Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: When people are in kind of a finite. This is a stressful period. I have a deadline I have to meet. They know there's an end to it, and so therefore, they can use resilience tools during that time. Burnout takes a long time to develop. So it's not going to be just one isolated stressful incident. It is the fact that chronically, you are feeling overwhelmed, you're feeling too stressed, you're feeling actually that you don't have the capacity for, for the workload that has been put your way. Just much as you would like, you actually can't. And so the symptoms of burnout, they will start making themselves felt.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Hello, everyone, I am Jess Chapman, and this is Wired to Work, a podcast all about how we make work better for everyone. So at Wired to Work and at neuroworks, we spend a lot of time thinking about how people feel about being at work and the things that are affecting the workplace. And you don't have to go very far today before you're gonna have a conversation about stress and about burnout. And the statistics around stress and burnout right now are actually quite concerning. Some of them suggest that 50% of the working population in North America feel stressed most, if not a lot of the day. And so the conversation about stress and burnout is a really important one for us to be having. We're not gonna get through everything to do with stress and burnout in one episode, I can assure you of that. But it's a conversation that we need to start. And so I am thrilled to have Sherry Forsyth with us. Sherry is a coach and expert in bur burnout and resilience. She's based in the lovely, warm South Africa, which I am not based in snowy Nifflin. And she kind of specializes in what is called invisible illnesses, which I think is a great term to think about with things like grief and burnout and other topics. And she's coming to join us today to share her wisdom, which I have been part of you before, and I can tell you was very helpful when you are thinking about stress and burnout for yourself or for your workplace. So let's have that conversation. So I am super thrilled to have you with us, Sheri. I'm really looking forward to our conversation today for the folks at home. Can you tell us what led you to focus on burnout in your work?
[00:02:06] Speaker A: So, Jess, it all. It was really because I myself have suffered from burnout when I was about 35.
That was in the days before burnout was a recognized syndrome, actually.
So I was told things like, oh, it's all in your mind. You're just imagining things.
They immediately wanted to put me on also sort of. Sort of psychiatric drugs, because it was seen to be all in your mind and you were making it all up, actually. So I went along a journey of initially, I did go on some antidepressants because what did I know? You know, I'm just a little lay person. And eventually I said to my husband, you know, I'm taking myself off these antidepressants. I'm not depressed. There is something that is going on that's affecting the whole body, and I don't know what it is, but I'm going to work through it. So having. Having experienced what burnout is, and at that stage, I had two little girls that I was, you know, trying to run around with them as well as working and then finding my own way really to health again, was that is really what resilience is. It's being able to recover from a challenging place.
And then when I became a coach, so I became a Coach probably about 15 years after that, it was a natural area for me to go into.
Because I think, Jess, what is so important to say is that quite often when you're suffering from burnout or these invisible illnesses, you look fine, you look healthy, you look well.
And because of that, people assume you are well, when in fact, your body is really taking strain.
So I want to make people aware of burnout, what it is.
And now, obviously, particularly post Covid people know very much what burnout is.
Yeah.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: And the statistics say it's increasing how many people feel they're in that place. Right. So, yeah, that's partly why this conversation is so important, because I think it's that the challenge of it is getting louder, not quieter.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: But.
[00:04:28] Speaker B: Yeah, but I mean, that takes a huge amount of courage to do what you did, Sheri. I mean, to say, you know what?
I don't feel like this diagnosis is the right thing for me, and I'm going to choose to do my own path. That's a very brave decision. So well done to you for saying, no, this isn't the right thing for me because I think it's really hard. Like you say, what do I know? How do I know? But you know, when something's wrong with you, but getting heard and being able to do something about it is tough. So I've got to stop there and say, firstly, good on you. And that's incredibly brave. So well done. Thank you. Yes, thanks.
When I was listening to you, I really value the descriptive invisible illness. I think that's a really important category of things to be talking about. Because your point about we have a tendency to assume if you look fine, you are fine.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: Right.
[00:05:24] Speaker B: Like if I don't have a broken arm or an obvious. As an obvious sign that I'm not doing okay, that I must be okay. What could we be looking for as the signs of burnout? For people to know if they have something that to be talking about.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: Great question, Jess. I think the signs, well, if I can quote the homeopath I go to, she said if something changes drastically in any part of their lives, there's a problem somewhere. So whether it's physical, emotional, whatever. So that is kind of a broad thing to be aware of. But more specifically for burnout, when you notice that people are. They've been very passionate about their work beforehand and suddenly they seem to be a bit detached. They don't care as much they're not as engaged with you. They work.
They also personally, they will be experiencing exhaustion. So, like battling to get out of bed in the morning on a Sunday night, thinking, I don't want to be working tomorrow, my body is actually just too tired.
