E79: Eastern Wisdom for Modern Work: Why Success Needs Rhythm with Holly Battrum

Most of us are stuck in a hustle culture that pushes us to ignore our natural rhythms and self-care. But what if the secret to sustainable success isn’t more grinding—it's tuning into your own body and seasonality? Dr. Holly Battrum unpacks how Eastern philosophies like team (the integrative approach to Chinese, Korean, and Japanese medicine) can transform our Western view of work, health, and self-awareness.

In this eye-opening episode, Holly reveals that true wellbeing is about remembering how to care for ourselves—without guilt or shame—and trusting the process. She shares practical strategies inspired by ancient wisdom, from aligning your work and sleep cycles to cultivating rhythms that nourish rather than drain. Discover the surprising ways seasonality influences productivity, health, and happiness, and learn how to fine-tune your daily habits to match your unique pulse.

You'll explore: the difference between Western and Eastern approaches to health and work, and how to incorporate holistic practices into your busy life. Holly explains the importance of listening to yourself, balancing discipline with trust, and ditching all-or-nothing mindsets. Get actionable tips on energy reset routines, managing technology overload, and embracing the slow signals your body sends.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone feeling burnt out by relentless hustle or craving a more sustainable, holistic approach to success. Perfect for health-conscious professionals, leaders, and creatives ready to reconnect with their inner wisdom and rhythm.

Holly is a doctor of integrative health specializing in blending Traditional East Asian Medicine with modern wellness. She’s passionate about helping people craft personalized, sustainable self-care systems that honor their natural cycles.Harness ancient principles to upgrade your work and life—because thriving doesn’t mean working harder; it means working smarter in harmony with your body’s innate rhythm. Hit play now to start tuning into your own unique flow.

Connect with Holly:

https://sjokort.com/about/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Today we're talking about something that sounds simple but is surprisingly difficult. Taking care of yourself without feeling guilty. We live in a culture that celebrates hustle, rewards burnout, and tells us that if we're exhausted, we're probably doing something right. What if working harder isn't always the answer? What if the real skill is learning your own rhythm instead of forcing someone else's? Today we have an expert in traditional East Asian medicine and holistic behavioral change. She helps leaders and professionals reconnect with themselves, not by adding more to their to-do list, but by helping them recognize the patterns, habits, and rhythms that allow them to thrive. In our conversation, we explore the difference between Eastern and Western approaches to work, why shame often masquerades as discipline, how to build trust in your own process, and why your life, much like music, needs rhythm instead of constant volume. Let's roll right in. All right, welcome to the Work Sucks But I Like It podcast. Today we have Dr. Holly Batram. She's a guide for leaders blending traditional East Asian medicine, something she calls team, with holistic behavioral change. This work, as Holly puts it, isn't about fixing anyone. It's about helping people remember how to care for themselves. Holly, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

Thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to our conversation.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

I love it. So Holly, define work for us today.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Um, work for me is a blend of helping people getting to be a lifelong student. And you know, obviously it has its moments, but for the most part, I'm like, I can't believe this is what I actually get to do for my job. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

So you said something that I kind of want to dive into. So you said lifelong student, right? So I feel like in this culture, you said you're from Kansas, I'm from New Hampshire here. So we live in the United States, that the traditional song and dance, right, is get a degree, get a job, get married, right? Those aren't bad things. Why is it so important to be a lifelong student and not just stop reading books at college?

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Oh, yeah, man. Um you're kind of asking. I came, I'm actually from Canada originally and moved to the States. So I grew up in it in a little bit of a different culture, I think. But I took, I I honestly, it's across the board, right? We reward people for these milestones. Uh, and then it's like a checkbox. And I just I personally love just pushing the limit, learning more, understanding more. And I think that to me is where we find the the coolness of individuals, of groups of people, all of that. If we just stop, if we learn for the sake of ending something or gaining something, um, and we're done. Like that to me, it's just not that fun. I guess not that life's about fun, but um, if we go through something, it's just a checklist. Like, why are we doing it? What are we connected to? Um, all of those things is just a little bit boring, right? And we want to keep pushing ourselves, understanding who we are, who other people are, and why what our whys are.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

So today it's pretty hard, Holly, right? There's so many things for us to go down rabbit holes on, especially on social media. How do you get the laser-like focus to know what to learn? Right? How do you like how have you developed that skill over the years?

