If you’re a wedding photographer who’s been told that growth means scaling fast, hiring a team, hitting big months, and pushing through no matter what—and you’re starting to feel the early signs of wedding photography burnout—this episode of Keeping It Candid is your pause button.

Because what looks like “success” from the outside can be an absolute mess behind the scenes. And when you’re already stretched thin, living with chronic illness, neurodivergence, or just plain exhaustion, hustle culture doesn’t motivate you… It breaks you.

In episode 404, I’m joined by Christi Johnson — photographer and business coach — for one of the most honest conversations of the season. We talk about burnout, mental health, boundaries, and what rebuilding actually looks like when you stop asking what you should be doing and start asking what you can sustainably live with.

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What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why hitting milestones like 10K months and building a team can still feel awful
• The early physical and mental signs of burnout most photographers ignore
• How lack of boundaries quietly trains clients to expect access 24/7
• Why burnout doesn’t look the same for everyone (freeze vs. overdrive)
• What rebuilding looks like when your health becomes non-negotiable

Keep reading for the full transcript.

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Full Transcript

(Edited only for grammar, punctuation, spacing, and readability. Content remains unchanged.)

Welcome + guest intro: hustle culture, burnout, and rebuilding

[00:03:24] Sandra: Welcome to the podcast everybody Today’s guest Christie built what looked like a thriving creative agency but behind the scenes she was falling apart We’re gonna talk about what happens when hustle culture takes over and How you can come back from that So Kristy thank you so much for being here I would love it if you could just do a quick little hello let people know where they can find you on Instagram or other places online so they can go and put a face to the voice that they’re listening to

[00:03:50] Christi Johnson: Oh, of course. Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited about this. So you can hang out with me at Kristi Johnson Creative on Instagram, and it’s Kristi with A-C-H-R-I-S-T-I. So Kristi Johnson Creative on Instagram. That’s where I spend most of my time and threads too. That’s where like I feel like I share my actual thoughts and unhinged thoughts, but you know, the more polished version is on Instagram.

What “success” looks like vs. what it feels like: 10K months, a team, and panic attacks

[00:04:13] Sandra: I’m so excited to have you here and so thankful that you’re willing to be so open with Your story so with that being said I know that from your story that you hit those big milestones in your business You had 10 K months you had a team and you had all of these things that every business owner is told that they are supposed to want But then when it came to actually feeling like you were being successful how did that actually feel for you

[00:04:41] Christi Johnson: Yeah, you’re right. I actually hit the milestones. I remember earlier in my career, like not even a year before I hit. Like my first 10 K month feeling like that was impossible for me, and I thought that I really couldn’t achieve it, but then I actually did, and I had a team and everything was going really well from the outside, but it actually behind the scenes was very overwhelming for me and very stressful.

And I don’t think people would’ve seen that from the content that I was putting out because obviously I was trying to. Attract clients and bring in more people. But I actually was having panic attacks. I was having just very sleepless nights, not sleeping at the same time. I was also trying to get help for my mental health issues and was taking some medications and they just didn’t interact well and I was doing that while being very. Busy in my business and being in a phase of tremendous client growth and team growth. And that was maybe in hindsight, not a great idea to try to add on those things while I was in such a busy season, but I just didn’t really know to expect that. And so. Really, I was just struggling every day, even to just want to do my work.

But it’s like I had to do it because there were so many people counting on me. Not just my clients, but also my team. So it was just very stressful, very overwhelming. And I ended up having like regular panic attacks to the point where I actually had a mental health crisis because of the sleepless nights that I mentioned.

It turned into. Multiple days of not sleeping. I’m talking like seven days of not sleeping. And I ended up having a mental health crisis because of that, because when you don’t have sleep, it’s very not good for you. But I just felt like I couldn’t rest because I had all these client deadlines and all this project work that I needed to complete.

And it’s funny because. I was having, yes, like 10 K months, but really the amount of work that I was doing, I should have been making more than that because it was all those, I was just working constantly and constantly and I think a lot of it was a lot of extra things that I put on my plate, but really it was just that feeling of like. All of this is riding on me. I have to make this be successful, and I wasn’t really taking any time to care for myself or ground myself in the process. It was just like, go, go, go, go, go. behind the scenes it was very overwhelming.

