Transcripts for Episode 154

These transcripts were generated by robots, not writers.

Regina: When you are working in burnout, you are out of alignment with not only yourself but your life, your career. Things are out of whack. And so I find that when you can get your own habits of self care, shift your own mindset away from just external measures of success and hustle culture toxic busyness, when you can get out of that for yourself, then you can set the right example for your team.

Misty: Quick vibe and we are live. I am so happy to be here. We are talking about burnout today and 77% of employees say that they are stressed out and burnt out. So that is three out of four people. It is absolutely wild and we know that this is only increasing post Covid and all of the things that are really challenging us from hustle culture to really calendars that are overwhelming and pulling our attention. So today we’re going to tackle that and we have some amazing humans on the call and I am so excited for all of you to just lean in and learn some good strategies and tips and leave hopefully with something that you can implement today and just make your life that much better. Without further ado, we have lovely miss Stacy Ennis on the call and also Regina.

Misty: But I’ll pass the mic to miss Stacy. Yay.

Stacy: Thanks Misty. And since we are, I have a little feedback on my end so give me just a second to make sure we get that all started. Since we are on my feed originally, we’re broadcasting from my feed on LinkedIn, I thought, why don’t I give all of you an introduction to these two amazing humans that are here with me. We have Regina Lawless, who is our guest today. Misty and I are going to be co interviewing you, Regina, and learning all about her. Now, Regina has an amazing story that she’s captured in her absolutely beautiful book. Do you? Which I had the honor of supporting, bringing into the world. Yes. There it is. Beautiful. Beautiful. I love all the little note tags on it, whatever those called. The page tracker thingies. Stacy:
Regina and I methadore through Misty Mejia, who is one of my closest friends in the whole wide world and a renowned public speaking expert, business expert, all the things. And Regina and Misty were neighbors, and that’s how I met Regina. And all of us have stayed connected and become friends. So it’s a lot of fun to get to be here together today. Welcome, Regina. And welcome, Misty. My co interviewer was super excited to be here.

Regina: And with both of you, I’m like, we’re going to have such a fun conversation.

Misty: Oh, I like the tips. I can’t wait for it all. Regina. I remember being in the corporate world, and at one point, my calendar was so packed with meetings, I had no time to even do the work because I was in and out of everything, not even transfer time between meetings. So luckily, I wasn’t in person at the time. But I remember talking to my boss and saying, I don’t know when I can actually achieve the goals that you set out for me. And she didn’t believe me. And she goes, let me look at your calendar. I can take things off. You’re probably not prioritizing the right things. Okay, great.

Regina: Well, please. Thank you.

Misty: She looks at my calendar and she says, no, yeah, you’re right. There’s nothing we can take on. And that was the end of the conversation. So basically, it was, yes, you have to be in all these meetings, and, yes, you have to hit these really high goals in order to achieve and get the accolades that you can in your job and your role. So this topic, to me, I think, is such a needed topic, and whether it is in the corporate world or it is the entrepreneurs that are just stuck in the hustle culture to give us that foundation for this discussion, what is the kind of definition of burnout and how do you recognize it? How do you recognize that you are there?

Regina: We start with a definition, and then I will give my own similar story that I think can help paint a picture of how to recognize it. But the World Health Organization in 2019. They came up with an official definition because I think burnout is like this ubiquitous phrase that we all have heard it, we know, or we think we know what it is, but they actually characterized it as three things. Its feelings of energy depletion, which I think most people think of, right, thats the probably obvious definition of burnout. But its also this feeling of distance from ones job, like this negative feeling or even cynicism that you have. And then the third thing is really the reduced professional efficacy, so you stop being effective in your job.

Regina: And so the way I recognized it, I’ve gone through burnout at multiple points in my career. And similar to you, Misty, I was in a leadership role, my calendar, from sometimes as early as seven in the morning to sometimes I was having calls six, seven at night, because I worked for a global company. So you’re burning the oil, burning the candle. I think the thing at both ends, and you almost never have breaks back to back. So I started to realize I was burnt out when kind of the first thing, besides the consistent exhaustion, it was my mind was wandering. Like I was mentally trying to escape. Like I’d be driving to work. This was back in the pre pandemic when I was commuting 2 hours to work, and I’d be in the car just daydreaming.

Regina: Like, what if I just drove away and didn’t come back? But I was just like, get me out of this. It was just overwhelming. And that was, for me, a signal, like, that’s like, I probably shouldn’t be planning my escape on my way to work.

