How to Go Beyond the Burn Out: Part 1
Episode 114
In this episode of The Integrative Wellness Radio, Dr. Nicole & Dr. Nick discuss the dreaded burnout… a symptom of nonstop hard work that we’re all too familiar with. They chat through their own personal experience with burnout and provide actionable tips to implement into your day to avoid it! Interested in working with IWG? Book a complimentary consult call to learn more using this link: https://bit.ly/IWRcall2021 Noteworthy Time Stamps: 0:51 Dr. Nicole’s personal experience with burnout 3:29 How to go from the emotional limbic brain to the executive brain to make conscious decisions 4:32 The importance of thinking time 8:50 Determining the structure of your day 9:46 High productive actions vs. Low productive actions 10:54 The BIGGEST player when combating burnout 13:40 How to set structure… but not go too far 17:22 Inspire, fulfill, empower: how to reclaim these words 18:00 ROI: multitasking 23:27 Why resentment or pushback happens 25:30 Intermittent fasting vs. breakfast
Topics: brain, burnout, make, integrative, learn, decisions, time, emotional
Key takeaways from this episode
- Hello, welcome back to another episode of Integrative Wellness Radio.
- So it's about setting up quality questions that we can go from that emotional limbic brain to the executives of the brain where we can actually make conscious decisions to really serve us.
- Nicole to learn more about the top trends in integrative medicine to learn about what the limitations are with testing and what you can do to start your health journey.
- We've actually recently done a survey on different topics uh that people were looking for to learn more about, but secondary to that was what was the biggest struggle for most of the entrepreneurs out there and burn out was number one.
- So, I would say it's a lot more intelligent to learn from the masters and our teachers, uh stand on the shoulders of giants to be able to use all the pain things that not only we've done but our mentors have gone through so that you don't have to make the same mistakes.
Pull quotes
Imagine if medicine actually looked at you as a whole as supposed to looking at you as a bunch of separate systems.
Nicole to learn more about the top trends in integrative medicine to learn about what the limitations are with testing and what you can do to start your health journey.
So, we are evolving entrepreneurship through an integrative lens and today, we are talking all about burnout.
Transcript
Imagine if medicine actually looked at you as a whole as supposed to looking at you as a bunch of separate systems. Dive into Integrative Wellness Radio with Dr. Nick and Dr. Nicole to learn more about the top trends in integrative medicine to learn about what the limitations are with testing and what you can do to start your health journey.
Hello, welcome back to another episode of Integrative Wellness Radio. So, we are evolving entrepreneurship through an integrative lens and today, we are talking all about burnout. We've actually recently done a survey on different topics uh that people were looking for to learn more about, but secondary to that was what was the biggest struggle for most of the entrepreneurs out there and burn out was number one. And uh we can speak Been exhausted. we can speak from experience. Uh we've hit burnout many, many times but uh I do think that it really took for myself at least about, you know, 20 times of burning out to hit my ultimate ultimate low before I really had enough fire to make a change. I mean, when we look at human behavior we have to hit those thresholds of pain in order to make a change. So, I would say it's a lot more intelligent to learn from the masters and our teachers, uh stand on the shoulders of giants to be able to use all the pain things that not only we've done but our mentors have gone through so that you don't have to make the same mistakes. And I think that a key thing to take away as we start to dive into this topic is that no one else is in control of your schedule other than you. Yeah, it's and you said the big thing right there is choice. You know, it's like sometimes we feel like we're trapped and that's the worst place to be because anytime that our back's against the wall and we feel trapped and at the same time we're fatigued and tired, we never make intelligent decisions, we're always making reactive decisions, you know, focusing on problems not solutions. It's just a waterfall effect in the wrong direction. It's interesting cuz both of our coaches uh at one of the last seminars that we were at someone was asking a question in relation to, you know, noticing that you're fatiguing out, you're getting burnt out but you know you know that you have to get to the end of a specific project and you know, what is the advice? Do you just power through and keep going or do you give yourself the time and space? And I just remember the analogy was just so interesting. It's it's like you're running out of gas but you still have another 50 miles to go and you're just like, no, I'll just drive as fast as possible in order to get to the destination when that's not even logical to any capacity because you're still going to run out of fuel and it's such a simple concept but we don't apply it to ourselves and we're just like okay, well I'll just run myself into the ground, potentially extend the project out because I'm not as productive, I'm not thinking as straight and then come out with mediocre results just for the sake of saying I need to meet this deadline as opposed to take the break, take a step back, refuel and then step into it with more clarity and even more motivation to to get it done, but get it done right. Yeah, 100% on that is, you know, that's jumping back to those emotional decisions is that, you know, when we're emotional, we think that we just have to push through things which isn't