SPEAKER_02 3:32

Yeah, it's uh not that I don't go rabbit down rabbit holes.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Me too, don't worry. Yeah. They're inevitable.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

Um, so I think that's where a lot of my work comes in. We have to filter through um like introsception, all of that stuff, so that we start to know relatively quickly. Does this make sense for me? Does this make sense for my community? If I learn something else, do I understand a different culture or community better? And but if we have that sort of connection within ourselves, then we start to see, like, oh, okay. That that may be an awesome idea, but it doesn't, it doesn't align. So let me just shift over here and and let me keep deep diving somewhere else. So um, I kind of I I fell into what I did in a lot of senses, but I think it was it was pretty driven. But now I get to sit there and figure out what lens am I looking at things with and which lens do I want to use.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Love that. So talk to us, Holly, about this acronym TEAM. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

Thank you. I can't take credit for it, but you've probably heard of traditional Chinese medicine. Um, team is is sort of the not sort of, but it's more of inclusive, right? It's traditional East Asian medicine. Um, obviously, there's many of us who are practicing without family roots, without all of this stuff. And so we want to come in and say, how do we understand that it's not just Chinese, it's Korean, it's Japanese, there's different lineages and all of that. So team is where um the culture, the communities that I I work in a lot have kind of landed on how can how can we do that? But it is super fun because also then it's team, right? Like I'm a guide, I'm part of your team.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

That's what I love about it, right? Yeah, the play on words there.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

But I guess that's very interesting. Can you walk us through, because you have a great background in this, the difference between sort of the Western sort of view of the world and then the Eastern view. And I guess can you integrate team? How would team fit for Western perspective and an Eastern perspective? There we go.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Yeah, and of course, in my understanding, even in like Eastern is very lifestyle-oriented, right? You live within the seasons, you're you have a rhythm going on, uh, we're more pred preventative care and crisis care as well. So we have sort of that kind of paradigm going through it, but it is a really holistic overview of kind of living traditions, right? Everything that it's not just what it was years ago, how has it changed within culture and society? And stereotypically, Western stuff ends up being like maybe a little bit more is better if you're living in that principle. Um, if it's good, it could be let's do a ton of it and it might be great. And that's not necessarily also when it comes to health and well-being the way it is. Um, and then of course we have conventional care, which there are many, many, many things that conventional care is really good at, but a lot of it is acute, right? We've got a crisis going on, let's fix the crisis, uh, not looking at the biggest picture possible. That's just the system that they're sort of set up.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

It makes me think of, and I hope I can get this right here, from Malcolm Gladwell and his book Outliers. And he talks about, I'll try to just kind of summarize it quickly here. You maybe you know the the book as well from Malcolm Gladwell, but he talks about how like with work ethic, right? And I love where he roots it. You kind of mentioned like, you know, it's a lifestyle with sort of eastern, you know, countries, and that, you know, when I think of the West, right, especially in the United States, you know, have seasons. I believe, you know, Kansas has seasons as well. You know, we we plant in the spring, you know, we grow in the summer, we harvest in the fall, and we sit on our butts in the winter, right? And Malcolm kind of makes the claim in his book that it's like, okay, when you look at the farming lifestyle in sort of like, you know, where they're front, you know, making rice in, you know, India and Asia or wherever, that it's year-round, right? You're tending to the rice patties year-round. And so there's a different sort of work ethic built into the culture. Can you kind of talk about because again, I love your stance of like seeing the eastern and the western side. We're in a hustle culture today. So, how what is your advice for people in the West to how should we be seeing work today? What should our work ethic look like today?

