1. Uncover the surprising link between mental health and entrepreneurship.
2. Learn why feeling stressed as a business owner is completely normal—and what to do about it.
3. Discover a simple yet powerful self-regulation technique to regain clarity fast.
4. Find out how to structure your workday for maximum productivity without burnout.
5. Get access to an exclusive free resource that delivers deep insights without the sales pitches.

Shula's Valuable Free Resource (VFR):

https://www.shula.ca/newsletter/

Entrepreneurship is an emotional rollercoaster, and your success shouldn’t come at the cost of your mental health. In this episode, Shulamit Ber Levtov—The Entrepreneur’s Therapist—shares why business owners face unique mental health challenges, how to navigate stress effectively, and a powerful yet simple technique to regain clarity and focus.

03:00 Ideal Client: Women entrepreneurs who want to maintain their mental well-being while growing their businesses.
03:45 Problem Solved: The stress and emotional toll of entrepreneurship, especially the double burden of existing mental health challenges and business pressures.
05:10 Valuable Free Action (VFA): Place a gentle hand on yourself and affirm, “Of course, I’m having a hard time—I’m doing hard work,” to calm your nervous system.
07:40 Valuable Productive Action (VPA): Use refined time-blocking—set 90-minute work blocks, assign a single task per block, and avoid over-scheduling.
09:40 Bonus Material
11:05 Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Shulamit’s newsletter at shula.ca/newsletter, providing deep insights without sales pitches.

(Note, this was transcribed using transcription software and may not fully reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Welcome to the Goalbusters Expert Peak Productivity Tips podcast, where top business experts get just seven minutes to answer five rapid fire questions about what they do and how they stay productive.

Each episode is packed with actionable insights to help boost your efficiency and achieve your goals. Let's dive in and unlock the secrets to peak performance.

00:22 ROBIN

Well, hello, everyone. My name is Robin J. Emdon, and I'm the creator and author of the GetResultsology system and a dedicated accountability coach. My mission is to empower solopreneurs to unlock their true potential, boost their income, and achieve extraordinary success by maximizing productivity, streamlining their businesses, and aligning their goals with their authentic vision and purpose.

If you're ready to turn ambition into action and transform your goals into reality, you're in exactly the right place.

My guest expert today, I'm delighted to say, is Shulamit Ber Levtov. Shulamit is a culture change catalyst speaking and educating at the intersection of mental health and entrepreneurship.

She's the entrepreneur's therapist, working with women business owners to preserve their peace of mind as they ride the emotional roller coaster of running a business.

Shula has been an entrepreneur for over thirty years and has more than twenty four years of professional experience applying therapeutic coaching and somatic tools to women's mental health and personal growth.

She speaks and teaches about the intersection of mental health, trauma, financial psychology, and entrepreneurship locally, nationally, and internationally.

As an award winning entrepreneur, masters level, licensed trauma therapist, and trauma survivor with certifications in the trauma of money, financial social work, nonviolent communication, and yoga, Shula brings a unique perspective and approach to supporting women in business.

Shula, welcome to Goldbusters!

SHULA
Hey, Robin.

ROBIN
Hey. It's great to see you. Whereabouts are you in the world?

SHULA
I'm near Canada's capital city, Ottawa.
Oh, okay. An hour and a half outside of the city. I live on thirteen acres of land with a a Belgian mayor, a donkey, a border collie, a bunch of cats.

ROBIN
Oh, wow. Thirteen acres of land is about the size of an English city. That's wonderful.

Oh, thank you. That sounds really idyllic. And I'm very, very pleased to meet you, Shula. Thank you so much for coming on today.
Shall we do the questions?

Shall we crack on?

SHULA
Sure.

ROBIN
Alright. So I'll get the clock going.

And there it goes. Shula, let's talk about what you do. Who is your ideal client, please?

03:00 Shula – Ideal Client
I teach to any entrepreneurs who want to learn about mental health and entrepreneurship and how to mitigate the impact of entrepreneurship on your mental and emotional well-being. And I support specifically women business owners one to one, as you said, because it's an emotional roller coaster running a business. And, your business success shouldn't cost you your mental health. So I support folks in keeping on an even keel as they handle the stresses of running a business.

