Preventing burnout from draining you and your business with Dr. Sharon Grossman

This episode features a talk between Peter Mohr and Dr. Sharon Grossman about feeling burnt out. Peter likes to say, you own your business - it shouldn’t own you. However, sometimes entrepreneurs take on too much and become so overworked and overwhelmed that it does feel like their business is draining them. Here Dr. Sharon will offer some ways to recover your energy, as well as strategies to prevent burnout from ever setting in.

Some key topics in the discussion include: 

• Identifying why you feel burnt out
• The importance of delegating tasks
• Freeing yourself by finding your “zone of genius” 
• Setting boundaries for yourself and your team
• Taking time to recover from stress

Notable passages: 

2:56 The addiction of workaholism

4:21 Managing your resources to prevent yourself from burning out

10:15 Reframing the negative beliefs that are limiting you

Reference Links to Dr. Sharon Grossman:

www.drsharongrossman.com/burnoutchecklist

www.bookachatwithsharon.com

Be sure to follow Pete on LinkedIn for more great conversations and entrepreneurial guidance: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petermohr/

Are you looking to make some changes in your business and your life in 2024?  Head over to speaktopete.com and book a chat with me to see if we're the right fit!

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Book a no charge Freedom Call with Pete, to see if you’re a good fit for his business coaching or talk to Pete about speaking at your next event head over to http://speaktopete.com to find a time that works for you!

Pete's Websites:

Pete-Mohr.com
The Exit Ready Business
Kolbe Coach
Simplifying Entrepreneurship

LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/petemohr/
Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/petesmohr/

Email: pete@simplifingentrepreneurship.com

Transcript

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Dr Sharon Grossman: 0:00

So I like to say that burnout is about a depletion or draining of your resources. And so if that's the case, then managing those resources might be just the answer to preventing burnout from happening. So I break this down into three steps. The first is to really identify the source of the leak. Where in your business, are you leaking energy, once you know what's draining, you can systematically eliminate those energy drains. Step two is to determine how you'd like to be instead, I always encourage people to consider how you would show up differently if you were set on being calm, confident and grounded. And third, it's about identifying aspects of your business that as we say, glow your hair back. What aren't you good at in your business, or even in your life, right? Because that's another energy drain. And the more you engage in tasks that excite you, the more you can minimize those energy drains, the less at risk for burnout, you are

Pete Mohr: 1:02

are you making every decision in your business may be feeling a little overworked and overwhelmed? Do you ever wish you had someone to go over the big decisions and entrepreneurial choices you had to make? Well, maybe this sounds familiar. Your partner at home doesn't want to hear about business anymore. And your friends don't know what the heck you're talking about. And maybe your team at work well, even though you have an open door policy, they're not always as open as you'd like them to be? Well, there's good news. I have room for two more one on one coaching clients next quarter. And, you know, here's how it works. We'll get together on Zoom either every week, or every second week to discuss the strategies and frameworks that will clarify your thinking and advance your business and entrepreneurial life. It's all about the five P's, your promise your product, your process, your people and your profit. Once they're better aligned, you'll enjoy a better life and business. Remember, you own your business, and it shouldn't own you. It's time to reduce the frustrations and increase the freedoms. So if this sounds interesting, go to simplifying entrepreneurship.com forward slash Call to book a freedom call with me and we'll see if we're right fit. Hey, it's Pete and welcome to another edition of the simplifying entrepreneurship podcast. We're here to help you cut through the chaos of running a business and transforming your frustrations into freedoms. After all, you own your business, and it shouldn't own you. And we're going to talk about that with Dr. Sharon Grossman. And she is a burn out specialist and really focuses on all sorts of things and how to even understand if you're burnt out, let alone fix it. So we're gonna dig into questions around how to understand if you're burnt out the steps you can do to avoid founder burnout, we're going to talk about creating a sustainable work practice all kinds of great stuff here. I'm really enjoyed our conversation with Dr. Sharon Grossman. And I hope you do too. So let's dig right into it with Dr. Sharon Grossman. Dr. Sharon, it is wonderful to have you here on the simplifying entrepreneurship podcast today.

Dr Sharon Grossman: 3:19

I'm excited to be here. Pete, thanks so much for having me.

