#282 How to avoid burnout, learning to say no, and strategic self care, with Lisa Towles.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

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Please note that while an effort is made to provide an accurate transcription, errors and omissions may be present. No part of this transcription can be referenced or reproduced without permission.

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Lisa Towles  0:00  
I am extremely driven. And what happens when you're not taking care of yourself is you lose your why you see that you're completing all of these tasks, and you're creating all of this content and you're meeting these obligations and you're bringing value to your community, whoever that is, but you no longer know why you're doing it. And it's because your heart and your soul are not being fed. That's where strategic self care comes in, so that you can go back in there and ask yourself, proverbially, how am I doing? What do I need right now, and pausing long enough to listen to what the answer is.

Agi Keramidas  0:47  
You are listening to personal development mastery podcast, providing those with the desire to grow with a simple, consistent actions needed to master personal development and create the life they yearn for. I am your host, Agi Keramidas. A few years ago, I found myself unfulfilled and unmotivated like I had lost my sense of purpose and my life was merely passing by. Since then, I've been on a continuous journey of personal development that has transformed every aspect of my life. Now, my mission is to inspire you to grow, stand out and take action towards a purposeful and fulfilling life. In this podcast, I invite myself inside the minds of remarkable entrepreneurs, authors, thought leaders, spiritual teachers, people who share the journey milestones and learnings for you to be inspired to grow. In this episode, you will find practical action points that you can implement right now. So make sure you follow the podcast to get them as soon as they are released.

Agi Keramidas  1:53  
In today's episode, I speak with Lisa Towles, an award winning crime novelist, speaker and blogger. This is actually the second time I speak with Lisa on the podcast the previous time was in Episode 204, which was about storytelling techniques and strategic self care. That episode was published almost a year ago. And it has been since in the top 10 most popular episodes. So I brought Lisa back on the podcast to have a further conversation and expand on the topic of strategic self care. Let's dive right in. Lisa, welcome back to personal development mastery podcast for the second time, it's such a pleasure to speak with you again.

Lisa Towles  2:44  
Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here again. I so enjoyed our first conversation and looking forward to talking with you again today.

Agi Keramidas  2:53  
Sure, my and I will actually start with this our previous conversation and I will just give a brief reminders. Not only for the listener, but also for you and me just to refresh our memory. So we spoke the beginning of this year 2022 It was our conversation was in Episode 204. And we spoke about mainly it was about strategic self care techniques for leaders and entrepreneurs writers also. And also, we talked about storytelling techniques, we spoke about creativity and so on. And this episode and I told you that in our previous communication was very popular, it actually went into the top 10 of the most popular podcast episodes very quickly, and it still I was checking earlier today and it's number eight, which is really good, considering it's not even one year compared to some other of the episodes that have been there much longer. So, it made me realise apart from the obvious that you know, the conversation was intriguing to people but it also made me realise that probably my audience has more aspiring writers than that I assumed that it would be so it was one of the reasons that I really wanted you to come back and you know, continue the conversation and go deeper on some of the both the elements of you know writing and dealing with the obstacles one has when writing but also continue with that topic of strategic self care because it was very useful, very practical in our previous conversation and thank you was we spoke about your story last time what I wanted to ask you as a brief introduction from your side today. So between January when we spoke last time and now which is December, give us a brief overview how has it been for you, or how has your journey been?