Yeah absolutely I found that there was also a lot of unexpected mental labor for me in just trying to navigate the dynamics of having a team and having it require a whole other set of interpersonal skills And how to separate your emotions from the work being done And that was something that really caught me off guard when I started building my team And it’s actually the thing that made me decide that this is not for me and scale back so that it was back to just me again I totally resonate with that, and I think that a challenge that I have faced, at least for myself, is you hear the, the narrative that in order to be successful, you have to scale.

And I do think in some ways scaling really does help you because it can kind of remove that ceiling of the income that you can create only with yourself. But I think the mistake that I made when trying to grow my team was I didn’t give myself enough time to onboard my team members and I was kind of growing too fast and I think it comes from that hustle culture, that we hear where people are like, oh, I made $20,000 in two weeks because I have this team and this is how I run it, instead of stopping to think and be like, well, how do I actually want to operate day to day in my business? Do I want to be the person that is training a team member, bringing on this mental workload? Do I wanna be developing SOPs and bringing them on? And also like how. Fast, do I want to grow and what is going to be the best for me and my mental wellbeing, not just what is gonna be best for my numbers.

When growth is “good for the numbers” but not good for you

[00:09:14] Sandra: Oh that’s such an important fact that you or thing that you just mentioned is it just being about your numbers or good for your numbers And that was kind of like my light bulb moment of clarity realizing that I was doing this for the money I wasn’t doing it for any other sort of fulfillment and that nobody was really getting a better experience It was just growing my bank account And so I think that’s such an important thing that people have to really stop and think about

[00:09:46] Christi Johnson: Mm-hmm. Yeah, a hundred percent.

Stress-induced hypomania and client work: missed deadlines, lowered quality, and no boundaries

[00:09:46] Christi Johnson: So when you started feeling like all of these things were piling up you started getting run down it started really affecting your mental health with you not sleeping how did all of that start to impact your business and what you were delivering to your clients That is such a good question. So it really did start to impact my clients because. I didn’t realize that I was actually experiencing stress induced hypomania. And if you’re not familiar with what mania or hypomania is, it is where you have reduced need for sleep.

You also generally are overly confident, like you think more highly of yourself and your abilities than you actually are. And sometimes people who experience mania, for example, will be like, oh, I’m gonna. Buy a boat and sail around the world because I can do that even if you’ve never had sailing training or something like that.

So it actually is this mental condition where you are overly confident in yourself and have an overly inflated view of yourself. And at the same time, you’re also have a little bit less of a filter. Well, a lot less of a filter. So I was just like saying things that came to my mind that in the past would have been filtered. So it looked like me trying to pretend like thinking that I was confident in the work that I was delivering and that I knew what was gonna be best for my clients because I was like, they trust me. I’m the person that they hired. Which is true in some sense, but it was actually. More of an arrogance and not an actual true like that would’ve been true for me.

’cause I think that in like normal version of Christie would’ve been like, okay, I know that this is probably what they need. But I would say it in a very kind way and and that type of thing. But I just was saying things that just came outta my mouth and I was also. Just getting behind in deadlines. My like things were kind of like swirling around in my brain a lot, so was missing deadlines.

I was not delivering work. That was the quality that I normally would be delivering. And I was acting like things were fine. And when my clients would come to me and say, Hey, there’s a problem here. I would kinda be like, there’s not really a problem. I’m sorry that you feel this way, of situation.

Whereas that goes against totally my values, like. As a person and as a business owner, my advisor, like I wanna serve the customer and I want to do what I can to make them happy and see if there’s like something that they’re not happy with. I wanna rectify that and I wanna get in there and be like, okay, what is not right about this?

And can we figure this out? But in that mental state, like that wasn’t happening for me and I was also working on client projects. In the middle of the night, and I didn’t have any boundaries between my work time and my personal time. And so then that also started to tell my clients, it’s okay to message Christie at 7:00 PM at night or 9:00 PM at night or on a Sunday because she’ll get back to me.

