Is your busyness likely to lead to burn out?

Sal: 00:00:30

Is your busyness likely to lead to burnout?

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that's a high chance.

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There are statistics all over the place

and some of them are really scary.

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One I was reading from the University

of California suggested that 50

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percent of entrepreneurs face burnout.

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Now that's worrying.

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There's a whole other set of stats from

GitNooks here which I was looking at.

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29 percent of small business

owners report feeling constantly

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stressed by their work and that's

according to a quick book study.

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Accounting platform.

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41 percent of entrepreneurs

report higher levels of anxiety,

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which can be a result of burnout.

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And that was according to a study

by the University of San Francisco.

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I won't go on with the numbers.

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I will go on with the reality that I see.

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It's only working with

clients in the coaching arena.

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Now, stress seems to be this

kind of regular thing now, right?

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we're all busy.

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There's a lot to do.

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And it's both true and not true,

so we need to be really careful

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of what truths we tell ourselves.

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I had a guy come to me, and he was

a super intelligent, high level

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exec, and he had been basically

diagnosed with burnout by his, GP.

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And he came to me, he'd been in a little

bit of recovery for a while, and he wanted

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to get back on, back on his feet, back

into his workplace, and, back to life.

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and I asked him some really fundamental

questions, and I was like, okay.

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Tell me a little about

your, your working format.

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What do you do?

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Now, how many days a week?

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How many of that sort of thing?

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And it came back like this.

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Six days a week minimum, sometimes seven.

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Twelve hours a day.

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I'm like, whoa, already?

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How are you going to sustain sleep,

nutrition, relationships, exercise,

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if you give that much time to work?

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And then of course it went on, and

you may be familiar to this, back

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to back meetings with no breaks.

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Constant demands out of the office.

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So on the train, or, from

one place to another.

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and we had a nice, conversation at the

beginning to see if I could help this guy.

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And essentially my work was to

help them see what were the.

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Factors that got you here.

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What were the practical

factors that got you here?

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And what were the mindset

factors that got you here?

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Now, there's a lot of information

that tells us about burnout.

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Things to look out for.

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Now, if you're listening to this,

you might be a little bit concerned.

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So here, according to the Mental

Health team and research, they've got

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a bunch of things we should look for.

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So feeling tired or drained most of

the time, feeling helpless, trapped

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and or defeated, feeling detached or

alone in the world, having cynical

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and a negative outlook, self doubt,

procrastinating and taking long to get

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things done and feeling overwhelmed.

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Now they're the common signs of burnout.

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What I see with, people I've worked

with who are moving towards burnout,

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there is this whole sense of

depletion and you may resonate with.

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I've been here, right?

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I've been on the edge of burnout

myself, so I know it firsthand.

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it's a terrible place and I, I

remember giving a metaphor to someone.

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it was like going down a really

steep hill and you can see the

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edge of the cliff coming as well.

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So not only is this steep hill bad and

unpleasant, but There's a cliff edge at

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the far end, which if you go off it, it's

all going to end, which is no good at all.

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If you're running a business

You cannot lose your health.

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Otherwise you've lost your business.

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So back to burnout.

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Looking out for these signs are

important, but what I find really

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important and I really want you to

know this, is that signs, symptoms

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are signs and signs are symptoms.

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It's very easy to think

I can medicate this.

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I can meditate this.

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I can just sleep a bit more

and all these things can help.

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But what are the symptoms?

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They are signals and they're

telling you something and

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they're perhaps telling you them.

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Something needs to change.

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Now I've worked with another

person not too long back, Sarah.

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Sarah was a founder of her own company,

in the recruitment sector and she

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had been absolutely bang on it for

several years, really working hard.

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Now the work ethic, is admirable.

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The approach, damaging.

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So we need to be very careful of this and

Sarah got to the point where she was just

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fried basically and just had to stop, to

stop the business, had to stop working.

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She was a mom, she had a

relationship, so it's a really big

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effect on everyone and everything.

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And what I found with working with

these individuals, plus people who

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are moving towards high stress.