Lisa Towles  5:04  
Well, okay, looking back on 2022 since since January geezers, that's a, that's a lot to gather, just from a from a book standpoint, I have had two books released since then, my book hothouse was released in June of this year this summer. And my latest book, the return is a political thriller was just released November 30, a couple of weeks ago. So I'm kind of thinking that I'm going to put a book out every six months or so I mean, depending on my publisher, and what she thinks, of course, and the calendar. But I like the idea of being able to do that to give readers another book every six months. And I also changed jobs after 14 years. I did that in October. So I think a lot of big things happen this year, I certainly learned a lot. I'm tapped into a number of leadership groups. And I have a peer circle that I work with. And I have other business leaders that I meet with and mentors, and I think you mentioned mentor, that you have a mentor in one of our previous conversations. And just looking back on everything I've learned in 2022, I think there's, I think there's been a lot, I can't, I can't identify changed in this way. And I changed in that way. It's a little bit more amorphous than that. But I definitely feel the power of that new knowledge and and also some risks that I took in 2022. I wouldn't say I'm a huge risk taker, I wouldn't say I'm necessarily risk averse. But staying at the same job for 14 years kind of shows that I like to set roots in a place. And even though I've worked in the corporate world for a long time, I was very loyal and very dedicated to a certain product. And I stayed there for 14 years. And something inside that voice inside told me, You're ready for something different now. I didn't leave for any any catastrophic, catastrophic reasons, I still love that product. And I still love those people. I'm very close to many of them. It was just time. That's how I described it. And I think that's what makes us change. We wake up in the morning in something new presents itself as a possibility. And you start thinking, Oh, okay, maybe I could do that. Now. Maybe it's time to start looking for another role. Maybe it's time to take a chance on this new venture. And something inside gives us permission to take that risk. So I'm, I'm happy that that was a risk that I was willing to take this year. And I love I love the new the new position that I have in the new company that I'm that I'm working with. And it's it's like a whole a whole new chapter not to make everything related to books, but it is sort of a, a whole new chapter in my life. So I'm very happy about that. If I can touch on one thing that you said earlier, you were talking about the popularity of our last conversation, and I noticed noted that you had the word storytelling in the title. And I've noticed lately that on a lot of podcasts that I listened to and YouTube videos and courses that I take on public speaking a lot of them talk about business storytelling. So I think there's a storytelling in the writing world in storytelling is also related to movies and film and video. But there's also more more and more content than I'm reading about business storytelling in the context of public speaking. And I'm still kind of getting my head around that I'm still learning it there. There are some mentors and influencers that I follow that are so good at that. They need no preparation, they pick up a microphone, they get up in front of a crowd, and and they just know how to lead into a wonderful topic. There's just a way that you can do it. That really kind of makes it memorable and draws people in. And that's something that I'm really interested in. In the business world. We hear a lot about how how data is terribly important to people data and metrics and numbers to kind of bring credibility to your topic. But I think the story surrounding the data, the context of it is really what makes people remember you in and remember your, your your journey.

Agi Keramidas  9:45  
Absolutely and storytelling we discussed about this in our previous conversation and it is very important is what makes someone relate to your message. There were a couple of other things Is that I got from what you were saying, first of all, when you say about changing jobs, I realise that. And actually, there was a question there that I wanted to ask you, that someone so prolific in a way you mean, you create so many I think you have eight books, if I'm not mistaken, published so far, nine, nine, right? So and that is not even a full time thing. I mean, you are working at a full time job that you changed and you want to make a book every six months or so that is what my question was? What is that motivator that keeps you going in such it sounds like a very intense and time intense I mean pace of doing things.

Lisa Towles  10:51  
I, I appreciate that reflection. And I know that it does seem like that on the outside, I don't actually do a lot of writing every single day. I do try to write a little bit every day. But I've been I've been having writing and my day job coexisting together for many years now, over over 20 years. And I've often wondered that if I won the lottery, and I won a large sum of money and I could afford to, to quit my day job and write full time. Or if one of my books just took off, and I didn't have to work a day job anymore. I've often asked myself would I have the motivation to write full time. So I've always kind of written part time and had a full time job. And I've always found ways to sort of fit them in together one way or another. And I almost think that having a full time day job in the corporate world I've worked in corporate for for a very long time. I almost think it feeds my writing, not because I'm writing about what I see in the corporate world, in which about business strategy and things like that. But because they're so different, it's almost like working within the confines of, of a nine to five jobs, so to speak, it's not always nine to five, actually, it's usually not usually more than nine to five. But working in that context, it's almost like it puts a gate around my creativity. And all day when I'm working. It's just my creative energy is waiting to break out at the end of the day. So I almost think that it creates this sort of create creative backup, that I have to focus so deeply on, on business related concepts and topics and skills and deliverables in negotiations and collaborations. And it's almost like the storytelling, the crime writer in me is just can't wait to, to kind of turn that off for the day. So I can enter this, this place that I go to, I'm not sure what the what the place is called, I'm sure you have your own name for it too. But the place where my creativity can can flourish. And I'm also one of those writers that I can't bring discipline, or that much discipline to my craft. I bring discipline, I learned discipline because I'm a longtime musician. I grew up in a family of musicians, and I was a classically trained flautist and I also play piano, I went to music school. So I had heavy duty discipline training, which was so wonderful for me in so many ways. I can't bring discipline to my writing. I'm not one of those people that can say, Okay, I want to get this done by this date. And, and that's going to require that I write from 6am to 7am. Every morning before my day job starts, I can't do it. I mean, I'm up at six in the morning, I get up early. And and I can get myself so that I'm awake enough to do work. But it's kind of like my creativity doesn't wake up until later in the day, as a way to go through all of the trials and tribulations and challenges and drama of the day in personal relationships. It takes all of that and it kind of mashes it all up. And that's where the story is born in a way. I don't know. Does that make any sense?