And I kind of set that precedent for my clients because I didn’t have any boundaries. So it looked like a lot of missed deadlines. And I even had to refund some clients because the work that I delivered was not up to my normal standard. So it was just kind of a big mess.

You don’t know you’re in burnout until you’re on the other side

[00:13:00] Sandra: Yeah, absolutely. And it really is one of those things that you don’t know that you’re in it until you either have somebody that you can really trust and rely on to tell you that you’re in it, or until you are on the other side of it. And I’m sure that that’s something that you could relate to in that situation.

[00:13:18] Christi Johnson: Yeah, it was actually my therapist who was saying, “Oh, it might be… would you say you’re experiencing mania?” And I was like, “Oh no, I don’t think so.” And then a month later, I was actually talking with my psychiatrist and I was like, “Oh yeah, no big deal. I didn’t sleep for seven days and I had mania, blah, blah, blah.”

And she’s like, “Wait, wait, wait, wait. Go back. What did you say? You’re saying you experienced mania? What do you mean?” And so then she’s asking me more questions of like, I’m like, “Oh yeah, no biggie. Like, didn’t sleep. Ha.” And then she’s like, “No, no, no, that’s not right, Christie. Like you need serious help.” And so I did. I had to get, I had to get like some serious help.

Wedding photography burnout and sleep deprivation: burning the candle at both ends

[00:13:58] Sandra: Well, I am glad that you did, and I’m glad that we are having this conversation because I know that there are going to be a lot of people listening, photographers. We have a terrible habit of burning the candle at both ends, and there is more time than I should actually admit where I was working, you know, 18, 20-hour days and sleeping for three, four hours, and then getting up and doing it all over again.

And it really does start to have such an impact on you, whether or not you feel like you can just keep going and pushing through, whether it be because you just feel like you have no other option, or it is something from your mental health that is telling you, “You’ve got this, you can keep going.” Those kinds of things do eventually come to an end. We can’t keep running on, like, at a hundred all the time, so I know a lot of people are gonna really resonate with your story. So thank you for sharing that.

Early signs of burnout: getting sick, physical symptoms, and ignoring stress

[00:14:51] Christi Johnson: Yeah, absolutely. And one thing I wanted to mention is that the first signs of this, like coming about for me, didn’t start with the lack of sleep. The first thing that actually started happening was I started getting sick. But I didn’t realize that over time it was a period of three months where my health was declining. And my mental health was also declining too. And so I would just encourage, like any photographers listening, you start to notice that you’re getting sick or you start to notice physical things that are not normal for you, it could be a sign that you are stressed and that you are overwhelming yourself.

Not taking care of yourself or giving your body the things that you need. I’ve had so many people tell me before, I don’t really experience stress, but then they’ll say, oh, I got sick. And then I realized, oh, it’s because of stress. Because sometimes we’re not even cognizant of the stress. So I now, I always pay attention when my body is telling me that I need to tend to it, I’m gonna tend to it because I know what happens when I don’t and it’s not great. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

Your body will force you to slow down: busy season, October weddings, and burnout warnings

[00:15:57] Sandra: I had a friend of mine on the podcast — I think it was like episode 10 or something like that — but we were talking about how your body is going to send you signals, and it’s up to you to listen. And if you don’t listen, your body’s not gonna just stop sending you signals. It’s gonna get louder. It’s gonna get gangster about it, and it’s going to force you to listen and force you to stop.

And what you were saying about photographers just paying attention to when they’re getting sick — this episode is gonna be coming out in October, and photographers listening, if you are not already sick, I can guarantee by the end of the month most of you are going to be. Because wedding photographers especially are pushing so hard through October, and if they’re still at weddings every single weekend on top of doing all that editing and all those fall sessions, they’re around so many germs. Some of the worst sicknesses I’ve ever gotten in my life have been from October weddings.

So I’m speaking from personal experience too. Take that as your warning sign that you need to slow down and start paying attention to your body, because you need to be able to keep going. And I don’t want you to push through the sickness like Christie was talking about — and like I have done so many times. Your body deserves that time to rest.

[00:17:10] Christi Johnson: It really does deserve that time to rest.