Pete Mohr: 3:22

It's one of the things we talk about. But we haven't had a doctor an expert, to talk about burnout and overwhelm and all the things I mean, at the beginning of every episode, I kind of talked about you own your business, and it shouldn't own you. And today we're going to really dig into this idea of if you're feeling burnt out, what can I do? What are the resources? How can I get help and all of this different stuff. So I'm really excited here today to talk to

Dr Sharon Grossman: 3:49

you. I love when people are excited to talk to me about burnout.

Pete Mohr: 3:54

Well, you know what, as coaches, it's like, we want to help people through this stuff, right? Like, that's why we're doing what we are doing. Because it's like, whether we've been there before, or whether we know people that have been there before whatever the case is, we're helping people through this kind of thing. And it's like, if I can steer people, and help entrepreneurs get through these problems even quicker, then that's the whole point of the podcast. That's the whole point of our conversation and, you know, give them some actionable takeaways that they can start making their life better because entrepreneurs get in to business with this sort of idea. And the idea is, you know what, I'm going to own my own business. I'm going to have freedom. I can see it in the stars. And then three years goes by five years goes by 10 years goes by and I look back and they're like 50 6070 hours a week, and it's still going. Now I'm burnt out. So what do I do, Dr. Sharon?

Dr Sharon Grossman: 4:48

Well, they're lucky if it takes them that long usually happens even sooner. So I think first of all, you have to understand why you're burning out. Right and when it comes to entrepreneurship and business ownership in general, I think it's just, we tend to wear all the hats, especially early on in the business process. And then when we start being more lucrative, we might start hiring people and delegating some stuff out. But you're all in on this business, it's your baby. And you don't want to take risks, you don't want to possibly have some, you know, sometimes it's about control and like, other people can't do it as well as I can, right and, and so there's a lot of different factors. But ultimately, what happens is, you're glued to your screen 24/7, you can't turn your brain off, you're constantly running on adrenaline, you're ruminating on everything that's gone wrong. And you might even be waking up in a panic in the middle of the night, because you're thinking about all these things. So you're completely out of balance when you're 100% in on the business. And so we need to figure out how to run this business, do it profitably and not really burn yourself out in the process.

Pete Mohr: 6:00

So many entrepreneurs, I think there's an addictive nature in entrepreneurism, and Joe Polish, who is a great marketer, and has set up a whole thing around addiction for entrepreneurs talks about this, too. But, you know, I think we have an addictive personality and workaholism is an addiction.

Dr Sharon Grossman: 6:20

Absolutely, it is, I think it comes from that place of wanting to succeed. But then things don't always go the way that you want, then you don't always have control over all the factors. And so if you think the solution is to put more of your time and energy in, and that'll give you the kind of outcomes that you want, and then it doesn't happen that way. And you still have that mentality, you're gonna keep coming back and pouring more of yourself in until there's nothing left to give.

Pete Mohr: 6:48

Once you dig in a little bit here, Dr. Sharon, and let us know a few of the steps to avoid this from happening. If you're if you're kind of coming to the realize that, you know, listening to us have a chat and resonating with a few of the things that we've been talking about, what are some of the things that founders and entrepreneurs can do to avoid burnout?

Dr Sharon Grossman: 7:09

Yeah, so I like to say that burnout is about a depletion or draining of your resources. And so if that's the case, then managing those resources might be just the answer to preventing burnout from happening. So I break this down into three steps. The first is to really identify the source of the leak. So where in your business? Are you leaking energy? What's stressing you out? What's draining you? Is it other people? Is it tasks that you engage in? Is it your own negative thoughts or fears, right, so once you know what's draining you, you can systematically eliminate those energy dreams. Step two is to determine how you'd like to be instead. So it might be obvious to you when you're stressed, anxious or overwhelmed, but you have to really consider what you'd like to feel and what you would rather be doing, right. So approaching burnout, professional from a place of intentionality can be really helpful. And so I always encourage people to consider how you would show up differently if you were set on being calm, confident and grounded. Right, so that's the intentionality piece. And third, it's about identifying aspects of your business that as we say, glow your hair back. So as a business owner, as I said, you wear a lot, if not all the hats. And in the book, The Big Leap, they talk about what to let go of so you are left only with what really energizes you. So what aren't you good at in your business, or even in your life? Right? Because that's another energy drain. Just because we're a business owner doesn't mean we don't have a life. We have other things that we are doing. So is cleaning your house, delegate the heck out of that, right? What areas are you good at, but you can have somebody with fewer credentials do to free up your time, if we're saying that you got into entrepreneurism, because you want freedom, then it's all about freeing up your time. So you want to delegate that out, too. And lastly, where are you really good, but you feel bogged down. So you want to delegate out those things that are your comfort zone. And what's left are the areas that you're really excited about. This is what we call the your zone of genius. And the more you engage in tasks that excite you, the more you can minimize those energy drains, the less at risk for burnout. You are, you know, unless you overdo that as well, of course, so, you know, when you have all that in place, you have to remember that you can't do everything yourself. You need other people to support you. And it's not about working 24/7 or working 100 hour weeks, you just can't do it.