Stacy: Well, I was just gonna say the same thing, actually, is that so many people feel this way, and I think we’ve really normalized this idea that it’s, you know, we’re all gonna hate our work at some point, or sometimes you just gotta put your head down and deal with it. And it’s been interesting for me, having lived in so many different cultures where, you know, work is treated very differently than the way that we treat work, and like, kind of lack of work life balance. One of the things that I’ve noticed just having now distance from the US and kind of out of. I’m not swimming in the fishbowl anymore, right? Like I’m kind of out and looking. Looking down at the fish, that our american culture really values depletion over restoration. And it’s become so normalized that it’s actually glorified.

Stacy: I remember one of my friends taught at an Ivy League school, and she would tell me that back when she was teaching there was this almost one upmanship on who didn’t sleep, who was in the office later, who’s grinding it out harder. And she was like, well, I had a nice weekend in my garden. It’s like, why is that not our modus operandi? Why does it have to be the suffer? I’d love to know from you. You’ve mentioned that you’ve been through a few different spaces where you felt this burnout, that you’ve had to deal with it. At what point did you just kind of shift your thinking around it? And then what did you do? You recognized, I actually really don’t want to live this way. Then what did you do about it after that?

Regina:Yeah. So for me, I was operating in it for so long. I was in corporate for 19 years. And I came up kind of when during that corporate grind era. Like, this was before. This was long before the pandemic. This was before the 2008 2009 recession. I was in corporate grinding up the ladder. And so I didn’t know anything else. It was so normalized, to your point, Stacy. But unfortunately for me, it took tragedy. And I think for a lot of people, either you get so burned out that it’s a medical crisis that you have to take time off, or in my case, my husband passed away. And so.

Regina: And I write about this story, of course, in the book, but that was my final wake up call, because for me, even the medical scares that I have had over the years due to burnout wasn’t enough to really shift. It took me stepping out for bereavement lead and finally having time and space to be with myself and to go on long walks and to go on vacations and just sit with myself and journal and really get back in touch and confront all of these feelings that I had buried. And that gave me this eye opening of, like, why isn’t this the norm? Because when I came back to work, I found that I was so much more clear. I didn’t realize I was operating suboptimally for so long, because we just get. We get used to.

Regina: Like, if we step out, step back and think about it for a minute. If you’re in back to back meetings, how can you possibly be at your best when you haven’t even had a chance to go get a glass of water or use the bathroom, right? Like, you’re operating, and then you’re expected to switch context. You were just in a meeting about your team’s budget, and now you’re in a creative project meeting. Like, how can you possibly do that without any mental rest or distance? And so when I came back, I realized that I was so much more focused. I had so much more clarity. I could really sit with my team and say, like, break things into stages and phases or just even eliminate projects altogether because it didn’t even make any sense.

Regina: And I realized that I was burning my teeth out by having unrealistic deadlines. So that was kind of the contrast for me. But one of the first things that I did to answer kind of one of your. Your other questions there was to prioritize myself, which, you know, seems counterintuitive because we’re taught to put everybody else first. But I started being a weekend warrior and not in the. I used to be in the military, not in the military sense, not for my kind of fellow reservists or former reservists like me who are weekend warriors with our reserve duty, I was a like, I’m going to go and live my life and have fun, weekend warrior. And rest and rejuvenate and take time throughout the day. So I started to prioritize my own needs. And that was the shift for me, Regina, for you.

Misty: As you move into that weekend warrior, I know a lot of people, and I still work with a lot of amazing humans in the corporate environment. Even getting, when you’re in burnout, even getting that energy to then fill your weekend with something else when you just want to applaud because you’ve been push, push, push. What are your strategies for? You looking at that busy calendar and figuring out how to actually get you time during the day so you can be that weekend warrior. So you do have the energy to actually pour back into yourself. Because I know you should prioritize it. But when you don’t have even an ounce more to give, going out of the house or doing another external activity is like, oh, come on, Misty.

Regina: I love this question because it’s so real and it’s when I was at my burnout, you’re right. Like, after work, I would stay up late binge watching something just because, like, I was too amped up to sleep but didn’t have the energy to do anything productive do. And then on the weekend, you’re either catching up with chores or you’re just exhausted and you can’t even bring yourself to do anything. So what I started to do when I came back from my bereavement, leave. I did focus on my work week. Because you’re right. If you don’t free things up there and start to pour back in during the week, you won’t have it for the weekend. So I use this framework, and I write about it in the book.

