Burnout Recovery
The podcast for slightly dented medics, execs and professionals seeking massive success, strong leadership and fulfilment. Weekly tips and techniques for high-achieving Type A professionals to beat burnout and restore outstanding leadership, performance and ease at work. Podcast hosted by Master Burnout Coach Dex Randall.
- Burnout Recovery Coaching https://dexrandall.com
- Guest Podcast Appearances https://bit.ly/dex-guest-appearances
Burnout Recovery
Ep#166 Powertools - What's next?
To complete your Powertools series, here's an episode summarising how to recover from burnout and what you can expect from Burnout Recovery coaching.
What is the Burnout Recovery coaching program?
Are you a good candidate? Is it a good fit for you?
What if you've already tried everything?
What's in the program and how does it work?
Sounds good? Come on a free consult to discuss your burnout situation and recovery goals. Book in at https://mini.dexrandall.com
Show Notes:
Join 10 Burnout Recovery Powertools FREE at https://go.dexrandall.com/power for all resources and exercises
----------------------------------- Burnout Resources:
Get 1-on-1 burnout recovery coaching at https:/mini.dexrandall.com
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[00:00:00] Hi everyone, my name's Dex Randall, and this is the Burnout to Leadership podcast, where I teach professional men to recover from burnout and get back to passion and reward at work.
[00:00:22] Okay, my friends, let's go. Welcome to this week's episode where I'm going to cover what's next for the end of the Burnout Recovery Power Tools series, which finished last week -week 10. And that series, I designed it so that you can recognize, and practice, having agency over your experience of work and life.
[00:00:47] In other words, so you can recover from burnout one little experience at a time. And really, so that you can become the successful leader that you're meant to be. And what I'm going to do today, since we've finished, I'm going to wrap up the whole series and I'm going to talk about how burnout recovery works and why I think it works that way.
[00:01:10] And then also, who's a good candidate for burnout recovery? And in the second half, I will talk about my step by step Burnout Recovery Coaching Program. And I'm going to answer some of your questions about it so that you can work out if burnout coaching is for you and will jet propel your ease of success into the future.
[00:01:33] So maybe you've listened to a few of the Power Tools episodes in the podcast already. If you're in burnout, I secretly hope you have because each one of them includes quick, simple, practical techniques that you can use to help yourself feel better no matter what's happening at work. And of course, there are additional free resources and worksheets on the Power Tools episode pages each week to help you understand yourself better and to speed you as you take the road to recovery and learn these skills.
[00:02:08] The tools that I'm sharing can be very important to you. Because they're practical and you can use them right away. And personally, because of the dark and hopeless place that burnout actually is, I reckon it's really good to have things you can do anytime to feel just that little bit better.
[00:02:30] To notice that you do have some control over how you feel and that you can create change. It's not all in somebody else's hands. I think when you use the tools that I'm teaching in my coaching practice and also in the power tool series, you can start to find and dig up and redeploy all that's good about you.
[00:02:54] It's been hidden a little bit in the back. You can use it to restore energy, mood, and balance in your work and in your home life. Anytime you're suffering, in fact, what you can do is pause for a couple of moments. Recall these skills that you might have learned and begin to reconnect with your capability to do good for yourself and for other people.
[00:03:20] And I've really not made this Power Tools series for any other reason than to help you. I would love you to be able to see and access your own power to incrementally restore goodness to your life, to your situation and your relationships. And I really just want you to know that you can do that. That is available to you.
[00:03:42] And of course, if you'd like help with that, or with any aspect of burnout recovery, come and talk to me. Tell me what's going on for you. And let's put a plan together for your personal recovery. Because for me, complete recovery from burnout happens within three months. That's my guarantee with coaching.
[00:04:02] So where are you going to be in three months if you don't do anything? I can't recommend that. But I think it's also worth noticing. Okay. The reason that hasn't happened for you so far, you've probably got some feeling now that everything is overwhelming, painful, exhausting, surely frustrating, and perhaps you believe that it's unrecoverable, beyond your control to fix it.
[00:04:27] And I'd really love to encourage you just to open your mind a little bit to the possibility of healing. I know it's very difficult to see from where you are inside burnout, but that doesn't mean you can't have it. It really has been my personal experience, firstly, that burnout isn't a fundamental part of us.
