Speaker 1: It's the stories of people's struggles or people overcoming struggles
Speaker 1: that we really need to be able to share, because
Speaker 1: I think those stories are what motivates us to then
Speaker 1: have compassion and then want to make changes. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized
Speaker 1: the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in,
Speaker 1: garbage out, or you are what you think ring true,
Speaker 1: and yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen
Speaker 1: or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Dr Jacqueline Kerr, a
Speaker 1: behavior scientist and burnout survivor. She is in the top
Speaker 1: one percent of most cited scientists worldwide. Jacqueline left her
Speaker 1: position as a public health professor in two thousand eighteen
Speaker 1: and now hosts the podcast Overcoming Working Mom Burnout, where
Speaker 1: she interviews researchers, diversity experts, in leadership coaches. On this episode,
Speaker 1: Jacqueline and Eric discuss all types of burnout. Hi, Jacqueline,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm excited to talk with you. We're gonna talk a
Speaker 1: lot about burnout, the different types of burnout, focusing maybe
Speaker 1: a little bit extra on mothers and burn out. But
Speaker 1: before we get to that, let's start like we always
Speaker 1: do with the parable. In the parable, there's a grandparent
Speaker 1: who's talking with their grandchild and they say, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 1: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred
Speaker 1: and fear. And the grandchild stops, thinks about it for
Speaker 1: a second and looks up at their grandparents as well.
Speaker 1: Which one wins, and the grandparents says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: does that parable mean to you in your life and
Speaker 1: in the work that you do. Thanks so much for that, Well, Interestingly,
Speaker 1: some of my first thoughts come around this whole good bad, positive, negative,
Speaker 1: and something that I've really tried to develop is less
Speaker 1: of a fixed mindset, and it's a label that I
Speaker 1: gave myself. I was a bad, bad wife, bad colleague,
Speaker 1: and it's one, unfortunately, that I do also see my
Speaker 1: teenage son giving himself, So I'm really trying to work
Speaker 1: with him to say, labels don't help us. It's the
Speaker 1: behaviors we do and the choices we make. But I
Speaker 1: certainly also really relate to the one you feed. The
Speaker 1: stories we tell ourselves are so important, and I absolutely
Speaker 1: see those self fulfilling prophecies of when I'm lacking in
Speaker 1: self belief and self esteem and believing those old stories,
Speaker 1: I feed them and then I don't show up in
Speaker 1: in the same way. And again I'm also seeing it
Speaker 1: with my son when he believes he's bad in certain
Speaker 1: ways and then he acts in accordance with that, and
Speaker 1: then yeah, bad stuff happens. So I totally think it's
Speaker 1: so important about these stories we tell ourselves. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: interesting to make that distinction between good and bad in
Speaker 1: this case because a lot of burnout from a variety
Speaker 1: of different sources really comes from some degree of perfectionism,
Speaker 1: right of thinking that we have to really do it right.
Speaker 1: And so if we're really attached to being good all
Speaker 1: the time, then that can be a thing that leads
Speaker 1: us into burnout. And I think a lot of it
Speaker 1: is beginning to rethink what does good mean and what
Speaker 1: is good enough mean? Right? And I think that was
Speaker 1: really an important part of my journey when I had
Speaker 1: the privileged to actually in the opportunity to go to
Speaker 1: therapy and the therapist said to me, what is good enough? Like?
Speaker 1: When will you know you are good enough? And of
Speaker 1: course it's almost an impossible question to answer, so it's
Speaker 1: not a helpful criteria for us to work towards. And
Speaker 1: I totally agree that we bring our personalities perfectionism, ambition,
Speaker 1: people pleasing to the workplace. But then there are also
Speaker 1: other situations in the workplace where our personalities don't fit
Speaker 1: with that environment, or if we're from a marginalized group
Speaker 1: who is always having to prove themselves not because of
Speaker 1: any personality type of theirs, but simply because they belong
Speaker 1: to a group that has been stereotyped, and that really
Speaker 1: on paper and from the research, we see they're constantly
Speaker 1: not promoted and they constantly assumed to be less competent.
Speaker 1: So again, that's really the first stage of burnout, is
Speaker 1: this need to prove yourself. Now that can come from
Speaker 1: personal motivations, the family context you grew up in, or
Speaker 1: because you belong to a group who does have to
Speaker 1: work twice as hard to get the same distance, and
Speaker 1: then the environment in the workplace. So it's a bit
Speaker 1: mix of all those, and so it's really important to
Speaker 1: understand that person environment fit because there are things we
Speaker 1: can do as an individuals to mitigate those tendencies. That's
Speaker 1: why I think it's so important to think of them
Speaker 1: as tendencies, not traits that are immovable, but things that
Speaker 1: we can really work towards and adjust. At the same time,
Speaker 1: realizing we do have power over work environments to it's challenging,
Speaker 1: but again I really feel like we have to really
Speaker 1: be comfortable saying I understand these barriers I'm facing and
Speaker 1: I can overcome them. Yeah, and I think we'll get
Speaker 1: into that more about how you know, really burn out
Speaker 1: as a phenomenon, particularly in the workplace, needs to be
Speaker 1: tackled on multiple different levels. And it's not just what
Speaker 1: the individual can do, although that is part of the story.
Speaker 1: But before we go there, let's back up a little
Speaker 1: bit and talk about when we use the word burnout,
Speaker 1: what does that mean to you. Well, I'll maybe start
Speaker 1: with the World Health Organization definition, and that's around workplay
Speaker 1: ace burnout in particular, and it's related to experiences of exhaustion, cynicism,
Speaker 1: and loss of productivity. There is also though parental burnout.
Speaker 1: It's a newer area of research, and that has similar
Speaker 1: experiences in terms of shame in the role that you're playing,
Speaker 1: that experience of I used to be better at it
Speaker 1: and and now I'm not as good at it as
Speaker 1: I felt at one time or other, and then you know,
Speaker 1: just that negative experience of being a parent. But I
Speaker 1: think some of these definitions were one. I think lots
Speaker 1: of people have experienced burnout and not necessarily realized it.
Speaker 1: I experienced it myself, but it wasn't until a couple
Speaker 1: of years later that I got into the burnout research
Speaker 1: and went, oh, that was what I was experiencing. At
Speaker 1: the time, I assumed I was having a mental breakdown
Speaker 1: or a midlife crisis. And then when I actually start
Speaker 1: to understand this specific experience of both parental and workplace
Speaker 1: burnout that I was experiencing, and so for me that
Speaker 1: kind of came out in tears on the way to
Speaker 1: work and tears on the way home because I just
Speaker 1: was so overwhelmed by both the mains. I think a
Speaker 1: really good symptom people can look for is resentment and rumination.
Speaker 1: When you get into those stages, those are early symptoms
Speaker 1: because as to say, most people, they ignore the mental
Speaker 1: signals and suddenly their body breaks down. So some people
Speaker 1: can break down and not be able to get out
Speaker 1: of bed, or their hair is falling out, or they
Speaker 1: start to experience adrenal fatigue that can be very very
Speaker 1: physical symptoms and can be dangerous symptoms. Or on the
Speaker 1: other side and the mental side, it can be experiences
Speaker 1: of suicide ideation. So it's really serious. It's more than
Speaker 1: just feeling tired and fed up. Some people experience brain
Speaker 1: fog and they really just struggled to achieve anything. I
Speaker 1: was more on the tired but wired, like I was
Speaker 1: so passionate about my work and really motivated to do it,
Speaker 1: so I was engaged and energized by it, but I
Speaker 1: could not switch it off. And so that's a totally
Speaker 1: different feeling than I think when people try to understand,
Speaker 1: like the difference between burnout and depression, one people say, well,
Speaker 1: depression is in multiple domains, but so is burnout. Once
Speaker 1: she realized there's both workplace and parental burnout, but it
Speaker 1: is that lack of motivation, whereas actually burn out, you
Speaker 1: can have a lot of motivation, a lot of engagement,
Speaker 1: but you're just going around in circles and really exhausting
Speaker 1: yourself and not able to stop in some ways. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think when we get into these things like being
Speaker 1: really tired and really worn out, it's so difficult to
Speaker 1: tweeze apart what actually happening here? Right? Is it burnout?