Agi Keramidas  14:24  
Yes, it does. It makes me realise how I think I'm the opposite with you. Because for me, all the good parts of my day happened in the morning creativity, productivity, towards the the end of the day. I kind of ran out of most of those things. And it's gradually we will talk about writing and some of the things actually I wanted to talk about that a little bit later and take a look at the tools at least in the beginning of a conversation. and speak about those pillars of strategic self care. And I'm changing a little bit the salary, but it is something I want to cover for sure. And then we'll go back to writing and also connected with my own writing project, which we will talk, we were talking about that before we started recording. So I'm giving this out as a as a thesis to the listener, we'll come back to that. But from our previous conversation, there were some really important actionable practical steps that you described. And one of them was to celebrate the small wins, and also to grieve your losses as as methods of strategic self care. And I wanted to continue this conversation about self care for leaders for entrepreneurs, for writers, which was our main topic, the previous conversation, and that skill, well, obviously, we'll speak about the other pillars that you have, but first, share the importance of this self care and because for many people, it is not obvious how important it is, unless they are in a certain crisis, or in a in a burnout situation, then they, they have to look at it. But if we could just discuss this briefly as a preface, and then go into the more practical elements.

Lisa Towles  16:43  
Absolutely. And I think you brought up a wonderful point, too, that we normally think about self care, when it's too late to do anything about it when we're already burned out. And, and the idea of, of the phrase strategic self care is it brings strategy, and planning to do the self care that you need to sustain yourself as, as a business visionary, as an entrepreneur, as a storyteller, whatever that is. So it's sort of a container, that the way I describe it is, is that strategic self care is for business leaders, and visionaries, writers, innovators, movers and shakers. And it brings awareness to the parts of ourselves that we historically ignore, to draw deeper meaning and fulfilment from our work, whatever our work is. So the pillars are kind of a set of practices that bring strategy to under do understanding and identifying what you really want. Understanding your why, and creating space for positive change. So sometimes when I talk about strategic self care, I spend a lot of time on debunking myths about it, you know, people think of self care, historically is, as a meditation practice, that's absolutely self care. Of course, it is going for massages, or going to the chiropractor to get bodywork done, or Reiki or something like that, to kind of, you know, to keep your body in sync and balance, those are all self care. Absolutely. The strategy is, is doing that before you necessarily need it desperately and doing it on a regular basis. And the pillars that I have kind of take it like another step deeper than that. So I think of it as kind of a personal mastery and recalibration mindset made up of these easy tactics that bring you immediate value. And that's where the pillars come in. So the first two, we talked about, celebrating small wins and grieving losses. And there are and there are three other ones. And there are many other kind of strategic self care elements that we could talk about. But when you think about having a message in broadcasting a message and getting people to really understand it, I mean, this is the case with fiction writing, or, or with digital marketing or with with running a business, you have to keep it small, if you want people to understand it, otherwise, it's just going to be too much. And we already have so much overload. Oh my goodness. You know, I mean, like, our reliance on on the internet, and in on social media, it's almost like we have to have these subtractive practices so that we can kind of gate and filter what we're seeing every day because otherwise if we don't do that we just have overload and nothing's gonna really stick. Nothing's going to really reach us in that deep way. And so that's why I I try to contain it into these, these five pillars. I don't know if you want me to talk about those now. But that's, that's how the five pillars came about is keeping the message small.