Then I think that cognitive confusion, the brain fog, the inability to make decisions, you seem almost just to be totally overloaded and drowning because of the overload. So you're doing your best, but actually you've changed a lot, so you become more withdrawn.
I mean, for example, I went from running 10ks every day and I couldn't walk up the front steps of our veranda, thereby 8k steps there. So that's a very noticeable physical thing. In the workplace, sometimes the physical things are not as noticeable because everybody's at their desk and they're pretty much sitting down. So in the workplace, the emotional, the brain fog, the detachment, the lack of motivation, all of those things are the main sort of the forerunners of thinking there's something wrong.
[00:07:40] Speaker B: Yeah, that's really helpful and I agree with you. I think it's. If you're living with someone or you're very close to someone personally, you might have more idea of the signs of that person's changes. But we like. I'll often talk about people being patterns. And so if someone is off pattern, right. That's a chance to talk about them. So if they're usually really enthusiastic and they're not, if they're usually really quiet and they're actually less quiet in some ways, and some of those things are worth the conversation about what's happening with that person. And it might not be burned out, but there's definitely something happening with the individual. Yeah, it's awesome.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: For sure.
[00:08:12] Speaker B: Yes.
Sometimes I find folks talk about burnout when there is a distinction for me between this period in time is very stressful and you're dealing with stress versus you're actually on the brink of burnout in terms of full cognitive overload and non functioning.
And as you and I both know, some stress is actually good for you. You need some stress for your brain to get out of bed in the morning. And we've kind of got to a place sometimes where everyone wants to comfortable. But actually that's not realistic in the world of work. Like you're going to be stressed sometimes at work. So how can people distinguish between this period of work is stressful and I'm finding that tough. And actually, I mean like I'm in the place of chronic stress and the kind of burnout end of the spectrum. What would you say as being the differences?
[00:08:59] Speaker A: I think, Jess, the big difference is the time frame.
So when people are in kind of a finite, this is a stressful period. I have a deadline I have to meet.
They know there's an end to it and so therefore they can use resilience tools during that time.
But essentially they will expand themselves to cope with the challenge. The challenge then goes away and they then come back to their normal selves.
As such, burnout takes a long time to develop. So it's not going to be just one isolated stressful incident.
It is the fact that chronically you are feeling overwhelmed, you're feeling too stressed, you're feeling actually that you don't have the capacity for the workload that is being put your way. You just, much as you would like to, you actually can't.
And so the symptoms of burnout are they will start making themselves felt. Whereas if it's just a stressful. So usually there aren't symptoms really because
[00:10:09] Speaker B: it's much, I think that's a great, much shorter time period, more acute. You're talking acute stress as opposed to chronic or long term episodic, which would make sense to me. And you know that, that piece too you said earlier, which I really love is I'm actually doing a session next week at a conference on resilience.
And because in the entrepreneur world in particular, you said something that really triggered for me earlier. We have a tendency to think that resilience is pushing through and that resilience is all about keeping going and having the endless boundless energy. And up at 5, like all CEOs are supposed to be. And I like that when you said, that's not what it is. That's where I am. Resilience is about your ability to recover effectively. Right. And so when we're talking about if you're handling stress effectively, there's a stressful episode and you get back to where you were with burnout. You don't get back to where you were. Right. You're staying in that place for a much longer period. Period of time.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And you know, Jess, along those lines, in my. In my past life, I was a physio teacher and involved with lots of people in the sports world, and I did quite a lot of mental training of elite athletes. And they always used to laugh when I used to say to them, the quality of your performance is determined by the quality of your rest of your rest. They would think I'd lost my marbles entirely. And that's the same for people in the workplace. If we don't rest, recover, build ourselves, eventually that battery just goes down and down and down.
And often people in the workplace don't take that into account. And they don't give us a space to become resilient, actually. They just carry on loading.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: Yes.
Yeah. And I. And I think that that's part of what I see in the challenges today.
So we've always had a degree of stress at work. I think it's probably louder now than it was in the past, but I also think that we don't have the same recovery outside of work. So lives are more challenging, people are carrying caring responsibilities. You've got Covid going on geopolitical strife that's uncertain. All this other stuff is we've only got one br. It doesn't, like, differentiate between stress at work and stress at home. And I think that that's like, that that's part of what's causing it. So I love that premise. Right. Because often when we talk about performance, it's all about, do more, try harder, practice more, go like, do add extra hours, get up early, do the like. And actually, you're saying, no, go get good sleep, go relax, go enjoy yourself. Do all those things that'd be really helpful.