Pete Mohr: 9:50

Yeah, it's so interesting, because just today on Instagram, I literally posted a carousel around you know, as you call it, your genius zone out I call it love it or leave it, I literally have this tool that I use in my coaching and it's called Love it or leave it, but it's very similar. And it's like working in your love zone and leaving the stuff that's you're either not good at or you don't love to do. And from that perspective, picking a few of those things and assigning accountability, you know, setting up the process and assigning accountability out to somebody else frees you up and take some of that overwhelm away very quickly. Are you feeling like you need a little more control over your business? Have you ever used a planner, and if you're like me, you've tried a ton of different ones. And that's why I've created the one page planner, I could never find one that aligned well with my life as an entrepreneur. So I just made one. It's a downloadable PDF that you can use electronically or print off. Personally, I love to write my note on my iPad with my Apple pencil, but you can download it for free along with the video on how to use it at simplifying entrepreneurship.com forward slash planner.

Dr Sharon Grossman: 11:06

Yeah, I was gonna say when we talk about freedom, it's not just about time freedom, but it's also this is a version of freedom, right? That I am for sure. Just to focus on the things that I love the most, or that I'm passionate about the most or that I'm best at. Right? So. So that's another version of freedom. So when if you're listening to this, and you're like, yes, I want more freedom in my life. Where did all that go? I thought this is where I was gonna find it. Yeah, you have to like find the ways to get back to that place.

Pete Mohr: 11:34

One of the other things that we were chatting a little bit about was this idea of what are three ways to create a sustainable work practice? And I think this kind of leads into that. So why don't we chat a little bit around that too?

Dr Sharon Grossman: 11:48

Yeah, sure. So a very important one, the first one that I would say is setting boundaries. Because believe it or not, most of what's involved in burnout, recovery, and prevention is about having boundaries in place, they allow you to be intentional about how you spend your time and energy, what you're taking responsibility for, and making sure that you are taking care of your needs. So it's going to look a little bit differently for everybody, depending on where there isn't a boundary and what's really draining your energy. I always like to say, if you feel resentful, which is a sign of burnout, really, it is an indication that there's a lack of boundaries, right. So that should be like a red flag that says, Okay, this is what I need to be focusing on. Because something Something has to change. The second thing is to focus on recovery. So just when things aren't going your way, you might have that urge to push through. And while this is both natural and common, it's a mistake. Right? What you might need to do most at that point is to just step away from your work and give yourself a real chance to recover from the stress. Because one thing we know is that burnout is a result of chronic stress. So if you don't allow yourself recovery time, and the stress, just build and build one layer on top of the next you will burn out. So you want to think more long term. And that's one way to do that. And finally, it's about resetting your limiting beliefs, you might have noticed a ton of negative thoughts kind of swimming around in your head, this might be your version of normal, or it might be because you're really skating on thin ice and are burned out. Right. So we all have different sorts of beliefs that keep us pushing and going through all the motions. One of the biggest ones that I often find is, if you grew up with a parent who had a really strong work ethic, you might have adopted that idea. And you have this belief that hard work equals success. Or, you know, if you're an entrepreneur and you don't like to let go of control, it might be if I don't do it, nobody else will or it won't be done as well, or the business is going to stink, because I'm not the one doing it. So we have all these kinds of beliefs. And sure, and it's an opportunity for you to examine, like what is leading me to do as much as I'm doing. And there are some beliefs that you can trace that back to, and if you can identify those, then it's an opportunity to work and clean that up.

Pete Mohr: 14:25

Yeah, I love that. And, and as leaders, I think it's an important piece to that we look for and acknowledge this with our team as well. Because, like you said, setting boundaries. I mean, even something like I'm a big believer in scheduling emails, like I don't send my team emails at night, you know, after five o'clock they don't get emails on weekends, they don't get emails, that kind of stuff. They get scheduled out till their next working day. You know, things like that, you know, how do you work with people and entrepreneurs around this idea of helping their Your team's get through this sort of thing too, because especially with everything that's gone on over the last couple of years and work from home and all these different things, we're not only finding out that the owners and founders are burning out, but so are their team members.

