Episode 226

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Published on:

20th Dec 2025

Episode 226: When Hustle Hurts: Healing and Moving Forward [featuring Yunetta Spring Smith]

Making intentional pivots and facing the unknown can be daunting—especially as therapists and entrepreneurs.

In this episode, Patrick Casale talks with Yunetta Spring Smith about the evolution and burnout of entrepreneurship, as well as the importance of not defaulting to "factory settings" when faced with big transitions.

Here are 3 key takeaways:

  1. Don’t just survive—seek sustainability. There’s a difference between what helps us survive and what actually builds a sustainable business and life. Sometimes survival habits served us in the past but are no longer a fit for who we’re becoming.
  2. Your old ways got you here, but they won’t always take you forward. Restoring “factory settings”—going back to hustle and burnout—can feel tempting during uncertainty, but intentionality and mindfulness help us create with more ease, not just urgency.
  3. Face the wave, don’t turn your back. When obstacles and change come, it’s natural to want to run to what’s familiar. But if we face the wave instead of turning away, we create opportunities to ride it consciously and learn from the process.

If you or anyone you know is navigating entrepreneurial pivots or feeling pulled between old habits and new growth, this conversation is for you.

More about Yunetta:

Yunetta Spring Smith is a thriving Therapreneur, blending her expertise as a therapist and entrepreneur. She is the owner of Spring Forth Counseling, Ground Breakers Coaching and Consulting, and the founder of the first BIPOC EMDR Therapy Directory.

Yunetta is a Licensed Professional Counselor, EMDR-certified therapist, approved consultant, trainer, and international speaker. Specializing in supporting the healing of resilient children residing in adult bodies, Yunetta helps clients navigate intersections of historical neglect, coupled with childhood, racial, and religious trauma. Passionate about BIPOC and marginalized communities, she emphasizes the importance of race, culture, and identity in her consultations, training, and overall therapeutic approach.

Nationally recognized as a mental health media expert, she spreads awareness through the “Talk It Out Tuesday” mental health segment on the Rickey Smiley Morning Show, her upcoming rebranded podcast “Rewired, From The Ground Up,” and her self-published self-care workbook, “Take the Struggle Out of Self-care: Six Weeks to Create Your Self-care Strategy.”

Yunetta is a groundbreaker, stigma breaker, and cycle breaker who plants seeds of encouragement with every encounter. She strives to cultivate spaces where individuals can realize they aren’t broken—they are breaking through

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NeuroPreneur Circle is an online community built by and for neurodivergent entrepreneurs who want a supportive space to build a business, a space where they can show up as themselves and in whatever way feels most comfortable. NeuroPreneur Circle exists because community built on masking isn't really community. And business advice built for neurotypical brains isn't actually useful to us, no matter how many times we try to make it fit. Whatever your neurotype, whatever you're building, there's a space here for you. You've been creating alone long enough. Visit: https://atppod.com/community

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Mentioned in this episode:

NeuroPreneur Circle Community

NeuroPreneur Circle is an online community built by and for neurodivergent entrepreneurs who want a supportive space to build a business, a space where they can show up as themselves and in whatever way feels most comfortable. NeuroPreneur Circle exists because community built on masking isn't really community. And business advice built for neurotypical brains isn't actually useful to us, no matter how many times we try to make it fit. Whatever your neurotype, whatever you're building, there's a space here for you. You've been creating alone long enough. Visit: https://atppod.com/community

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About the Podcast

The Neurodivergent Entrepreneur
Honest conversations about building a business while Neurodivergent, the self-doubt, the chaos, and everything in between.
The Neurodivergent Entrepreneur is a podcast for ADHD, Autistic, and all other neurodivergent entrepreneurs who are building businesses, creative work, and lives that actually fit how their brains work. Hosted by Patrick Casale, LCMHC, this show is for people who
want to create meaningful work, create outside of the box, grow their impact, and build something sustainable without losing themselves in the process.

Being a neurodivergent entrepreneur can feel like holding a lot of contradictions at once. You may have big ideas, deep passion, creative energy, and a strong desire to do things differently. You may also be navigating burnout, masking, self-doubt, perfectionism, rejection sensitivity, executive dysfunction, inconsistent energy, and the pressure to keep showing up when your capacity is already stretched. This podcast speaks to that reality honestly, because building a business around your brain, your values, and your lived experience can be powerful, complicated, messy, and deeply personal.

Patrick Casale is a chronically ill, AuDHD, mental health therapist, entrepreneur, TEDx speaker, event host, group practice owner, and neurodivergent business owner who has built, grown, burned out, pivoted, and kept going. His work brings together clinical insight, lived experience, business perspective, and real conversation about what it actually takes to create something that feels values aligned. His conversations are direct, compassionate, unfiltered, and practical, with room for both the emotional reality of entrepreneurship and the concrete decisions that shape a sustainable business.

New episodes drop every Wednesday and feature honest conversations with neurodivergent entrepreneurs, creators, therapists, business owners, and leaders. Together, Patrick and his guests explore entrepreneurship, identity, mental health, chronic health,
creativity, leadership, systems, money mindset, visibility, community, sustainable growth, and the behind-the-scenes reality of creating work that matters.

Build your dream business. Protect your capacity. Work with your brain instead of against it.