Invisible labour in wedding photography: emails, DMs, marketing, and mental load

[00:17:13] Sandra: And it, yeah, it’s a non-negotiable to take care of your body, in my opinion. ’Cause I’ve learned from experience that what happens when I don’t take care of my body is detrimental to my business, my family, and the people around me. Absolutely.

And during all of those times — like when you’re not feeling a hundred percent — I think it’s when all of the invisible labour that goes along with our jobs, that we don’t necessarily pay attention to on the day to day, is when it really starts to feel like it’s piling on. And it’s not even just the big launches or the client work, but little things like replying to emails or DMs, having to post on social media, having to just think about your next big project that’s coming up.

Do you feel that when you’re dealing with burnout and you’re struggling mentally that all of these things kind of take on a whole other weight than they would any other time?

Burnout response patterns: urgency vs. freeze mode

[00:18:08] Christi Johnson: Oh, Yeah, a hundred percent. Even the act of walking by my desk would bring me anxiety when I was in the. Of burnout. normally when I’m functioning well and taking care of myself, I can get a DM from my client and I can say, okay, I can deal with this later. But when I was in that of stress, it was like everything was needed.

Attention right now, immediately and. I couldn’t tell myself, well, this can wait. I’m doing this now. I had to respond to it immediately.

[00:18:43] Sandra: And for me, it’s so interesting to see just how everybody’s brains function so differently, and how we respond so differently to high-stress situations like that. And with you having that mania aspect that was pushing you to just keep going — keep going, have to do this urgently — for me, when I get into those burnout stages and start to get really overwhelmed, my body’s natural response is to freeze.

And so I completely shut down. I won’t even open my computer. I will sit there for 12 hours stressing about the fact that I haven’t opened my computer and dreading every single email that I have waiting to be responded to, but I just — I literally can’t function. All I can do is sit there. Sometimes I can scroll just to keep my mind busy so that my anxiety isn’t weighing down on me so much.

But yeah, it’s almost the total opposite for me, where it’s like — the idea of even pushing through and sending an email urgently is just… there is nothing in this world that is urgent enough to get me to open my laptop.

[00:19:49] Christi Johnson: Yeah, well actually, so when I, my mental health crisis and I realized that, oh, I’m. I’m burnt out or I’m burning out, that’s when I hit that period of not being able to do anything. And I actually took six months off of my business because I, like I said, I couldn’t walk past my desk without feeling anxiety and I couldn’t even.

bring myself to make an Instagram post or to do any type of client work. And so I had like, it was like my brain was in overload, and then it just completely shut down. And so it’s interesting because I had that like. Feeling of being driven by a motor. Like I just couldn’t shut off my brain while I was getting sick and while I was experiencing the hypomanic symptoms that I didn’t even know what it was called at the time.

And then once I had that like of mental break, it was almost like a nervous breakdown. Then after that couldn’t do anything. I took a break from my business for six months because. thought of doing anything was just too overwhelming for me. And so I think it’s interesting that you have that experience too when you’re in burnout of like, oh, I’m just gonna freeze.

I’m gonna do that. And it’s true. We all do respond differently at different times, and I think that’s where it is so important. Back to what you said before, to pay attention to the signals that your body is giving you. And so now I know when I’m feeling a certain way that this is my sign to. Turn inward or to take care of myself, or I know that if I’m tired, it’s my sign to rest.

I’m actually paying attention to the information that my body is already giving me.

Chronic illness, self-awareness, and daily check-ins

[00:21:31] Sandra: Which is so important. I started doing that years ago with chronic illness. There are so many similarities between chronic illness and mental health struggles, even though they are very different. One of them is having to pay attention to how my body and my mind respond in different scenarios.

Anytime I start working with a new doctor, they’re like, “Oh, you’re really self-aware,” and I’m like, I have no choice. It’s the only way that I can get through life.

And so, yeah, I hope that’s a takeaway listeners leave with when they’re listening to this episode: to take some time every day to check in with yourself, see how you’re doing physically and mentally, and pay attention to the signals your body is giving you.

[00:22:11] Christi Johnson: It’s talking. We just, it’s up to us to listen.

