ep392 colleen freeland The Leader Assistant Podcast

In this episode of The Leader Assistant Podcast, Colleen Freeland, a master certified life coach and emotional sobriety pioneer, shares her transformative journey from a high-functioning perfectionist grappling with a 20-year alcohol use disorder to becoming a founder of a thriving multi-seven figure business – all while managing the demands of parenting seven children.

This conversation offers executive assistants critical lessons on managing stress, prioritizing self-care, and resisting burnout in high-pressure roles.

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A leader is focused on the solution, not the problem.

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ABOUT COLLEEN

Colleen Freeland is the founder Emotional Sobriety Coaching© and the host of the globally top-ranked It’s Not About the Alcohol podcast. Thousands of high achieving, professional women have used her holistic methodology to transform into the version of themselves who can genuinely “take it or leave it” when it comes to drinking. Emotional sobriety is a skills-based approach based on the science of mindfulness, nervous system regulation and self-directed neuroplasticity that allows you to retrain your brain to work for you, instead of against you.

Colleen secretly struggled as a high functioning, heavy daily drinker for over 20 years. She finally realized that her over-drinking wasn’t about weakness and self-indulgence. It was a symptom of chronic self-neglect fueled by the stress of being an anxious, hyper-productive perfectionist.

Colleen Freeland is an addiction and recovery-certified master life coach with an MSc in health coaching, a BS in biology and chemistry education and is certified as a women’s functional and integrative professional.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[00:06]->[00:13]
The Leader Assistant Podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become confident, game-changing leader assistants.

[00:23]->[00:52]
Hey, friends, welcome to the Leader Assistant podcast.
It’s episode 392.
You can check out the show notes for this conversation at leaderassistant.com/392.
And today I’m excited to have Colleen Freeland on the show.

Colleen is a master certified life coach, emotional sobriety pioneer, recovering perfectionist.
And yeah, we’ll get to know her and her story a little bit here.
But welcome to the show, Colleen.

[00:53]->[00:54]
Thanks, Jeremy.
It’s good to be here.

[00:55]->[00:56]
What part of the world are you in?

[00:57]->[01:03]
I am in Indiana, about three hours east of Chicago.
So very Midwest.

[01:04]->[01:19]
Love it.
I’m in the Midwest as well in Kansas City, Missouri.
So love to talk with a fellow Midwesterner.
What is your favorite thing to do before we get into what you do and how it relates to assistance?
What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re not working?

[01:21]->[01:42]
I love to be outside even in the winter.
So, and walking my dog, you know, that’s kind of part of my daily routine.
I work a lot.
So, you know, I can say I’ve done some ballroom dancing and I’ve, you know, I try to have other hobbies,
but if there’s something consistent, it’s getting outside every day.

[01:43]->[01:54]
Love it.
Love it.
It’s a little hot right now in the Midwest, supposed to be even hotter next week.
But that’s just an excuse to get out in the shade instead of in the sun, right?

[01:55]->[02:06]
Yes, I as a, you know, fair skinned blonde, I melt in direct sunlight.
So you know, if I put on a hat or carry an umbrella, and it’s not raining, just look the other way.

[02:07]->[02:26]
All right.
Yeah, sun shirts are actually my favorite now.
I wear sun shirts with a little hood.
So I’m out there in the 100 degrees with my little hood up on my sun shirt.
So okay, so let’s jump in.

Tell us a little bit about your career journey.
And yeah, what’s your career look like?
And what do you do now?
Tell us a little bit about your story.

[02:27]->[03:04]
I came out of college as a teacher.
I was high school chemistry, biology, and then I had one baby and then two babies and going back to work as a teacher
was kind of a wash, you know, in terms of childcare.
And then I had three babies and four babies and I went into fitness coaching and, you know, group exercise, yoga teaching, you know,

so I got into health and wellness and
And then that led me to get a master’s degree in coaching, which is very different than teaching.
And then with my alcohol journey, I also got certified in addiction and recovery once I stopped being on the wrong end of it.

[03:05]->[03:28]
And then I opened, I became a founder.
So I went from being a stay-at-home mom with four kids and then even three stepkids at one point.
So I had seven kids.

So executive assistant, hello, that was me.
And I went from that into being a founder and running, you know, a multi seven figure business, you know,
without an MBA and all of that and having to figure it all out.

[03:30]->[03:41]
Wow, that’s awesome.
So you mentioned something that was interesting that you mentioned was the difference, you know, the coach is different than a teacher.
So tell us about your philosophy on that.