Agi Keramidas  20:10  
Thank you for your introduction of this. And then what came to me as a clear message is the importance of planning before you actually are in desperate need for self care, because you have neglected it for many, many years. So the, I would like actually to go to the nitty gritty of it, the pillars of it, because I have the three titles, I'm just going to share them as I have them on my list. But when I was reading them, just as titles, they're extremely relevant. I think people can either understand them immediately, or they can be very intrigued and see, but how is this connected to self care? So one of them was saying no. And that's such a huge topic. The other one was perfectionism, which I believe we talked about, just before we started recording, I was telling you about my own experiences with my first book. And the last one, which actually is something that I would like to focus more than the other two. So I'm just stating that was asking for help.

Lisa Towles  21:29  
Okay, great introduction and lead in there. Yeah, so you, you've already mentioned the first two pillars, celebrating small wins and grieving losses. And when we look at kind of the container holding these all together, I think collectively, what these pillars are, is they create a method for us to get out of our own way to prevent us from kind of sabotaging and limiting not just our success and our progress, but the happiness in the meaning that we derive from all of the activities that we're doing. We work so hard, this business owners, business visionaries, content, creators, writers, whatever, whatever like your work is, whatever you're doing, people work incredibly hard. We're incredibly driven. And I think what happens when you keep driving yourself without stopping to pause in and take a breather in assess, is you end up getting burned out, you've already mentioned burnout. And burnout is a very real thing. And my personal story about strategic self care, is just to be completely transparent is they were born really out of my own failures to take care of myself, yeah, I am. I am extremely driven. And what happens when you're not taking care of yourself, is you lose your why you see that you're completing all of these tasks, and you're creating all of this content and you're meeting these obligations, and you're bringing value to your community, whoever that is, but you no longer know why you're doing it. And it's because your heart and your soul are not being fed. That's where strategic self care comes in. So that you can go back in there and ask yourself, proverbially, how am I doing? What do I need right now, and pausing long enough to listen to what the answer is? And the answer might not come to you right away? I mean, you might have to do that four or five times before you're before your inner self, your your inner heart listens and says, Wow, finally, you got around to asking me Okay, well, I have a laundry list of what I need, and then you better get your pen ready. And again, we come back to what you said Auggie about not waiting until it's far down down the process, you know, asking early in the process and starting that as you're just starting out. But you know, these concepts can be brought to any any stage of where you are on your journey. So yeah, celebrating small wins, grieving losses. And in saying no, and perfectionism, there's so much to say about those and then asking for help. That's the one that you wanted me to address. I think asking for help. has so many pitfalls. You know, when you think of the word efficiency, the word efficiency brings me a lot of happiness. And the word efficiency has also brought me tremendous unhappiness. I think I'm an extremely organised and efficient person. And efficiently. Efficiency. Just just, I'll say it again, it just makes me happy, like bringing order to chaos is something that I'm extremely good at. And something that I absolutely love in my core. And the bad thing about efficiency is it can go too far. And it ends up being like a machine that I turn on, and I just can't turn it off. And it could be 11 o'clock at night or one in the morning. And I just have tried in the past, previously, I just had trouble turning it off. And asking for help is a way that kind of calls a timeout, and acknowledges that you're just a human being and that you don't have to finish everything to 100% Completion each and every time. So again, asking for help relates to perfectionism. Perfectionism relates to saying no, and they all kind of like fall in together sort of, but I think asking for help relates to having a knowledge of our capacity and our limits. And it involves kind of an ego management in a way, because you're acknowledging, I can't do everything on my own. And sometimes it's hard for people, sometimes it's hard for me, you know, acknowledging I'm not Superwoman I try to be superwoman. And I'm not, or I can be for a short time, but eventually it's going to it's going to power out, and I'm going to be in a very bad place. So I think having that ego management and self awareness, so that you can say I can't do this, all alone, I think is tremendous care for your heart and your soul in your creative mind, in your in your productivity. And I think it can be really, really useful to just say, I need help with this part of my project, would you be able to assist me,

Agi Keramidas  26:53  
I want to take a short break from this episode, and quickly let you know about something I'm really excited about. For me, having a podcast made a tremendous difference in my life's journey. And I know the kind of impact it can have on one's personal development. And that is why I'm so passionate about helping coaches who are ready to amplify their methods and reach a global audience by creating launching and growing a top quality podcast, even if they aren't tech savvy, and are limited on time. Maybe you have thought about having your own podcast, but you don't want to go through the time consuming learning process of how to create launched it, how to record the ad to host and so on. If you said yes, I have a solution for you something that takes away all the complexity, and allows you only to concentrate on creating quality content. Go to my website, Agi keramidas.com. To find out more and to get your free copy of my guide about creating and launching your podcast. Alright, let's jump back to the episode.