[00:04:49] It's not who we are. It also isn't a mental health issue. It may be entrenched for you, sure, but it isn't permanent. It's my contention that it is always recoverable and that it's usually recoverable in a shorter space of time than people imagine. And also, even if you're working with a diagnosed mental health condition such as depression, anxiety, panic, ADHD. Or if you're over consuming something like food or alcohol, social media, porn or whatever to compensate for your anguish and that's making things worse.
[00:05:31] Or maybe you're in conflict with your loved ones. Angry, avoidant and alone. Any of those things are not barriers. You can still recover from burnout. Because really burnout doesn't say anything at all about your worthiness or your intrinsic talents, abilities, skills, dedication. Even your, I'm not sure if this is a word, success ability.
[00:05:59] Or your personality. Or your future value as a professional or a leader. Burnout says nothing at all about the quality of your heart. Which is still good, even though you're mostly hiding it away, I expect, in self protection. Because I see burnout this way. Put simply, it's the inner and outer experience that manifests as exhaustion and suffering, when you drive yourself far too hard for far too long, in a quest- Often, in a ruthless external environment- to achieve success, stability, and security at work, and at home, because you're just one person, right?
[00:06:46] All of this, you're doing it so you can be happy. It makes sense that you're doing it, but unfortunately, the "pursuit of happiness" is flawed. That concept is flawed, sadly. Firstly, because it assumes that happiness is out there, not inside of you. And, if you're in burnout, I imagine your external environment is not all that conducive.
[00:07:12] It is not currently supporting your thriving, and it may never actively do that. Speaking to you, physicians, we hope that it will change. We're not really sure. Secondly, the pursuit of happiness, it ignores the underlying mechanism of happiness. that to regularly and reliably feel happy, we must first feel safe.
[00:07:35] And I think, if you're burning out, how often are you feeling unsafe? And how do you feel about your personal ability to reverse that and cause yourself to feel safe most of the time? Probably not very high. Burnout then is a highly focused intention of an intelligent human to achieve a level of external acceptance and endorsement that will ultimately render a feeling of safety inside, that they currently lack.
[00:08:10] So I think you can see the problem there. We're looking outside for a safety that isn't coming. And although being around wonderful people, animals, nature, or in faith and so on, can and do promote flickers of happiness and safety. Really, an adult's baseline emotional safety is mostly self created. Any emotional need that we seek to have met in the external environment is subject to the law of diminishing returns.
[00:08:47] Whatever you get from out there, it's not going to be enough. You'll always want more. You can't fill your spiritual hole from the unpredictable roller coaster of a life, peopled by other others who are drowning just like you. In burnout, we are not capable of particularly high function. If people around you are burning out, they can't either.
[00:09:13] So it's a no blame situation, but it's also if you want the world to make you feel okay, it's a bit of a no win situation. So it's my contention then instead that regardless of how challenging your work situation actually is, the only true solution that can produce enduring wellbeing for you is to learn to generate safety within.
[00:09:38] And for this, you need to come home to yourself, to your good heart, your values, your needs, and your personal formula for wellbeing. And this my friend is exactly what I teach and coach in my burnout recovery program and some of the things that I've been sharing with you in this Power Tools series. As I seek to teach my clients to be strong, resilient, authentic, high functioning humans, willing to engage with life and people in a way that nourishes and generates joy and success.
[00:10:17] Then it really doesn't even matter anymore whether they continue in their current role or switch jobs, it doesn't matter because their well being is internal by this time. And the external manifestation of that ,that they've created, is at work a confidence, ease, success, fruitful collaboration, leadership, and quite often promotion.
[00:10:44] So when we create internal well being, the external world notices and responds in a positive direction to us. So really I wanted today to take this opportunity to remind you that, wherever you're at, however desperate your situation is, however long it's been going on, however futile it all seems, if you're a leader or professional, you can learn the skills to elevate your experience, mood, energy, and passion and leave burnout behind forever.
[00:11:20] I can teach you how to believe in yourself at the level you secretly just know that you're capable of. You know what your potential is. And at the moment, you're probably not there, but the potential still is. So if you like, come and talk to me, no charge, about what's on offer for you in your future when you take on burnout recovery.
[00:11:42] So having said all of that, you might still be sitting there wondering, who is this bloke promising all that?