[03:42]->[04:16]
Well, you know, we live in a society where it’s an expert model.
You go see a doctor, you see a financial advisor, you pay somebody to tell you what you need.
And that’s very appropriate in a lot of contexts.
But we also…

We also lose our sense of our own truth and the awareness that our needs are always changing and the answer that fits us
today and who we are and what we want to be and how we’re going to make that work.
That’s going to be different one year, five years, 10 years down the road.

[04:16]->[04:47]
And so coaching is more of a partnership model where I’m going to hold the space for you.
I’m going to see you as the expert of your own life, even though you don’t know what you’re doing yet.
And I’m going to help you.

I’m going to pull out of you and reflect the strengths and the values and what it is you really want.
So coaching, just like somebody gets coached when they are playing a sport, there’s some technique involved.
But for the most part, it’s bringing out of someone the expert,

[04:48]->[04:54]
helping them become the expert of their own life by holding that space for them so that they can figure stuff out.

[04:55]->[05:17]
Love it.
Well said.
Thanks for sharing that.

So, okay, let’s jump into your 20 year hidden, as you call it, hidden struggle with alcohol use disorder.
Perfectionist, high functioning.
And then tell us about the moment you realized that, you know, there was a problem.

[05:18]->[05:50]
Yeah, well, I would say that I probably knew there was a problem for a lot longer than I would have ever admitted that there
was a problem.
When you are high achieving, high functioning, very productive, goal oriented, data driven, you’re very results focused.
Which was me, right?

I had more things to do in any given day than most people get done in a week, right?
That was just how I rolled.
And as the longer you go like that, where you’re not on your own priority list,

[05:51]->[06:25]
the more you need a coping mechanism for that.
And alcohol is ready, available, and socially acceptable.
You don’t have to go see your doctor for a prescription.
And so I got into the habit of using wine in the evening.
Once I was done driving for the day, I would pour that glass of Chardonnay and help kids with homework or do whatever project

I was working on.
I never really stopped, but alcohol helped me shift from go, go, go, go, go mode of the day
Into allowing me to be more present and relaxed.

[06:26]->[06:58]
And then of course it worked until it didn’t and an addiction developed.
An addiction is a spectrum.
You could say bad habit, you could say dependency, you could say addiction.
For me, it did develop into an addiction where I couldn’t not drink.
You know, it wasn’t that drinking made me feel so good anymore.

It was that not drinking felt damn near impossible because I was having to tell myself no from the one thing that allowed me to
cope with all of this stress.
And so, you know, that escalated.
For me, I hit the wall in COVID.

[06:59]->[07:32]
About six weeks into COVID, you know, we’re…
Everybody’s staying home.
I don’t have to drive anymore.
Everybody’s drinking on Zoom and it’s funny.
And alcohol companies, they’ve changed the rules to normalize drinking at home alone, which before COVID was a faux pas.

You wouldn’t admit it even if you did it.
And then COVID comes and it was.
So I gave it a good go up into the lockdowns about six weeks before I woke up one day and was like,
The only thing worse than the idea of quitting drinking is the idea of not quitting.

[07:33]->[07:41]
Like it was the only thing I could do to change something.
And so I decided to quit for a while.
Hmm.

[07:42]->[07:55]
So one of the things that you submitted when, you know,
when we booked this call is talked about the moment you realized you’re thinking not your drinking was the problem.
Yeah.

[07:57]->[08:28]
So I quit drinking and assumed that, you know, every, every problem that I had was going to go away.
And of course, in the first few weeks, you know, I’m not hung over anymore.
I’m getting better sleep.

I did feel better, but,
But very quickly, my norms reset and I was still just as anxious and over-functioning and overthinking of things, that perfectionism that drove me.
Now I just didn’t have an off switch at all.

[08:28]->[09:00]
A lot of times with people who drink too much, like, oh, I don’t have an off switch.
Oh, no, no, no.
Alcohol is your off switch.
That was how I shut it down.
And so I realized a couple of months into sobriety that I still had the same underlying unmet needs.

And I realized that alcohol had been serving a purpose.
As I coach people now, when somebody is drinking too much,
the first question that they want to focus on is how much it’s hurting them.

[09:00]->[09:33]
I’m hurting myself with alcohol.
The real first question you have to ask is how is this helping you?
How is it serving you?
Because if you didn’t need it, you wouldn’t feel like you need it as much.
And so that just became my journey of understanding that it’s not the coping mechanism that’s the problem.

It’s all the stuff you’re coping with.
And P.S., The pressure is coming from you.
It’s the way you think about how you have to show up and put yourself last and prioritize everybody’s needs over your own.