Recovery from burnout: therapy, healing, and rebuilding your business intentionally

[00:22:14] Sandra: Yeah, for sure. So when you started getting help with your mental health—seeking therapy or continuing to work with your therapist, getting on the right medications, and things like that—what did the rebuild process look like for you?

[00:22:30] Christi Johnson: I love this question. I started out my recovery journey really with an attitude of like okay, I am going to take some time off for like a couple months and then I’ll have this play. And then I’ll come back and then this is what’s gonna happen and it’s gonna be great. Well, that is not actually what happened.

So I, because I was in that burnout period of not being able to do anything, and my coach and my therapist kept continuing to tell me to listen to my body and what I needed and not push through because my brain was like, I gotta rebuild my business right away. So. Instead, my coach and my therapist were encouraging me to know, like, keep listening to your body.

Keep giving yourself what you need and focus on healing. So that recovery really looked like a lot of tapping into myself and going back to things that I really enjoyed as a kid. So I was doing a lot of playing music, a lot of going outside and, and digging in the garden, and a lot of things that were nourishing to my soul a completely separate apart from work. And then. After about six months, I was like, Okay

I’m ready to come back. Because I had tried to come back earlier. It didn’t really work. I was still falling back into those burnout patterns and thankfully I had a coach with me who was helping me to recognize like. still kind of abandoning, abandoning yourself here, Christie, like with these ideas.

Like this is not exactly like this is, if you continue with this, it’s going to lead you right back into burnout. Because I had to unlearn those patterns and I was like, oh, you’re right. So it was a lot of time of dreaming up. What do I want my business to look like? What do I want my business to feel like?

How do I actually want to exist day to day? And so that ended up with me actually completely changing my offers because my offers were bringing me stress. I realized I wanna do photography. but I scaled way back than what I had thought it looked like. And I wanna do coaching because I envision my day-to-day life of being more at home and having more time for myself and freedom. So it really looked like dreaming.

What do I actually want my day-to-day to look like? How do I really wanna be moving throughout my day? What tasks do I really wanna be doing? And then slowly adding in those pieces. So it was a lot more slow growth and a lot more intentional growth and a lot more tapping into myself and being like, this feel good?

And if it doesn’t, how can I set boundaries to make this more easy for me and to make it to where my schedule does feel good and the work that I’m doing does feel good. So it was a lot of. Intentional play and like looking back into what I really enjoyed as a kid. And then from there it was slow growth and rebuilding and making sure that it is fully aligned with what my version of my day to day looks like and what I’m actually feeling good in my body doing.

Simplifying your photography business: removing services that drain you

[00:25:31] Sandra: I am obsessed with that. I resonate with that so much. What my 2025 has been all about is getting back to basics and keeping things simple. Because like you—I mean, I guess I did it with my photography business too—when I first started, I was doing families, weddings, engagements, newborns, birth photography… basically anything you wanted to hire me for, if it meant I could have my camera, I would do it.

And then as my business kept growing and I dealt with burnout so many times, I started taking out all the services that just weren’t it. Like, yeah, sure, I was taking great photos, but I wasn’t super happy with the photos. They weren’t anything special to me. I was just getting it done. I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing when I was at my camera.

And so those little things really started to add up, and I was like, what? This is not worth the money that I’m being paid. So I stopped doing them.

[00:26:22] Christi Johnson: It’s moving away from those, what should I do and into what do I actually want to do, and what do I actually have the mental and physical and energetic capacity to do. (What is) gonna bring me the most joy…

[00:26:36] Sandra: Mm-hmm

[00:26:37] Christi Johnson: … that you’re making that shift, and it really does improve things so much just with everything that you’re putting out and the way you feel in your body too.

Why entrepreneurs don’t start businesses to work more: legacy, alignment, and the 80-year-old test

[00:26:45] Sandra: Yeah, absolutely. I remember back when I was first starting my photography business, and to this day I’ve looked all over the internet and cannot figure out where I heard this quote from. Maybe it was my business professor in college or something—I don’t know.

But the quote essentially was that nobody ever got into business for themselves because they wanted to work more. We all became entrepreneurs because we wanted something different than that nine-to-five corporate life. And yet, a lot of us end up working ourselves into the ground and not giving ourselves permission to enjoy what we’re doing and enjoy the life that we’re building for ourselves.

