up for our business and my passions, and then everything else kind of like comes underneath that. So I have an organized way of thinking about it. Like, I love to write. I'm working on a book right now. I love to write. I love to play piano. I'm learning how to play the piano right now.
I have a lot of creative energy that needs to break free, but I'm not trying to become, you know, some world class pianist. So piano is something that I do in my free time, my downtime. So it's kind of like lower on the rung, but still something that adds value to me, that I make intentional time for because it's something that I enjoy.
I love to cook and bake as well. So if I kind of look at my life as like this pie, with my time divided, my husband, my kids get the biggest chunk of that prioritization. And then I kind of fit in everything else around that as, as I see to it, there's never a perfect balance. I don't stress about being perfectly balanced. I used to do that and found that that was very unprofitable for me. But whenever I'm, you know, sitting down, say, I'm doing a podcast with you right now. My kids know my office door is closed. Don't come knock on my door unless it's emergency.
They have the, the sit.
So we're good. Or when I sit down at my piano, like, I'm. I'm all into that. Like, that's where I'm focused. So I like to have my attention trained on wherever I am. Like when I'm homeschooling my kids, I'm not checking my phone for business stuff. And that helps me to really pour myself into what I value and be focused in that attention while also feeling like I'm fulfilling this kind of wheel of life of where I want to direct my energy.
And for me, that's what works and feels really good.
[00:34:55] Speaker C: That's wonderful.
So at Eleves, your company, what types of kind of offers and programs and services do you have for clients?
[00:35:10] Speaker B: So that company is relatively new. We kind of just did a rebrand last year. So right now I don't have a lot of services or offers. Really what I'm doing right now is working on my first book, which is Wellness for High Performers. And I have an audio course for people who want to nail those foundations that we just talked about.
The basic health tenants that really serve as the springboard for everything else.
For people that kind of know what to do but are struggling with the how to and the implementation. That course is. It's like a really quick to get through kind of course that helps you lay those habits down. So that's what I have for right now. And there'll be more to come in the future.
[00:35:57] Speaker C: Great.
Well, how can, how can folks get in touch with you? How do they find you online?
How do they reach out and find you?
[00:36:08] Speaker B: Yeah, I would say the best place is just to head to my website. It's Elevase E L e V as in Victory A y s dot com and I have a news newsletter there that they can sign up for. They can get in the know on what's happening in the Elevates community and world, and they'll be the first to know when that first book drops as well.
[00:36:29] Speaker A: Awesome.
[00:36:30] Speaker C: Hey Erica, it was so nice to meet you and talk to you today.
The work that you're doing really resonates with me and I'm sure that it will with many others as well.
[00:36:45] Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me
[00:36:48] Speaker A: ready. For more, visit whatsworthwhile.net to listen to podcast episodes. Master your response to stress by reading my book, Stress Response, available through Amazon, or to get better before burnout sets in by requesting the free guide. Regardless of where you are in your journey, I'd love to hear from you and talk about how we might move forward together.
Please contact me, Ramsey Zimmerman, through the website or on social media like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or X. Thanks,
[00:37:21] Speaker B: Sam.
