E163 When's the Last Time You Optimized For Joy? with Nicole Tormey
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What if the most important thing you could optimize isn't your business, but your joy?
In this episode, Dr. Stephanie Wigner sits down with human performance coach Nicole Tormey, who helps some of the most driven teams in business perform at the highest level by doing something radical: less. Nicole shares why she takes a full month off every year and what she tells her clients before she goes, the story of flying to Bali with no plan and spending seven uncomfortable days learning to stop performing her own vacation, and the weekly check-in her teams refuse to give up.
Together, Steph and Nicole get to the question every high achiever eventually faces: when you ask "what is enough," are you really asking "am I enough?" And underneath it all, the thing we forget while chasing every goal: a life you actually enjoy is the whole point.
In this episode:
- The energy audit question Nicole asks before letting anyone add a new habit
- Why feeling "behind on your optimization" is the warning sign, not the motivation
- Exactly what Nicole tells clients before taking her month off every year
- The morning question that reconnected her to what she actually wants
- Steph's day-by-day calendar boundaries for winning back white space
- The difference between asking "what is enough" and "am I enough"
Joy isn't the reward for hitting the goal. It's the reason the goal was worth hitting.
Chapters:
- 01:05 Nicole's Path to Human Performance
- 02:43 Pouring Into a Team, Not Just a Business
- 03:55 The Friday Nervous System Check-In
- 06:17 The One Call the Team Refused to Cut
- 07:28 Stop Adding: The Energy Audit
- 10:13 When Is Enough Enough?
- 11:43 The Real Question: Are YOU Enough?
- 12:47 Judgment and Curiosity Can't Share Space
- 14:31 Self-Worth and the Addiction to Performing
- 17:58 Permission to Not Have It Figured Out
- 19:49 The Non-Negotiable Month Off
- 21:13 Nicole's Bali Reset
- 24:38 Creating White Space
- 25:39 Steph's Calendar Boundaries
- 26:15 Joy Unattached to an Outcome