So I think it’s so important for business owners as a whole to take that step back and look at the bigger picture of their life and their business, and see if it’s aligned with what they actually want out of it. You know, when you’re looking back at 80 years old, is this the life you’re going to be excited to tell your grandkids about?

[00:27:38] Christi Johnson: Yeah, a hundred percent. And I realized like I was doing so much work just because I could do it, because I had the skill, not like, what do I really wanna be doing and spending my time. So I totally shifted things and that’s a great way to look at it. Like what do you want your legacy to be?

Non-negotiables for burnout prevention: no-meetings week, stress signals, and late morning calls

[00:27:54] Sandra: Oh yeah, so important. And as you started putting all these pieces together and making sure that you’re working toward this legacy you want to build and this life you want to live, what are some things that became absolute non-negotiables for you?

[00:28:09] Christi Johnson: I love this question. So one of the practical things that became a non-negotiable for me was having a week every month where I don’t have any meetings on my calendar. I call it no meetings week, because I. Am a neurodivergent person. I have a DHD. I’m a creative person. I do photography and I work with creative business owners, and it’s very important for me to just have time to myself. It’s very important to not be going from one meeting to the next to the next because transitions are also really hard for me.

With ADHD, it’s really hard to shift from one thing and then to another thing, and so I really made sure that I have one week a month where I have no meetings. And then I also like really just made sure that I’m always feeling good in my days. By feeling good. For me, that is having reduced stress. So I know that I may not feel good, like I may not feel joyful every day. I may not feel totally energetic every day, but a big signal for me personally is stress and anxiety, and I. Feel it right in the center of my chest when I experience it.

[00:29:21] And so now a non-negotiable for me is when I feel that feeling. I take care of it. So I turn to it and I get curious about it and I say, okay, what is it that is leading to this feeling? And is it something that I can set boundaries around, whether it’s boundaries around my schedule, boundaries around the type of work that I’m doing.

[00:29:42] Like if some type of task that I’m doing is stressing me out. I don’t need to be doing that task. So really a non-negotiable is making sure that I have that time to myself in my no Beings week, and also making sure that I’m actually paying attention to the stress that I feel in my body, because that’s the main thing for me, that I know I gotta keep that under control in order to be a healthy person.

And then also another one is I don’t take any meetings before 11:00 AM because I struggle with sleep and I now know that that’s a factor for me that I need to be aware of with the hypomania that I experienced at the beginning of this year. If I have something on my calendar in the morning, I’m gonna be stressing about it usually, and I’m not gonna be sleeping well.

[00:30:29] I’m gonna be tossing and turning. So I don’t do meetings before 11:00 AM and that’s just a boundary that I have in place. So I always try to look at my calendar and say, okay, do I feel good about the way my calendar looks right now? And if it doesn’t, then I make the changes because I know that for me, the way I’m feeling while running my business is my most important thing Now.

Client boundaries for photographers: availability, respect, and right-fit clients

[00:30:51] Sandra: So how did you deal with this—if you experienced it—but did you have any sort of voice in the back of your head telling you that you needed to be available for your clients at the times they wanted you to be available? Because you had lived that life where you had no boundaries and you were available all the time, and now you’re saying, “I’m not. I’m only available during these hours.”

Was there any sort of mental struggle that went along with that?

[00:31:17] Christi Johnson: I think for me there wasn’t because I saw what happened when I was available all the time,

[00:31:24] Sandra: Mm-hmm

[00:31:25] Christi Johnson: and since I had like such a dramatic burnout experience where I literally had a nervous breakdown for a minute. I think for me it was like, no, this is serious. Like, no, I’m taking care of myself first. So I haven’t had that, but I do know that my clients experience that, and I always encourage them to just recognize that by taking care of yourself, you are taking care of your clients because your clients deserve the best. Of you. They deserve all of you and your creativity and your magical brain and everything that’s working. And when you take care of yourself, you’re taking care of your clients. And I also have seen times I try to get myself in the shoes of other people. I have a marketing strategist that I work with.