ROBIN
Yeah. And more so than ever, it feels like today, doesn't it?

SHULA
Yes. Very much so.

Absolutely. Okay. So you've we've touched on it. You've touched on it. But let's go delve a little bit deeper into the problem or problems that you solve, please.

03:45 SHULA – Problem Solved
Sure. Well, you know, there's a researcher in the US. His name is doctor Michael A. Freeman, and he has done a lot of, research into entrepreneurship and mental health. And we entrepreneurs have a double-barrelled challenge when it comes to mental health because entrepreneurs, most in the majority, come from a pool of people in the general population who have already mental health challenges.

And so that's what we bring to the party. We come in with our baggage, but then it's what the party brings to us, the stressors of running a business, of being the only one who's responsible for everything and also who maybe has employees. You have clients. You have contractors. The emotional labour of being a leader. And then, of course, the financial stresses.

This also has an impact on our mental health. And in order to have a successful business, we have to be able to navigate this successfully. When we are well, our businesses are well.

ROBIN
Absolutely. I mean, while you're talking there, I was reminded it often feels like you're just on a rollercoaster every single day. And not everybody likes being on a roller coaster.

SHULA
Some people Yeah.

But it's the whiplash. The whiplash is a little painful.

ROBIN
Yeah. Exactly. Okay. So moving on and that was excellent. Thank you so much. What is one valuable free action that our audience could implement that will help them to solve these kinds of problems?

05:10 SHULA – Valuable Free Action (VFA)
Sure.

So the main thing that I want folks to know and to take away is that there's nothing wrong with you for having a hard time, for being distressed, for, quote, unquote, breaking down. Mental health challenges are inherent in entrepreneurship.

It's the nature of the work we do, high demand, high stress leadership roles.

So if you're having a hard time, it's not your fault. It's the nature of the work. And so the simple tool would be, if it feels right, to place a gentle hand somewhere on yourself, you can place it, I like the heart space, and to say to yourself when you're in distress…

Of course. Of course, I'm having a hard time. I'm doing hard work.

There's nothing wrong with me for having a hard time.

And once you can reassure yourself and connect with yourself in this way, it kind of clears your mind so that then you can focus on the task at hand. You can access your creative problem solving, your decision making capacity, your creativity, your brilliance. Right? When you're emotionally disturbed, you can't, like, when your emotions are high, it's really hard to access that.

But when you can say… Right. Right. Of course. There's nothing wrong with me. Then you can regain your capacity.

So that's the tool. There's nothing wrong with you.

ROBIN
Yeah. And that is incredibly powerful. Thank you so much for that. I talk about it in my book about the difference between your it's your two brain sets. It's your reward modality and your threat modality. That's the limbic system. And getting the limbic system to calm down is what I believe you're talking about.

SHULA
That's a hundred percent it. Yeah.

And it's really tricky. It's very easy to trigger it, you know, a bill in the post and you're there. Yeah. You then try working through, oh my god.
How am I gonna pay this? Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. You know?

ROBIN

Yeah. And it's just really frustrating. So perfect. Thank you so much. I love that. Thank you.

SHULA
You're welcome.

ROBIN
Alright. So let's change the topic a little bit. And now that we've got a better understanding of what you do, I hope you don't mind if we dive into GoalBusting, which is focusing on how to maximize productive time to achieve business goals. So could you share any tips or advice for someone looking to improve their productivity habits? And by the way, I think you just shared a blinder, but maybe I'm being greedy and asking for another one.

07:40 SHULA – Valuable Productive Action (VPA)
Well, I think they go together.

Because the emotional we call it emotional regulation. We could also call it self compassion or emotional self-care, emotional connection is the prerequisite for any of the other things, and so they dovetail with one another. So the thing that I'm excited about right now is a nuanced understanding of time blocking.

So I used to put blocks in my calendar. Okay. This is my marketing block. This is my admin block to reduce the context switching.

But I was still over scheduling myself, and so I've refined the practice.

So what I did was I set my start time and my end time of the day.