Lisa Towles  28:04  
All right, so so when we look at the need for asking for help, I think some people might not know how to actually do it, how to kind of relinquish control over something to get someone to assist you with one part of it. And I think I think like any of the five pillars, starting small is a reasonable way to get yourself in a groove so that you're thinking about that on an ongoing basis, you might be working on a project. And there might be some data entry that's involved some kind of not bookkeeping, but but some kind of manual work. That's part of the project project, you could ask someone if they would assist you with part of it so that you can meet a deadline, and choose someone that you trust. Explain to them what the project is, and then give them the necessary resources so they can do it. And then step back from it, and let it happen and let the support come to you. And I think that's worth celebrating. Because once you do that, you can do it again, in other contexts too. It just sets up a great model so that you know, and you're constantly reminding yourself, I don't have to necessarily do all this myself, I can ask someone to help me out. If you're a business owner, if you're a content creator, if you're a writer, you might ask for help when you when you're putting a book out to market. If you're working with a publisher, the publisher might have expectations that you're going to help promote the book. You might not know very much about promotion, or you might know a lot about promotion, but you just have no time to devote to it. So you can go to to one of those sites and hire a vendor or hire someone to support you for one of those parts of the process, you can hire someone to do some online promotion, some social media promotion, set up a giveaway campaign for you. That way you're writing the book, and you're perfecting the book, and you're working with an editor to bring it to the highest degree of polish that you can, but you're going to hire some external vendors to support the next parts of the process. So I think it ends up being a win win for for everyone involved. But it's it's one of the things that I think is is really important to looking at what prevents our happiness and fulfilment. So asking for help is the fifth is the fifth of those pillars. Do you want me to go in and talk about the other two? Or do you have any comments or thoughts? Before we get there?

Agi Keramidas  30:48  
If you would give me a brief comment about the other two? And I will give you my comments collectively, because I already have comments in my next question, but I would like a brief comment about the saying no, in particularly and also perfectionism, but perfectionism in particular, something that I have spoken quite a bit I feel in my previous podcast conversations, but saying no, in the importance of saying no, and knowing when to say no, and for what reasons, that is something that I would, I would love to hear your, your thoughts and your insights about it.