Speaker 1: Is it depression? Is it a thyroid condition? That symptom
Speaker 1: of exhaustion can come from so many different places that
Speaker 1: I know it's a hard one to figure out. Specifically
Speaker 1: talking about workplace burnout, you mentioned and I don't remember
Speaker 1: the researcher's name, who talks about four workplace conditions or
Speaker 1: maybe it's five workplace conditions, and then you can kind
Speaker 1: of pick one or two that you'd like to share.
Speaker 1: But there's overwork, there's lack of autonomy, there's lack of reward,
Speaker 1: there's injustice and then there's value conflicts, right, and that
Speaker 1: is yeah Dr Christine Madslack's research, and she's been doing
Speaker 1: this since the seventies, so it's not a new phenomenon
Speaker 1: from that perspective. And I think that's what's so important
Speaker 1: is for people to realize the World Health Organization definition
Speaker 1: is that it's an occupational hazard caused by the workplace, right,
Speaker 1: So it's really thinking about that because I think the
Speaker 1: other side of it that people often talk about is
Speaker 1: burnout is chronic stress, unmanaged chronic stress. And when you
Speaker 1: say that, it starts to make people think I have
Speaker 1: to manage my stress better. And lots of people are
Speaker 1: really doing a lot of great stress management and still
Speaker 1: burning out because of these conditions in the workplace. So
Speaker 1: I think that's so important. Again, so much of the
Speaker 1: advice is about taking a vacation or taking a sabbatical,
Speaker 1: and the problem is you can, and you may be
Speaker 1: able to. For example, that I did that and it
Speaker 1: definitely reset my flight fight response because that's where I
Speaker 1: was at. But then when you go back into the workplace,
Speaker 1: the stress then hits you like a truck. So that's
Speaker 1: when you really do start to recognize, oh, I've done
Speaker 1: everything I can to manage my own stress, but actually,
Speaker 1: when I go back into this situation, here's the stressor
Speaker 1: that is causing my stress. So, yeah, lack of autonomy
Speaker 1: is so important because it's really about all the things
Speaker 1: that we've been trying to do, particularly during COVID, where
Speaker 1: you know, we now do have remote and hybrid workplaces
Speaker 1: and and so flexibility is really key. But I think
Speaker 1: to how we've gone about that has not been as
Speaker 1: an intentional as it could be. And there's this fantastic
Speaker 1: new book, How the Future Works, and it really is
Speaker 1: about how do you set up a remote workplace so
Speaker 1: that your digital office is as exciting and engaging as
Speaker 1: your Goldman Sachs Fifth Avenue head office that you just
Speaker 1: spent millions of dollars on. You know, it's really intentionally
Speaker 1: setting it up to be flexible for everyone, so that
Speaker 1: everyone can turn up to a remote location that you
Speaker 1: haven't got meeting overload, that you have to find collaborative hours,
Speaker 1: and it's really, to be honest, more flexibility in the
Speaker 1: timing of the workplace, even which actually apparently has more
Speaker 1: importance than the location. But there's this real disconnect at
Speaker 1: the moment between the people that want to go back
Speaker 1: into the office, which may be primemorily your sort of
Speaker 1: white male CEO s because they have had that lifetime
Speaker 1: of being in the office and that's the place where
Speaker 1: they function best. But that doesn't work for employees. So
Speaker 1: that flexibility is really key. And with that, too, it
Speaker 1: is focused and that's one of the things I really
Speaker 1: talk about in my burnout work is if you don't
Speaker 1: give time for people to actually do focused work, if
Speaker 1: you don't have real purpose in your meetings, if you
Speaker 1: don't have real clear connection between somebody's job and their
Speaker 1: role and the company's mission their purpose, it is very
Speaker 1: hard to do impactful work. So that's really important part
Speaker 1: of it, you know, having that autonomy to actually do
Speaker 1: the work and be productive. And then the other part
Speaker 1: that really also relates very much to mothers in the
Speaker 1: workplace is the lack of reward. So as I moved
Speaker 1: out from my academic job and started to read more
Speaker 1: about being a better manager, because that was what I
Speaker 1: was trying to do. How could I be a better manager?
Speaker 1: And then I started to read about all these barriers
Speaker 1: that mother's face in the workplace as as managers and
Speaker 1: as leaders, and so then I came across both the
Speaker 1: maternal wall and the motherhood penalty. And the maternal wall
Speaker 1: is the point where mothers are not promoted as often,
Speaker 1: particularly as dad's. Then mothers are not paid as much
Speaker 1: as dad. So basically we go through this process where
Speaker 1: moms and dads become a parent and the dad is
Speaker 1: seen as more committed to his family. He's now got
Speaker 1: a family. Therefore that commitment to his family means he
Speaker 1: needs to have a better pay as a provider. He's
Speaker 1: going to be more committed to his job because he's
Speaker 1: got a family to provide for. So then there's this
Speaker 1: like fatherhood bonus that happens. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: the mothers are considered committed to their families, so less
Speaker 1: committed to their jobs, so they won't want promotion opportunities,
Speaker 1: they won't want to travel anymore. There's these stereotypes and
Speaker 1: assumptions are made, which then results in mothers facing a
Speaker 1: maternal war for promotion and the penalty of less pay.
Speaker 1: So and then if we think about equity and pay
Speaker 1: across racial groups as well, and lack of promotion across
Speaker 1: racial groups, the statistics tell at all, because we have
Speaker 1: so few women of color of CEOs. And it's not
Speaker 1: for lack of wanting or opportunity or skills, but really
Speaker 1: these barriers that are in the way across your whole career.
Speaker 1: And I think the motherhood penalties, that idea of women
Speaker 1: not being promoted as often because they're seen is being
Speaker 1: committed to something else. I think that also reaches its
Speaker 1: tentacles into the home life, right because if there's not
Speaker 1: a good equity there, then indeed mothers pick up more
Speaker 1: of the slack for their home life, so it becomes
Speaker 1: a self fulfilling prophecy because they kind of have to
Speaker 1: be more committed there, which means they can't put in
Speaker 1: maybe as much in the office. And so we've got
Speaker 1: to adjust the way workplaces view these things. But there's
Speaker 1: also the matter of you know, are there ways to
Speaker 1: shift the home based equity where women aren't the only
Speaker 1: ones who are always seen as they pick up What
Speaker 1: falls through the cracks, which is what I think often
Speaker 1: happens is that sure, the dad does X, Y and Z,
Speaker 1: the mom is supposed to do A, B and C.