SPEAKER_02 8:13

So I'm big on rhythms, right? Like you, and I'm certainly not the person that says you can't go, go, go. Um, but how are you replenishing in that component with the hustle hustle culture? And then seasonally that would change in Eastern medicine. So you would be up later, up earlier in the summer. Um, the winter is a little bit more nourishing, right? So you might not be fighting the new like the go, go, go in in the winter season. You need to um hibernate a little bit more because we kind of want to live within the seasons as much as possible. Obviously, that becomes pretty challenging in modern day culture. You can't maybe tell your boss that you're not gonna come in until the Yeah, right, right. Oh no, my life does that say I don't want to come in until 10 in the winter, but in the summer I'll be there at seven.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

Love that.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

And then, of course, within the individual, right? So everybody has circadian rhythms, but like, are you somebody that's more productive um at certain times of the day? Should you be eating more in the morning or should you be actually eating more in the evening um based on on what kind of like rhythm that you have individually as well? So it's I do know that book and I don't remember that too, but I think the cool thing is to look at things differently, right? And say, hey, I'm trying to hustle through this and I wanna push a launch of a project at a certain time, and it's becoming really resistant, and I'm having to work very, very hard at that. And then you can say, hey, wait a second, is that actually the right place to put that launch in? Or if I have the flexibility, can I more align that with the season that that makes sense for that bigger and justice?

SPEAKER_00 10:07

So as a drummer, Holly, you mentioned the word rhythm. And I guess like, you know, I look at people as having a song and dance. Describe to us like what rhythm should look and feel like for someone throughout their day.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

So I love that because I'm always thinking about people how they have a pulse. Oh and I'm uh I'm a baby drummer. I don't know much about drumming, but I have a couple hand drums and and I'm like tattoo. So I think I yeah. Still drawing. I just need to do it more.

unknown 10:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

Um you know, I think the thing is it's all gonna look a little differently for us, for each one of us, right? My rhythm is gonna be different than your rhythm. And it's gonna depend on what external factors you have in there. And so my big example of this is when we look at health and well-being as sort of this concrete authoritarian, this is the only way to do this, and it isn't working, then we wanna look at something as a little bit more abstract authoritarian, right? Like, are you really is getting up in the morning and getting, I think it's Gary Brackau, but he's got the big like 30 grams of protein and 30 minutes of exercise with working, waking up at 30 within 30 minutes of waking up. And it's not necessarily a bad thing, but that just might not fit with your rhythm. Right. And so if you're kind of getting extra stressed out about trying to accomplish something like that in the name of health, then let's revisit what the rhythm actually makes sense for you.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

So, one of things we talk about on the show, Holly, as you know, is that success is not a matter of good luck, it's good skills. If you were to say to get this rhythm, what is the one skill people should be developing to find their sort of rhythm, their pulse, if you will?

SPEAKER_02 11:56

Yeah. Listening to themselves. Right. Um because we have to be able to integrate the information that we have learned. Right? First we learn with our minds, then we learn with our hands, and then we learn with our hearts. And often we just stop at our mind and then we think we know it. And then we're like, well, yeah, we know that, but we don't do it. And so is kind of the skill is really trying something, learning the difference between discipline, shame, and trust, and then assessing, adjusting, trying, assessing, adjusting. I don't think we're gonna get it at the very beginning. I think it takes a little bit sometimes to see to see. For example, like you might put you might decide, okay, based on my schedule, I'm gonna do all of this between twelve and two, right? A lot of us block our time. And every day we struggle between twelve and two to accomplish that. And we think we should be able to do that, and maybe we're actually gonna be, you know, a nine to ten person or a nine to eleven person because of our circadian rhythm. And is there anything that we can do to change that? Um and start to like make it make sense for us. And then of course, like, oh, maybe we need to look at something else, like is there a food intolerance in there? Is there this or is there that? You know, like um, there's so many different ways to look at it, but I don't know if if that really answered the question.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

No, I love it. And you mentioned kind of I'm gonna call these three ingredients here: discipline, shame, and trust. I feel like in the West, you know, we have discipline, right? We have our nine to five, we know to pay our taxes, to stay on the right side of the road. I love how you introduced shame and trust. Can you talk more about why shame is important to this process of you know, integration, if you will, from listening with ours to ourselves and then also trust thereafter? But let's start with shame. Why is shame an important component to this process?