Lisa Towles  31:25  
I think there's so much to say about saying no, and an perfectionism. And when we think about self care, the idea of saying no puts us in touch with our fears and uncertainties. And I say fears, because what saying no really implies is that you're going to learn to disappoint people and not care. Who can do that? I mean, no one, no one wants to disappoint people, right. But we have to have a tool in our tool set in some sort of mechanism where we're at least willing to do that sometimes in the interest of taking care of ourselves in the interest of properly managing our our capacity, in the interest of understanding that we that we can't spend 100% of our time on 100% of our projects, we have to take that 100% and divided up strategically prioritising the things that are of highest importance to either meeting our work deadlines and obligations or highest importance to taking care of our families or taking care of ourselves. It's a really hard thing to negotiate. And I think saying no can be incredibly hard for people because we don't want to disappoint people. We want their acceptance. We want their love and support. We want their accolades saying Great job, you really went the extra mile, you really went overboard, in, in you help the company do this. At what cost, though? And I? That's why I think saying no, is it's an important topic. And it's a very thorny, challenging topic, because no one wants to think about it, no one wants to do it. And so by writing and speaking about this, I'm, I'm finding that I'm cultivating dialogues that are often really meaningful to people, because we're collectively finding ways that we can have our cake and eat it too. You know, of course, we could be productive and just, you know, say yes to everything. And you know, you run the risk of being a people pleaser, and not having good boundaries, or what's worse, not having any boundaries. And again, these five pillars came from my only came from my own shortcomings in my own failures. And I spent many years of my life being like that, saying yes to everything, and taking on too much work, and what happened, I got burned out, and then that's not good for anyone. So by saying no, you're, you're letting people know that you're self aware. You're letting people know that you are strategic about how you spend your energy. And you're not just going to take on something because someone wants you to even if the person even if the person who is asking you is terribly important to you important to your success, important to your family, by saying no once in a while, and by having that skill in that mechanism that shows a wonderful preservation of self and wonderful care. So how do you do that? How do you say no? One of the ways that I have learned how to do this is by saying Not now, so you're not exactly saying no, I'm not doing This good luck with that, do it yourself. That's a little harsh. So yeah. So you can be a little bit more, a little bit more friendly about it by saying, I'm not able to do that right now. But if you asked me in two or three weeks, I think I will have more time in my schedule, and I might be able to take that on. Or you could say, No, I can't, I can't do all of that. But here's what I can do, I could do these two pieces and have them done by this amount of time. So I think all of those are good skills to have, I think it's a good tool to be able to say no to someone who's asking you to do something unreasonable, that you don't want to do, it's a good skill to be able to say, No, I can't do that. And to just close your mouth, and let the inlet the moment be awkward and just sit there in the awkward moment. And let the person just deal with it deal with the reality of your good boundaries and your self awareness and your Self Mastery, self mastery and say, No, I can't do that. It's, it's hard, it's really, really hard to do. But once you do it once, you can do it again. And if you can do something twice, you can do it every day. So you could practice saying no, either to people who are not terribly important to your well being or your career, or you could start saying no, about things and tasks that don't matter very much. So let me talk about these two examples. So you could sit, someone might say, I'm trying to think of a good example. It could be someone that you're talking to, in in a shopping mall, or in a grocery store, someone asks you a question, and and they want you to do something. And you could say no, sorry, I'm not able to. So that's a person, that's a stranger. They don't mean a lot to you. And so what that means is there's not that much risk saying no saying no to that person. Or you could say no to someone who does mean a lot to you, someone in your family who wants you to do something. And you could say, No, I'm not able to do that. I just have too much going on today. Sorry. So so that way, it's someone in your family, someone who loves and supports you. And they will most likely understand if you say no, now I've had people tell me, I've had people refute that and say, What are you talking about? My family is incredibly demanding. And I could never say no to them. And I think I think that's true in some contexts. So do it with small things. Say, say no, or say not yet, or say not now, or say no, I can't completely do that. But I can do this having the word but in there is a great modifier. Because you're not being obstructionist. And you're not being rude. You're just being realistic. You're saying I can't do that right now. But what I can do right now is this. So there are ways that you can kind of modify it. So it's not so scary. And so it's not so obstructionist so that you're taking care of yourself, but you're also practising it. You know, again, if you practice saying no, I think it eventually will get less scary and feel less risky. And it'll, it'll start to feel good. And what you'll find is, it can be extremely empowering to have that skill.

Agi Keramidas  38:23  
It certainly is empowering. And you do get better you improve when you do that. And what you said that it is a matter of really setting the boundaries and boundaries and having the awareness that you know if even if I would love to do it, or even if I must do it because of our relationship, I simply don't have the time, the resources, the ability to do it right now that really

Agi Keramidas  38:56  
shows that the person that, you know, you are aware of what's going on. I think it's in many ways, it's better. To say no or a more diplomatic note yet, as you said, rather than rushing and saying yes, because you have to or because you're used to it or because you don't want to disappoint people or you want it acceptance, and then not being able to fulfil your promise your yes, because it was really impossible so that I think we'll put you in an even more disadvantaged position rather than the outset saying that I'd love to do it but I can't do it right now or whatever else is appropriate for the situation. I think it's it's a great skill, as you said to have. And I liked the suggestion to start with small things that will not you know, get you divorced. Probably kicked you out of your job. So start with smaller things, practice that. So when the bigger one comes, you are more confident in using it. I have found personally for me that it gives me also a level of self respect when I do it. And I mean, you know, when there are genuine reasons I'm not doing it because I don't feel like it. I'm saying no, because I genuinely don't have the bandwidth for it, it would put me on a tremendous stress, and I probably wouldn't be able to do it to the best of my abilities, just by saying yes, so it's great. Coming back to what you said about setting boundaries and being self aware of what it is that you can do, what you can do, and I think we all of us have this ability to ascertain what what it is that we can do. And I think to some extent, for me, anyway, I have this kind of an instinctive awareness that if I, if I'm asked something, I feel like the pressure and if I am able to say, No, I fill in instant relief, I don't feel hoarse that I've said no to the max will feel so much better. Because, you know, that gives me frees me up to do what I have to do at that particular

Agi Keramidas  41:27  
time. So thanks, that was a very useful, I think, and practical answer. And, Lisa, there is one other thing or another question that stems out from all these, you know, methods, shall we say, or pillars, as we should call them of self care? My question is that, in many ways, none of them is something completely, you know, revolutionary, or something that you've never thought before their common sense. Yet, even though we are you aware that we should be doing more for our self care? Still, we don't do them. Do you think there is one more prevalent reason? So there are many, but what do you think stops most people from taking care of of themselves? The way that the know, deep down that they should?