Speaker 1: But then there is element o p that no one
Speaker 1: really says I'm going to do, which is all the
Speaker 1: stuff that keeps arising that the mother then naturally picks up, right,
Speaker 1: and we call that that mental load of all the
Speaker 1: things that keep coming up and that have to be
Speaker 1: managed on a daily basis. And I think one of
Speaker 1: the statistics that really highlighted this to me is as
Speaker 1: you look along the leadership sort of growth progress, by
Speaker 1: the time women are senior leaders, percent of them also
Speaker 1: have the majority of the household care giving role, where
Speaker 1: it's only of senior men. So exactly right, if you
Speaker 1: don't have this other major role in the home, then
Speaker 1: you can focus more on work. So yeah, there's definitely
Speaker 1: a lot of work being done now about trying to
Speaker 1: create more equity in the home, and that has its challenges,
Speaker 1: one in all the relationship issues that you have to
Speaker 1: be able to go through to create that equity. But
Speaker 1: also one of the big things is paternity leave, because
Speaker 1: in many of our European countries there's the potential for
Speaker 1: paternity leave in like the first year of life. So
Speaker 1: often what happens in some European countries is, you know,
Speaker 1: the mom plays her role when she needs to play
Speaker 1: it during those fundamental breaths, feeding, months and things. But
Speaker 1: then towards the end of that, that's when maybe in
Speaker 1: months twelve to eighteen or something, the father can come
Speaker 1: in and really play such an important role in terms
Speaker 1: of connecting with the child at that age, learning what
Speaker 1: this mental load is, so that they can appreciate it
Speaker 1: and value it and also come up with different rules
Speaker 1: for it if necessary to like, they can really have
Speaker 1: input from an informed place. But I think that's what
Speaker 1: we see is when fathers are able to take maternity leave,
Speaker 1: it changes the women's career trajectory because they can go
Speaker 1: back at a different time, more refreshed, and also changes
Speaker 1: that burn out trajectory as well. So having dad's involved earlier,
Speaker 1: and you know, I interviewed you for my podcast this
Speaker 1: season is all about having dad's becoming more active participants
Speaker 1: in the home. And sometimes as moms, we put barriers
Speaker 1: in the way of that this is our domain and
Speaker 1: we're trying to control it, and we're not open to
Speaker 1: receiving support necessarily, and and dads aren't the one that
Speaker 1: are given the opportunity to have some of the education
Speaker 1: that comes to moms through their moms or through you know,
Speaker 1: female friends. But dads don't necessarily have the opportunity to
Speaker 1: have those conversations at work or with their friends, or
Speaker 1: haven't had a role model in that way, so it
Speaker 1: can be really challenging. And then I also heard the
Speaker 1: stories of dads who were stepping up, who were showing up,
Speaker 1: who were being the volunteer at the swim meet all
Speaker 1: the school and then being treated really badly by the
Speaker 1: other moms there. M and so that there's a lot
Speaker 1: on both sides that can be done to reverse these stereotypes,
Speaker 1: because unfortunately do have this stereotype as the man as
Speaker 1: the incompetent krea caregiver, you know, right right somewhere in
Speaker 1: your work you write, you know, one thing we could
Speaker 1: do in the media is stop that portrayal of men
Speaker 1: as essentially glorified babysitters or bumbling idiots, you know, or
Speaker 1: bumbling idiots. Yes, yes, that's another one. That mental load
Speaker 1: that you talk about is an interesting one because in
Speaker 1: a previous marriage of mind, and by previous we know
Speaker 1: that it didn't end well. So actually ended very well
Speaker 1: for a relationship ending, we ended on very good terms,
Speaker 1: but it obviously didn't work out. This mental load thing
Speaker 1: was really interesting because that's what she would often say.
Speaker 1: She would say, yeah, you do all those things, but
Speaker 1: I'm the one that has to worry about all of them.
Speaker 1: And that became interesting because I think, yes, there was
Speaker 1: absolutely some truth in that at for sure, and I
Speaker 1: had a role in that. And she had a tendency
Speaker 1: to worry in ways that I simply didn't and that
Speaker 1: I saw as kind of unnecessary. Right and again in
Speaker 1: any discussion, I'm saying we both have our peace in that.
Speaker 1: But that was always difficult for me because I wanted
Speaker 1: to be like, well, yes, I don't want you worrying
Speaker 1: that much. And honestly, I think, here, look, ABC and D,
Speaker 1: here's what we're doing, here's what the plans are. Like,
Speaker 1: it's okay, but there was a worry level. And I
Speaker 1: heard something the other day and I don't know if
Speaker 1: this is true at all, and maybe your research and
Speaker 1: reading you can verify this. I heard that mother's amygdala's
Speaker 1: change in a very dramatic way when they have children
Speaker 1: compared to father. Oh. I could totally believe that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they're worry system is elevated. And it was interesting
Speaker 1: because the only thing that got a father's Amigdala to
Speaker 1: do that to some sort of similar degree was when
Speaker 1: he became the primary caregiver. This idea is very interesting
Speaker 1: because as it's the question of what degree of worry
Speaker 1: is helpful and useful, and to the extent that it is,
Speaker 1: where can the man step up and say, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'll just totally take X, Y, and Z off your plate.
Speaker 1: It's mine to think about. And where is a mother's
Speaker 1: worry Perhaps not productive and constructive. Trying to stay out
Speaker 1: of trouble here um with this discussion, but I want
Speaker 1: to be honest about like my experience with it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's so interesting to think of that amygdala, because
Speaker 1: that's why it's so important to have interventions like mindfulness
Speaker 1: to calm that a magdala, because it is we go
Speaker 1: into this flight or fight response and I totally experience that,
Speaker 1: and it is it's like parenting from a state of fear,
Speaker 1: which is just so on healthy. I think the piece
Speaker 1: of it is the expectations on mothers that society puts
Speaker 1: on us to be the super month, to be available
Speaker 1: twenty four seven, and that's when you have that pressure
Speaker 1: of the ideal mother available seven and then the ideal
Speaker 1: worker available. So when they connect. That's to such an
Speaker 1: impossible scenario. But I think, yeah, these expectations of motherhood
Speaker 1: from society have changed. And there was a great book
Speaker 1: around why Women Can't Sleep Anymore, and it was kind
Speaker 1: of explaining those things that you know, if you're in
Speaker 1: that sanguige generation two where you're caring for a parent
Speaker 1: and caring for a child, and then you know, expected
Speaker 1: to make all the right environmental choices in your products
Speaker 1: and expected to volunteer. I mean, this is not parenting
Speaker 1: of the seventies. Come home when the street light comes on, right,
Speaker 1: This is, you know, And I'm not saying this is
Speaker 1: necessarily a better style of parenting now because it's between
Speaker 1: neglect and then helicopter parenting. But I think there are
Speaker 1: also so many added complications for children these So as
Speaker 1: a parent, for example, I have a son and daughter.
Speaker 1: My daughter's nine and my son's fourteen, and he's on
Speaker 1: the autism spectrum and has Asperger's and him trying to
Speaker 1: understand how to use a cell phone safely. I mean,
Speaker 1: we didn't have those challenges as children. Issues with transgender relationships,
Speaker 1: we didn't have those challenges. And so that's what I
Speaker 1: feel in some ways is we're not that well prepared
Speaker 1: to support our kids in the world they're growing up
Speaker 1: in with COVID and the mental health challenges that have
Speaker 1: come from that. So I'd say that's one thing, is
Speaker 1: we're under a whole different load of pressures. But I
Speaker 1: totally agree that, you know, taking our responsibilities too seriously
Speaker 1: to a point that it's not healthy because we are
Speaker 1: in a state of fight or flight and we're overworrying
Speaker 1: and that doesn't help anyone. So one of my tips
Speaker 1: for that is very much that moms can have permission
Speaker 1: to have total breaks from children, and that's what worked
Speaker 1: best for my husband and I. We tried the sort
Speaker 1: of balancing the mental load, and like you described him
Speaker 1: taking responsibility, full responsibility from start to finish of a
Speaker 1: particular task, but that wasn't kind of how he wanted
Speaker 1: to operate. He wanted to do more shared tasks and
Speaker 1: I still ended up having to remind him of things,
Speaker 1: so it didn't come off my place. So that just
Speaker 1: didn't work for us with his style and his brain.
Speaker 1: But what I could do is leave for a long
Speaker 1: weekend or do a week at a co working space
Speaker 1: where I really just said this week's my work week.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to think about kids at all. And
Speaker 1: then he got to parents in the way he wanted
Speaker 1: to do, and I literally said, I'm not thinking about
Speaker 1: any of those things. And the impact that had on
Speaker 1: me in terms of reducing my stress but also clearing
Speaker 1: my brain. I could think again, I could write again,
Speaker 1: I felt confident. So I do think it's so important
Speaker 1: that we do have these periods to give that flight
Speaker 1: fight response system a total break from thinking about being
Speaker 1: a mother. Yeah. I think that's a great practice and idea,
Speaker 1: which is like I'm gone, not reachable, you figure it out.
Speaker 1: Because the thing that my X would say to me,
Speaker 1: and it was a fair criticism, was yes, you say
Speaker 1: you're taking that, but what if you don't, What if
Speaker 1: you forget? And so she couldn't quite let it go
Speaker 1: because it was back to sort of what we said
Speaker 1: earlier that you know, we could define roles and make
Speaker 1: them more equal, but there's still that whole, messy middle
Speaker 1: of things that pop up that are unexpected. And so
Speaker 1: I think that's the mental load on mothers that we're
Speaker 1: talking about here, and that can be reinforced to for example,
Speaker 1: in the school system, where even if you do provide
Speaker 1: both parents telephone numbers. The mother is always the one
Speaker 1: that's called. Um So, I definitely know of lots of
Speaker 1: dants that are frustrated by that. It's like, I'm the contact,
Speaker 1: Why do you she's the second contact? Why do you
Speaker 1: keep pulling it her? She's not available? I am so again,
Speaker 1: it's really challenging in all directions. Being consistent with your
Speaker 1: habits is the engine that drives your transformation and growth.