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There are certain things that we can

do to make a significant difference.

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The first thing is to recognize the

signs and symptoms, rather than put

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your, head in the sand as the expression

goes, is to name it and call it out,

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and probably speak to someone close to

you, like a partner or a friend, and

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simply speak of it so we don't bury it.

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The first place of, change

is acknowledgement, so you

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need to acknowledge it.

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This is the first step.

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Then the second, and this is a practical

tool, and I I use this all the time

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and this is super, super helpful.

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So I want you to work with this.

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this is the what?

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This is the what tool.

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So what is causing me high stress,

chronic stress, or perhaps on

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that slippery slope to burnout.

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So if you have a pen and paper, or you

have a Miro board or a digital screen.

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Drop a line down the middle.

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On one side, you put the word drain as

in D R A I N and the other word sustain.

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On what I'd like you to do, and

you may not have time while you

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listen to this, but do it after.

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Write down everything that

drains you on that left side.

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So for me, it might look like a lot

of emails and admin and stuff and

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maybe I should give it to the VA.

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Whatever the things that drain you.

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Lack of sleep, disruptive sleep.

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I have an autoimmune

condition, so health factors.

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What is it that drains your energy?

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What takes away from you?

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Get it all down.

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Now, every one of us is different.

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For a lot of people, there

are money worries, there are

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pressures, there's time deadlines.

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Get them down.

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Understand what drains your

energy and adds to the burden.

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And when you've got that clear,

then look at what sustains you.

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So this is, it could be a relationship,

children, exercise, fun, laughter,

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daylight, some of the most obvious

things, but look at what sustains you.

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So you have this really quite clear

contrast between the things that drain

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you and the things that sustain you.

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Now, it doesn't take a psychologist

to tell you this, but you want

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to reduce the amount of drain.

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and increase the amount of sustain.

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This is super, super easy to do.

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And sometimes the sheer act of

naming, and identifying has helped

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so many people I've worked with.

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So start with that.

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That's the what.

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So that's a great tool to work with.

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Then let's go deeper into the why.

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This is something which comes up for

my, a lot of the people I've, I coach.

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So founders, business owners,

sometimes high level execs.

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But this is the why question, the meaning

question and the fear facing question.

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So how come you're working so hard?

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Question.

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Yeah.

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Why are you doing 12 hour a day,

six day weeks, whatever it is.

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Now, normally our lovely brain

comes out with some justifications.

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They're called cognitive biases and

they confirm our worldview, but we

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will need to get underneath that.

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So for example, so many people say, you

know, I've got to grow the business.

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I need to make sure revenues coming in.

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They're all, credible

things that we need to do.

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But there's a distinction between knowing

the facts and having a highly charged

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emotion and meaning connected to them.

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And what I find with high achievers

is often that there's a huge

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investment of one's ego and one's

sense of self in the business.

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Trying to be a success versus looking

at the percentage growth of your

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business are very different things.

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And this meaning making part, this

emotionally led part, the thing that

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will push you, probably unconsciously,

into driving too hard, overworking,

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overstressing, this needs uncovering.

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So I'm looking for meaning

and generally toxic beliefs.

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Figure out what are you afraid of.

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Why are you working so hard?

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And be careful of not giving

it the old justification.

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Well, I've got to do this, got to do that.

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Why are you doing it?

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Because if you compromise your

health, you compromise everything

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You know, you are number one.

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You're the business.

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You are the business.

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So look at that and be honest with

yourself, but be gentle as well.

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This isn't a state of

how do you judge oneself?

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This is a state of self awareness

to understand what am I doing?

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So that takes us into the why tool.

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Why might I be getting towards burnout?

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Why am I doing these long hours?

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What's really driving me?

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And we want to change toxic

drivers for healthy drivers.

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So there's a difference between I'm

working really hard to grow my business

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versus I'm working the right amount

with absolute focus because my business

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makes a big impact on people's lives.

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One can drive you into the burnout

state and one can drive you

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forwards into a healthy state.

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So there we are, that's the whine.