[00:11:47] And I think in some ways, I'm pretty much like you. I'm a highly trained, dedicated, accomplished professional and leader, inquisitive to study what's worked for other people. And when I myself suffered burnout during my previous career, in software leadership, I studied extensively for years and years to understand why a smart person like me couldn't lick the problem of burnout.
[00:12:13] I mean, I'd really been so successful with everything else. So here's a bunch of stuff that I've studied. Business excellence, leadership, team performance, communication, psychology, emotional intelligence, startups, entrepreneurship, onto Chinese medicine, spirituality, meditation, and yoga. Energy healing, because I'm very connected that way,
[00:12:38] I'm very intuitive. Nutrition, immunity, addiction, trauma, coaching, of course, holistic health, brain health, metabolic health, and anything else I could get my hands on that seemed to offer healing possibility for me and therefore probably for the people that I work with when I'm coaching. And in that first year for me, after I quit my job in burnout in 2017, I learned enough to heal myself.
[00:13:09] To my surprise! I actually applied for my one year professional coach training from a hospital bed after I got hit by a car. I couldn't even sit up. And since then, I've kept studying over nine years so I can help other people. And I've been coaching exclusively on burnout recovery,
[00:13:29] executive and leadership performance since 2018, which is way over 10, 000 sessions. And I think helpfully for me, I'm a systems thinker. So during the first few years and then progressively on from there, I developed a burnout recovery methodology that is very efficient. It really works. And I've made every step of the way, simple, clear, optimally effective, basically easy to follow for my clients. And that's the key to how I'm able to guarantee such rapid results for my clients. So if you would like to hear a bit more about that, get in touch with me, DexRandall. com. But what I wanted to do also today is, I want to answer some of the questions that you may have about Burnout Recovery Coaching Program.
[00:14:24] If you're wondering if it's right for you, for example, are you a good candidate? Well, this is who it works for. Any executive, leader, or professional in burnout. It's industry agnostic, because really I'll be working with you. We'll be working together on you developing your skills to survive whatever your situation is and thrive in that situation.
[00:14:48] We're not going to shoot your boss. We're not going to change your job or industry unless you feel like it, but we will nonetheless work together to routinely resolve all of your issues at work until you're happy. That's basically the process. And, having said that, I have worked across an enormous range of industries, including medicine, accounting, law, consulting, banking, finance, manufacturing, sales.
[00:15:18] The military uh, IT, academia, teachers, college students, psychotherapy, dentistry, media, film, and so on and so on. So really try me out. Come and have a chat. I only work with clients, by the way, for whom I can guarantee results. And we'll really quickly see together whether you're a fit for that or not.
[00:15:42] So that's it. Next question. What experiences are normal in burnout? Such a top question, this one. I think it helps in the first place for you if you assess yourself against what we call Type A behaviours, such as ambitious,
[00:15:59] organized, competitive, problem solver, hard driven, high performing, time urgent, impatient, sometimes angry or aggressive, and definitely leaders. If you can associate yourself and your style with any of those, then maybe you're in the right place already, but let's go on. So here's quite a long list of experiences you might have in burnout.
[00:16:24] So I'm just going to run down the whole thing because I think it helps you to be able to recognize that for yourself. So normal experiences in burnout include stress, anxiety, depression, exhaustion, low mood and motivation, anger, resentment, frustration, irritation, and impatience. Disengagement and cynicism, of course, as well as loss of autonomy, feeling ignored, undervalued, or disrespected.
[00:16:57] Shame, guilt, imposter syndrome, failure, loss of confidence. Procrastination, perfectionism, people pleasing, addictive, or avoidant behaviours. And difficulties with things like planning, attention, focus, concentration, problem solving, and of course decision making. Then relational conflict, loss of collaboration, and even the urge to collaborate.
[00:17:29] Withdrawal, isolation, and loneliness. Self criticism and ineffective or sometimes missing self support. And lastly, all manner of physical symptoms. For example, hypertension, insomnia, backache, headache, neck pain, jaw ache, indigestion, that's a big one. Sore eyes. Joint and muscle pain. Infections. Overeating.
[00:17:57] Overdrinking. Reluctance to exercise. Low immunity and of course loss of energy. So if you begin to recognize yourself in the attributes and experiences I've just described, this could be for you. And burnout recovery is for any age, any professional specialty and any career level.
