#498 You don’t need a sabbatical to recover - here’s the simple fix burned out leaders miss, with Scott Anderson.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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Please note that while an effort is made to provide an accurate transcription, errors and omissions may be present.

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Agi Keramidas:
0:00

Are you a high achieving professional pushing yourself to the brink, wondering if burnout is the cost of success? Welcome to personal development mastery, the podcast that helps intelligent, busy professionals develop self mastery and discover their calling so you can thrive in a fulfilling, purposeful life. I'm your host, Agi Keramidas, and this is episode 498 by listening to this episode, you are going to discover why High achievers often unknowingly drive themselves into burnout. And how to change course, you will learn the two most common habits that silently fuel burnout and how to replace them with empowering alternatives, and you will get a practical five second technique to reset your nervous system and reduce stress in real time, if you are constantly chasing excellence and feeling the toll of stress, exhaustion or diminishing returns, this episode is for you. Before we dive in. Remember, my fellow mastery seeker. If you want to go deeper into the episode, join us at our free community, the mastery seekers tribe, for more, go to mastery seekerstribe.com, now, let's get started. Today. I'm delighted to welcome Scott Anderson back to the podcast. Scott, you are a licenced mental health therapist, executive coach and the founder of Double Dare, business coaching service. You are also the author of you're not toast, and you are passionate about helping high achieving professionals break free from burnout and rediscover passion in their work and life. Welcome back, Scott. It's wonderful to have you back.

Scott Anderson: 2:14

Oh, thank you. It's so great to be here. It's great to see you. It feels

Agi Keramidas: 2:18

familiar in a way, so that it's a very nice feeling to begin any conversation. I will share here, Scott, for reference, that you first join us back in episode 248 that was like two and a half years ago, and that time flies, doesn't it? Yeah, and at that time, we explored why burnout could be a blessing. Yes you were saying, and you uncovered the five mindset shifts to help break that sign, right? So, right now, if you are listening and you want to find out more about that. The link is in the episode description. Today, Scott, I intend to go deeper into that conversation, especially now that you have your new book launched. What I would like to you know, start with it's since it's been, like two and a half years since our previous conversation about you were saying about burnout, been a blessing. How has your thinking, your understanding around burnout, evolved the last two plus years?

Scott Anderson: 3:42

That's a great question. You know, I still contend that burnout for me, and if you can recover from it, really is a blessing, especially if you're a high achievement, ambitious, driven person. Burnout may be. You know, the problem is that the things that we high achievement people have done over time has worked. It's been successful, and we become we kind of count on that. It's like having a magic wand that that works. If I continue to do my plan a then good things will happen. What my experience with burnout and the 1000s of executives I've worked with, the what happens is that the magic wand stops working, or that it continues to work, but with a lot of problems attached to it, physical problems, mental problems, spirit relationship problems, especially so, you know, minus a crisis like burnout, I would have continued to use my old magic wand, and I would have continued to experience some success, but also lots and lots and lots of problems. I would never have considered a Plan B, because the old way was working. We become super. Stitches, almost I can't stop doing what I'm doing because it's working. So I still believe, and now more than ever, that burnout is a tremendous blessing, although it's agony to go through. And if there's anyone listening to this podcast who is experiencing burnout, my heart goes out to you, but it really can be a blessing, because, as we discussed prior to the prior to the interview, not only is it possible to break through the exhaustion and despair and overwhelm of burnout, but it's also possible. In fact, it's it's, you know, inevitable. I have found, at least with our students, that not only can you break through burnout quickly and permanently, but that life on the other side of burnout is infinitely better than life before burnout. And I would never have even looked at that except the sort of the crushing defeat of burnout in the first place. I sort of assumed, well, if I can recover from burnout, maybe I'll live longer and I'll be a little bit happier. I'll stay married things like that, you know, if I sort of pull in my horns and become less driven, less ambitious, but my life itself would be, you know, kind of mediocre in terms of achievement and experience. But my experience has been, and the experience of my clients has been the exact opposite. Life Beyond burnout is infinitely better than life before burnout, not only in terms of peace and happiness and enjoyment, but also in terms of achievement, we can accomplish so much more. You know, it's one of those things where the Good is the enemy of the best. We cling to things that have worked, the magic wand that now is producing as many problems as it is wishes. But we cling to it superstitiously, until it takes something like burnout, where we were, where we're almost forced to drop it.

