I wish you knew how much I care about a person I've never met before. That's how I felt before this conversation with Neena Perez, and after it? I went up a step. Every time I talk to this woman, I uncover something I didn't know I needed.
Neena is a coach, a chef, a survivor, and someone who will look you dead in the eye and say: stop the nonsense. She's been homeless. She survived domestic violence that almost ended in her murder. She had her first child at 15, went back to school in her thirties, hit six figures in coaching, and then did something most people wouldn't, she paused. Because she was running on empty and the hustle wasn't filling her up anymore.
This one hit different.
The Hustle Trap No One Talks About
Neena built a successful coaching business. The whole machine, team, funnels, social media, the works. Six figures. Great clients. And she was tired. Not the kind of tired that a vacation fixes. The kind of tired that makes you ask, "What about me?"
"I had a six figure business, great clients, and I still love them. But what about me? I left my culinary stuff behind. I stopped doing that because coaching was fulfilling for a moment. But what about my 20-plus years of culinary that I absolutely loved? Why did I leave that behind?"
Here's what Neena figured out that most of us are still running from: not every dollar is a good dollar. She turned away new clients because she'd rather serve no one than serve someone from a half cup. Her integrity meant more than the revenue.
And she said something that hit me square in the chest: every coach needs a coach. Every therapist needs a therapist. Every podcaster needs a podcaster. We give and give and give until we're drained, and then we wonder why we feel empty. Neena's mistake, her word, not mine, was not having someone in her corner while she was pouring into everyone else's.
So she paused. She created a journal called CEO Meetings with God, part worship, part reflection, part real talk with herself about what she actually wanted. No doom-scrolling. No searching for the next best thing on YouTube. Just stillness and honest questions like: what am I holding onto? What do I need to let go of?
You Have to Feel It to Heal It
Neena doesn't sugarcoat anything. She told me straight: you have to feel it to heal it. And a lot of us do not want to feel. So we become perfectionists. We over-work. We fill every minute with busyness because if we're not busy 24/7, we think we're not productive. We think we're not worth something.
"You cannot continue to be a victim and be successful. That just doesn't happen. Stop it. Look at your life. What are you grateful for?"
She's not being harsh, she earned the right to say that. She's Puerto Rican, first in her family to graduate college, came from farmers and poverty and every imaginable hardship. And she still built something. Her point isn't that struggle doesn't exist. It's that you can't let the struggle become your whole identity if you want to move forward.
I told her something that I believe to my core: we are literally our ancestors' biggest dream. People had to be born into slavery, into poverty, into unthinkable situations for us to be sitting here right now. And we're scrolling our phones complaining about an algorithm.
Neena also shared a client story that made me smile. A woman came to her wanting to start a nonprofit for domestic violence survivors. Neena saw something else, that this woman's real gift was bookkeeping, and she could teach other women survivors to build bookkeeping businesses. The client said no. Five years later, she came back and said, "I don't want to do the nonprofit anymore. I want to open the bookkeeping business." Life gives you the same situation until you choose differently.
"Be grateful and look at all the talents that you have. What are they? How can you bring that to the table? People have so many different talents that are just unbelievable."
And let me tell you something, Neena said "I'm an amazing cook. I'm an amazing chef and leader." No hedging. No downplaying. She told me she never would have said that before. She would have always wanted to pull it back so people didn't think she was bragging. Not anymore. Say it louder for the people at the back.
Quick Takeaways
- Not every dollar is a good dollar. If you can't show up fully for a client, that revenue will cost you more in reputation than it's worth. Protect your integrity.
- Pause before you break. If hustle isn't filling you up anymore, stop. Reflect. Ask yourself what you need to let go of instead of what you need to add.
- Feel it to heal it. Avoiding your emotions doesn't make them disappear, they show up as perfectionism, burnout, addictions, or explosive behaviour. Face them.
- Your skills are meant to serve others. Take your experiences, your talents, your hard-won wisdom, and use them to help someone else. That's the whole point.
- Own your greatness out loud. Stop downplaying your abilities. Your 50% is someone else's 100%. Being perfect isn't the goal, being authentic is.
When I asked Neena what she's choosing today, because what you don't change, you choose, she said, "I'm choosing me." After years of choosing everyone else, she's launching The Purpose-Filled Kitchen, combining her love of coaching with her love of cooking. She said she doesn't care about how much money comes in. She's 53, she wants to go out of this world serving others but being happy with what she does. If Neena's story resonates with you, explore how purpose-driven businesses grow with a free visibility audit.
"Be grateful and look at all the talents that you have. What are they? How can you bring that to the table?"