[00:18:19] If you have Type A attributes and you feel burned out, this is for you. And the other big question I often get asked right after that is, well, what if you've tried everything already? It's quite common. Many people who come to me have tried everything that they could, including things like professional development courses, leadership courses, changing jobs, workplace team building initiatives, negotiating with the boss, in house business coaching, switching industry, or going to work for themselves.
[00:18:55] Of course, EAPs, support from the doctor, psychotherapy, addiction programs, faith or spiritual support, exercise, yoga, meditation, and holistic health therapies. Buying a gym membership, probably not using it, going on holiday or going on retreats, or taking extended leave from work. Most of those don't work for most people.
[00:19:24] Many people who come to me have often been furloughed at work. They've been laid off at work for a spell. For example, if they've had panic attacks or anxiety or not been coping with the workload, and they've been put on leave. Many people who come to me are on performance plans, which I find utterly regrettable and ineffective.
[00:19:43] Many people have also left their jobs and are now between jobs. So, people come to me in all kinds of stages of their burnout and of their progression of, the difficulties and challenges associated with that. And it's not really a problem which stage that you're at. And I will say that I myself tried what I thought of as everything when I was in burnout, including therapy, nothing really touched the sides at all for me.
[00:20:09] And when I left my job, I had a heart attack pretty swiftly. And then a few months later after that, I got hit by a car and I spent a few more months in hospital. So all of that that's happened to me, if it can work and I can recover from burnout, so can you. Many mental, physical, and emotional issues melt away once burnout recovery starts to take hold.
[00:20:35] And the aim really is to have you operating at a whole new level of being. So your human organism is functioning as a harmonious whole. So here's the way I think about it. This program is fast and effective with people who, number one, have a basic daily level of function. So not with any level of ill health or addiction or mental health or other problems that are debilitating enough that they prevent you from applying yourself to a course of study.
[00:21:11] So you've got a basic daily level of function . Two, are capable of self honesty, responsibility, and creating change. Because this program is a deep transformational experience in who you are and how you show up. You're not going to come out the same person you went in. So you need to be able to commit to creating that change within yourself.
[00:21:38] Number three, you need to be ready and willing to invest in yourself and do the recommended work. Obviously, if you don't do the work, I can't say anything about what will happen for your recovery. So you must be ready and willing to go for it. Even if you feel terrible, even if you lack motivation and discipline, I can help you out with that.
[00:21:59] I can help you out with commitment once you get into it, but you have to be willing to go through that change.
[00:22:05] So next question, what will life be like after burnout recovery coaching? Oh, here's a kind of snapshot of a bunch of things that people usually experience. One, problems will not feel so big and so serious and so terrifying. People will not seem so obnoxious. Because we don't like people that much in burnout, do we?
[00:22:28] Work will not feel so demoralizing. Even though the environment hasn't changed, only you have. You're probably going to sleep a lot better and stop waking up in dread in the morning. You're going to feel more energized, more enthusiastic, more ready to crack on with your day. Your mind, body and spirit will start to reintegrate instead of everything being a war inside you.
[00:22:53] And you'll begin to have better emotional intelligence and greater compassion for yourself and others. And less fear of being seen, fully seen as you, the authentic you. You're going to relax and enjoy better health, energy, mood and motivation. And you're going to feel more like taking care of yourself and your health.
[00:23:17] Trust will increase. You'll trust yourself more, and you'll trust other people more, and therefore working with other people will become easier and more fun. Problem solving will become a game instead of a risk. Your schedule will be more manageable and not so draining. Your passion will return. Success will come more easily to you, and quite likely your colleagues are going to notice a big change in you that makes them really want to seek you out and work with you again.
[00:23:46] And of course, on the back of that, relationships will start to feed you instead of draining you. You're going to feel purposeful and useful at work. Your boss will actually probably notice how useful you now are. Promotion prospects will increase and you'll start seeing fun opportunities around you for expansion.
[00:24:06] So that's just a flavor. It might sound a bit far fetched to you, but that's actually what happens. That's what my clients experience. Okay, next question. What if it doesn't work for me? Well, firstly, you've got nothing to lose, I do guarantee my work. And if it isn't working for you in the first four weeks, you can have your money back.