Regina: I call it 3d time ownership, but it’s, if you’ve ever heard of the urgent versus important matrix, also known as an Eisenhower matrix, it’ll teach you the same thing. It’s basically looking at what is urgent versus important, and you have these four quadrants, and that’s a way to really figure out what can you delete, what can you defer or schedule out, what can you delegate, which I don’t think leaders do enough, myself included. And then if you can’t delete it, defer it or delegate it, and only you can do it. Like, this is the thing. Like, don’t just do it because it needs to be done. It needs to be something that has to be done by you because you have the specialized knowledge or skills, then you do it. But I think our tendency is to just do everything.

Regina: And I started to flip it on its head and say, like, what can I delete? Because I don’t even have it in me. Like, I came back. I, Like, I’m not doing this again. So, number one, what? I was slicing and diced and chopping my calendar. What does that need to get done, then delegating things to my team or scheduling things out. Not everything has to be done in the same week. Like, there’s not an urgency for everything.

Misty: Yeah, and Stacy’s really good at that, too, I think. You know, I’ve learned a lot from Stacey on prioritization. And one of the things she, like, smacked my hand because I was doing video editing, because I love video editing. And she goes, you know what? You may like it, but there’s a lot of things in your job that only you can do, and this isn’t one of them for those entrepreneurs. Like, what are you taking on that you can give away that allows you to actually have time back, and it is so worth it. So you can be the weekend warrior, so you can move forward with something else that only you can do or what you need to do to just refill your.

Regina: I was going to say what really brings you joy? Because some things, like, you just want to do because it is, it’s restorative for you, or it’s fun, it’s playful, or you’re learning something new. And so I would also just offer for people two other quick tips. This delete defer delegate applies to your personal life as well. So I started to do that. Like, I was the one that was, like, walking the dog in the mornings and, like, doing all of the laundry and the dishes. And like, I said, no. I have a teenage son that is getting, like, he’s sleeping in more than I am, so that’s a problem. So to delegate more to him, you know, hire some help if you can afford to do that, or ask friends for help.

Regina: So that same formula applies personally, that’ll help, especially women who we are socialized to try to do everything. And the other thing is boundaries. I started to set really firm boundaries. Like, I did not take meetings before 08:00 a.m. Like, unless it was a catastrophic emergency. I used that morning time to get myself ready to do yoga, meditate, have a nice breakfast. And then I started not having meetings after. I think it was like, 04:00 I stopped. I told my admin to block off meetings so that I could either end my day prepping for the next day or just end my day with still some energy left so that I could do other things for me.

Stacy: I love so much all the things that you just said, and I also know you’re a really early riser, so 08:00 a.m. Also meant that you were getting a full morning in and really, like, creating your day with intentionality rather than what happens so often as we’re running behind and something happens with our kids or our pets or whatever, and the day is kind of now you’re at the mercy of the day rather than setting an intentional day. The other thing you got me thinking about is something I’ve been thinking about this week. I’m about to go on holiday, on vacation next week. I really actually kind of like, I’m super excited. My parents are coming. I cannot wait. But I’m feeling a lot of great momentum in the business.

Stacy: And so part of me is like, I’m not like, but I want to keep going. But actually, I think that’s when you should take a break. I don’t think it should be when you are so exhausted and cannot look at another email. It reminds me of one of my favorite books on writing is Stephen King’s on writing, and he talks about leaving water in the well when you’re done writing. And yet this is not what we do. We go to that resort in Mexico for a week, and we sit on a chair, and we like, you know, by Wednesday, we’re like, oh, my gosh, it’s almost over. I have to go back work, you know, whereas I’m about to take three and a half weeks off. I am working like one afternoon a week just to kind of pace.

Stacy: I’ve got some client calls and stuff, but it’s just such a different mentality, even shifting. I think I take about eight to ten weeks off a year in different kind of just between pockets. And I thought that would be such a huge detriment to the business when I thought about this as, you know, a way of kind of functioning. But actually, wow, I’m going to be so much better and brighter and clearer and energized, and I’m going to serve my team better and my clients better. I just think we have it all wrong headed when it comes to rest and how we even approach that rest and then how we come back after the rest, how long that rest is. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I just think it’s such a pervasive thing.

