The Career Confidence Podcast
The Career Confidence Podcast
75. Healing Systemic Wounds for a Healthier Workplace
In this episode, I chat to Lazz Tomic, an expert in employee well-being and safety, to transform your understanding of burnout and workplace wellness.
Lazz shares his journey from physical therapy to corporate injury management and his advocacy for a holistic approach to employee health.
We discuss root causes of poor well-being and provide actionable strategies for companies to prioritise their staff’s health.
We also tackle the epidemic of loneliness and disconnection in today’s corporate world, emphasising the importance of balancing financial KPIs with fostering genuine human connections.
Lazz and I share personal anecdotes on the role of trust and vulnerability in creating a supportive work environment. We explore the generational shift in workplace values and how leaders can bridge the gap between older and younger employees' priorities.
Lastly, we delve into the importance of maintaining a business's founding purpose and the balance between profit-driven motives and nurturing leadership qualities.
Join us for an episode filled with valuable advice on creating a healthier and more connected workplace.
Connect with our Guest
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lazztomic/
Connect with the host:
Website: https://marijaduka.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marija-duka/
Instagram: @marija.duka
Click HERE to sign up to the free 3 mindset shifting e-lessons.
Welcome to the Career Confidence Podcast, the podcast for driven lawyers wanting to step out of the traditional path and build fulfilling and purposeful careers.
Speaker 1:I'm your host, maria Dukar, legal counsel and career coach, helping you navigate your career with intention and confidence. In this podcast, we don't shy away from having real conversations about topics that matter to us. Driven AF go-getters From manifesting your dream career, negotiating the salary you deserve, creating your personal brand, knowing when it's time to pivot. We cover these topics and so much more. You ready, let's dive into today's episode. I feel like we're going through a burnout crisis at the moment, and the thing is, with burnout, you don't really know you're burnt out until you are very much deep into it and your body starts to show signs. You are very much deep into it and your body starts to show signs. Now, I see a lot of this in my line of work as a career coach, but I also see this as being a lawyer and being in the industry, and there's so much layers to burnout. It's not just this one simple thing that causes burnout, but it is very multi-layered.
Speaker 1:Now, in today's conversation with Laz Tomic, we are going to be talking about wellbeing in the workplace and how that impacts your life. Laz is an experienced work cover injury management and safety specialist, with his main focus being on employee wellbeing, experience, psychosocial early intervention and work cover performance. His specialisation is mainly with the caregiving and NGO sector, with a strong purpose to empower conscious HR, safety, wellbeing and injury management professionals to remove current difficulties and evolve from traditional to integrated support for their people and organisation. His mission is to contribute to the healing of systemic wounds that are contributing to the deterioration of people's health, well-being and the health performance of individuals in the workplace. In this episode, laz and I talk about what the root cause of poor well-being in the workplace is. We talk about how companies can go beyond the financial KPIs by focusing on things like empathy, compassion and other softer skills to ensure employees' health and wellbeing is prioritised. We talk about how to deal with the challenges that come up in terms of burnout in the workplace, and we speak about how the lack of human connection is a constant issue that is happening in the workplaces where you could be surrounded by so many people but feel very much alone, and how that is contributing to poor wellbeing in the workplace as well. We talk about this and so much more Now.
Speaker 1:Without further ado, let's dive into this episode and meet Laz. Hi Laz. Welcome to the Career Confidence Podcast. Hi Mariette, thank you. Thanks for having me. You're so welcome. I'm really excited for our conversation today. I know this is a topic that you're passionate about and an area that you work in, so I guess let's just dive on straight into it and introduce yourself to the audience. So if you could tell our listeners who is Laz and what it is that you do, so my professional career was started as OH&S well-being rehab everything in that space, end to end.
Speaker 2:H&S well-being rehab everything in that space end-to-end. I've done more than five, six years of work in that space and it was usually in professional industries. I was always passionate about how can we strengthen human connection and have thriving, well-being and performance in organizations where I worked and, yes, I've built and found my purpose through my work. Aside from career and job, I love I love playing pickleball, I play a few sports, going to the gym, I'm doing a lot of self-development work, what I found very important for also improving my career, life and everything, and I'm trying to look always from that holistic perspective. Yeah, I think every day I try to have some healthy habits, things such as meditation and movement and good social life, and of course, it's never a perfect balance, but I am just striving to get 1% better in life every month or every year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. No, I love that you obviously practice what you preach. You know you're very passionate about well-being and that's something that you make sure that you're taking care of in your own life, which I love to hear. Where did your passion for workplace well-being and safety come from? Like was that through your own experiences or through seeing other people struggle? Where did this come from?
Speaker 2:Great question. The majority of that came from my personal struggles. So I started a career as a physical therapist. I was a remedial massage therapist in Melbourne and what happened was 90% of my clients were corporate employees or professionals and a lot of them were from legal industry. And I was was shocked. There are people who work high-risk jobs, highly physical, demanding, and they're not coming for therapists. It was mostly people who sit in the office.