[09:34]->[10:09]
And yeah, there’s a lot of thinking that goes into the type A intense personalities that make you so successful in your career and at work.
But when you apply them to your personal relationship with yourself, you end up losing yourself.
And And I think that’s true whether you’re an assistant, whether you’re a founder, whether you’re a CEO,

whether you’re working for someone or for yourself.
I think we lose ourselves in the external game.
And then we wake up at some point and realize, gosh, I don’t even know what’s important to me anymore.

[10:09]->[10:10]
Yeah.

[10:12]->[10:36]
So, okay, so speaking of assistants, let’s talk about your experience working with assistants, you know, maybe hiring, you know,
maybe driving assistants to stress and a glass of wine because you’re a hard worker.
Yeah, give us a little bit of story or experience just from your career working with assistants.

[10:37]->[11:14]
Well, I’ve had to learn the hard way that I have to walk the talk.
I create the culture.
And the way I was, all my emotional sobriety in the world didn’t change the fact that I am still a person that will

work 12, 15, 18 hours a day, six or seven days a week.
And when I demand that of myself, my team naturally is trying to keep up.
And so I’ve had to kind of step back and look at my responsibility in creating a culture where burnout is not inevitable.

[11:15]->[11:53]
Because when you are giving more than you take, when you are being driven in that urgent direction,
Urgent, that’s a feeling.
You’re hurried.
You feel like you can’t keep up.
When you are living in those feelings, it’s not even a reflection of everything on your to-do list.

It’s how you’re responding to your to-do list.
So I have had to, first of all, self-correct with myself.
But then also, for the team members that I value so much, I’ve had to give them permission also to take care of themselves.

[11:54]->[12:28]
And to learn the skills of nervous system regulation.
And if there’s anything that I would say to anybody listening is that all of the certifications and understanding platforms and understanding software,
like all of those skills, those are hard skills.

The most important skill that you can learn that will predict the trajectory of your career is your ability to regulate your own nervous
system.
Just because someone wants you to be in a hurry and they want this delivered yesterday,

[12:29]->[13:03]
you have to learn to not let your body respond to that.
And it’s very subtle, these skills, but even just slowing your speech a little bit, taking a deep breath.
You have one minute between meetings, taking a one-minute vacation.
Like, Ah just like letting all of the pressure off starting your day with an intention of stillness and space so that it feels familiar
in your nervous system you know with my own team often if i send them a text first thing in the morning i’m getting

[13:03]->[13:09]
a response and it’s like i need you to take care of yourself first
Yeah.
Yeah.

[13:27]->[14:02]
Yeah, and as a former burnout-y, if that’s how you say it, I can relate totally.
And I love how you mentioned the nervous system and also the idea that maybe for those assistants listening who maybe have never drank
alcohol or maybe that’s not their go-to, to your point about
And the addiction can often be the stress or the environment of, hey, I’ve got to respond.

[14:02]->[14:36]
Like you said, my body has this physical reaction when my executive says, hey, I need you to do this by Friday,
or I need you to get this taken care of, or why didn’t you do this?
And so the nervous system part is very key.

But What I love about the notes that you sent in is you said this idea of resisting burnout off the clock,
because a lot of people think, oh, you know,
we burn out because we’re working 12 hours and we just need to take a vacation and we just need to take, you know,

[14:36]->[15:08]
actually log off on the weekends, which that’s true.
We do need to log off on the weekends.
We do need to take vacations.
Um, but you know, we often tend to, I would say assistance even maybe even more so at times because of how, how

much our job is about other people and supporting other people that we often forget about ourselves.
And so, you know, resisting burnout off the clock or when we finally close the laptop
You know, the calendar is we’re not looking at the calendar for our executive anymore.

[15:09]->[15:11]
You know, what are we reaching for in that moment?

[15:12]->[15:44]
Well, and if you need to reach for something, you don’t have the energy to take the walk, to do the workout,
to do some processing in a journal, to kind of unpack the things that have accumulated in your nervous system over the day and really
give yourself some attention.
When you skip that part, when you forget that this body is a person and
And that she has to be, or he has to be at the top of your priority list.

[15:45]->[16:18]
It’s kind of like a car.
We take better care of our cars than we do our body, right?
You would never get on the highway without going to the gas station and making sure your tank’s full.
You would never let your oil not be changed 5,000, 10,000 miles over when it was expected to be changed.

Or you wouldn’t expect it to not break down if you’re neglecting this.
And so your physical body is your greatest asset.
And what people don’t understand is we tend to kind of live in our head.

[16:18]->[16:48]
We think our mind is our greatest asset.
But what’s powering your mind?
Your physical body.

