Let me be honest. Recently I found out that I have an autoimmune disorder. And this is not a story. Just let me just say this. This is not a story about fear or diagnosis details or anything like that. It is about what happened after I took a moment to sit with this new information. Once the initial shock passed, one thing became very clear. I could not manage this by pushing through. The same way many leaders try to manage overwhelmed stress and burnout by pushing through. Welcome to Leadership Unfiltered, the space where we tell the truth. Leaders do not always say out loud or even want to hear. This episode is not polished and it's not motivational stuff. It's a real conversation about what happens when life forces you to stop adapting to pressure and start asking better questions. Here's what hit me. For years, just like many of you, I was trained to power through deadlines, pressure, responsibilities, expected to hold it all together at work with family. But an autoimmune condition does not respond to grit. So you can you can get out of here with that. That realization reminded me of something because the same is true for leadership. What I realized in that moment is that this was not the first time better questions changed my direction. I started this journey of asking better better questions years ago, more than a decade ago. I was working in a toxic organization and I was moving to another organization. What I knew was I knew I did not want to repeat the same experience. But I also knew that simply changing jobs would not automatically change the outcome. There had to be something else. So instead of asking what went wrong, I asked a different question. And my question was, what do I need to do so that I do not end up in a similar situation again? And that question forced me to look at me, to look at my boundaries, the environments that I tolerated, boundaries that I let slide, red flags that I ignored, and the choices that I made in the name of pushing through. That moment was the beginning of learning how powerful the right questions can be. I just want to share with you how important this is. Some information for you. The World Health Organization defines burnout as a result of chronic unmanaged stress, not a lack of resilience. Has nothing to do with that. Gala reports that managers experience higher levels of daily stress than the employees that they lead. And for my small business owners, I don't want you to think I forgot you at all, according to Bank of America Small Business Owner Reports. They report that 72% of small business owners report feeling stressed about their business at least once a month, with many experiencing stress weekly or even daily. That's a lot that we're taking on. And for me, I learned that chronic stress is also linked to inflammation and long-term health consequences. So one of the things that I talked with my doctor about and learning how to manage this, right? Trying different things, managing this disorder. One of the things she said, and she said it more than once, she talked about managing my stress because she said that stress is a trigger and it could trigger flare-ups. And it just sent me into this space where I'm like, how do I manage it? I'm not trying to plow through, I'm not trying to push through, I'm trying to be more intentional and how important that is, not just in my personal life, but in professional life. So after sitting with my diagnosis and deciding this wasn't a push-through moment, I asked, what has to change so my body and my life are not under constant stress? Like I said earlier. And this just opened the door to all of the possibilities, all of the things that I could do. And the same question applies to leadership. If the pressure keeps repeating, it's not luck, it's a signal. And we have to understand that. But we ask questions like, how do I, how am I going to get through this quarter, or how am I going to get through this year, or how do I hold it together longer? Um, how do I make it work? And these questions keep you functioning, but they do not keep you well. They really don't. So we have to learn how to start reframing. And reframing shifts the focus from endurance, like how do I just endure it and get through it to design. How do I change things? How do I how do I look at this differently so that I am designing the outcome that I want? I'm not just getting through it. And so better questions sounds like, what am I tolerating that is quietly draining me? This is something that I work with. I work with my leaders on it 101s. I'm like, what's draining you? You know, and we have to pull back the onion and get to what it is. What systems or lack of systems are creating this pressure? What boundaries, and this is a big one, what boundaries am I avoiding because they feel uncomfortable? Which usually, when we start implementing boundaries, they do feel a little uncomfortable for us and sometimes for the people around us. But I want you to think about what would leadership look like if burnout or overwhelm were not the cost of success? If leadership were sustainable. And these are strategic questions that we want to make sure that we are asking ourselves. So we have to move from survival questions to questions that's going to help us design the change or the outcome that we want to see. And this matters even more for small business owners because when you are the business, your stress becomes a risk, your exhaustion usually becomes the bottleneck, and your health becomes a leadership issue. And research shows that prolonged cognitive overload reduces strategic thinking and increases reactive decision making. And this isn't the place that we want to be. So you don't need more hustle, you need clearer questions guiding your structure, your expectations, your workload. Um, so this is something that I just really wanted to share, you know. So this is the unfiltered truth. If you do not pause to ask better questions, your body, your team, your customers, your business will eventually force the pause for you. But that's not fear-based. That's reality. Leadership that ignores sustainability always sends the bill later. You're gonna get the bill later. When we do not pause to ask better questions, everything around us starts to suffer. So let me leave you with this. And this is one of my shorter episodes, but I really wanted to share this, especially, you know, it's the end of the year. So I think it's always a I think it's always a great time to reflect. But if you are in the year type of person, this is a great time to really think about what questions you've been asking yourself, what questions you need to ask yourself so that you don't go into a new year with the same things from this year. Let me leave you with this. What is your current level of stress trying to tell you that you keep explaining away? And this could be stress, overwhelm, whatever it is. What is it trying to tell you that you keep explaining away? And what needs to change so this does not become your norm. Sit with that, take your time, don't rush to fix it. This right here, my friends, this right here is where clarity starts. All right. This was Leadership Unfiltered. If this episode resonated, share it with the leader who is caring too much or leave a review so these conversations reach the leaders who need them most. Strong leadership isn't about plowing through or pushing through, it's about knowing when and how to change the question so that you can change the design.