Dr Sharon Grossman: 15:13

Exactly. So what I do is I, I'll actually come in, and I'll do a four part training for people where team members are understanding exactly what burnout is, right? So we want to get really, really specific. So when you know what something is, you know, what to look for. The biggest thing about burnout that I see is that people don't recognize that it's happening to them as it's happening. So they'll say, oh, you know, that job that I had three years ago, I realize now I was burned out, right? And so sometimes we you know, but a lot of times we just think it's stress, or it's exhaustion, and we don't have the right solution for the problem. So people are like, Oh, I'm not sleeping, well, maybe I'll get a new mattress, or I'll get those shades. You know, the blackout shades are, you know, they're trying to find the solution, but they don't recognize like what the actual issue is, right. And so that is the first step. And then from there, we go into building resilience, and burnout, recovery. And then once they're recovered, we talk about prevention, so it doesn't happen again. And I really weave in the concept of personality. So you understand, like what you're bringing to the table, because you might notice that you have a team of people, and they're all working under the same conditions. But some are burning out and others aren't. Yeah. So to really understand what the differences are, I also want people to look inside themselves and realize like, what are their own programming, conditioning and other things that they're bringing to the forefront that contributes to their burnout?

Pete Mohr: 16:49

Well, Dr. Sharon, I know that you've graciously are including here, the burn out checklist for our listeners to help get you through that and understand a little bit more about it. Why don't you tell them a little bit about the checklist and tell them how to get it and where to reach you if they'd like to learn a little bit more about what you do and your programs, of course,

Dr Sharon Grossman: 17:09

so the burnout checklist is a great tool. If you're listening to this and you're thinking, you know, I'm I've been feeling kind of tired, stressed out, I'm not sure if that burnout, or what should I be doing right now. So if you go to Dr. Sharon grossman.com, forward slash burnout checklist, you can download that as a free resource. And then of course, if you are listening to this, and you're like, you know, I really want to have a chat. I want to figure out like what's happening for me and maybe walk away with some breakthroughs and recovery strategy, then I do also offer a dial down your stress breakthrough session, which you can sign up for at book a chat with sharon.com.

Pete Mohr: 17:51

Sweet. Well, that's great. We'll include those in the show notes, of course. And I want to thank you for spend some time and helping people start to think about burnout. It's such a big piece of so many entrepreneurs, and they don't even know it in a lot of cases. Right. Dr. Sharon Harper sounds crazy. Yeah. And you know what, one of the things I like to say is that you can't run a healthy business without a healthy body and a healthy mind. And without the healthy mind and healthy body, the only thing you need to do is get those better before you go and have a healthy business. And I think that's why I've really enjoyed our chat today. So thanks so much for being here with us,

Dr Sharon Grossman: 18:28

likewise. And I also encourage everybody, if you're listening to this to check out the five P's that Pete always talks about, because overwhelm, if you're not managing that can actually turn into burnouts. It's a great burnout prevention strategy.

Pete Mohr: 18:44

Awesome. Thanks so much. We'll talk again soon. Thank you. So thanks for spending some time with us here today and think about how you can work on understanding burnout, the traps around burnout, the things that can happen, not only for you, but as I mentioned for your team, it's so important to have a healthy mind and a healthy body in order to run a healthy business. Burnout is such a big factor for so many entrepreneurs, we see it time and time again. We're workaholics, one of the peas and the five P's. The people all of your sphere of influence are affected by burnout. So what can you do and think about these things that Dr. Sharon was talking about? Download her burnout checklist so that you can self diagnose a little bit give her an opportunity to have a call with you one on one and of course it's something that I do too. regularly. I'm not a psychologist by any means. But something that I work with with a lot of my clients is burnout and the biggest steps in that is setting up the right process and having the right people those are those two peas right in the middle of the five P's. Something we work with a lot because you can have For to be burnt out. You can't afford to be unhealthy because your business will be too. So if you liked the podcast please share it with your friends and subscribe to our simplifying entrepreneurship YouTube channel as well. You can help me out by subscribing to the podcast and rating and reviewing this episode on Apple or Spotify by leaving up to five star review connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram or you can simply email me at Pete at more dot coach. The links for Sharon's information and for mine are all in the show notes. Make it a great day

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