She only takes calls on Mondays and. When I’m scheduling a call with her, I’m not thinking, oh my goodness, I wish you were available on Tuesday or whatever. I’m thinking, oh, this is her calendar. Got it. I’m gonna schedule a time for her calendar. So

[00:32:24] Sandra: Okay

[00:32:24] Christi Johnson: thinking that like put yourself in the shoes of a person who is scheduling a meeting.

Normally I’m respecting people in their boundaries. I see that that’s their availability. Like who am I to question that? And so I have kind of always been of that opinion of like, I’m gonna respect people and their boundaries. And if your clients are not respecting you, then maybe you don’t need to work with them.

But I have seen it over and over again where. My clients do put those boundaries in place and people still work with them and they understand the schedules challenges and it really works well for them. So for me, no, I didn’t have that voice in the back of my head because it was like I had such a dramatic happen to me. But I definitely know that that’s a constant struggle. And so I would just go back to like past evidence. Where have you seen other people that you work with put up these boundaries and has it been Okay for you? And then also recognizing that. you show up, take care of yourself. You’re also taking care of your clients and giving them the best version of yourself.

Wedding photography inquiry response time: autoresponders, systems, and not chasing urgency

[00:33:20] Sandra: Yeah, absolutely. And I do—I have a bit of a spicy attitude. So I remember when I first stopped answering emails right away or replying to inquiries immediately. I was talking to another wedding vendor, and they were shocked by this. They were like, “Well, aren’t you worried that someone’s going to email you about their wedding and, by the time you reply, they’re going to book somewhere else?”

And my answer was no—because let them. I don’t really want to be forcing people to work with me or having them only work with me because I happened to be the first person who responded. Now, there are tons of statistics about how the person who responds first is most likely to be hired first, but that’s where the wonderful world of systems and automations comes in. I let my autoresponder take care of it, because there is absolutely no way I could ever go back to living a life where I’m attached to my email and my phone—having to respond to an inquiry within 20–30 minutes or feeling like I’m failing at my job.

[00:34:20] Christi Johnson: I love that take, and I always love a spicy take.

Final takeaway: how to know you need to slow down and listen to your body

[00:34:23] Sandra: I’m actually surprised that I haven’t had more of them, but maybe that’s because it’s my first interview back—I’ve gotta shake out the spiciness.

So I want to wrap things up by asking: if you could leave listeners with one final thing—whether that’s something to pay attention to so they know if they’re in the depths of burnout, or something that was really helpful for you in getting out of it—what is one thing you really hope listeners take away from this episode?

[00:34:50] Christi Johnson: I really hope that listeners take away just what we’ve been saying over and over that it’s important to. Listen to your body, and if you. Are like, what does that mean? I’m not even sure. Then that’s a signal that maybe it’s time to slow down a little bit. yourself 30 minutes between your meetings with nothing to do. Give yourself three hours on a Thursday where you can just do whatever you want. Go to your library, read a book, whatever it is that you wanna do, go get yourself a treat from your local coffee shop. So pay attention to the signals of your body if that is unusual for you, then slow down give yourself time to listen to the signals that your body is giving, giving you.

Closing: where to find Christi + what’s next this season

[00:35:36] Sandra: That’s so important. Well, thank you so much, Christie. This conversation was absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your story. I’m so glad we finally had the chance to connect after all of our chats online.

And yeah, everybody—I’m going to have all of Christie’s links in the show notes and the description of today’s episode, so make sure you go and give her a follow and say hi. And we’ll be back again with episode five.

[00:36:04] Christi Johnson: thank you so much for having me, Sandra.

[00:36:07] Sandra: Oh you’re so welcome

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Quick Recap

Burnout isn’t a personal failure — it’s often a systems failure.

If your business only works when you’re pushing through exhaustion, ignoring your body, and staying constantly available, something has to change. Sustainable growth looks slower, quieter, and far more intentional — but it actually lets you keep going.

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Links & Resources

• Christi Johnson on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christijohnsoncreative/
• HoneyBook (30% off): https://simplysandrayvonne.ca/honeybook
• Busy Season Email Survival Kit: https://simplysandrayvonne.ca/survivalkit