Agi Keramidas: 6:59

It definitely and I remember we were speaking in our previous conversation how it would be ideal for someone to go to the other side of the burnout before experiencing the burnout. Because, of course, when the crisis happens, then you have to deal with it. Yes, I would. There is something, let's, let's talk about some more things about burnout to perhaps clarify it also for the listener, there is one thing I noticed that you say that burnout is often self created. Sure, yes. Can you explain this to us, especially for sure high achiever, how they can unintentionally drive themselves into burnout without realising it

Scott Anderson: 7:49

exactly. Well, you know, it's, it's again, it kind of goes back to the good being the enemy of the best when we are young, and especially in career. And by definition, we don't know as much as we know today, hopefully. And so we compensate for lack of experience and lack of knowledge with sheer effort. And so we try harder, and we care more, and we have we say yes to everything, a lot of us. And as a result, we are recognised and rewarded, and it really works for a while, but as we age and gain experience and gain, hopefully, expertise, the need for that dissipates, but we continue to do it anyway, kind of out of again, I think, out of superstition and out of the fact that it works or It did work, but as we age, and particularly as we add, let's say, a part, a life partner or children or or our role in in our occupation or a profession, grows and grows. The old way no longer works. It doesn't scale our saying yes to everything and working harder than everybody else and worrying more than everyone else while it worked. When we were in our 20s and 30s, maybe at about 40, the wheels start to fall off. And this is especially true if you have any kind of important relationships in your life. You know, I had a client say to me once, it's as though there is a zero sum game where I can either succeed at work or succeed at home, but I have to pick one. I can't have both. And it's at about that point that a lot of our clients notice it. But when I talk about creating our own burnout. And this is, again, I think, a blessing. It's controversial. Often when I speak from stage, I start by saying, you know, except in rare exceptions, you are causing your own burnout. There I said, and it's, you know, in 90% of the cases, that's true. What. I mean by that, and it's very good news, because if you are causing it, then you could do something about it, you know. And I am not saying, I mean, in my experiences, maybe 10, tops 15% of cases I have clients that are working in a genuinely toxic environment where there is a there is a an unjust, you know, sort of a deceitful work environment that is potentially racist or misogynist or discriminatory or just fundamentally unfair. And if that's the truth, then I always recommend that my clients run away screaming. I mean, if that, if you're in a genuinely toxic environment, there's very little that can be done, and you need to get out as soon as you can. But my experience with my clients, anyway, is that maybe 10 or 15% fall into that category of the clients that I work with. I'm not saying that only 10% of of workplaces are toxic. But the good news is, is that if it isn't the workplace, if it's me, if, if I am causing my own burnout, that's very good news. And this is where burnout can be a tremendous blessing, because it is that crisis without which very few of us would change our ways. Because the Good is the enemy of the best, and good is pretty darn good for most of us, until we hit that, that existential question, something like succeed at home or succeed at work, pick one. You know, it takes a crisis like that, I think. But again, I think the fact that we do cause our own burnout is is really good news. And what I found is there are basically two, two things that that most burnouts do, and I certainly have done, and this is sort of a kind of a broad generalisation, but the first one is a perfectionism that serves us when, particularly when we're younger and have less expertise and less experience and simply less knowledge. Shooting for perfection is is something that, because we can put so many more hours into it than we can later in life, serves us. But perfectionism, ultimately, is one of the biggest problems. The other big, big problem is boundaries, because most of us have succeeded earlier in our careers by not setting boundaries, by being willing to work longer than anyone else or harder than anyone else, and saying yes to any request that comes up. And that is a recipe for success in the western in western economies to a point, and this, again, is where the Good is the enemy of the best. So for 10 years, maybe, you know, from in our 20s and early 30s, maybe into our 40, early 40s, it can work. But as our lives become, as we begin to receive the rewards in life, and our lives become more complex, particularly if we're in leadership roles or if we're running our own businesses, this simply won't scale. This one, I mean, on a technical business level, it won't scale. And most of our clients, we've found, we go through a what's called a genius zone assessment, and what we have found is that is that even the most successful leaders do two or three things, better, faster and cheaper than any anyone else. But it's only two or three things is really their genius zone, and those are the things that will move the needle farthest and fastest for them, for their companies, in their professions and so forth. But when I ask our clients to do a time audit and ask them, How many hours a week do you spend in your genius zone, most of them report zero or 30 minutes, or possibly an hour out of 4050, or 60 hours a week. So you know, one of the things that we have found that and so that doesn't, doesn't scale, neither in our lives, as individuals, as human beings, nor in our professions. So you know, we really have to find a new a new way, and to try to shed and delegate the activities that others could do better, faster and cheaper than we can I'm you've probably read the book or seen Dan Sullivan's book, who, not how, and that's very much what that what Dan Sullivan is talking about is that we have to learn a new way. And it goes though from we have to become, we have to sort of evolve past being a very controlling, micromanaging, sort of a personality that worked in our 20s and 30s to being one that is more discerning and in a way more humble, that understands there are really only two or three things that I do, that that no one else could do better faster. And cheaper, and those things will move you know, I've got a client who went from 80 hours a week, for example, 80 hour work week, to now. He works two and a half days a week, but his business has doubled for the last two years. And the reason is because he is and he's much, much happier. And the reason is because he's putting his energy into only the activities that will move the needle for his business, and he's not wasting his time where other people do a better job than he can.