intelligent at all. So it's about setting up quality questions that we can go from that emotional limbic brain to the executives of the brain where we can actually make conscious decisions to really serve us. And you know, we all know that, you know, whether you even take a half day off to be able to go out, you know, whatever your hobby is that's going to recharge you, you have to do those things. You know, get out in the sunshine, go for a walk with your dog, your pet, you know, breathe in that sunshine and that fresh air. And that's going to recharge you both internally through your soul, um, but also just, you know, all the biochemical changes through serving yourself and being able to re-energize. well, it's interesting because I know that some people that are listening to this are just like, yeah, that sounds wonderful. Great luxury. I remember specifically, you know, coming across the book, uh Think and Grow Rich and obviously the big focus is about thinking. And then it also was followed up with the book by Keith Cunningham, Rote Less Stupid where he is a huge advocate for thinking time. And I just remember reading about this and almost being frustrated of like, wow that must be nice. These people have the ability to just sit around and think and and come up with these great ideas and be creative but I'm working in my business more than I'm actually working on my business. And it took time for me to think logically and get out of that emotional limbic center like you mentioned and really be able to say, wow. I'm going to stop acting like I know better. And I'm actually going to listen to the advice of of these individuals that have really attained the success that I'm that I'm looking for. And it really takes a huge leap to to make that choice. And I think that's really what it is, it's a choice. It it's you could say it's a huge leap, but it's really just setting boundaries. You know, with without having boundaries we we don't have a limit of what we're going to put up and deal with. So it's really about setting those boundaries and then from those boundaries, it's like how are you going to structure your day to serve you? You know, through um like one of the best things that we've done is walks together. So, you know, we go on like Dr. Nicole and I, we're in business together. So it's easy for us to be able to plan our day together. We literally do everything together but we've found that through walking, being outside, a fresh air allows us to have a bigger vision to not be shut down in a closed space and we have uh a like really high amounts of clarity as well as vision combined together. So we have amazing ideas to be able to serve whatever quote-unquote solution that we're really working on. Well I think that's an important thing for people to take away is that your effectiveness can be dictated by your environment. Uh, when you and I were trying to sit down and have, you know, quote unquote business meetings, it was usually ending up with frustration and zero positive results. We were slow learners. We were, we did that for like three years. Yeah, and all right and then we just realized that it wasn't the right dynamic so don't beat yourself up, I think is the key thing to take away. Is that if you are struggling with uh having quality communication with your business partner as well as with your team, it might be a very simple hack of changing the environment or you being able to set some time in order to get your your mind clear, jot it all down, send it to them prior to showing up for the meeting and or even having the meeting in a very specific environment so that, you know, you feel that everyone is you know, feeling good, thriving, et cetera. So, you know, these things are really important, But I want to dig a bit deeper on this topic because I think that there's a lot of things that once they were put on our radar, we were just kind of like, oh, crap. And really first and foremost is that we also have a choice on what we give our energy to. And one of the terms that I love is uh non-revenue generating activities. So non RGAs. And when one of our coaches was talking about what these were, I was like, oh my God, I used to do every single one of those things every day. And, you know, really what we're talking about with these non RGAs is waking up. And the first thing that you do is you grab your phone. You look at your social media, you tap into your business email. You see that there's a disgruntle client that totally throws off your energy. Now, you just spent the next hour trying to troubleshoot it. And you just it spirals from there like you get in the car, you know, you're out of gas, now you're late to work. Now your whole day's thrown off. And it's just a compounding effect and you're also setting the pace for you to have a chaotic energy for the rest of your entire day. So you really have to take a step back and start thinking about, you know, what is the structure of your day and do you have boundaries? Are you giving your cell phone number to clients? You know, are you accessible to everyone because you think that you have to go above and beyond and now you're being taken advantage of and now you're getting resentful. And these are all things I think that we do especially when there's other layers of limiting beliefs in there is, you know, you have a new coach and they tell you, "Hey, you should be charging this or this is the industry standard." But you don't feel that worth. So now you're like, okay, well I'll change my prices but then on the backend what you're not telling your coach is that you are now feeling an obligation to go above and beyond and do things that are potentially going to get you in a pickle later down the line. Oh, 100%. Here when we go back and we structure those boundaries and to structure our day, it's really about looking at high productive actions versus low