Speaker 1: Think about it. You can't feed your good wolf one
Speaker 1: big meal a year and expect it to thrive. Consistent
Speaker 1: steady bits of food fuel a good, healthy wolf, but
Speaker 1: it's hard to create consistency. You might listen to this
Speaker 1: podcast on a Thursday feel really inspired, but then life
Speaker 1: takes over and by Saturday night you've forgotten all about it.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm hosting a free live Q and a
Speaker 1: town hall zoom meeting on Thursday, February, where I'll be
Speaker 1: answering your questions about how to take what you know
Speaker 1: and turn it into what you consistently do. Had to
Speaker 1: when you feed dot net slash town hall to register
Speaker 1: for this free live session with me. During this town hall,
Speaker 1: you'll ask me your specific question and I'll answer it.
Speaker 1: It's that simple. So if you would like my help
Speaker 1: creating some tools to deal with real life when it
Speaker 1: gets in the way of your best intentions, let me
Speaker 1: help you. If changing habits feels overwhelming, if you struggle
Speaker 1: to make time time for things because life is so busy,
Speaker 1: if it's easy to get caught up with your to
Speaker 1: do list, you feel consistently behind and taking time for
Speaker 1: yourself feel selfish, then let's talk. The things we do
Speaker 1: consistently are more important than the things we do once
Speaker 1: in a while. In this free town hall session, you'll
Speaker 1: ask me your questions and I'll help you find what
Speaker 1: works for you, how you might look at things differently
Speaker 1: and create the structure to help you do the thing
Speaker 1: you really want to do. And if you don't have
Speaker 1: a specific question, just come listen to the conversation. A
Speaker 1: little bit of something is better than a lot of nothing.
Speaker 1: Truth is, you can make a lot of progress by
Speaker 1: doing just a little bit. To register for this free
Speaker 1: zoom session on February, go to one you feed dot
Speaker 1: net slash town hall. That's when you feed dot net
Speaker 1: slash town hall. I hope I get the chance to
Speaker 1: meet you there. I want to back us up for
Speaker 1: a second and then jump back in where we are.
Speaker 1: And what I want to back us up for for
Speaker 1: a second is did describe some different types of burnout.
Speaker 1: We've talked about two of them, workplace burnout and parental burnout,
Speaker 1: but there's also caregiver burnout, and as you mentioned, there's
Speaker 1: a sandwich generation. Right. I am enormously grateful that my partner,
Speaker 1: Jenny's mom passed of Alzheimer's this early winter after about
Speaker 1: a six year journey with that. And you know, my
Speaker 1: mom has not been well. My dad has Alzheimer's and
Speaker 1: that's been really challenging. And it all really started after
Speaker 1: my son graduated high school. And for that reason, I'm
Speaker 1: kind of grateful because I didn't have to do both.
Speaker 1: You know, I can only imagine, you know, when I
Speaker 1: think about having another child today and I think about
Speaker 1: it and it just feels like, WHOA are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: You parent? It seemed difficult when I was doing it
Speaker 1: with a son was born, but now, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: the pace of change is so fast in our world,
Speaker 1: you know, like you said, there's all these new scenarios
Speaker 1: that were constantly presented with more and more and more
Speaker 1: that we have to figure out how to respond to
Speaker 1: as parents. And so, you know, there's that caregiver burnout
Speaker 1: that we get. You mentioned another type and it's called
Speaker 1: emotional burnout. What does that mean? Yeah, so, and really
Speaker 1: to potentially intersect that with that caregiver burnout in terms
Speaker 1: of if we think about the statistics too of the
Speaker 1: percentage of women of color who are also paying a
Speaker 1: caregiving role for an elderly relative and not necessarily disapparent,
Speaker 1: but it could be an on tour or even an
Speaker 1: additional sort of parenting role to another member of their family,
Speaker 1: that's so much higher in certain groups. So to me,
Speaker 1: emotional burnout really is coming from ongoing trauma. So trauma
Speaker 1: that people can have experienced because of their racial group
Speaker 1: or ethnic group. Then that ongoing trauma. So whether that's
Speaker 1: trauma because of a shooting in their neighborhood, whether that's
Speaker 1: trauma through highly covered in the media events George Floyd's death,
Speaker 1: whether that's trauma because at work they're repeatedly being asked
Speaker 1: about their hair, their clothes, their accent, their intelligence, their competence.
Speaker 1: So to me, that's constant questioning and constant experience of racism.
Speaker 1: To me leads to this emotional burnout where you're just
Speaker 1: exhausted of feeling upset how you're treated, upset about how
Speaker 1: your community is treated. And again, if we think about
Speaker 1: COVID and the higher death rates in certain communities, this
Speaker 1: is to us a lot of tragedy that certain groups.
Speaker 1: It's really faced all the time. And there was this
Speaker 1: fantastic book by a journalist Dannie McClain called We Live
Speaker 1: for the Wee and she started that book because of
Speaker 1: the high maternal mortality rates and black women, and she
Speaker 1: was a journalist looking at that, but then she really
Speaker 1: delved into motherhood as a black woman, and she essentially
Speaker 1: was saying, is we are advocates in our communities because
Speaker 1: we can't afford not to be some like me, a
Speaker 1: white woman. You know, I do a lot of advocacy,
Speaker 1: and I have a privilege to do that, but it's
Speaker 1: not because you know, my children are at risk every day.
Speaker 1: And I think that's such an important difference to consider.
Speaker 1: You know, when we have a school shooting, for example,
Speaker 1: we can feel really fearful for our children. And we
Speaker 1: talked about this fear that mothers have, but the statistics
Speaker 1: show that it's really not likely to occur, but the
Speaker 1: statistics show that it is six times more likely to
Speaker 1: occur that a black child is part of a violent
Speaker 1: community experience. So there's a real risk there that women
Speaker 1: of color are afraid of and then have to advocate
Speaker 1: to try and work around because it affects their lives
Speaker 1: and their children's lives constantly. So I think that's so
Speaker 1: important too. As we think back to workplace burnout, is
Speaker 1: when somebody experiences a microaggression at work. This was the
Speaker 1: thousands time that they've experienced this. They don't need to
Speaker 1: be told that the person didn't intend to do it
Speaker 1: or they're taking it the wrong way. This has been
Speaker 1: on top of all these other experiences. So I think
Speaker 1: that's just exhausting and that that definitely can lead to
Speaker 1: that burnout of just being in that state. I mean,
Speaker 1: like we talked out, it is being in that state
Speaker 1: of fight or flight, but to a certain extent with
Speaker 1: good reason. Yeah. Yeah, So let's go back to workplace
Speaker 1: burnout for a second and talk about why is it
Speaker 1: so hard for the leaders of workplaces to see what
Speaker 1: is causing burnout and even see burnout. That's such a
Speaker 1: good question. Unfortunately, like I mentioned, the statistics are that
Speaker 1: the majority of senior leaders c suite CEOs are male,
Speaker 1: white men. So I have these six different profiles of burnout,
Speaker 1: and one of them is overwork and people that are
Speaker 1: feeling the pressure to perform, to be the provider, and
Speaker 1: very ambitious driven. And so that is the type of
Speaker 1: burnout that a typical male white leader will have experience.
Speaker 1: And so then when they look at burnout in their employees,
Speaker 1: they're seeing it through that lens. And again, a solution
Speaker 1: for that type of burnout can be things like a vacation,
Speaker 1: or could be better time management or better delegation. But
Speaker 1: it's not the same as an employee who is, for example,
Speaker 1: overworking and not being rewarded, or being marginalized and not
Speaker 1: being rewarded, or has no purpose because their job has
Speaker 1: not being related to the company. So these other experience
Speaker 1: of burnout are not the experience that the majority of
Speaker 1: leaders have been through. So I think that's one thing
Speaker 1: is they're just seeing it through a different lens. And
Speaker 1: then I think also there's experience too. I like this one.