Regina: It is a pervasive mindset, kind of toxic hustle culture and this idea that we have to always be productive. I was listening to a podcast recently, and the guest, and I’m blanking on her name, but she got such a great analogy of using a cell phone. It’s like we plug in our cell phone every night. We understand that battery is running low throughout the day and that we have to plug it in, but we don’t do that for ourselves. We don’t think about our own energy as this, you know, renewable resource. And so I love that you’re taking three weeks off, and I absolutely agree that helps you to be that much more focused and motivated, too. It’s like you’ve now, it’s like you’ve put things into the proper context.

Regina: I used to resent work a lot because I would end up giving up my nights. I would be giving up half my weekend because I used to work on Sundays in preparation for the week. So I’d be resentful. But once I took my nights and weekends back then I was at work like, oh, I actually want to be here. Like, I feel like. And in 2022, that was like my year that I really got a chance to test this out because I came off of, like 2021 with my husband passing, like worst year of my life to 2022. I took three beautiful vacations plus my weekend trips and all kinds of things, and I took more time off than I’ve ever taken in 2022. And I had the best performance year that I’ve had. I got a stellar performance review and was filling in.

Regina: I was doing my job and filling in for another leader that was on leap. So it’s not like I had a cakewalk of a performance year, but I chalked that up to me being fully present at work, being clear headed and able to give my best because I was very well rested.

Misty: Regina, I love this so much. And I want, if possible, putting on your HR hat. How can leaders recognizing their team that they’re burned out and also set their team up to be able to take vacations and feel okay about it? Because it’s the deadline. Pressure keeps so many people from actually ever leaving a job and taking a vacation and coming back because they know they’re just going to come back to probably chaos or they feel that it’s going to come back to chaos. I know I was very lucky at one of the organizations I worked at. They actually gave you a bonus if you went on vacation and didn’t check your email.

Stacy: I love that. Oh, my God.

Misty: To go, hey, really check out. We value that you need this time, but what are some other strategies or things that leaders can do to recognize the burnout and encourage people to just unplug and go refill their cup?

Regina: Yeah. I think leaders need to recognize that you are the culture. Leaders set the tone. Leaders, what your behavior, what you role model, what you reward, what you accept, that all is the culture of your organization. So I like to work with leaders. That is now what I am doing. Now that I’ve left corporate, I’m very passionate about working with leaders and helping them to come into alignment. When you are working in burnout, you are out of alignment with not only yourself, but your life, your career, things are out of whack. And so I find that when you can get your own habits of self care, shift your own mindset away from just external measures of success and hustle, culture, toxic busyness, when you can get out of that for yourself, then you can set the right example for your team.

Regina: And so I would encourage leaders to start with themselves. And I realized the difference when I was in burnout. I was just going along. Leaders have more power than they think they have. A lot of times, even when you’re a senior leader, we like to point up and say, well, it’s them that’s creating the deadlines.

Misty: It’s like, really?

Regina: I mean, it is, but it also, as a leader, we have more control. Once I was in balance, I could go back to my boss and say, we need to talk about this project. I think a lot of times as leaders, we don’t stand our ground. And have the tough conversations with our leaders to really question these deadlines and some of these asks, we’re just letting the crap roll downhill. And when I was more clear and had my own boundaries, then I was able to go back to my boss and say like, that we can’t get all this done in a quarter. Like, what are, like, come on, what? Be serious.

Misty: I think this is really important though, what you’re saying here, right? Because to me, I feel like the terror for some people of going in and taking care of themselves is I’m not going to be able to achieve my goals. And so I’m at risk of losing my career, losing my job if I don’t meet the goals. But a lot of what you’re saying, too is, hey, if you’re balanced, you actually can focus on what is right for the business and the company and what will push you forward faster because you’re coming in with more perspective, you’re coming in with more balance. You’re not going just automatically on the chase. Right.

Regina: And so, yeah, I was able to come back with my team because we had, like every business unit. So this is a unique, it’s certainly not unique to HR. It’s like every business unit has, because I’ve been an HR leader who supported every line of business in an organization. So I can speak confidently and say that this happens across all parts of the organization, that we always want to do more. Everything is about quarterly earnings, right? Like, so, you know, the CEO, of course, wants every function to do more than they’ve done last year and to do it faster and to do it with less resources. But that doesn’t mean that’s the right thing to do. Regina:
And I think as leaders, we need to be clear headed and have the right conviction in our own set of boundaries to say, I will deliver a high quality set of results for my business unit. But we’re going to work on the right things and we’re going to do it in a way that doesn’t burn out every single member of this team because that’s short term thinking. I think we need to stop focusing on short term gains and really look at the long term value that we can create when everyone is operating at their best.