[00:24:28] Hasn't happened, but you could. And I would say to you like this, in four weeks, if you don't do anything, how are you going to feel? In three months, in six months, if you don't do anything, how are you going to feel?
[00:24:39] If I can promise you burnout recovery inside three months I can't think what would hold you back from that if you're really suffering in burnout right now. But really it depends on you. It depends on you yourself much more than the individual challenges you're facing or the burdens you're under.
[00:24:57] If you're a Type A professional in burnout, if you're willing and capable of normal adult function, investing in showing up for yourself, being honest and doing the work of creating change. And taking responsibility for the results you will create, then you can recover. Okay, next question. How do you start burnout recovery?
[00:25:20] I always talk to people before I take them on as clients. If you want to come on the burnout recovery coaching program with me. I will speak to you on a free consult beforehand so that we can make sure that we're a good match. And what I'll do on the consult is I'll tell you exactly how I work, but mostly I really want to hear about you, what your problems are now, where you're trying to get to, what a solution would look like for you, how you'll know you've made that recovery that you seek.
[00:25:47] What becomes available to you once you get there, because then that gives me the ability to guarantee that I can take you to that place if I know where you're trying to get to. So this is all about you and your goals. You get to set the goals for your program. And we might talk about what you've already tried to recover and why you're still in burnout, because I think it's important to realize that the recovery that you will make from burnout is internal to you.
[00:26:19] And the reason that this program that I run works, whereas other programs and initiatives don't, is that I'm fixing burnout at the root cause, whereas other people are trying to address symptoms. Okay. And I don't think that really works. It doesn't really stick, because if you come out of burnout temporarily, you're going to go back in later, unless you fix the root cause.
[00:26:42] And when we fix the root cause, we're fixing that internal to you. How have you ended up in burnout? And we look at all the internal fixes that are available for that. What you can control, not the stuff you can't control. What you'll really be doing is returning to your true nature. Not trying to be who you think other people want you to be.
[00:27:04] Just come and be you, because the real you is pretty stellar. It's a bit under wraps at the moment. You're trying to pretzel yourself into who you think you need to be to succeed at work. But when you come back to the true you, the 75 percent of your power that you're not currently using comes back on board.
[00:27:23] And I also would share with you this, you don't need any previous experience in burnout recovery. However you come to me, your professional attributes will be enough. I know you're hardworking. I know you're dedicated. I know you're a problem solver. I know you're going to show up with as much discipline as you can muster.
[00:27:44] And I know you're going to do the work. So if you can turn up to me , in burnout, with the professional attributes that you've always had anyway, it is a leap of faith from there. So I'm talking to you now and I'm telling you how I see things. You don't really know how that's going to play out for you.
[00:27:59] It is a leap of faith. But that's why I guarantee the work really so that you're willing and able to make that. I understand that it's a trade off, but really starting Burnout Recovery is simply booking a call with me. It's a one hour call and telling me all the stuff that's going wrong for you and telling me where you'd want to get ,to fix that.
[00:28:19] And let's see if we can make a plan to meet that.
[00:28:21] What does coaching look like? Next question. Okay, let's talk about the mechanics of the coaching process. I do a weekly call with my clients, face to face one on one, and then I also supply some study resources and exercises to help promote growth between the weekly sessions. So I can only teach and coach.
[00:28:44] You yourself, if you come on as a client, will be empowered to create your own recovery by learning new skills and applying those skills. So that's what I'll do with you. I'll also teach you a self coaching process, and the reason I teach that is it's a tool to start feeling better in a moment of crisis, where you feel terrible, where you're suffering, where you're in pain, everything's gone wrong.
[00:29:08] It enables you to extricate yourself from the pain without changing the problem, just to turn down the volume of your own pain, become a bit more cool, even handed about it. So that's the self coaching as well. What's included in my offer is 11 weekly calls over a three month period. They're one on one coaching calls with you and me.
[00:29:35] Then around that, every time I listen to you, I'm helping you evolve your personal journey to burnout recovery based on the goals you've given me. So it evolves over the whole course of the program according to how you're showing up that week, what your problems are that week what difficulties you need to have resolved in that moment, as well as learning the skills to create your own ongoing recovery.