SPEAKER_02 14:06

Uh, because I think we all shame ourselves really fast.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Yeah, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

And I mean, Bernay Brown is a big shame person, obviously, but the very first thing that we do often is say we should have. I should be able to do this. And when it doesn't happen, because we have such many of us have such a strong self-discipline, um and we can't discipline ourselves through it anymore, we shame ourselves instead of stopping. So in Eastern medicine, there's like the five parts of the psyche, and one of them is like willpower, and then we have yeah, and we have this and we have this, and most of us hang out on that willpower, right? We've been able to just will ourselves through um a lot of things. And when we can't do that anymore, because we've either overtaxed it or blocked it, or something happened that has stopped the development of that. Um we forget to like focus on all the other things and we just think, oh, maybe if we just push harder in this one area, we can do it. And the really cool thing about that is like there just might be or maybe we're not processing, maybe we don't see the vision. Um, but I think we immediately stop and start to shame because we can't discipline.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

What's an example? Can you like kind of go like is there a specific thing that comes to mind?

SPEAKER_02 15:33

Yeah. Um Well, if we're talking about health or anything like working right, we we know we want to get up and work out, right? Okay. We're like, yeah, exercise is healthy. Uh right. And and for some reason, even if we maybe feel better after that exercise, sometimes it's a pretty tough thing to keep in place. And we blame, we go into shaming ourselves. I know I need to do this. If I could just push myself harder, I could go do it. Instead of maybe going and saying, hey, maybe that's twofold. Like maybe that exercise is just not the type of exercise that we need or want to do right now. Um maybe it's at the wrong time of the day. Maybe the reality check is that there's a lot on our plate and an hour of exercise at the gym is just not gonna be something that you can deliver, but we can do exercise snacks instead. Like but the I think the shame is there first. Right? Instead of sitting there and saying, Oh, hang on, let me let me see if this is true or not. Or we're just like, Yeah, it's true, we're super busy, just can't get it in. And then we don't look at it in any we don't process it in a different way, digest the information in a different way, and see where we can adjust or can't adjust.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

I guess it makes me think of like people wanting more. And it's just really about accepting what you have, right? Sometimes the workout isn't the right time of day to do it. But there sometimes is a balance, right? You have to motivate yourself, like, okay, yes, working out can suck sometimes when you're getting up at five in the morning before work. I guess what's the difference that you're kind of talking about here? What's you know, when it like you know you need to do it versus like, no, you didn't have to do it.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

Yeah, that's it's a tough call, right? I think because it's not always gonna be fun. I love the title of your podcast, right? Work sucks, but I like right. That's definitely um, you know, I definitely I love what I do in there still have days that it's exhausting and draining and you know, and all those things. Um so yeah, I think it's a yes and. Right. We can say, okay, if our goal is to accomplish this task at work um or to work out, let's try a few different things first. Right. But we can't, we don't want to or can't just give up on it because we also know it builds upon itself. So, like that first five minutes, right? That I don't know about you, but I started running a few years ago. I still kind of hate that first mile.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

I'm with you.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

And if somebody hadn't told me that first mile was really hard. Um, but man, mile two, three, four, five, six, like those are pretty awesome miles.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Yep. No, I love that. So I used to do a lot of marathon running myself, Holly, before COVID. I remember friends when I first started training had a similar experience like you. And they're like, Yeah, my mile six, you're gonna be great. I'm like, I can't even get to mile one. Like, I literally was so bad at running. And I'm like, what do you mean, mile six? I'm not even at mile one. But no, I love that. So, Holly, something that I find, because I love you know reading about you know Eastern philosophy as well here, is that you know, the books of like the Dao Te Ching and even like the sutras of Patanjali, they kind of talk about loving, I'm gonna just paraphrase here, like loving the process, right? So I want to build on that last kind of ingredient that you had with this idea of trust. How should people look at trusting the process for their work today?