Speaker 1: This came from Megan Reets who did a podcast on this,
Speaker 1: and she also has leadership mindfulness exercises within the Calm
Speaker 1: app and basically she says that leaders are in this
Speaker 1: optimism bubble and they really think that part of their
Speaker 1: role is to be optimistic right for everyone else. But
Speaker 1: when are in that optimism bubble, it's really hard to
Speaker 1: see that the experiences that other people are going through.
Speaker 1: I was reading recently in this book Inclusion Revolution by
Speaker 1: Daisy Alga Dominguez about the fear that women of color
Speaker 1: have about speaking up about the problems they're facing. And
Speaker 1: so when we have these fears, of course one it's
Speaker 1: not safe to necessarily speak up about them, but too
Speaker 1: it's very difficult, so we're not communicating our experience as well.
Speaker 1: And then it all comes back to that framework of
Speaker 1: this is your individual problem. You're not coping with this
Speaker 1: stress well, so you have to do something about it.
Speaker 1: And so the shame and blame of that also makes
Speaker 1: it very hard to speak up. And again, in some
Speaker 1: communities there's a stigma for reaching out and using mental
Speaker 1: health services, or there's not culturally appropriate mental health providers available,
Speaker 1: So there's so many barriers to us actually having conversations
Speaker 1: in the workplace for us to share the experiences we're
Speaker 1: having and That's what I think is actually really an
Speaker 1: important part of behavior change is you know, I'm the scientist,
Speaker 1: I've done all the data, and I can present research
Speaker 1: data through the roof, But actually our experience of trying
Speaker 1: to change legislators and politicians was they needed to know
Speaker 1: it was based in fact, but it was the stories
Speaker 1: of their constituents that made a difference. And I think
Speaker 1: it's the same in the workplace. It's the stories of
Speaker 1: people's struggles or people overcoming struggles that we really need
Speaker 1: to be able to share because I think those stories
Speaker 1: are what motivates us to then have compassion and then
Speaker 1: want to make changes. The data doesn't motivate us enough, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: if it's even available broken down save by race or
Speaker 1: ethnicity or caregiving status. So there's just this really big
Speaker 1: disconnect and it's now been very much measured. I know, Microsoft, Deloitte,
Speaker 1: other other sort of companies that bring out these reports.
Speaker 1: Is that the well being solutions that have been offered
Speaker 1: in the workplace and the caring that leaders are giving
Speaker 1: is not being seen as caring. They've been seeing as
Speaker 1: not caring, even though they believe they're caring, and I
Speaker 1: believe they're caring too. They're trying their best, but the
Speaker 1: solutions and the attitudes are not matching what employees are expecting.
Speaker 1: Employees are expecting the organization to change. And when you're
Speaker 1: then pointing your finger and saying, now you go take
Speaker 1: this mental health service, or you take a vacation, or
Speaker 1: you do more self care in the home after work
Speaker 1: outside of work hours, this is not resonating with what
Speaker 1: people now realize the workplace is causing the stress and
Speaker 1: they want that to change. And so that's really been
Speaker 1: the struggle that you know, leaders are going to have
Speaker 1: to admit that they're part of the problem. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a very difficult challenge here, which is that if you,
Speaker 1: as a leader, admit that that the culture is problematic
Speaker 1: and you want to be compassionate, you need to change that.
Speaker 1: At the same time, you know, I always think it's
Speaker 1: helpful to look at anybody and look at what are
Speaker 1: the pressures on them? Right, and you talk about this
Speaker 1: to some degree that until we make well being a
Speaker 1: metric that leaders are measured on, things won't really change.
Speaker 1: Because even a progressive, enlightened CEO is going to have
Speaker 1: a board of directors and shareholders who are going to
Speaker 1: have a perspective, and they've got competitors, and the competitors
Speaker 1: might be going screw workplace well being, like I don't care,
Speaker 1: you know. And in the long run of workplace that
Speaker 1: has well being probably might win out. In the short
Speaker 1: term it might not, And that's what everything is measured on.
Speaker 1: So I think it's this really difficult thing where even
Speaker 1: if you're a leader and want to make some changes,
Speaker 1: it can be difficult because as I just mentioned that
Speaker 1: challenges that are coming from all different kinds of places. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: And again there's data showing that, you know, we're evaluated.
Speaker 1: Most people in their promotional process evaluated on impact on
Speaker 1: corporate goals and so even their ability to help others
Speaker 1: with their professional growth, their contribution to the d I mission,
Speaker 1: their contribution to retention, and their contribution to well being
Speaker 1: a measured you know, less than fifty of the time,
Speaker 1: and it's more in the low twenties. So there is
Speaker 1: no reward system. And as you and I know, rewards
Speaker 1: are so important. Ultimately we do end up becoming intrinsically rewarded,
Speaker 1: but external rewards are a major part of especially the
Speaker 1: promotional process. So there's no built in rewards. So that's
Speaker 1: definitely a big part of the problem, and I agree
Speaker 1: at that board level. But essentially, the business case is
Speaker 1: there that companies that are more diverse, and companies that
Speaker 1: can keep their employees whether they leave because they're fed
Speaker 1: up of the diversity or fed up of burnout, companies
Speaker 1: that can have less turnover are more profitable. So the
Speaker 1: business cases there, but I agree it could be seen
Speaker 1: as more a long term case and that can be problematic.
Speaker 1: But I also think there can be this shift with
Speaker 1: the e s g S. So with these new expectations
Speaker 1: for companies that they have to have a social license
Speaker 1: as well as a business license, and so it's not
Speaker 1: just that they're doing right by their employees, it's they're
Speaker 1: doing right by their customers. And if their customers are
Speaker 1: women of color, you know, they need to be able
Speaker 1: to have those people in leadership positions to best serve
Speaker 1: their customers. So, you know, as we go forward, there
Speaker 1: is this shift to saying that our social responsibility, the
Speaker 1: way our governance, and our rewards systems right because these
Speaker 1: are you know, if you can create key performance indicators
Speaker 1: around these things, then yes, that's how change happens. But Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I still see so much of it being these branding
Speaker 1: exercises where people say, I'm going to commit to the
Speaker 1: Thrive pledge to support mental health of work, or we're
Speaker 1: doing you know this for diversity, equity and inclusion, or
Speaker 1: you know our E s D has these plans, but
Speaker 1: then it feels like a branding exercise. And that's where
Speaker 1: cynicism comes in amongst employees too, because if the investment
Speaker 1: isn't there, and if the commitment isn't there with those
Speaker 1: rewards systems, right, then change isn't going to happen, and
Speaker 1: it then becomes very frustrating for individuals within those organizations.
Speaker 1: So the investment is there, because that's the problem. Again.
Speaker 1: We have diversity inclusion offices now, but they are not
Speaker 1: being given a team. Um it's not throughout the whole organization,
Speaker 1: and they're not being given the funds to actually make
Speaker 1: the cultural change that the organization requires. And you know
Speaker 1: that takes a lot of investment. Yeah, corporate change is difficult.
Speaker 1: Even when everybody in leadership is really bought in, it's
Speaker 1: still difficult, let alone if it's just sort of marginally
Speaker 1: bought into. These big organizations are really challenging to move
Speaker 1: them in significant ways, right right, that's true. But I
Speaker 1: think too we talk about this in terms of how
Speaker 1: that can happen, and there's these different models where it
Speaker 1: starts in individuals, and then it starts in peripheral units,
Speaker 1: and then it actually becomes central to the organization, then
Speaker 1: core to the organization and one of the processes that
Speaker 1: we talk about doing that, and it comes from many
Speaker 1: different areas. So from the business side, there is definitely
Speaker 1: cases for breakthrough innovation because of shared decision making. In
Speaker 1: global development there is where we have these changes because
Speaker 1: of learning collaboratives, and in healthcare we have it where
Speaker 1: we are implementing changes. So for example, in the medical system,
Speaker 1: there can be a lot of cynicism about new record
Speaker 1: commendations and not goodbye in for making all these changes.