[00:12:52] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And so really be talking about getting balance back in your life. Do the things that you love to do, particularly when you're in a stressful time.
You might say, you know, you're a runner and you might not be able to run for, you know, a whole hour every day, but you can run for maybe half an hour. So you still need to be doing all of those things despite the fact that you are being challenged.
Yeah.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: And that's, I think that's really important because my, my personal experience. So I went through a period in my early 20s of stress and then depression, like not terribly long, fortunately.
But I'm very cognizant of some of the signals that you're talking about, and I'm very aware of when those things start to creep in. It's time for. To pull back. But one of the things I know I do is when I get busy, the first things I cut are the things that give me rebound time. Right. So I like to paint. Not very good at it, but I do like to paint, like the exercise. I don't have time to exercise. I don't have time to go to the gym. I don't have time to see people. Then you get stuck in a cycle of just doing the things that's causing you to have more stress. You're actually never going to get back to the kind of place you need to be. And so how do we start to carve up the time and say, no, no, I'm creating those boundaries. I need to go spend some time with my friends. I need to go and make sure I'm getting enough slee sleep. I'm going to make sure I'm exercising all the things we, we know are good for us.
[00:14:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: Awesome.
The who have come out and said that burnout is now a syndrome. Right. So they have given it a, a label which is helpful. And, and from their perspective as a result of chronic kind of workplace stress.
So stress being like workplaces being a big contributing factor to that. And you talked a minute ago about kind of the load that people carry in kind of recovery time.
From your perspective, where is work maybe triggering more of this today? Are there things that you think are happening in the workplace that are contributing to burnout and a lack of resilience that we could do something about?
[00:14:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Great question, Jess.
I do think maybe even just a little bit. Historically, as soon as we being the workforce, being business in the world, we, we kind of lost our values. And we, we only. The only value was we need to make money.
The bottom line was, have we made money or have we not?
And so I think that has had a massive impact on the fact that the workforce then became seen as all these little automatic machines that had to come to work, do their job and go home, leave their emotions at the door, not be a real person, but just be the producer of work.
And so our workplaces became without values. And I think that that is a core underlying issue still today.
The other thing that I think has had a major impact as a result of COVID people realized that they could work remotely, which means then, okay, well, I haven't finished my work now it's five o', clock, I have to go home, but I'll take my laptop and I'll carry on working at home. So the hours have been extended because we realize that all of us actually can work remotely.
And many of the companies are kind of expecting that.
And may I just share a little story of one of my clients who was an accountant? She was a mum of two.
She was married, but she was the main breadwinner. Her husband did work, but he didn't really earn a lot of money.
And the firm of accountants that she worked in first of all said that she was kind of was too good, she was trying to do her job too well, that sometimes you must just be able to write fees off, which didn't sit well with her. So that was the first kind of thing that was a red flag then because she was working too well and too thoroughly. She wasn't getting through her workload. So they asked her to please work two nights a week at home.
So after she had had dinner, put the kids to bed, she would work two nights in the week as well as full workday.
That still just wasn't enough for the company. They then insisted that she works Saturday mornings as well.
And here in South Africa, the Saturday mornings are very much geared to your children doing their sport on those days. So they have all their matches in their competition.
So effectively they were that she was having to remove herself more and more from her engagement with her family in order to work harder.
And the good news is she actually left the company eventually. She said, I'm not doing. My family is more important. Because they actually said to her, you have to choose between your family and work.
[00:18:02] Speaker B: And she was, who's going to choose work?
[00:18:05] Speaker A: Who's going to choose work in that equation?
[00:18:07] Speaker B: That doesn't make any sense to me.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: For her, it was quite a thing because she was the main breadwinner. She needed that job. Yes.
So that was the stress until we realized you'll find other work where maybe they value you more. So, yeah, I hope that's answered your question.
[00:18:25] Speaker B: No, I mean, that's a really great example too of an organization not understanding the importance of recovery. Like if the individual is. So let's say the reality is that individual, I don't know, the person let's say they weren't delivering in the role and they weren't hitting the, the targets that the company was looking for. The question I have is why not do more, run faster, do more of what you're doing is not really a solution. That person is either lacking the resources to do the work, the skills to do the work, has a different understanding of what good output looks like, so they write it off. Piece is a difference in for me is a difference in what the standard of work needs to be. But just telling them to then do more in their home time is not likely to do anything productive for that individual at all. And I don't want to discount the importance sense of productivity because as a small business owner, there's some things I can and can't do based on money. But I actually really love what you said around value set because I see more and more emphasis on the expectation of perpetual growth. Right. So as an entrepreneur running a small business, everything is about how much money did you make, how much did you grow? Did you grow more than last year, how fast did you grow? Like, how much more did you do? And my husband, who also works with me in the business at one point said to me, what point is enough, enough? Like at what point are we like, we are comfortable, we have a team of people, everyone is paid, everyone can pay their bills, look after their families, take care of themselves and have a nice life. And I think that we've. To your point, somewhere along the line we've lost that line and we've forgotten in the pressure that comes to run a business and to always be doing more, then human beings become another lever to pull as opposed to really the outcome of all of this should be people, should it not? Like how are we making people have better lives and offering services that make people's lives better, but offering jobs that make people's lives better?