productive actions. And like you said, when you wake up and the first thing you do is you check the email and you go through and you, you're searching for problems pretty much. And low productive actions like that are going to drain us. They're energy wasters and at the same time they're not producing any revenue like you said, where at the opposite side of things, we could literally structure our day to win the morning the night before. So that's what I found, the only way to actually win the day is to win the morning and the only way to truly win the morning is to structure it the night before. So every night before one of the amazing things we can do is to figure out what's going to be the most revenue generating activity that we can do that following day that's congruent to your highest values. So there you have a win-win situation. You have what's going to give you the biggest return not only in your time, your energy, but also money but you're also going to be filling yourself up with energy because it's also the most valuable thing that you could be doing to fill yourself up. And that I find is going to be the biggest player to be able to combat what we know as burnout. 100%. It's, you know, you have to get yourself to a place that you're comfortable with the idea that your life becomes very disciplined and regimented. I fought this tooth and nail for years. I remember, you know, all different types of people, entrepreneurs, coaches et cetera, talking about, you know, block scheduling and you have to schedule your vacations, you have to schedule your workouts and you have to schedule, schedule, schedule and I fought it. I was like that so that's such an odd way to live. I don't wanna live like that. I don't want to have to feel obligated to do this, that, the other thing. And again, I'm a slow learner. I also like to, uh, I guess experience the pain so I can learn the lesson but I just remember years went by and it was the same excuses as to why we haven't taken a vacation, as to why we are working more and more hours, as to why I'm still only working out once a month or I'm living and breathing integrative health care, but I'm, you know, not really on a regimen or I'm not really doing the infrared sauna. And it's because low priority things fill up your schedule when you are not disciplined and have those boundaries. You know, if you're not like I am 100% dedicated at noon that I am going to have lunch and actually sit down and have lunch and maybe have a conversation with some, you know, an employee or one of my co-workers. If you're not that disciplined to say like that is what's going to happen. Guess what? You're going to work through lunch and you're going to be, you know, putting out fires and you're going to deal with a client who's disgruntled or you're going to deal with an employee that's disgruntled. Unfortunately, it's the the harsh and true reality. Yeah, it's and even about structuring your day it's you have to figure out what's going to serve you. You know, when I first started doing block scheduling, I was a little neurotic and I had it like everything down to the minute exactly like you know, when I was doing a workout, I was doing this type of workout and that did not work for me. It didn't I mean, I fought it tooth and nail and because there wasn't any creativity. There wasn't any like choice in it. And I felt like I was still trapped which I was trapped doing the exact opposite of not having any schedule. So, for me, personally, block scheduling works great but I leave it open. So it's like, you know, I have a time that I go through and I do learning, but that learning is just a block period that's open to how I want to learn. That could be reading, that could be going through journals, that could be research, that could be so many different aspects of how to learn and depending on how I feel that day, I have a choice to decide what type of learning is actually going to fill me up and you can do that for exercise. You could just have it boom, exercise. If you want to run, awesome. If you want to do hit training, awesome. If you want to jump on the peloton, awesome. Like leave it up for you to be able to best serve you in that moment because we're honestly we're different person in every single moment. So to be able to say what's going to best serve you, you know, a week from now, a month from now, is just craziness. So we able to we need to have those boundaries, we need to have the systems in place to be able to serve us but not so overdrawn that we take choice away from ourselves. I I 100% agree and I think that what you said is really key and it's really the foundation of of our, you know, belief system is that it's personalized. Things need to be personalized because I know that there's this quote unquote, um, uh, regimen that we're we feel that we all need to fulfill. And, you know, to be a healthy, you know, good entrepreneur is you have to workout or you have to meditate or you have to do certain things. You have to read a book a week. And I think it's giving yourself the freedom to say, you know, this block schedule is growth, self-growth or self-development. Maybe that self-growth one week is a really awesome workout. Maybe another week it's a book. Maybe another week it's it's a podcast or or a webinar that you are listening to. It really is what's going to inspire you the most and what is your idea of of personal development and personal growth? You know, some people it's doing things to physically enhance their performance and then there's other people that it's more mental emotional. And, you know, I joke all the time is I live and breathe integrative medicine. I can't meditate. My meditation is a boxing class. I don't care what you have to say about it, Dr. Nick. But it's like that traditional uh meditation of sit there quiet, you know, legs crossed or or whatever it is, like it