Speaker 1: So again that's when we use peer learning collaboratives. So
Speaker 1: it's this whole process where small groups start to actually
Speaker 1: experiment and work out what is the change process, what
Speaker 1: do we need to do, and then there's learning cycles
Speaker 1: from that where you learn from that cycle and then
Speaker 1: move it to another unit and test it in another unit,
Speaker 1: and you keep building it out by expanding it to
Speaker 1: these other units. But because of the experimental and learning process,
Speaker 1: one you learn what works, one you learn what needs
Speaker 1: to be adapted. But there's also this resilience that comes in,
Speaker 1: not just because the end user has been involved in
Speaker 1: the process. That's where the shared decision making stories and
Speaker 1: business you know, or cases in business are examples of that.
Speaker 1: But it's also then that you have gone through these
Speaker 1: iterations so you know how to adapt. So when new
Speaker 1: things like COVID hit us, if you have the processes
Speaker 1: in place, you already have the system to adapt to
Speaker 1: new challenges and that will make an organization more resilient.
Speaker 1: So that's definitely a tool and a process that, as say,
Speaker 1: comes from so many different fields of organizational development, from
Speaker 1: different healthcare, a global development, businesses. That I think is
Speaker 1: really important because it comes back to also understanding the
Speaker 1: process of change. So so often as individuals we try
Speaker 1: to make change on our own, we get a bit
Speaker 1: stuck in that process in terms of not wanting to
Speaker 1: share that we've set a goal, We're afraid of failing,
Speaker 1: afraid of making mistakes. And actually the group process and
Speaker 1: social learning is the strongest form of learning we can
Speaker 1: have through imitation, through you know, the process of receiving
Speaker 1: feedback and positive reinforcement. That is the best way for
Speaker 1: us to learn and change. But unfortunately, we're so stuck
Speaker 1: in the like isolated individual mindset that we don't even
Speaker 1: give ourselves the opportunity to have these dynamic group processes.
Speaker 1: So that's really where I'm coming from, trying to help
Speaker 1: individuals see how they can step out of that mindset
Speaker 1: and then see how organizations can use these processes to
Speaker 1: actually make the change contagious. Yeah, well, if I need
Speaker 1: to change a big organization, I'm going to be calling
Speaker 1: you thank you. But to take this to the individual
Speaker 1: level for a second, you say that you know whatever
Speaker 1: we're going to do in our own lives to deal
Speaker 1: with burnout, and we can talk about what some of
Speaker 1: those things are. We know that organizationally we need change,
Speaker 1: We know that societally we need change, and we know
Speaker 1: that as individuals are, choices matter. They may not be
Speaker 1: enough to fully overcome it. But there's a role there
Speaker 1: for for individual choice. And you say, whatever you choose,
Speaker 1: remember that half baked good intentions don't lead to action.
Speaker 1: You also need the recipe of behavior change guide. What
Speaker 1: will you change when? Where? How you practice, Who will
Speaker 1: be your role model, your accountability partner, How will you
Speaker 1: cue your new behavior, and how will you measure and
Speaker 1: celebrate your success? And that is a pretty good summary
Speaker 1: in a paragraph of what we know about how people
Speaker 1: change behaviors. Is you need some version of all those
Speaker 1: things that you just listed, yes, yeah, And that's the
Speaker 1: way I have tried to put it into a stepped
Speaker 1: process and to create a plan. All comes from behavior
Speaker 1: change science. And you know, over twenty years of us
Speaker 1: now actually discovering what are the key ingredients to that,
Speaker 1: because when we started our behavior change models back in
Speaker 1: the day, really we were studying the people who had
Speaker 1: changed successfully and said what led to their successful change.
Speaker 1: We weren't actually then studying what strategies to people need
Speaker 1: to have to change when they're not the person that
Speaker 1: just is already on this natural change trajectory. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that definitely comes from the science. And I agree there
Speaker 1: is things in our own lives we need to do.
Speaker 1: So in particular, when somebody is in a state of burnout,
Speaker 1: it's really looking at everything that is on that to
Speaker 1: do list you have and then really really looking and
Speaker 1: saying what are the major priorities, what are fundamental and
Speaker 1: particularly what we see and this came out to recently
Speaker 1: with a report that was called the Great break Up,
Speaker 1: and this was that senior women leaders are leaving organizations
Speaker 1: because they have spent so much time, unpaid, helping with
Speaker 1: d I efforts and helping with well being efforts and
Speaker 1: the mental health of their colleagues without any recognition or
Speaker 1: reward for that, and those things can actually interfere with
Speaker 1: their ability to meet other performance criteria. You know, they're realizing,
Speaker 1: I can't do these things anymore. But they were deciding
Speaker 1: to leave the organizations because they realized if they didn't
Speaker 1: do them, nobody else was going to do them either,
Speaker 1: and those organizations were just going to be worse for it.
Speaker 1: I do understand the difficulty of making those decisions of
Speaker 1: giving up those tasks that are unpaid and to be honest, undervalued,
Speaker 1: because if they're not being rewarded, the organization is not
Speaker 1: valuing them. And I've helped a number of women in
Speaker 1: different organizations and in academia where they are there on
Speaker 1: many many of these committees and I ask, Okay, are
Speaker 1: they being paid, are they being valued? Are they part
Speaker 1: of their reward system? And they say no, and they're
Speaker 1: terrified to give them up because what that will say
Speaker 1: about them, again feeding into those stereotypes of women as
Speaker 1: being the volunteers and the nurturers and the care givers,
Speaker 1: and they think they're going to be penalized. And in
Speaker 1: some cases, we can be penalized when we're not the
Speaker 1: one that steps up. But actually what they often found
Speaker 1: is when they stepped away, nobody noticed because they weren't
Speaker 1: valuing what they were doing in those committees anyway, that
Speaker 1: wasn't part of the promotional process. This is kind of
Speaker 1: what we talk about as quiet quitting, which is that
Speaker 1: people basically are stepping away from all the tasks that
Speaker 1: they're not being compensated for or rewarded for, and just
Speaker 1: focusing on the basics of their work and trying to
Speaker 1: do the minimal so that they can reset and gain
Speaker 1: control of their lives and work experiences. Again, and that's
Speaker 1: the same as a parent, you know, over volunteering at school.
Speaker 1: Now again, if those things light you up and bring
Speaker 1: you joy, of course you can keep doing them, but
Speaker 1: it's that process of going through everything you're doing and saying,
Speaker 1: what is this that is out of obligation? What is
Speaker 1: this that is actually contributing to an impactful goal that
Speaker 1: that I know I'm trying to achieve. And I think
Speaker 1: we had an opportunity to do that as parents as
Speaker 1: well during COVID, where all the extra activities that we've
Speaker 1: been driving kids around too, they were stopped and actually
Speaker 1: we had quality family time for a while together, and
Speaker 1: I think that hopefully resets some families to go, actually,
Speaker 1: what does it mean to be a family and to
Speaker 1: spend time together? You know, is us striving our kids
Speaker 1: or kids being involved in all these activities. Is that
Speaker 1: actually the family life and the goals we want for
Speaker 1: them and ourselves. So I don't know if we've all
Speaker 1: just gone back into those previous behaviors. Probably have to
Speaker 1: ascertain extent, but I think that's really what we have
Speaker 1: to do. And even the Surgeon General he has been
Speaker 1: making a lot of statements. There are calls to action
Speaker 1: on burnout, and he talked about one organization which was
Speaker 1: basically saying let's get literally their initiative, what's called let's
Speaker 1: get rid of the stupid stuff. So it is going
Speaker 1: through an organization too and saying what is the stuff
Speaker 1: that we do as an organization administratively on in our
Speaker 1: work practices that is just stupid, Like what meetings do
Speaker 1: we all attend that are stupid, that are a waste
Speaker 1: of time? So it is it's that really really focusing
Speaker 1: out on those core behaviors. And it's sort of one
Speaker 1: way to do that is looking at the obligation list,
Speaker 1: looking if you can rate things out of ten, and
Speaker 1: Greg McEwen's Essentialism book really talks to us about why
Speaker 1: would we be doing anything that isn't a seven out
Speaker 1: of ten. You know, when we were a kid and
Speaker 1: we were getting a grade, if it wasn't seven out
Speaker 1: of ten, we weren't happy with it. So why do
Speaker 1: we accept work that is less than seven out of
Speaker 1: ten as an adult? And again, we don't all have
Speaker 1: those choices, So I think that's a big part of
Speaker 1: this is where are some people having very constrained choices?