SPEAKER_02 19:23

I think it it comes back to we've put the systems in place, right? And we have to plant the seeds. So we planted the seeds. And you know, when a plant grows, the roots grow first. We don't see that growth, right? So we have to you have to have enough root to support the growth on top of the soil, right? It has to be somebody could probably tell me the exact measurement of that, but there has to be enough root to support the plant. And well, we don't see any of those roots growing. And so, you know, you you kind of do all the things and then you don't want to get too distracted. Like, you know, you gotta give it a certain amount of time to let it grow. Now that's some of that adaptation where you're like, okay, do I have I given it enough time and it's still not working, and I need to give it different food or you know, all of those things. But um, the trust is there because I think we can go forward with projects and tests and goals and passions and not the the fun part is not seeing the end result, right? And having the goals and the systems, but not knowing how we're gonna get there because it's too big. When I when I went to design, I my first career was in design and often I designed and constructed, and many, many schools wouldn't let you do both because they felt like the construction would limit your ability to design. Because if you knew how it was if you only could design within what you knew how to construct, your freedom would then go to your design, your construction skills, not your design skills.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

Oh, interesting. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 21:15

So the trust kind of comes into that spot, right? Because we might have this beautiful idea, but we don't know how we're gonna get there. But we still have to check in with the systems and the mini goals and all of those things.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

So I love that. So I want you to kind of like run with this here and let's explore the scenario. So say we have a nine to five person, they're working towards, you know, retirement, and you know, they've they've built the roots, if you will, right? They've got this steady job, they're paychecked, they're doing their work. What would you say they're growing at this point? Right? We've established the roots, you know, of again, paycheck and the benefits of all these things. What would you say they're growing now and sort of working towards in this process of that work?

SPEAKER_02 22:00

So yeah, twofold. It could be expanding that work, right? Like maybe you keep learning to see how to apply those skills differently. Um, it it could be that that part of your life is established and there's other parts of your life that you want to grow. You know, do you want to learn how to be a drummer? Do you want to learn a hobby? Do you want to learn a craft? You know, which honestly, in this culture right now, we're in the hustle culture, and then we're in the side hustle culture. So many of us have been taught to only do a side hustle. Our our hobbies have now become also another money-making thing. Um and sometimes we want to protect that. I mean, I get it. We all need life's expensive, so I'm not judging anybody. It is, it is. We gotta be real with it. Yeah, it is. We I seriously gotta be real. But are there, you know, if this is your sort of if you're established and your roots are grown, but maybe you want to start growing a blue flower instead of a red flower, you know, and you want to start thinking about how would you use all these skill sets differently. Are you a big one that I see, you know, are you protecting your health? Like, are you gonna have you gonna have the health when you go to retire? Um, are you doing the the life work, right? Are we still building friendships, relationships? Many times isolation happens as we get older, you know, because we've put I think it's because we've put so much time into our nine and fives. Um we've created a lot of companies kind of get they get priority over who we are, what we do, and you know, then they don't deliver back, which they don't really owe anybody anyway anything, but we forgot that. We think if we give them everything, they're gonna give us back something. And and so that would be what I would say is like, what does that look like holistically as a whole picture outside of work, in work? Do we adapt, do we change for fun? You know.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

No, I love this. I mean, it ties back to what we kind of introduced you with was that you know, you're trying to get people to remember how to care for themselves. Why do you think we've gone astray from that today? Like it seems such a ridiculous question, but why why is that? When you want to care for yourself.

SPEAKER_02 24:26

Yeah, I mean you would. You're right. It it is our most valuable asset. Um it's it's the I think it's the most easy thing to let go of because a lot of our lives have been taught that it's selfish, we're caring for ourselves versus caring for others. And and even though it's true, like you can't pour from an empty cup, it almost seems like frivolous to say that. Uh so we've I think martyrdom is kind of normalized. Um at every level of culture, in work culture and things like that, where we have sort of this acceptance, but you wouldn't do it. It the funny thing is, is you don't do it to your car, right? You take your car in for an oil change. It's so easy for us to look at the other things. But what happens is we've pushed and we've pushed and we've pushed, and we had to get through stuff. And our bodies are amazing, the neuroplasticity of our brain, how our bodies function, how they cheat to get us through something is great. I mean, it's really cool, actually.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

It is, it is, I agree.