But I can understand how a small, in a particularly small business, less so for a corporation, although they have shareholders who don't necessarily care about people, are pressured to do that and lose sight of what is the right way to help someone get to where you want them to be and what's the not helpful way of getting someone. And that's definitely an example of not helpful, I think.
[00:20:43] Speaker A: Yeah, and, and I think what, what you're touching on now is the fact that burnout is not really an individual, a problem with an individual. It's a systemic. It's the culture of the company.
And that is what has to change in order for burnout to be properly addressed. And when it is in companies, there's, you know, a decrease in burnout.
The one company, they had a 30% decrease in burnout and a 15% increase in productivity just because they started putting the right things in place.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we absolutely is one of the things that is reason I started Neuroworks. Right. So we are treating stress and resilience as an individual problem, which I'm not saying there are not differences from person to person. And everybody experiences stress differently and different needs, different support. But when you look at the magnitude of the number. So I posted this morning. So global engagement levels are down again in. Right. So two surveys in a row, they're going down. That is the world talking. That is not a couple of people, a handful of people in your organization, a handful of people in somebody else's organization.
When the statistics are saying 50% of people feel anxious and worried most of the day, when the statistics on level of engagement are consistently dropping, that is a system problem. We're doing something unhelpful. And so in our world, we look at culture, we also look at structure. Right. How are you designing roles? Back to the recovery thing. If you're overloading somebody in the workplace, expectations of the work they have to do don't line up, then you're going to end up with bigger problems because people are going to leave or be sick and be off work and you're never going to get the outcome that you want. So, yeah, I think there's a really important point. It's not a person thing anymore. Yes, help the person, but look at your system.
[00:22:26] Speaker A: And you know what I found really, really quite alarming?
Probably about two years ago, there were some grade seven children who, their anxiety was so huge that they weren't just anxious, they were tipping over into panic attacks.
And the panic attacks were as a result of them not being able to get into the high school that they would like to get into. So the pressure was coming from the school, from the parents, from the teachers, and these little. They're 13, Jess. And there were three of them. Them, they were all suffering panic attacks. And when I said to the one little chap, so, you know, what are your results like? I mean, if there's all this academic pressure, what are your marks? Like 97%.
He was still having panic attacks.
That is for me, the huge worry that the levels of stress aren't only in the workplace now. They're filtering down to our children.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: Children.
[00:23:30] Speaker A: And that's a problem. Yeah.
[00:23:32] Speaker B: Well, you kind of see it in the Jokey. Like, I mean, probably see it more in the movies from 10 or so years ago. But there used to be like the jokey things about the parents trying to get the kids in the preschool that play, that teaches them piano at age one and a half so that they can be ahead of the game, so they can get into the best school, so that they can go to the best universe. Like, life has become a race, right? Life has become a race and a competition. Instead of a values based approach to what do we want the world to be? And I'm not quite sure how we got there, but I think collectively we can unpick it if we want to, all of those things.
So, I mean, if, if I was a leader right now in an organization, Sherry, and I was thinking, okay, I know I'm not doing splendidly well right now, and I'm pretty sure that maybe my team isn't. What thoughts do you have about what they can do about that?
[00:24:25] Speaker A: So that's a great question, Jess, because I think many leaders feel that they can't admit to it. They can't be honest about themselves, and therefore they can't be honest in their company. Either it shows that they're weak or they're not running a tight ship or whatever their criticism is.
So first things as a leader is to be honest about it, be authentic about it to your board or your management committee, whoever it is.
But if they do little things, like put a cap on the number of working hours in a week that anyone can do, and beyond that, they cannot work so that the employees feel that it's okay. I know that I may not work longer than, I don't know, say 50 hours a week. So I think that's an important thing. So that's part of the boundaries that they need to draw within the organization.
They also need to train their leaders that when an employee comes to them to say, oh, you know, I'm really battling, I can't get through this work, I'm maybe feeling overwhelmed. Instead of the toxic approach of we'll just push through, just work harder, you know, take the work home, do more work, put more hours in.
Instead, if they were empathetic about, so where's the problem here? Where's the bottleneck? What are you battling with giving them?