I set my lunch times, and I set my client blocks where I where I'm doing exclusively client calls. Then I looked at the rest of the time left, broke it into ninety minute blocks. And so now, every day, I look at the day and I say I have x number of ninety minute blocks and I assign one task to each ninety minute block. I set the timer, I do the work, and then I stop and take a break.

And I find that that helps me be really realistic. Like, next week, I have so many meetings and other things, so I have one ninety minute block in my week. So that ninety minute block is gonna be my number one priority, and I've done my planning and my goal setting so I know what I what I want to focus on in February. So the one thing I do next week is going to be the thing that moves the needle for me even though I only have one block.

And I find it helps being realistic and not over assigning makes me more effective and less stressed.

ROBIN
Yeah. Solid advice. Absolutely agree with you. And I love the distinctions you've made there. So our final question, please, Shula, is what should I have asked you today that I didn't? And, of course, your answer, please.

09:40 SHULA – Bonus Material
Yeah. I consider this because, of course, you know, you gave me the questions ahead of time. And I really don't think there is anything, but I will take the opportunity to reiterate because I think it's so important. So many people end up in my office thinking there's something wrong with them.

They say I've been through this, that, and the other thing. I don't know what's the matter with me. Why all of a sudden, I've been through trauma and stress, but my VA quit and now I can't get out of bed. It's because stress accumulates and potentiates.

There's nothing wrong with you.

And when people have that realization that, oh, actually, I'm feeling the way I'm supposed to be feeling, that I'm not crazy, so to speak, it alleviates so much. So I'm just taking this opportunity to repeat the really important thing, which is, you know, you're doing hard work. If you're stressed out, there's nothing wrong with you, and you could ask for help.

ROBIN
Yes. Perfect. I completely agree with you. That is that is worth listening to that point and making it again.

It's almost like you're just having a conversation with me right now, and there's no one else listening. And then that's just it's really powerful. I'm really hearing what you're saying. And and it is a very, very real issue that you've raised there.

Shula, that was wonderful. So how do people get in touch with you? And also, I'm a bit naughty. I always ask, is there like a valuable free resource that they could get from you as well, please?

And we will give a link to that.

11:05 SHULA – Valuable Free Resource (VFR)
Yes. Thank you. Yes. It'll be in the chat, and it'll be in the screen as well.

ROBIN
That's right.

Shula.ca is my website, ca for Canada.

And the most valuable resource I have to offer folks is my newsletter.

I really go in-depth. I don't do I don't have launches. I don't have programs. I work one to one with folks and that's it. So you're not gonna get sales in my newsletter. You're gonna get needy conversations, you know, going in-depth to topics like we talked about today. So shula.ca/newsletter is where you can subscribe.

ROBIN
Absolutely perfect. Thank you so much. And I love the distinction that you've made there about your newsletter. And I think it's important that people understand that you don't have to be salesy.

It isn't always salesy, these things. It's about delivering value and meaning. And then they want something from you. They'll find out in their own way whether they do or they don't.

And but in the meantime, you're offering great value. So I love that. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Shula, thank you. And I think the whole I mean, we I I could have sat and talked to you for an hour and a half quite happily. In fact, it feels like I did.

It's only been ten minutes. Seven minutes of questions. So thank you so much, Shula. It's been an absolute pleasure.

SHULA
Thank you for the invitation, Robin. I really appreciate it.

ROBIN
Yeah. You're very, very welcome. Thank you and bye bye.

SHULA
Bye.

OUTRO
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Robin J. Emdon is an accountability coach and creator of the GetResultsology® System, a comprehensive guide designed to help people overcome procrastination and achieve their goals.

Robin’s journey started in his family’s retail business, but he soon realised his true passion was empowering others. In 2001, he trained as a life coach in the U.S., which led him to specialise in accountability coaching and eventually create the GetResultsology® System.

During the 2020 pandemic, Robin faced his own challenge with procrastination. Despite years of coaching experience, he still struggled with distractions. Determined to find a solid, permanent solution, he developed the GetResultsology® System to help others and himself boost productivity.

Based in South Devon, England, Robin helps clients all over the world boost their income and profits by achieving extraordinary results through accountability coaching. In his spare time, he enjoys sharing his passion for local history.

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