Agi Keramidas: 15:31

Let's say someone listening. And let me bring it to this. They find themselves. They have not reached the crisis point. But they, and because you were mentioning about the toxic environment, it's not, they're not in a toxic environment, but they are, as you were saying, realising that the the pace and everything that they were doing and they keep on doing, is not, perhaps sustainable in the long term. And anyway, that idea of the burnout happening, it's something that they have thought about. So give me one immediate first thing for someone to do with that, and then we'll move on to something different. But let's, let's give something more, you know, practical right now,

Scott Anderson: 16:27

absolutely, and you know, I'm glad that you mentioned that. For any of your listeners who want to have some immediate kind of medicine, let's say, right now, today, I'd encourage them to go to our site called fast fix, call.com and you can schedule a free call with one of our counsellors or consultants who can not only assess, give you a burnout assessment, but also give you some practical techniques and what burnout breakthrough is, and what the you're not toast book is, is very practical, fast, easy to use techniques. You know, it's true that we should all meditate 30 minutes twice a day, but my clients will not do that. You know, even with a gun to their heads, they won't do it. And so, you know the good news is, is that there's clinically proven techniques that are very quick and easy to do, and yet have are super impactful. So as an example, what most Americans do anyway, the the sort of common mythology we believe in is that you work 50 weeks and then you take two weeks off, and during those two weeks off, you recover. And that would be, that would be fine, if that were true. But unfortunately, it's not true. And that's not how human beings recover from stress. You know, the way that we recover from stress, ideally, is in the moment when, kind of when we notice that we are stressed, because a stress cycle, the cortisol adrenaline cycle, even of being like in a near car accident, that cycle for your adrenaline and cortisol to peak to the time it dissipates to normal levels is 90 seconds. And so you know the need to, you know, waiting, waiting 50 weeks is not going to get it done, whereas, if we notice it in real time, the key is to allow the cycle to run its course and to let the the nervous energy and let the brain chemistry run its course and release the tension. So to answer your question, a practical exercise is this, one of the things that most of us as burnout to do is that when we notice that we're stressed or overwhelmed, we throw ourselves into work. Because there is a fear that if I spend much time looking at how exhausted or how frustrated or how stressed out or how anxious I am, that could be a death trap that could be quicksand I'll never get out of. And so most of us throw ourselves into action. We flee into action. And that works until it doesn't, you know, and it's what happens typically, is it just gets worse and worse. The more we ignore anything, the worse it gets. So the answer is, we prescribe multiple mini vacations, five second vacations during the day. And what we recommend is that you just check your your body from head to toe, do a quick scan and notice where in your body you may, you may feel stress. And this takes, this only takes five seconds from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet to just quickly scan your body and to notice, am I feeling stress or anxiety anywhere? And typically, with most people, they feel it between their neck and their navel. There's a twinge or a pain or something a tightness. And all we ask people to do is, once they've noticed it, and again, we're not looking for the source of it. We're not trying to do Freudian psychoanalysis or anything like that. All we're trying to do is to scan our bodies very quickly and notice when we're feeling anxious, where do I feel it in my body, once we found it, let's say in our chest, where a lot of people carry it. Women carry it often in their throats, but or their gut. What we do is just notice it very briefly. Take a deep breath in through your nose, and exhale deeply through your mouth and imagine the door opening over the wherever you feel the physical sensation, and simply allow the stress to leave. Don't force it to leave, just allow it to leave. We call this the R and R technique, and it's based on some training by by Michael singer, who wrote the Untethered Soul. And I give him all the credit. But this R and R technique is incredibly effective. It takes five minutes to do. Anybody can do it. And the idea is that if we do this as often as we're noticed, we are stressed during the day, that's really the key. And then the beginning of my own recovery from burnout, that's all I had. Was sort of my first mini discovery in looking through the literature on burnout, and, you know, in 10 days time, I noticed a significant difference. It's not a complete solution, but what it does for and this is the first thing we give most of our clients, because it gives them a glimmer of hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and that there is a way through this, and it's something that I can actually do, versus taking a sabbatical. We've had a number of clients take sabbaticals and return just as exhausted and stressed as when they left, but these five second mini vacations during the day really work.