doesn't work for me, but there is a version of that when I'm in the infrared sauna. I get in the infrared sauna, I bring a notepad and a pen and I just give myself time to just like clear the slate and if something pops in my head that I want to write down great, if nothing pops in my head, great. It it's just about giving myself that space, but I couldn't do that for years because nothing nothing was that relaxing to me. Nothing gave me that type of time and space to truly feel that I can clear my mind. And once I was introduced to the infrared sauna, I was like, wow, this is this is my space. Like I feel good in here. I don't know what it is, but I get super clear. I get some of my best ideas. So you guys have to explore what that is for you. And and just know that it can look different week to week, but dedicating your time to what is going to allow you to feel fulfilled and allow you to feel empowered that you are truly growing and scaling yourself which then helps you to grow and scale your business. You said some amazing words there. Such as inspired, fulfilled, empowered. All those things are very, very important as an entrepreneur to be able to hold that energy, hold that resonance. And one of the things that, you know, leads to this burnout as an entrepreneur is we have so many things that we're juggling all the time. So we can use uh the act of compounding to be able to serve us. So, you know, like you said, you you you have meditation quote-unquote, your version of it, quiet time, but you're also in the infrared sauna where you're detoxing. So, you're, you're quote-unquote killing multi. Hey, I'm multitasking. Exactly. And that's what we need to do as entrepreneurs because we need to literally, I mean, this has been my whole kick so far going into 2021. It's all about investing in yourself. How can you spend the least amount of energy going out but have the biggest amount of return coming back at you. So it's like if you're in the sauna and you're detoxing plus you're journaling, you're writing, your version of meditation, it's like you're not putting that much energy out, but you're getting such a huge return. You know, it's like we set up our peloton. We have an info or we have a red infrared light behind it. So we're getting light therapy while we're getting our cardio therapy on. So like it's about trying to compound as much as you can that's still going to be inspiring and not a task to you. Well, I just love what you said and I I really want to wrap it up with a couple of of tips and inspiration because sometimes when you are really in it, you're maybe a year into your business, like we get it. You are probably running yourself ragged. You have a lot on your plate. You're just trying to make it. And it's very hard to wrap your head around this idea of block scheduling to preserve yourself et cetera. But start somewhere. I think is is rule number one is don't think that you have to do it all at once and you don't have to do what we do, but we just hope that some of the things that we have found effective can inspire you. And also speaking on behalf of friends that are entrepreneurs that have also found things that really work for them but for myself, I definitely found that waking up and grabbing my cell phone and diving into social media or looking at business emails was a complete wrecking ball to my day and that might not be the case for many other people, but I will say if you are more of an emotional person than it probably is a wrecking ball to your day if you're willing to admit it or not. And I found that number one is keeping my cell phone out of the bedroom, number one is really beneficial, for even my sleep. And that is because of the amount of radiation that is coming off of most of the devices in our home. So from the integrative medicine side, is just understanding that these things that other, you know, coaches are they're not talking about it because it's not their background. But if you are the person that you have your home office and you have three monitors and two routers and everything is Bluetooth and that room is right next to your bedroom, you really need to consider how are you going to shut down some of those devices to decrease the amount of radiation that is circulating through the house. So that you're actually getting restful sleep so that you are waking up refreshed. And what are you going to do in the morning? What are you either going to not do in the morning to preserve yourself or what are you going to do in the morning that's going to set your day off right? You know, for me, it's not every day, but I'm a, I'm a morning person when it comes to working out. So, like Dr. Nick said, I hop on the Peloton and because we're always trying to maximize time and efficiency, is we have a an infrared red light behind our Peloton. And that's giving me a detox benefit as well as a cardiovascular benefit. That helps me clear my mind and now I'm ready to go for my day. And I I will tell you and I am not exaggerating is when you're able to do whatever it is for you in the morning. That gets you super crystal clear. You are so much more productive in a shorter amount of time. So that you're not like, oh, well I gotta work through lunch or oh, I didn't get this done or oh, I couldn't do that. So you have to think about maximizing your morning and I'll let Dr. Nick kind of speak on behalf of some of the things that he feels like works for him because we're he's not a morning person. I am not. I'm more of a night person than a morning person. We balance each other out that way. One of the things I mean, overall, my favorite thing to do is comes back to the slogan that you always say. It's not what you do, but how you do it. So, when you take that deeper, it's if we're doing things that's not productive, that's low on our value system, we need external motivation for that. And that's we