SPEAKER_02 25:47

But if we never give it time to reset or to recreate, so we create what we call these like latency patterns, and we're holding that spot in place, and we're holding it, we're holding it, holding it. It takes so much energy over time that it starts to be too much energy. And so now we're in a space where we're like, oh God, it's gonna take us a lot to A, it's taking us so much energy to hold that pattern in place. We don't have as much function anymore to think about changing that pattern. And it's uncomfortable, right? Like we treat introsphen, we treat reconnection, we take listen to ourselves as like this light and fluffy, like fun thing. Right, right, right, right. Right, yeah. And I'm sorry, like it can be uncomfortable as some choice words. Yeah, right. And it has to be in a safe space and it can take a lot of time. And so honestly, we've become potentially addicted to feeling a certain way. And even if that's not the longevity way to feel, that's where we're comfortable.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

What do you think of the phones? I'm gonna interject now.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

Oh, yeah. The phones, our phones?

SPEAKER_00 27:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

Oh, yeah. I mean, we're not computers. I think honestly, gonna misquote it's stolen focus. I think it is it James Nestor that wrote that book. He's probably gonna be like, no, that wasn't my book. My book was the other one. But uh anyway, great book, but he talks a lot about we can only put a certain amount of information in our brain.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

Yeah, no, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 27:31

And we are not computers. And a lot of us, I mean, I after I read that book, I stopped like listening to podcasts when I mowed the lawn. I still listen to podcasts, but you know, I was always doing it for the good. You know, and then it wasn't giving my time, my brain time to reset. It wasn't giving myself time to think. Um, it creates a lot of time, you know, to kind of figure that out. And sometimes, and then so that's one problem. I think the other issue is that we love grand gestures, right? That's the Western way of thinking.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

I like that expression, actually, grand gestures. That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_02 28:11

Grand gestures, right? So then when you go to say, oh, let's talk about mindfulness and meditation, what's the first thing that you think about you have to do? Like, can you think? I mean, I know you have a practice, but what do you generally think about when you think about like mindfulness?

SPEAKER_00 28:24

So is that a question to me?

SPEAKER_02 28:25

That's a quite yeah, that's a question for you.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

If you want to answer that, I'm not being mindful here in present. Yeah. I mean, I guess like if I were to put myself in like my so I teach yoga and I say, you know, talk about mindfulness, people immediately think like, oh, sitting in Lotus with incense burning and I need to clear my thoughts. It's like exactly like that's go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

Yeah, no, and I I love that you say that too, because it's like, and then like if we can be a monk for the first time and probably sit on the side of a mountain, there we are. Right. And right we and then we are like, Well, I can't, I can't meditate. I I don't know how to do that. And it's like, did you start at three hours? Right, right. So we have this really big grand gesture of what all of this care is supposed to look like for ourselves. And um, many people in the health and wellness industry, you know, we may have moved one addiction to another addiction, right? So you see those stories a lot. And so those behaviors, um, as much as it's probably a quote unquote better thing to do, it's the all or nothing thought process again.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

That's so true. It is all or nothing, sort of in the West. And I'm gonna, I love what you talked about with your car, right? So you bring your car in to get an oil change. I mean, how many of us do that self-care with ourselves? Like what where I guess what is the oil change? What do you recommend? Other than going on a, you know, on a mountain in the Himalayas and meditating with incense. Like what's a more practical one for listeners?