Agi Keramidas: 21:48

This is great. Thank you. And very practical and the way you are describing it, I think the one other major benefit that comes from doing that is that those five seconds, or even less, there is awareness of the moment, of what is happening, of the rather than being completely absorbed by the autopilot, or, you know, the internal dialogue, or whatever is causing the stress in the first place. So by bringing your attention, you know, to the body, and realising this and taking a breath, as simple as it sounds, it's not easy to do it at that time, because it's you need to create the awareness to actually do it when you're stressed. But it is a fantastic practice, and thank you for sharing such a simple and yet so important.

Scott Anderson: 22:50

And it is important and it is very counter intuitive. I mean, one of the things I found in my own practice and in writing the book is that it isn't that any of this is impossible to do. It's just very counterintuitive, especially for high achievement people, because what, what we have found in our lives, in our careers, in every other area of our lives, is that we we either avoid problems or we solve problems and and that works great if it's, you know, for splitting the atom or changing a tire, you know, we can just we can attack it and solve it if it's a solvable problem. But thoughts and emotions are not subject to the same laws as splitting the atom or changing a tire, because thoughts and emotions are don't have concrete reality in the way that splitting the atom does, or changing a tire. And so unfortunately, again, the magic wand that's worked so well in every other area of our lives will only make disturbing thoughts and emotions worse. And if we try to fix them, or if we try to avoid them both will make the problem worse, whereas, as you say, just by noticing, just notice, like a scientist would look at a microscope slide, not to fix or avoid, but merely to Notice what's actually happening that's incredibly and deceptively powerful,

Agi Keramidas: 24:22

absolutely, definitely. Scott, there is one other thing I wanted to ask you about, and that was the connection, shall we say, between forgiveness and self forgiveness with burnout or recovering from. So I would love to hear your your thoughts on, on that,