And so if you aren’t making time every day to prioritize, and self-care is not all Prosecco’s and bubble bath.
It’s taking quiet time to sit in stillness so that you’re not just constantly bombarded with overstimulation.
You know, it’s simple, but all of your body’s needs exist in the present moment,

[16:48]->[17:23]
which is why I’m a big fan of like three minute vacations.
You know, don’t wait until, you know, your boss is going on vacation in six months to give yourself a vacation.
Start bringing that into every single day.
You’re turning your phone off for, let’s just say 15 minutes of your lunch hour where you are not available.

You know, taking all the pressure off yourself and just allowing your body to breathe.
And to regulate and to be grounded and peaceful.
You know, I think that what we all think we want is to get more money, to get the project done.

[17:23]->[17:56]
But what really needs to be your top priority is a sense of peace in your body.
Because the person who feels peaceful has the capacity to deal with all the other crap that’s coming your way.
And if you don’t prioritize taking care of and creating a sense of peace for yourself,
Then eventually you’re gonna run out of gas and your mental health will start to suffer before your physical health does.
You won’t be as sharp.

You won’t be as clear.
You won’t be as able to creatively solve problems on the moment.
Like it’ll just start getting, it’s like there’s junk in your gears or whatever.

[17:56]->[18:01]
It just gets harder and harder to push through all of that.
And that’s happening in the nervous system.

[18:04]->[18:27]
Super helpful.
Thank you so much, Colleen.
Let’s kind of wrap things up here.
I got a couple more questions.
First, there’s this practical framework for reducing alcohol that fits into the reality of an assistance demanding unpredictable schedule.

And I would love to hear that.
That piqued my interest when I read that.
What is that practical framework?

[18:28]->[18:30]
A practical framework for reducing alcohol?

[18:30]->[18:36]
Yeah, I think you said by 80%, so whatever that means.

[18:36]->[19:11]
Yeah.
Well, you know, if you’re a person who needs to reduce your drinking, you know that you’re drinking more than you should,
then the first big reframe is not drinking less alcohol.
It’s what do you need more of, right?
You know, you need more time.

You need more stillness.
You need more peace.
You need more physical movement in your body.
And so it’s like the more you focus on the not drinking, the harder it gets because you feel like you’re withholding,

[19:11]->[19:46]
whether it be a reward, whether it be just a deep breath, because it’s the only way you know how to relax.
Right.
But if you look directly at your drinking and like, oh, the metric, I drank three glasses of wine a night.
I need to drink two or I need to drink one or zero or I need to only drink on the weekends.
That’s not really what it is.

What you want to do is start increasing.
Your capacity in your nervous system by taking better care of yourself.
Because just for example, coming home from work and taking, instead of pouring a glass of wine,

[19:46]->[20:17]
which is a lot of what my clients do, they come home from work, they pour the glass of wine, that’s how they relax.
Just building in some space, go lay on your bed for five minutes or take a walk for five minutes.
Let yourself breathe and decompress because the version of you who takes five minutes to decompress
Has a different desire to drink.

You know, the version of you that comes in hot after crossing off 8,000 things off your list, well,
you’re gonna start crossing drinks off your list.
You’re gonna be three drinks in before you even feel it.

[20:17]->[20:32]
So like just building in the space to increase the things that allow you to feel complete and satisfied in the moment,
because that version of you doesn’t need alcohol to relax.

[20:33]->[21:00]
Mm-hmm.
Very helpful.
Thank you.
And I love how practical it is to like, just take a five minute walk, take a, you know,
lay down on the bed if you need to for a few minutes, just quiet yourself.

Love it.
So, Colleen, thank you so much.
My last question is, what would you say to assistants listening as maybe kind of one takeaway that you you want them to think
about maybe this week?

[21:01]->[21:36]
I would say that your personal development also maps the trajectory of your professional development.
Your ability to serve at the highest level and to deliver what people need and expect from you is based on your ability to take
care of yourself.

There is nothing more important and there is nothing to wait for.
The longer you wait to put in
Space and time for your physical body and for your own mental health, the harder it is to correct later.

[21:36]->[21:39]
So like that’s a today thing.
And it starts with a three minute vacation.

[21:41]->[22:03]
Love it.
Well, thanks again, Colleen, for all the work you’re doing to help people.
And thanks for being here today, helping the assistants listening.

Where’s the best place for people to reach out?
And obviously, I’ll put all your links in the show notes at leaderassistant.com/392.
But if there’s one thing that they can do right now to reach out and connect, what would you point them to?

[22:04]->[22:09]
You can follow me on social media at all the platforms.
I’m the Hangover Whisperer.

[22:10]->[22:17]
The Hangover Whisperer.
Awesome.
Well, thank you so much again for being here.
And we really appreciate your time.

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