SPEAKER_02 29:56

Yeah, I mean, if you can do that and you love it, great. Right. Um so okay, so an oil change, I guess, depends on what kind of car you have. Um after a certain amount of miles, you're doing your check-in. And in the Western culture, it says it's your wellness checks, right? Once a year you go in and you get a standard panel of labs. Honestly, a lot of times people don't realize like what we're even really looking for in those labs. Like, there aren't diagnoses for some major things, right? It might be red flag and then you might go down another path. Um but your oil change might be uh it could be as simple as like a little bit of extra time to think during the week. Right? It could be working out in a way that's building energy, not just completely using it up. Um but you want to generally, if you've not done any of this, you're gonna have to start small. Right? Um could be microbakes doing your day, it could be um 'cause some of us, I mean, nine to five, right? I don't know how you do your job, but like I've worked an I've worked some pretty long hours in my life and as simple as like not eating lunches, not going to the bathroom. So you kind of need to check in with yourself and like or get support to like where are you starting from? And then that oil change is gonna look way different than say you're telling me that you're a musician and you you teach yoga and you have this background. So your oil change is gonna look way different than than somebody who is just starting out.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

I love that, Holly. I guess it makes me think of like I'm what got my engineer hat on as well, going about to say this, but I love the idea of a calendar, right? Because I have put into my day these oil changes. So I take a nap at lunch, you know, after I eat, and you know, I just I love that. What is one thing that you've done? What is an oil change that you've done for yourself that's worked for you?

SPEAKER_02 32:00

Yeah. Oh my gosh. Um, so one of my favorite things to do, it's a little bit more than an oil change, I guess. But um since I go, I used to work in a hospital system, which is where it came out of, but I would just go from room to room to room to room. And so I use door frames to do like kind of an energetic mental clearing every time I walk in and out of a space so that I can just I can do it so quickly and I don't think about it, but it would be like, okay, I'm not gonna bring this patient's energy or my energy into this next patient room so that I can be completely present. And I would use the door frame and still do as sort of a guideline, right? So it's something as simple for you, for example, or somebody would be like, okay, can I do something that's a super quick reset when I get into my car so that I'm not bringing my workday home to my family? Or, you know, those kinds of things. And so those are I try to do pretty fast energy shifts. Um some of the more recent ones is like setting up Financial Fridays. So I make myself look at my finances. And I don't say that in a bad way, but it's not something I grew up doing. So it's become a lot more fun and engaged and and things like that. But um, I am very lucky to have a pretty strong practice that bleeds itself into my work, right? I I've kind of created an environment in a life in which I said, you know, this morning I was sitting on my patio reading a book about seasonal changes, and I'm like, technically, this is fun, but technically it's for my office too, you know.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

So, Holly, I want you to talk to us about your work here. How, and I love how you kind of say it, you're blending this passion for art and science and acupuncture and that acronym team again, traditional East Asian medicine. Talk to us about this work that you were doing on your patio this morning.

unknown 34:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

Um, I mean, don't worry. I also saw coaching clients say, also saw acupuncture clience.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 34:08

I I also you know led a webinar, but um, you know, so I started in this field in 2012. Um, and I've it's been such a cool field because I started initially as just practicing acupuncture or some of those things. And what I realized is that we need even more, even though that is amazing and it's some people just need that. But um, I felt that I wanted to deliver an even more holistic view. And so I have my doctoral degrees in a little bit more in integrative health, as well as, you know, the acupuncture and the herbs. Um and so now I can look at people, I can help people with their lifestyle. I kind of combine health and life coaching and really just I kind of say get nosy in people's lives and see. And the biggest thing I see is that we get so close to everything. We we need guidance, including myself, to um see where we can make changes, see the successes that we have had, right? A lot of times we still beat ourselves up for, you know, like, oh, we're not getting anywhere. And it's like, oh, there's so much success you've already had. Um and so I kind of created this what I call rhythm, not balance programming there. And then I also do workplace well-being. So since we spend so much time at work, um, I was like, oh my gosh, we're we're asking people to then go home and do all these things to keep ourselves healthy for work in our lives in their life space. And what can companies offer to people that we can integrate successfully into their work day as well?

SPEAKER_00 35:52

Cool. I love that. So I I we hear a lot about coaches on this show, Holly. And again, I'm gonna draw upon, I want to draw upon your sort of Eastern, you know, background here. What is the difference for you between a coach and a guru?

SPEAKER_02 36:07

Oh, yeah. I'm not a huge guru person.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

Yeah, that makes two of us.