Validating them, actually. So we validate where you are and let's see how we can solve this problem is another.
And I think the resilience, Resilience is a practice. It's not just a one soft thing you do. So to encourage Yourself as well, because you battling as the CEO, but that your entire company knows what those resilience skills are. The resilience practice is.
And it's like taking breaks and using your breathing and things that we all know, but very few of us do all of those things. The one thing that is never really mentioned is self care.
Self care doesn't feature anywhere. And that is one of the biggest antidotes to when you're in burnout.
So it's to make your people aware of what will be helpful to encourage them to support them in if they need to have professional help, to go to coaches or psychologists or therapists or whatever.
But their job within the company is to have a look and see what are we doing wrong with our system that our employees are not managing their workload. We're not going to blame our employees. Let's look at ourselves. And I think that is in the past, it's mainly been blaming the employees rather than having a look and see what's broken within our system or our culture. As a, as a corporate.
[00:27:47] Speaker B: I think there's a. There's a couple. I mean, there's like nine things I want to pick up in that answer. Sherry was brilliant, but the, the piece around leadership too. I think that that fear of saying I can't do this is often so loud.
And I mean, even for me, like, I'm sitting here thinking, okay, I'm perimenopausal. My framework of functioning is vast to how it was five years ago.
It's still not really talked about. It's still not really terribly understood. The few men that I've talked to have been kind of done the face of. I don't really know what to say to this, and should I say anything at all or not say anything at all and where do I go on it? All right? And all those types of things. But the reality is I do not, cannot function at the same speed for the same period of time with the same energy level that I did before.
But being okay to say that I don't have a boss, I am my boss. And so my hesitation has been being able to say to clients like, I don't function the way I did without them thinking, well, you're a consultant. Does that mean you can't function anymore and I'm not going to pay you anymore, like, that's a real concern. And the same in an organization because you're worried someone's going to say, well, if you can't perform, you can't have a job here. And I think that then creates a cascade effect because if the leader is uncomfortable saying, I can't do it and I don't know and I'm going to push through, then when we become stressed, the more stressed you are, the less empathetic you're going to be. And then we. Even without. Without intending to do it, we've created a culture where everyone feels like pushing through and not saying anything is the right thing. Like, we have to be able to say, as senior leaders in organizations, this stuff is normal. Right? Like, talking about this stuff is normal. And it's okay to say when I'm not doing okay. Because if we don't have that, we don't have the culture that supports everything you're talking about, I think.
Does that make sense to you?
[00:29:26] Speaker A: Like, absolutely. Right on the back. Absolutely,
[00:29:32] Speaker B: yeah.
And the culture piece, I think is interesting because I also think that oftentimes leaders don't know what to do with it. Like, we have got to a place where there's this, should I have personal conversations with people? And if it's Dray's interpersonal, am I invading their privacy? And confidentiality is really important. And I dare ask people if they're doing okay in case they tell me about medical things I'm not supposed to know about. And all these kind of worries pop into people's heads when the reality is I think you can just say, are you okay? Like, you don't seem okay. Like, you're. The pattern I usually seeing is this, and right now you're off pattern. So I'm gonna take 15 minutes out of my day and take you outside for a walk if it's not snowing in Iflan and say, how are you actually doing? And I don't mean how are you doing with your work? I mean how are you doing? How are you feeling right now? Are you okay?
And trying to open the door to a really honest conversation about where that person is without being afraid of might come. Because you don't have to know the answer, you just have to listen. In most cases, I think people like you exist for the folks to have the more professional support and qualification, just as a leader, we have to help the person know they're not okay.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
What do you do? So I had a conversation earlier this week where I was talking to a leader.
I gave him some advice, so hopefully he'll tell me my advice was good or not. But they have concerns about a member of their team. They think that the person in their team is struggling with all kinds of things at home and all kinds of things at work. It's not a major concern. It's certainly not causing any significant problems in the workplace. But they were just like a bit, this person's not okay. But they asked, they said, well, you know, this is a very private person.
I have asked them a few times in our one to ones how they're doing and they keep saying they're fine, but I don't, I don't really think they are. What do I like? What do I do? So what would be your thoughts on that, Sherry? How do you approach that? If you're the leader who's like, I've tried to ask the question and I'm not really getting anywhere.
[00:31:44] Speaker A: And I think that that is a very common situation because do you really want your boss to know that you actually aren't doing well?
And so much as the leaders cover how they are feeling, the employees do as well, you know, they don't want their boss to know that they. Because then again, it comes back to that whole fear of failure, you know, will you see that I'm not doing my job?