Speaker 1: So we have to recognize that too. But often we
Speaker 1: can delegate something that isn't our superpower and it is
Speaker 1: somebody else's. So again, really understanding that process and then
Speaker 1: really getting this handle of the yeses and nose And
Speaker 1: that was an exercise I had to do with an
Speaker 1: Excel spreadsheet where I just started writing down each day,
Speaker 1: everything I've been asked to do and did I say
Speaker 1: yes or no? And um, one really help me realize
Speaker 1: how many new things each week I was being asked
Speaker 1: to do and I was like, no, wonder, I'm overwhelmed
Speaker 1: to you know, oh my goodness, all these times I've
Speaker 1: said yes, said yes, didn't realize they said yes, said
Speaker 1: yes when I wasn't asked to lead something, but did
Speaker 1: it anyway? And then all the nose, the guilt that
Speaker 1: I felt about those nose but really committing to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying yes anymore. And I know when we're
Speaker 1: in a period of growth or building a business or
Speaker 1: having personal growth, you know, there is definitely a mentality
Speaker 1: to saying yes to opportunities. That is great, But if
Speaker 1: you're in a state of burnout, you have to recognize
Speaker 1: the opportunity costs of every yes and actually have a
Speaker 1: year of nose. And it will take you some time
Speaker 1: to practice those nose. And will you, as a member
Speaker 1: of a certain group be penalized for saying no potentially,
Speaker 1: but you're being penalized anyway. So it's like you have
Speaker 1: to gain back control of your time and your choices.
Speaker 1: And that's so important because I know, like I felt
Speaker 1: like a victim of my choices, and that was so
Speaker 1: hard for me to like get my head around. I
Speaker 1: believed I was such a strong, independent person and to
Speaker 1: feel like a victim of my choices just didn't match
Speaker 1: with who I thought I was. But I really had
Speaker 1: become a victim to my choices and felt I didn't
Speaker 1: have choices. So really gaining back control of my time
Speaker 1: and my choices, yeah, when you're in burnout, that is
Speaker 1: definitely step number one. Yeah, there's so much in what
Speaker 1: you just said there. I mean one is that I
Speaker 1: think for any kind of change, let's just keep it
Speaker 1: on the personal level for now. You know, when I
Speaker 1: work with coaching clients, they'll be like, I want to
Speaker 1: do X, I want to do why, I want to
Speaker 1: do Z, I want to do B. And I'll be like, okay,
Speaker 1: all right, those are all good things. Um, what are
Speaker 1: we getting rid of? Because I'm assuming for most people,
Speaker 1: I mean for all of us, our time is filled
Speaker 1: with something. You know, everybody has twenty four hours a
Speaker 1: day and they fill it with something, And so really
Speaker 1: thinking about, okay, well, what am I going to do
Speaker 1: less of in order to enable me to do this
Speaker 1: thing is really critical. And you talk about this a
Speaker 1: little bit in that, you know, one of the roles
Speaker 1: that coaches can play for people is helping people reset
Speaker 1: their expectations. So I often say, we may find out
Speaker 1: as part of this experiment that A, B and C
Speaker 1: that you say are important to you, We're just gonna
Speaker 1: have to jettison them. And that's gonna feel difficult, but
Speaker 1: it's better than dragging the expectation of it around all
Speaker 1: the time and feeling consistently bad that you don't do it,
Speaker 1: because really you can't do it unless you make some
Speaker 1: other really big changes that you might not be willing
Speaker 1: to or able to make. So I think that's a
Speaker 1: really important thing. And I think a life well lived
Speaker 1: for any of us is a life in which we
Speaker 1: think very regularly about what is important. Very regularly, we're
Speaker 1: asking ourselves what is important? What matters to me? Am
Speaker 1: I living that way because we can do that kind
Speaker 1: of deep work, and that's really great to do, and
Speaker 1: we have to do it and then life changes. So
Speaker 1: this is sort of an iterative process. You know. The
Speaker 1: other thing you mentioned there is that saying yes, And
Speaker 1: I remember, you know, I worked with some coaching clients
Speaker 1: on this, and a policy that we ended up with
Speaker 1: several of them was, anytime anybody asked you to do
Speaker 1: anything that's extra, your answer is, that's a really exciting opportunity.
Speaker 1: Let me think about it. You cannot answer yes, you
Speaker 1: don't have to answer no. But what we need is
Speaker 1: time to think, because I think part of what makes
Speaker 1: it so hard, and this is for me, is when
Speaker 1: somebody asked me to do something, I'm looking at it
Speaker 1: in isolation and I'm like, oh, that sounds really awesome,
Speaker 1: that sounds really cool. Yes, I would want to do that,
Speaker 1: but I have to plug it into the rest of
Speaker 1: my life. And that's what we don't do in the moment.
Speaker 1: I think, at least I don't is I'm not seeing
Speaker 1: it in context of everything else. I'm seeing it isolated.
Speaker 1: But that's not the way things are. And so that
Speaker 1: ability to say, well, let me think about it gives
Speaker 1: us the chance to go off look at the context
Speaker 1: in our lives, our whole lives. Does it fit if
Speaker 1: it does, what's going away, and also gives us the
Speaker 1: ability to go back and say no from a place
Speaker 1: of strength and be able to really think about how
Speaker 1: we want to say no instead of just no. So
Speaker 1: that's something that I found really helpful with some clients
Speaker 1: of mine, is just no, matter what it is, you say,
Speaker 1: that's really interesting. I'd like to think about that, right,
Speaker 1: And I think that's so important, even especially as like
Speaker 1: junior employees in an organization being able to come back
Speaker 1: and say I've done a time analysis or I've done
Speaker 1: an impact analysis. I love that word. I've done an
Speaker 1: impact analysis and I don't believe this is going to
Speaker 1: be impacting the goals that you've set for me, am
Speaker 1: I correct? You know? And so then it is it's
Speaker 1: that intentionality that's so important that I agree we often lack.
Speaker 1: And that's the same for how organizations are set up.
Speaker 1: And like I mentioned at the beginning, when we're not
Speaker 1: intentional that well, what would this flexible worktime look like?
Speaker 1: And what are some of the potential negative consequences like
Speaker 1: proximity bias? Right, we have to think through things with
Speaker 1: more insight and time and detail and again really looking
Speaker 1: at those potential downsides. And I understand. I'm also, like you,
Speaker 1: an optimistic person, and again I think we want optimism
Speaker 1: in so many places, but when it's like that blind
Speaker 1: optimism or that optimism bubble of the CEOs, then we
Speaker 1: really are doing a disservice to the opportunity cost that's there.
Speaker 1: But I also think the other part of it too,
Speaker 1: because like you said, things change, but it's been like
Speaker 1: the frog in boiling water, like the water started out
Speaker 1: cool and then got hotter and hotter and we didn't notice.
Speaker 1: So again, how do you make those times to assess
Speaker 1: what is important? And and to be honest, like it's
Speaker 1: those values reassessments too. I still find that really hard
Speaker 1: to do because I find it really hard to balance
Speaker 1: out some of those values as well and change them,
Speaker 1: because especially if they've been around, like hard work is
Speaker 1: a value of mine, and now I'm trying to have
Speaker 1: a value of balance, and it's like, okay, how do
Speaker 1: I even change my behaviors to have that value? And
Speaker 1: what do I do about that old value of hard
Speaker 1: work that is so ingrained and also has an upside
Speaker 1: that there's important parts of that. So I agree, But
Speaker 1: back to the time being filled to there was recently
Speaker 1: I was hearing something on the radio and it was
Speaker 1: about these time use analysis and societal expectations that we
Speaker 1: always add. More so again when COVID hit it was
Speaker 1: like what new hobbies are you going to have? Like
Speaker 1: what are you going to do with all this time
Speaker 1: you've got? And of course people didn't have more time.
Speaker 1: Work hows went up, you know, online time, full work increased.