Lisa Towles  42:29  
I'm so glad you asked that? I think that's I think that's one of the most relevant questions there are about self care. And I think one of the answers is habit, we just get used to doing things a certain way we get used to over productivity, we get used to ignoring ourselves, we get used to that kind of mindset of Go, go, go go. And we don't really have a mechanism for that sort of timeout. So I think habit is one of them. And I think fear is another one, you know, I mean, like when, when we look at when we look at especially the saying no and the perfectionism, and and I think the asking for help, I think we might have an underlying fear that we will no longer be loved and supported and accepted if we don't meet everybody else's expectation. And it's really difficult to have the personal power, you mentioned confidence in your last comment to have the power in the confidence, and really the trust in the faith, that the relationships that we have that we have cultivated, that those relationships are going to are going to support us we have drawn those people into our orbit into into our personal space. And the reality is that I think those people will respect us more if we have these boundaries. But it's it's really hard to get that started. And, and I think it requires having a conversation with yourself about I want to live a more authentic life, I want to feel like I own more of my life. I want to feel like I own more of my schedule and my time. So the way that I'm going to do that is I'm going to create some gates and some boundaries so that I can save the sacred space in here. That's just for me, that's just for writing my book that's just for writing poetry or painting pictures, or, or snowboarding or surfing or whatever it is that feeds you whatever your bliss is, you're going to create those boundaries and you're willing to take the risk by saying no to someone who means something to you. You're going to take the risk because you're willing to disappoint people that you love or care about, because there's a higher purpose involved and that higher purpose is you. You're willing to negotiate that and you trust that by doing that. You're going to build healthier relationships. So there's so much that can be gained here. And especially, especially you developing that deeper relationship with yourself and going into that separate place and asking yourself, what do I need? How do I feel?

Agi Keramidas  45:16  
Thank you. That's, that's wonderful. Thank you for your answer. And I would like to conclude this conversation from my part anyway by asking you to share with the listeners where they can find more about you particularly about this self care topics that you discuss. And, of course, then we your parting words, anything else that you cannot, for me, it's been a really delightful and very useful conversation.

Lisa Towles  45:52  
Thank you Agi. i So, so appreciate our conversations, because I think you're so insightful. And I think that you and I have a lot in common and we're on very similar paths. So I, I appreciate that alignment. If people want to learn more about strategic self care, I do have a site that I started and the site is strategic self care dot blog. And they can also learn more about me and my writing at Lisa tools.com. But yeah, I I'm still working through all of these five pillars, I don't have them completely figured out, I'm in a continuous mode of self discovery. And using the more I just got another I just got a new job like I was talking about after 14 years being at the same job. And I've never needed these pillars more. I don't do them all the time. I'm still negotiating with myself, still, you know, making myself kind of pause and take a timeout. And it's it's a continuous process. For me, I'm balancing my my day job work, which means a lot to me and balancing my writing and trying to fit both of those into the container of the 15 hours a day that I'm up or 18 hours a day. And that's the I'm going to continue to do that in the future too. I have a new work in progress. I'm working on a new thriller and I also have a new book that's coming out next June the book is finished but there's still so much to do as you know you're you're a writer there's there's still the final editing to do and in getting reviews and it's it's a lot. Being a writer is its own full time job. But you understand that to

Agi Keramidas  47:43  
Lisa, thank you very much for her conversation. I really appreciate you coming back to the podcast and sharing your wisdom. Thank you for listening and I hope you got great value from today's episode. And if you'd be so kind, please take a moment to Live me in Apple podcasts review sharing how personal development mastery has made a difference to the day.

Agi Keramidas  48:12  
Until next time, stand out don't fit in!

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