Scott Anderson: 24:47

you know, I listened to, I think it might have been your last episode was focused a lot on forgiveness. I thought that was such a brilliant show and in such a brilliant conversation. And it's, it's absolutely. Absolutely true. I mean, forgiveness is really the and it's one of the last things we address in the burnout breakthrough methodology. Because it is, it just sounds so counterintuitive and unrelated to burnout, but one of the clinical symptoms of burnout is a that comes upon us very, very gradually and slowly, and yet it's one of the hallmarks of clinical burnout is a cynicism about other people that can become a kind of a victim mentality, and we begin, and it's so subtle. It's like, you know, grass growing, but one of the hallmarks of burnout is beginning to think, you know, it's them, it's my employees, it's my investors, it's my customers, my family, my spouse. They're causing the problem. And for, you know, self actualized ambitious people, achievers, that we really cringe and bristle at that idea. And yet, when, if anyone wants to go to our fast fix, call.com you'll and take the assessment, you'll see that this is one of the hallmarks of burnout. So what we have found is that is that forgiveness and self forgiveness in particular, but forgiveness generally, is, is really the bedrock of not only recovery from burnout, but propelling you beyond burnout into a life where you're not marginalised, you haven't given up anything. Indeed, you're much more capable and and there's much more opportunity, but but forgiveness is really that that ground zero of getting to the point where even the people that you resent the very most, as an example, one of the things that I went through that I and I caused most of this myself, I sold one of the many businesses I started in an acrimonious situation with my business partners, and most of the acrimony I have to I now understand, was of my own creation. As a result of the burnout that I was going through. It was 90% of it my fault, the acrimony. But in, you know, we had a good buy sell agreement, and it ended up okay financially, but I resented my business partners, I noticed, and it was eating me alive. And, you know, it took a lot of reflection and a lot of work to realise that it's me, first of all, it's not them, and that I really had to in order to recover from burnout, and without the crisis of burnout, I would not have been able to see this, and I would not have been able to do the work. But, you know, I've really discovered, and it's a big part of the burnout breakthrough programme, is to categorically go through the people that that we have acrimonious relationships with, or that we have resentment towards, and go through a process of systematic forgiveness. And again, it's not for them. It's, I hope it does other people some good, but it's mainly so that we can get through and stay out of burnout, because that is the kind of the insidious thread that, and it happens so subtly and invisibly as we get worse and worse and burnout. But that really is the key, is forgiveness and self forgiveness, I would say, in particular, and you know, also to try to fix things we have broken. I mean, you know, and one of the things that I've tried hard to do as particularly when I think of the business that I I sold most recently, to try to fix the relationships that I had broken and and that is not always possible. In some cases, it's not possible, but the effort, the intention, to fix what I've broken, not necessarily to seek forgiveness, but to try to fix what I've broken. The the intent to do that is incredibly healing, even if forgiveness doesn't come because it sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes we ring the bell and it cannot be Unruh. And that's also where self forgiveness comes that, you know, I've had to learn that, you know, I regret many of my actions that occurred during burnout. I feel as though I was sort of in a kind of delusional state, in a way, but I recognise now that I was wrong, and I've tried everything I can to try to fix what I've broken, and I've not been able to do that entirely, but the the effort has made it all the difference.

Agi Keramidas: 29:57

Forgiveness, it is. A so much about ourselves and not about even if we're not talking about self forgiveness. In the end, the I believe the effect of holding, let's say grudge or resentment or blame, the effect is never on the other person. It is us who suffers. What Buddha said that it is like holding hot coal with the intention of throwing it to the other person, but you are the one that gets the other person has no idea that you're holding this. Yes,

Scott Anderson: 30:34

it's like drinking poison, as they say, expecting others to die Exactly, exactly. It's insane. It's insane. It is

Agi Keramidas: 30:42

but we do that and it is common. It's great to realise that forgiveness, it's about us, about yes and liberating and healing. As you use the word healing, exactly Scott, as we start wrapping this conversation up. I want, first of all, to thank you. Second, I want to ask you, thank you. Where, where can the listener connect with you? You mentioned it earlier, but say it again?

Scott Anderson: 31:15

Sure, yeah, if you know, if you just like some information, and you can take a quick online burnout assessment. I'd ask you to go to fast fix call.com and you can also, you know, we can give you links for the for the new book you're not toast, and for the burnout breakthrough programme. But if you just go to fast fix call.com you know what? It's a free call. We can do an assessment for you, and we can give you some quick, very well proven techniques that are free and you can start using right now. You asked me, before we got on the on the interview, about my intention for this call, and it really is to live leave people with the idea, with the truth that there is hope and and that's remarkably faster and easier if counter intuitive, but you absolutely can break through burnout, and you can do it quickly, and you can do it permanently. So yeah, check out FastFix. Call.com and we'll get you started.

Agi Keramidas: 32:20

Excellent. And with that, Scott, what I would like to end today's conversation with is you know someone who has listened to us now for the last half an hour or so, share with him or her what is your your final message to someone who has listened so far, Sure,

Scott Anderson: 32:44

thank you. Well again, I think it's it's hope that you absolutely can, and if you follow some you know clinically proven techniques, you absolutely will break through burnout, and more than that, discover a life beyond burnout that is immeasurably better. You know, the again, my fear was I might be able to patch up my home life and, you know, lower my blood pressure, but I would have to live a life of mediocrity and boredom. And the opposite is true, not only can you break through burnout quickly and permanently, but you can also have a life because of forgiveness and because of things we wouldn't ordinarily do that is immeasurably better in every dimension, mind, body, spirit, than anything any Success we might have celebrated in the past.

Agi Keramidas: 33:42

I hope you have found this episode enlightening. If you've been resonating with these conversations and feel like you are at a crossroads in your life, I offer Private one to one coaching to help you gain clarity and step into your next chapter with confidence. If that sounds interesting, reach out to me and let's chat and until next time, Stand out. Don't fit in.