Misty: Absolutely. And that value trickles not just through the organization, but then out to your clients and your prospects. What you are actually developing versus how much you are putting out, that you’re just throwing at the wall.

Regina: That isn’t working, that isn’t working. And then you have, of course, higher turnover, or you have the quiet quitters. Like, people are so depleted, they’re too depleted to even look for another job. So they are milking like, you’re just right there dying on the vine in your organization, where they could be doing so much more effective work and giving more to their community. Because, again, life is holistic. That’s the other shift that I think we need to make. It’s not just about work. That’s not what we live for. We live to kind of give our gifts, our innate gifts to the world in all capacities. Stacy:
Yes. I love that so much. It’s so true. You know, I also. This got me thinking about, we’ve all been on the receiving end of somebody who set a boundary for themselves, but it was not with care for anybody else affected by that boundary. And what you’re talking about is very different. It’s a mindfulness of your own boundaries, but also an understanding and communication, especially in a corporate environment with the other person, of how you’re also meeting their needs and helping them kind of reset and understand that actually you’re going to be able to deliver more and better and create better things when you’re operating from this space of balance. So much of what you said is so beautiful, and I hope somebody is listening to this, either in a leadership role, who’s thinking, oh, I’m seeing some of these signs with my team.

Stacy: Maybe I should check in with so and so. Or they’re so and so, and they’re thinking, I wonder if there’s some shifts that I can make to live a more aligned work life situation. I know you created a quiz to help people be able to identify their work life alignment. Can you talk a little bit about that quiz? I’ll drop a link also in our live here, but I’d love to hear you sure about that? And how that can help people.

Regina: Yes. So if you. Thank you for dropping the link here, Stacey. You can also find it in my LinkedIn profile in the featured section. So this is a really quick quiz. It’s like a minute to take it, but it gives you. It’s a yes or no quiz just to get you to think about how much alignment do you have? How much are you still focusing on work outside of work hours? Are you taking time to do things that you enjoy outside of work? So it’s asking simple questions like that just to give you a sense of how aligned. And of course, if you are always, you know, doing things, if you’re always thinking about work and not pouring into yourself, then you are less aligned between the two.

Regina: And if you take the quiz, you’ll find out where you stand and it’ll give you a link to have a free consultation with me so that I can give you some recommendations, because that’s what I love to do. I’m super passionate about helping people get over on this side of the fence where I do think the grass is greener. Misty:
You can be super productive, right?

Regina: You can be like, I look, I’m glowing. Like, you gotta love the lighting.

Stacy: But no, I don’t know if people realize what you just said. We have the former head of DEi, best selling author all around, just like, brilliant human being who has, you know, this opportunity to meet with her. It’s incredible. I love that you’re offering this, and I hope that people will take the quiz and if it aligns meet with you. I just. You have so much goodness to offer, not just individuals, but corporations as well. What kind of work are you doing in the corporate space and with individuals? Can you talk a little bit about that and how you support people?

Regina: Yes. Yes. So now that I am outside of corporate, I founded a company called Bossy and Blissful. And really, it be intention. It’s still around, helping people come into alignment. Because again, I want you to be successful, but a more balanced, healthy version of success. I want you to balance that with your bliss and your joy. So the way I’m doing that with corporations is by coming in. I have not only keynotes that I give, but I also teach workshops. I’ve just built a program around work life alignment that I’m delivering to corporations, and it can be delivered one one or in a group coaching format. So I’m really excited because I think that we can shift this toxic culture one leader, one corporation at a time. So I’m excited to be a part of that change.

Misty: Regina, you are 100% part of that change. And I love your life journey and how you are just taking your lessons in life and your success in life and helping others succeed. And it’s not always about leaving the job. It’s really just about finding you and doing you. And thank you for what you’re putting out into the world. And please, everybody, go fill out that quiz.

Stacy: I mean, she’s doing time away.

Misty: She’s giving time away.

Stacy: I don’t know how you’re going to.

Misty: Do this with all of the people that will hopefully take the quiz, but thank you. Thank you for what you’re putting out into the world. Stacey, thank you for giving us a platform to have this conversation. It’s so important. I love you so much. And, ladies, may we continue to go out there and just shift perspectives.

Stacy: That’s it. Regina:
Be our beautiful, badass selves. Yeah.

Stacy: I love this conversation.

Regina: Thank you ladies, it’s been an honor.

Misty: Have a good one.