SPEAKER_02 36:13

Okay, good. So I don't want to offend anyone. Um ideally, at least when I work as a as a quote unquote a coach, and I I really do use all mostly all my TCM or TCTA and you know, my team stuff um within that system. And then of course I'll have like some of that Western behavioral change philosophy and things in there. But um gurus take our power. And to me, as a coach, I am a guide alongside of you.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

Why do you say that with a guru?

SPEAKER_00 36:48

I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_02 36:51

Because I there's great ones out there. Um I but I found that I want for myself personally, I want to be able to question in the some aspects in a kind way, like what I'm learning. Because it needs to be, and I see this with my patients, all of this information could be good and could be helpful, but maybe still not for you. And you need to be able to assess that and align it with how we're doing it. And if it doesn't align with you, it's not helpful. And sort of the guru experiences I've had, they're teaching their philosophy, their concrete authoritarian stuff, and it's all or nothing.

SPEAKER_00 37:38

I I totally agree. I'm laughing because I just agree with that. And I love how you said that. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 37:45

I don't want to install anyone. I, you know, I yeah, I think there's experts. I think we all have a lot of skills to offer, but it's how you take the information that's given to you as a feedback. And I want people to be in a place in which they understand why they're doing what they're doing.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

I just asked because like I'm just fascinated. People have told me, like, oh, Tony, you could be a coach. And I guess I'm just like I guess I'm a little confused. I'll say that, Holly, of why people need a coach today to live their life. Why do people need coaches to live a better life?

SPEAKER_02 38:25

I think it's the feedback, right? And it's to me, it's because we think we all know what we need to do, but we're still may or may not be doing it. So some people need it more for accountability, some meaning people need it more for understanding. Um but yeah, it's it's a tough, I can understand why you're resistant to it. I was resistant to it, I think, for a long time as well. And if I could come up with a different word, I'm I might use it instead.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

You find one, I'll definitely give you the credit.

SPEAKER_02 39:05

Yeah, and I don't say that because there's so many amazing people that are helping people, but I gotcha. Um there's a lot of, and we see this in consultants as well. Like there's a lot of people who are like, oh, I can do this, therefore I can share how to do it, which may not be untrue, but there's just so much more to this process of actually guiding people, I think.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

So, Holly, this is the work sucks, but I like it podcasts. What is one thing that sucks about your work today? Maybe it's coaching or identifying with a guru. And what are you doing to make it not suck?

SPEAKER_02 39:44

I mean, I'm pretty lucky that it doesn't suck too much. Um, I think it's the as a business owner, it's the working in and on your business and and you know, balancing that and finding that rhythm and and all of those things. And it doesn't suck, um, but it you have to really, I have to really work at um understanding the to-do list is never going to be done. And that's okay. I mean, I can still create space for other things in my life as well.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

So I love that, Holly. If listeners want to learn more about your work and see more of this team acronym and action, where's a good place for them to land?

SPEAKER_02 40:32

You know, they can land on my website. It's just it's showcourt.com. Um, I'm on LinkedIn and Holly Batchram on my Instagram. You know, I've got I've got some fun webinars coming up and and different ways that people can kind of gather some more information and, you know, and tiptoe into it. So it's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

Awesome. Holly, it's been a pleasure having you on the show. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 40:54

Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed our conversation.

SPEAKER_00 40:57

One of my favorite ideas from today's conversation was that success isn't about pushing harder all the time. It's about knowing when to push, when to recover, and learning to trust your own rhythm. Holly reminded us that just like we schedule oil changes for our cars, we need regular maintenance for ourselves. Those moments don't have to be dramatic. Sometimes they're as simple as taking a breath before walking into the next meeting, leaving work at work, or giving yourself permission to slow down long enough to think. Because work isn't meant to consume your entire identity, it's one part of a meaningful life. Until next time, remember, success isn't a matter of good luck, it's good skills. Keep learning, keep growing, and keep finding work that's worth doing, finding that rhythm, your song and dance. I'll see you next time when work sucks, but I like it.