So one of the most important skills a leader can have and one of the skills that most leaders are lacking in firstly is the ability to listen.
So if you can start an authentic discussion with that person where you know that they are going to be honest with you, that's first prize.
And as you say, all you have to do is listen well.
But otherwise what usually happens is the leader of that team will ask them again, are you okay? Do you need any support?
And very often when the question is do you need any support? The answer comes yes, I actually would like some support.
Okay, what kind of support do you need? Is it just support within the company?
Is it you need professional help outside because it's not actually work related things.
And very often the clients will come for maybe sort of eight sessions or so. We've dealt with whatever was worrying them.
Nobody knows that they have had this extra help it because they might be embarrassed about it. You come, you talk about it, you resolve it and then I think the relief, Jess, when people speak their problem to you is immense.
There's that whole saying name it to tame it and then I add and reframe it. So just in naming, actually I do have this issue.
It is big for me.
Immediately you see a lightness in their face because they've said it, they've acknowledged that this is a problem and that often you 50% of the way there just by them doing that, that's Brilliant.
[00:34:05] Speaker B: I wrote that down. Can I steal that? Name it. Name it to tame it and reframe it. That's genius. That's absolutely genius. Because we talk about noticing and naming, but I've never said name it to tame it. And the adding of the reframing is really valuable on the end. Right. Like, how are you making this big in your own head? And how do you think about this differently to how you feel about it? That's. That's super awesome.
I think you raise a couple of really good points in that. So I think there's two things I think that I. That cause leaders to.
Well, one, the listening part. We overestimate our ability to listen by about 50%. So most people are listening to respond. And if folks, if you don't know the difference, there's listening to respond and listening to understand. Listening to respond is when you're formulating your own response in your own head and you're thinking about what you want to say back. Listening to understand, and you're parking whether you agree, disagree, like it, don't like it, and you're just focused on listening. But in work, we're not actually rewarded for listening to understand. We're rewarded listening to respond. Right. We're rewarded culturally and through work. In Western culture, at least in terms of proposals, recommendations, debates, all those types of things are seen as good behavior. But the emotional piece, too. Like, I know a lot of leaders I talk to worry about someone having an emotional reaction. Right. So if I'm going to have this conversation about how they're.
But what if they cry, Jess? What if they cry?
So I know what I.
What is your take on that? How do you help someone who's, like, not super comfortable with huge emotional responses have a conversation that might elicit an emotional response?
[00:35:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think it's also very much a male, female thing. Men don't. Don't like people who are crying, whereas women generally cope a bit more easily.
I think in a situation like that is that whole concept of psychological safety.
The employees need to know that they are safe with you, that what they're talking about is confidential.
The fact that a CEO is frightened of emotion, that's very, very common across the board.
And that's what we're trying to break down.
So one of the tips that is valuable to them is instead of feeling, they've got to come up with a solution.
They must rather just be curious.
[00:36:26] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:36:27] Speaker A: So here, in order to ask the question, curious about what they are saying.
And that often is a first Step to really enabling an authentic and real conversation. So if leaders are empathetic and curious and most CEOs, their job is to come with a solution.
That's their job. And so it's to break away from that. We don't want a solution here. We're just trying to explore what is actually going on.
And yeah, as far as men being frightened of emotion, I don't really know how to invite.
Well, not.
[00:37:13] Speaker B: We'll give them away. Not all of them will be. But yes, it's the, it's the, it's the crying thing, I think. And then the person who said it to me, I think their concern was, to your point, I don't want this. But it was an empathetic response. Right. Like, this person is crying, so they feel really bad. I don't know how to fix it. And I said something similar. I said, is it your job to fix it? Like, back to why people struggle with coaching. We teach people in organizations, they're supposed to have answers all the time. You can't have answers for all the stuff that goes on with a person. Like, it's like not, it's not feasible. So I think that's a really important distinction.
I do also sometimes say to folks, emotions are data.
[00:37:48] Speaker A: Right?
[00:37:49] Speaker B: Like, you don't have any problem with data. Emotions are data. They just tell you how somebody feels about something and how strong their feeling is about that something. That's it. That's all it tells you. You gotta go ask questions to your point to figure out the rest. But emotions are just data. And don't. You don't own somebody else's emotions. They do. But your job is to help them explore those emotions so they can figure out what they do with them.
[00:38:10] Speaker A: Yeah. And if you can't as a CEO, then to, you know, get the HR person or somebody within the company or as I say again, external people. Because we need to be working in our strengths. And if we know that it's, it's definitely not a strength of ours, then let's delegate it to somebody else. But allowing that person to feel that
[00:38:30] Speaker B: they're being cared for, That's a super important point. I love that, like, we don't have to be geniuses at everything.