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And the third tool I'd love

to share with you is the howl.

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Now, many, many people, including

myself, spend way too much time thinking.

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And we're in our heads, and we're

conceptualising, and we're worrying and

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ruminating, and boy oh boy, I have a mind

that could be so active, I could have

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probably 300 thoughts within 10 seconds.

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So, I get it, I know what a busy mind's

that's why I do the work I do to calm it.

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But if we're in our heads all the time,

if we are in thought and abstraction

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and worry, we are not embodied.

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we probably are.

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We're having stress in our body,

but we're not connected to our body.

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So regular listeners, you'll know

what I'm probably going to say.

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My new listeners, you need

to get into your body.

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Exercise is a non negotiable.

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You don't need to be an athlete today.

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But if you are sedentary, a knowledge

worker, high levels of stress, and

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you are not physically processing that

through some form of movement, there

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is your opportunity to shift this.

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Now walking, obvious,

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daylight movement processing.

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Physical strength training, brilliant,

because it works on the musculature and

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the metabolic system, dancing, walking,

running, skiing, whatever your thing

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is, what can you do that is embodied?

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And what can you do on a regular,

and I would say daily basis,

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not just a quick session once a

week, what can you do every day?

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Now, I've had many people

say to me, Oh, I'm too busy.

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I haven't got time for exercise.

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And on some level, there's a truth.

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I'm a very busy individual.

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I have a lot of things to do.

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And sometimes time feels like it's

squeezed, but there's a distinction

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between priority and justification.

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So it's back to the why question, right?

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So if you prioritize exercise,

whether it's a 20 minute session

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in the morning before you start

work, you prioritize yourself.

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and your health.

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If you do not, if you prioritize,

dopamine charging your brain with

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emails, first thing, you're prioritizing

someone else's ruling your life.

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So you get to choose and it's

really, really important.

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And the better you are physically,

the more connected you are

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physically, the healthier you are.

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Your stress tolerance levels go up, your

stress capabilities go up, your ability to

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process things like those Adrenaline and

cortisol, the stress hormones you may have

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heard of, they physically are processed.

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So I would say if you're a stressed

individual moving towards burnout, find

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a strength and conditioning program.

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Get on something really good

so you can physically be in

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your body and process that.

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It will help balance that sway towards

too much of my time in your mind.

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So there are three tools there.

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There are three tools I use with many

people that I work with and I want to

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share them because you should know this.

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If you're struggling, use the right tools.

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It can really help.

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So you've got the drain sustain model.

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to see what is happening.

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You've got the meaning making

question, like why is this happening?

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What meaning am I making of this?

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what fears are driving me?

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And the how question, how can I

change this to become a physically

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healthier situation will move

you away from that burnout edge.

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It will give you a better perspective

and it's so, so important, isn't it?

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why are you working?

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I run a business because I

love it and I love what I do.

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The business doesn't run me.

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And make sure if you are leading

that, you are leading those choices.

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It's gonna be a healthier and more

sustainable approach to both your

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health, your life, and your business.

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Now, again, it's a whistle stop

store, as I do with these solos.

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I hope that you can grab these

stores, take them, and utilize

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them if you are having a challenge.

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If you want to know more, if you've caught

this on a social platform somewhere,

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or if you want to reach out to me,

all the contact details are linked.

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Drop me a message and let me know how

you get on with one of these tools.

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And, yeah, don't be too busy.

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Don't burn out.

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Stay well.

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Till the next time.

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Take care.

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Thank you so much for listening.

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If you enjoyed the

episode, please subscribe.

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And if a friend would benefit from hearing

this, do send it on to them as well.

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If you would like to get in touch

yourself, then you can go to my website.

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Which is Sal Jeffries dot com,

spelt S A L J E F F E R I E S.

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Sal Jeffries dot com.

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Hit the get in touch link and there

you can send me a direct message.

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If you'd like to go one step further

and learn whether coaching can help

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you overcome a challenge or a block

in your life, then do reach out and

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I offer a call where we can discuss

how this may be able to help you.

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Until the next time, take care.