need extra motivation because it's draining our life. It's draining our energy. So, when we start our morning, it's about structuring wins, you know, how can we start the morning by winning? And once we start winning, we can let that compound. The better it gets, the better it gets. So, as in anything you do, it's not what you do, but how you do it. So, what's your intention? What's your why? It's always coming back to your why and your why is geared to serve yourself. You are the most important person in your life and your business. Without you, there is no business. So And you can't serve anyone else if you're not serving yourself, and you can lie to yourself because I did for years, but I promise you, if you don't serve yourself you cannot serve other people. So it's, I mean, it's about if you're jumping on the peloton, why are you jumping on the peloton? You know, getting crystal clear before you do everything to know exactly why you're doing it and how it's going to fill you up. That will make everything you do easier. There's no resistance. There's no pushback when you're doing something, even if it's painful, that you know that's actually serving you. It's the opposite when you go into and you go into doing something and you already have resentment for it. Like that's going to create a lot of pushback, a lot of pain. So it's not what you do, but how you do it, is literally the most important and then really the second thing for me is that block scheduling. That was huge for me. Yeah, I think that what you just said is is really important too is you you have to serve your highest values and some of you might not be super clear on what your values are. This is something that we take people through as really step number one when you're working um through the Integrative Growth Institute because your personal values dictate your values of your company, which then dictates your company culture and dictates so many other things beyond that. And really, if you're not clear on that, it's very hard to grow and scale but grow and scale and also maintain happiness in your own personal life. Because there's a lot of people that are killing themselves to grow this massive business but they're sacrificing everything in their personal lives. And that is a huge, huge mission and passion for us is that we gave up our lives for many years and we we didn't want to give up our business to get our lives back. We were just like, they're has to be a way to bring the two together. And, you know, there are a lot of versions of of what fills people up. And if you're the person that you wake up in the morning, you're like, I don't want to work out. But everybody says I should because it's healthy. Just understand is like there's an equal and opposite version of that. So being healthy is also maybe making yourself a really bomb ass breakfast. Like it doesn't have to be what the textbook is. So you have to make sure that you are understanding that and you don't have to conform to what everyone tells you is what you're supposed to do essentially. I would say the last thing, you know, for me coming up thorough like and and is understanding the science of the human body and to be able to maximize just the energy and the efficiency so that we can have that output of energy to serve the business, to serve our employees and, you know, to serve our customers. And the simplest easiest thing is with that morning routine, you have to eat breakfast. You know, there's this whole thing on fasting, on intermittent fasting, you know, it's easy just like, I'm going to wake up. I'm not going to eat because it's part of intermittent fasting, which is actually the worst meal to skip if you are an intermittent fasting because breakfast is what jump starts your day. It what really stabilizes your blood sugar and I'm not talking about a breakfast with a coffee and more carbs, and more carbs, and more carbs. I'm talking about having some good quality protein and fat to be able to help stabilize that blood sugar and let you start the day really through feeding your brain and your nervous system. Yeah. And the last thing that I want to close on is just getting super clear on what the vision is, because if you're clear on the vision, you know what to say yes to and you know what to say no to. And it's not about taking every opportunity or, you know, things that you know might not be the best fit. It's about focusing on the opportunities that are going to be one step further to the bigger vision. And if you have the ability to say yes to the things that matter, that is going to help you grow and scale tremendously in a shorter amount of time. So, these are all some really key things to really prevent, but also deal with burnout. So, there's going to be a part two to this because there's a whole other part of this that we did not get into, which has to do with the dreaded little word of delegation. So, we're going to be diving into why you are probably not delegating and why you have your hand in every department of your business and the reason why that is limiting you from growing and scaling. Can't wait. We thank you for being a listener and subscriber to Integrative Wellness Radio. If you're looking to learn more about Integrative Wellness Group as well as Dr. Nick or Dr. Nicole, you can check out Integrative Wellness Group dot com.
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About Integrative You Radio
Integrative You Radio is a root cause medicine and integrative medicine podcast hosted by Dr. Nicole Rivera and Dr. Nick Carruthers — two integrative doctors who build personalized wellness protocols from your DNA, minerals, hormones, gut, and nervous system rather than from a population template. Looking for an integrative doctor who reads your labs together instead of in isolation? This is the show.
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