If it's not your strength to have those conversations, don't be the one that has them. But don't pretend the person doesn't need the help. And I think it's important to say in these cases, we aren't experts in this stuff. Right. We shouldn't be having some of the conversations that people need to have. Our job is to feel, be supportive and be empathetic and help that person access whatever you can provide to them for support or whatever support they can get themselves. There's reasons why you and therapists and counselors and so on, coaches exist to support people in those kind of situations. So don't, you know, don't go and do things that you don't feel equipped to do. But that doesn't mean we ignore it.
[00:39:10] Speaker A: Yeah, 100% very important on the button. Yeah.
[00:39:13] Speaker B: So you came back to the one you mentioned earlier. The wonderful world of self care, which is a phrase that is, has cropped up for me in all kinds of places over the last probably five or ten years. Certainly post Covid, there's been a whole movement of focusing on self care.
And I think. But I think the challenge sometimes when we talk about self care is what does that mean we actually do?
And so I often share have you come across the Healthy Mind blatter framework? Do you know what I mean when I say that?
So share. Share it in the, in the resource notes because I know you have some resources for people too, which is awesome.
But it looks at the seven things that you need to do on a regular basis for your brain health. So like getting enough sleep, movement, play, timing, meditation, those types of things. And kind of gives a bit of structure to things. And so sometimes I think when people think self care, they think, okay, I'm gonna have a bubble bath and I'm gonna like go for a walk. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with having a bubble bath and go for a walk. To be fair, they're in my self care repertoire too, but they're not always necessarily a solution. So do you have any thoughts on when someone's like, I think maybe my self care needs some attention? What sorts of things would you consider, said, recommend they think about or do or read that would help them figure out what self care means for them?
[00:40:37] Speaker A: Yeah, that's an excellent question. Because Jess, I found that most people really battle with self care. It's almost like I don't deserve it, I'm just going to be lazy if I'm doing that kind of thing. So for me, the most important thing is to find something and do it regularly, something that you really love to do do.
And many people stop just there because they've forgotten what they love to do because they're so busy with the whole idea of living and working that they don't know anymore.
So. So if People don't know what they love to do. I ask them to go back when you were a child and when you had a free day, you went going to school, you were on holiday, what did you do then? Then, you know, so I listened to music or I went running, I played soccer with the boys. Whatever it is that will give you a hint as to what you really love to do and then to make sure that you do it in a way where there's no pressure to achieve anything in that time.
So if you're just listening to music, you just being in the present moment and loving listening to the music, you're not doing five other multitasking things at the same time.
So yes, really is the way that I try and help clients to see what they love to do.
I also have a list of self care activities that they can choose from so that, that gives them something a bit more, more concrete and structured to work from. And yes, having a bubble bath and for a walk are on that list. Absolutely.
[00:42:26] Speaker B: And they should be.
[00:42:27] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, yeah. You know, for me, the most important thing is to do what you really love to do. Is it just you're going to go and lie on the grass and look at the clouds and, and, and when you are doing it, be in the present moment. That's what we need for self care.
[00:42:46] Speaker B: That actually is one of the things in the, in the healthy mind platter model, because it talks about play and it talks about exercise and those things, but it has downtime and timing. So timing would be the meditation side of things. And actually Roz is a, I'm going to say master meditator because she teaches meditation and yoga. I'm sure someone's sure there's probably a grading system for meditation these days, but compared to me, definitely a master meditator. And so I always encourage people to look into meditation and the impact. I mean, there's so much evidence that meditation strengthens neural connections, helps build the hippocampus, which is to do with learning and memory, all those types of things.
But the time, the downtime thing was interesting because the definition of downtime, when you say downtime to people, they think of hobbies and activities and social type. Those are all separate categories. Downtime is literally doing nothing. And my husband and I were talking about the other day, we don't know how to do that anymore. Like we've like, if we sit down, we're like, I should be washing up, I should be mowing the lawn, I should be doing the work I haven't done Payroll, like, when do we actually, to your point, lie in the park and watch the clouds go by is a really important part of brain functioning. But when we do that, this idea, I've got to be busy, this busy culture thing has kind of stripped that away. And so finding ways, I think, to give yourself permission to do that, I think is, is interesting because I, I bet if you just tried to, like most people, if they tried to just sit down for a minute and do nothing for a minute, it would be hard.
[00:44:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:15] Speaker B: And so I, I love, I love your sit and watch the clouds go by and the think about what you did as a kid. That's a really useful nugget. Like, go back in time to when you didn't have all these stress and pressures going on in your head. Like, what did you used to love to do? And are you still doing it that now? That's a really great chance. Check, check on have I lost the things I love in life? Because if you're losing those, your battery is going to be drained all the time. Those are brilliant, Terry. Brilliant points. Yeah.