Speaker 1: So suddenly we have this expectation we've got to do
Speaker 1: something better with our time. That's just coming, as I say,
Speaker 1: from this societal expectation that's there's really kind of destroying
Speaker 1: us at the moment. Yeah, And what you say about
Speaker 1: values work is really important because it is deeply uncomfortable work.
Speaker 1: I mean I think it is deeply uncomfortable work because
Speaker 1: you have to make some very difficult decisions be you
Speaker 1: almost always are brought up face to face with the
Speaker 1: ways you're falling short of what you say you value,
Speaker 1: so you're seeing a gap. It's hard work, and so
Speaker 1: that's why I think a lot of us don't like
Speaker 1: to do it or overwhelmed right where you're carving out
Speaker 1: time to do deep thinking. I always think I need
Speaker 1: to go away to you know, a out on top
Speaker 1: and have eight hours to journal, and that can be
Speaker 1: really helpful time, but also just very quick reflections, you know,
Speaker 1: like what am I doing right? Now and is it
Speaker 1: does it feel important? But again I think they are difficult,
Speaker 1: and it also points to we all have differing degrees
Speaker 1: of choice, our choices are constrained in certain cases, or
Speaker 1: the things we get to choose between none of them
Speaker 1: are great options. This talking about, you know, living according
Speaker 1: to our values is a great idea and I think
Speaker 1: it is the heart of a good life, but it
Speaker 1: is incredibly difficult for so many different reasons, right exactly.
Speaker 1: And I know that another tooler coach gave me was
Speaker 1: kind of the body scans as you look at your
Speaker 1: to do list and in terms of a code, which
Speaker 1: one actually makes you feel like this is something you
Speaker 1: want to do, and so being able to even connect
Speaker 1: to your body to make those types of decisions that
Speaker 1: intuition I felt like I had suppressed for so much
Speaker 1: of my life if as well, I'm now trying to
Speaker 1: tap into it differently, because again, when you're approaching life
Speaker 1: about who do I need to be for everyone else?
Speaker 1: And I think that was one of the things. When
Speaker 1: you are a people pleaser and a perfectionist and trying
Speaker 1: to be the best mother you can be, you're really
Speaker 1: serving everyone else and your own needs and wants have
Speaker 1: absolutely gone out the window, and to then turn around
Speaker 1: and say, what are they one, it's like the shame
Speaker 1: of not knowing that and being able to tap into it.
Speaker 1: But again, that message came to me so clearly from
Speaker 1: a book about parenting and it was called The Parenting
Speaker 1: Book that you Wish your parents had read, and it
Speaker 1: was basically saying, allow your children to feel emotions so
Speaker 1: that they can understand what they need, and from that need,
Speaker 1: they're then able to express their needs and communicate those needs.
Speaker 1: And it made me realize how my upbringing had been
Speaker 1: very much in suppressing any emotions a little bit British
Speaker 1: style anyway, and so it's really helped me see, okay, no,
Speaker 1: I need to teach my kids to feel and express
Speaker 1: their emotions so you can understand what you want. So again,
Speaker 1: kind of that process along with these values, because the
Speaker 1: values are words that can be really hard to operationalize
Speaker 1: as daily behaviors as well. One of my values was honesty,
Speaker 1: but I felt so uncomfortable giving candid feedback to people,
Speaker 1: so you know, it's like you're constantly questioning. And I
Speaker 1: had a value of honesty, but yet I would hide
Speaker 1: how hard I was working from everybody else. I do
Speaker 1: it at home in the middle of the night. I remember,
Speaker 1: even when a colleague pointed that out to me, that
Speaker 1: the dissonance in the shame I had that I wasn't
Speaker 1: being honest, you know, like you said, it's so uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: It can be really, really devastating. But that's when we
Speaker 1: start to at least start to see, Okay, how can
Speaker 1: I make progress? Yeah, and I think some of this
Speaker 1: goes back to something that you said. When I read
Speaker 1: that quote about how we change, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the questions was who will be your role model, your
Speaker 1: accountability partner. I think this values work and the discernment
Speaker 1: that it needs for it to actually happen really needs
Speaker 1: to happen in community. Even if by community that means,
Speaker 1: you know, you have two or three conversations with people
Speaker 1: that are around you. But these things feel very difficult
Speaker 1: to figure out on our own. It's why a coach
Speaker 1: can be enormously helpful for people who have that opportunity,
Speaker 1: But so can talking to a friend. I mean, there
Speaker 1: are other ways to get this help, but I think
Speaker 1: having other people involved so that this conversation isn't all
Speaker 1: in our head is really helpful. Yeah, very much agree.
Speaker 1: And back to that process that I said, the social
Speaker 1: learning process is the best way to do it, and
Speaker 1: particularly for those reasons, we need role models. I mean,
Speaker 1: role models is such an important part of behavior change.
Speaker 1: It's not just that you have somebody that looks like
Speaker 1: you doing the thing you want to do, but it's
Speaker 1: actually a really important part of the learning process in
Speaker 1: terms of developing the skills and having the confidence. And
Speaker 1: that's again the accountability side of this. It's not just
Speaker 1: you need an accountability partner to keep you on track.
Speaker 1: You need an accountability partner to tell you that you're
Speaker 1: doing the right things, or to provide the perspective we
Speaker 1: talked about, which is, you know, are your expectations really unreasonable?
Speaker 1: So I agree we need this in community as one
Speaker 1: to one or particularly in groups, because I mean I've
Speaker 1: benefited so much from group coaching, where you know, I
Speaker 1: see some of the things that that other moms worry
Speaker 1: about and I think, oh, that's that's not my worry,
Speaker 1: that's not on my radar. Or I learned from how
Speaker 1: another mom, you know, communicated better with her husband. We
Speaker 1: can learn from each other so much, and I think
Speaker 1: that realizing we are not alone. I mean, that's that's
Speaker 1: part of burnout, is you do go into withdrawing and
Speaker 1: the isolation that comes from that, and it's so important
Speaker 1: to know you're not alone. And and that's again why
Speaker 1: I do my podcast as well, so that other people
Speaker 1: can see that they're not the only one going through this.
Speaker 1: You're not flawed, there's not something wrong with you. We're
Speaker 1: all struggling. Well. I think that is a beautiful place
Speaker 1: for us to wrap up on that note of you're
Speaker 1: not alone. Tell others real quick what your podcast is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so my podcast is overcoming working mom burnout, so really
Speaker 1: focused on finding the solutions. I have a TEDx talk
Speaker 1: as well, how to stop burnout before it starts, and
Speaker 1: there's lots of resources on my website ww Doctor Jacqueline
Speaker 1: Ker dot com. Like you said, I blog, but I'm
Speaker 1: also trying to develop a leadership course for women to
Speaker 1: to to women how to lead change by understanding the
Speaker 1: change process and by understanding you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: these topics we've talked about today in terms of focus, flexibility, fairness, purpose,
Speaker 1: but also having the right conditions for change, which is
Speaker 1: psychological safety growth mindset that we've talked about and well being.
Speaker 1: So taking women leaders through that process of learning how
Speaker 1: to change and then learning what are the things, what
Speaker 1: are the behaviors that you can role model, and then
Speaker 1: what are the behaviors you can support, because I think
Speaker 1: that's the biggest thing about behavior change. We don't realize
Speaker 1: how much support we all need to change. And as
Speaker 1: a leader, you you can provide so much more support
Speaker 1: than you realize once you kind of realize, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's why I've been struggling myself as a leader. I
Speaker 1: haven't had that support and so that course, plus I'm
Speaker 1: trying to develop small groups, these peer learning collaboratives that
Speaker 1: women can learn from each other about how to really
Speaker 1: drive change, and they're organized stations. So those are things
Speaker 1: that are on my goals. Well, we will put links
Speaker 1: in the show notes to where people can find your
Speaker 1: podcast and find all your work. And Jacqueline, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming on the show. I've enjoyed this
Speaker 1: conversation and it's a really important conversation. So thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, and thank you so much for
Speaker 1: the work you do and the time and effort that
Speaker 1: it goes into supporting this type of work. Thank you.
Speaker 1: If what you just heard was helpful to you. Please
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