[00:30:01] You also get unlimited email support throughout the course of the program, just to make sure we accelerate your progress. So the way the three month cuts down is. There's a six week period where I teach you all of the basic, I call them self righting skills. So you're suffering at the moment, in six weeks I want to bring you back to buoyancy, so you're underwater now.
[00:30:24] I want to bring you back to buoyancy in six weeks and I teach you some self rescue, some self righting skills to do that. And they're really about Self actualization, being more you and bringing back the power of you. Executive presence, building consummate confidence, having emotional intelligence and that building strength and resilience and courage in you.
[00:30:50] Enhancing your people and teamwork skills and getting a bit of Teflon time management happening as well. So they're the real basics. And you'll set a goal for how you want to feel at the end of six weeks. For example, somebody might come in and they might say, my daily rating of anxiety is eight out of ten, and I want to bring it down to three out of ten in six weeks.
[00:31:12] Okay, good, because now we've got something to aim at. So usually the goal in the first six weeks is how you want to feel. Or how you want your energy to be, because you need to come really back up to a much higher level of base function to feel okay, to continue on with the rest of the work. So want to get your energy up, get your mood up, get your motivation up in the first six weeks, and you set that goal yourself for what that would look like for you.
[00:31:40] And then every week we work and it's tailored to you and where you're at on that week. So whatever issues are coming up that week, we will resolve. And I think really what happens is at the end of six weeks, we get to buoyancy. Then I have you set a second goal for the second set of coaching based on What it would look like for you to be out of burnout.
[00:32:02] What's your measure of being out of burnout? How would that appear to you? What's your goal for being out of burnout? And how can we measure against that? Because I know you're a goal driven person and I sure am. And when we set that goal, We'll meet it. I will guide you towards it. So really you should be out of burnout within three months and the way I'll know is you'll start coming to me excited about new opportunities.
[00:32:26] You'll have a bit of a spring in your step and the whole tone of your voice and your engagement with the idea of work will have changed considerably. And the excitement will bubble up. I could do this. I could do that. I feel like doing this. Or this has come up. Or how about if I look at that?
[00:32:43] This is how you'll start to be when your passion has returned at work. That's how we'll know. And we'll still measure this against your goal. And I think the lifetime value of this work is we're changing who you are at work forever. So the lifetime value, I really mean not just this year, next year, this job, next job.
[00:33:04] I'm talking about the whole rest of your career and on into retirement. This is a transformational program. It's transforming how you are being in order that you can have a better experience of yourself and your work and your life. So it's got a very long tail. And after you finish working with me, it tends to continue to improve and improve as you continue to have compound interest on the skills that you've learned.
[00:33:32] The lifetime value is. You'll stay out of burnout forever. You've got a springboard for career expansion in any direction you choose. You become creative, eager to explore new opportunities. You give higher value in any role because now you've got greater emotional intelligence and you're using all of your authentic power.
[00:33:56] You also have increasing versatility with people and projects. And this revival of passion and enjoyment at work, other people are going to notice, right? So you'll be more deployable across more diverse roles. And the other really, really important Lifetime value of burnout recovery is how we are outside of work, because at the end of the day, it's the people we care about that matter the most.
[00:34:29] Burnout recovery will yield a great deal more energy and enthusiasm and ability to engage effectively with people outside work, your partner, your family, your friends, or even just hobbies. So that side of your life will also be more fruitful and more rewarding.
[00:34:52] So that's just a quick overview. You may still have questions, which I'm happy for you to send to me, but that's what I have for you today. And I really hope that you've enjoyed the Power Tool series this last couple of months. I really have enjoyed making it, but mostly I really hope you've learned and you're practicing some of the tools that you've come across there and that they're helping you to improve your work day.
[00:35:16] That's it. Little by little. Just want you to apply those things to your situation and see if they work for you. Of course, if you're in burnout and you need a bit more help, come and talk to me for free. As I said earlier, let's make a plan for you to recover quickly and sustainably and get back to your best performance, leadership, success, and most of all, enjoyment inside work and out.
[00:35:42] You can book an appointment with me at DexRandall. com. If you've enjoyed today's show , I'd love you to share the podcast with your mates. Also rate and review the podcast because this is how we reach out and help more people who suffer in burnout. Thank you for listening. I'll catch you next time.