[00:44:40] Speaker A: Jess, I don't know if you've been, if you are aware of a concept called active rest, which sounds like it's an oxymoron, but it's actually obviously not. So active rest could be that you are going for a walk while you are resting or you are using another part. Like I almost say you have different muscles that you use. You have a work muscle that might be mainly cognitive stuff. You have a chores muscle, you have a social muscle. And active rest means you will use another muscle, not the same muscle as your work muscle. So it may well be something physical or it may just be. I'm socializing with my friends.
But active rest is very appealing, particularly to men, because then it's not like the soft term of self care or the downtime. It's active.
They get that. And generally then they are much more compliant to try to try to do. A little bit more selfish.
[00:45:44] Speaker B: Yes. Well, words matter, right? Perception matters. So, yeah, if you call it self care does have this kind of software terminology of like, loveliness to myself. And that's why I think that my brain pairs it up with bubble baths. When you say active rest, I think much more about like going for a walk or being social or doing those things with other people. And it reminds me, actually, we did an episode not too long ago with Roz and a lady called Tina Pomeroy around meditation, and Tina was talking about doing the chores as mindfulness.
[00:46:11] Speaker A: Right.
[00:46:12] Speaker B: So like just Choosing to focus on washing the dishes and the feelings of all the washing the dishes and getting out of winding forwards or winding backwards to be in the present moment. And for me, there's some similarities in those contexts. Concepts. As long as you're pulling the different muscles and doing different things, you're giving your chance for your brain to stop doing that, to focus on doing this, and therefore, it will rest a little bit over there.
Awesome. Yeah, absolutely.
So last. Last couple of questions for me. So we have some resources that you've recommended, so we're gonna put those in the show notes that go out. So that's awesome. Thank you for anything particular you want to flag for people. Anything that you are like, I absolutely love this. Everyone needs to know about this.
[00:46:56] Speaker A: I think one of the things for me is that people realize that burnout is not just in your mind. It's not just you not being able to do your job.
The neuroscience of burnout, I think, is really important. That will explain the fact that you're in fight or flight the whole time. You don't have to go into the full neuroscientific explanation of it, but to say, say, you know, there's a reason why you have brain fog, you know, because that prefrontal cortex gets switched off, and so you are confused. You can't really make decisions. You're not as efficient as you used to be. And it's because your brain is overloaded.
Your body and your brain is completely overloaded. And so you are now trying to make it function properly when it hasn't got any space left, it's full. There's no space for that kind of thing.
And I think when people understand that there is a neurochemical reason for the things that they are experiencing, and burnout, which is a lot of the stuff is unseen, things like the fact that you might be a bit confused can see that. And so to make it more tangible, to just touch on the neuroscience of burnout. So that is what's happening in your brain, and that's why you're feeling the way you're feeling. I think makes a lot of people realize they're not just making it all up. There is a concrete reason for it. And this is what we have to do to heal, to get out on the other side.
[00:48:42] Speaker B: It's brilliant.
It is a legitimate thing. And I think the science gives it legitimacy. I think the. That's a brilliant point. And honestly, you're not alone.
The chances are if you look around you, wherever you are, there is somebody else feeling the same way you are. And we need to start to normalize having conversations about mental wellbeing the same way we do about physical wellbeing with people. Brilliant.
[00:49:03] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:49:04] Speaker B: Well, Sheri, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on today. You are clearly a wealth. I'm walking wet. Like, I'm like, okay, so it's not the quality of your practice, it's the quality of your rest that the recovery, name it to tame it and reframe it. These are all going to find their ways into my repertoire. I promise. I will acquit, credit you with all of them when I use them. But some really great things there and hopefully lots of nuggets for people to take away. And just to recap, we will. Sheri gave us a lot of resources and people that you can follow and things that you can read in this space. And we'll add those to the show notes as well. Sherry, thank you again for coming on. I'd love to have you back at some point in the future if you're up for it from your sunny, warm part of the world.
[00:49:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:49:43] Speaker B: Thank you very much.
[00:49:44] Speaker A: Pleasure. And thank you. It's been an honor to be on your show, and I hope that this conversation will really reach out and be able to help others because that's really why we do what we do.
[00:49:55] Speaker B: So that's a wrap for today. Thank you very much for joining in. And if you liked our conversation today, please do like and subscribe. You can find us on Apple, Spotify and YouTube. You can also check out our websites, E3CA and Neuroworks CA for more information about about what we do in the wonderful world of work. So thanks again for joining in, and I look forward to seeing you on another episode.