Speaker 2:So I started exploring what is happening, like what, and then I realized how much of stress we have in sedentary jobs and after that I realized I'm kind of with one-to-one work that I've done. It's not scalable enough and it is not holistic enough in nature. So if I, you know, help somebody fix their back ache, they go back to a stressful job and they come back again with another attention that I need to release and it's never enough. So I decided to come and try to support people from different perspective. And then, you know, entering corporate the job, what was my first role was recover. Insurance industry was something what started bringing lots of struggles and challenges that I would face previously with my clients in physical therapy. Then I would face personally as employees. So yeah, I will. I guess we will cover more later in our chat. But entering that corporate career brought up so many challenges that showed me where I found passion later on to fix pretty much, to work towards fixing them on some level.
Speaker 1:I love that you bring a different and fresh perspective to workplace wellbeing, because you didn't originally come from a corporate background. You came from the physical therapy background, right, so you can actually see the impact of the stress on someone's body, and I love how then you took that and you're like, oh, I actually want to dive more deeper into this and help someone more holistically. And then you started to build your career from there. So think it's, yeah, really cool to just say a different perspective in terms of someone working in this space, because there's a lot that you will bring. Knowing the physical impact of stress, yes, on someone's life.
Speaker 2:So in physical therapy job I had, you know, I spoke to hundreds of clients and it is through that conversation I try to understand every time what are the factors that are causing attention, muscle stress, and I figured out majority was around work.
Speaker 2:We spend so much time at work and if you're not happy, if it is toxic there, we're not getting along with colleagues, we're not happy with the job we do.
Speaker 2:There's so much tension in our body, mind, muscles, it affects our habits outside of work and it starts this downward spiral. And, yes, this is exactly what helped me expand my mind and start digging deeper. So one of the reasons why I moved into a very covered space and this was very interesting, I had access to thousands of doctors reports and I had portfolio of over 500 injured ex-workers from victoria and I had beautiful opportunity to learn about, you know, end to end, from the day when they get injured, how is therapy going and and how are they trying to recover their fitness for daily activities and for work. And then I could understand the way they fail, like why do we fail on systemic level? And this is why I had so much passion to dig deeper into that space and I found many gaps that we can cover later in our chats today or some other time, but there is much to talk about here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really cool, like, it's cool as in as in, like the perspective you bring, not the injuries that people are facing, but the fact that you initially got to see it from a physical therapy perspective. Then you got to handle all of these files and see the impact on these people's lives. And, like, I guess from your experience, what do you feel has been the root cause of poor well-being in workplaces? So obviously you work in the corporate space, so it's like a sedentary job. You know, I work in this space too, like we sit alone and I'm moving as much. But, yeah, what do you feel like is the root cause of the poor well-being?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, I think, and again I will bring your answers from holistic perspective, so it would be hard to say one thing. So there is several but but let's try to be brief about it. So definitely human connections and in relationships. So if we don't have trust with our colleagues and our leaders, this is first trigger for our stress and for first emotional well-being. That again can bring issues to our physical body and to non-work related things. So human connections, I think, is massive problem.
Speaker 2:Or if you look at the root cause of issues, then we have, you know, job design. So if we have too much admin side of work and we don't have enough time to focus on our clients face to face, then again this is another type of stress. Then just a nature of just design of physical environment. So we are sitting all the time in front of computer and this is obviously not as healthy for our eyes not moving enough. Our posture is really, you know, forward shoulders and this creates a lot of issues. Our core and glutes muscles are not activated enough, what doesn't give enough stability to our spine. So this can later on create other issues.
Speaker 2:From typing too much we can have a risk of developing carpal tunnel syndrome or other musculoskeletal health issues. So we can look from different perspectives and I like to bring glances to all of these. So yes, we can. Just by sitting down facing screen for prolonged periods of time and not having trustworthy connections with our team can be big problems. Then, on the top of that, we can have abusive or highly stressed clients and this is a whole new topic that can again bring more stress. And I think all these things combined together, if we don't have good tools in place to mitigate these hazards, there is a risk for developing some sort of issues. And now we know studies. There's so many studies showing that over 50% of working population is having burnout and other mental health challenges. What is, I believe, alarming. I think we need to do something about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Absolutely Like. It's something that's very common in the legal profession. But before I dive into a question around the effective ways to deal with the challenges, I really wanted to dive a little bit more deeper in terms of the lack of connection in the workplace. This is something that I recently spoke at my old university and the moderator he asked the panel what's one skill that's lacking in the workplace at the moment, and we all it was interesting because we all on the panel like all agree that currently there's a lack of human connection. Would you agree with that, like what's your, I guess take on that and what are some practical ways we can actually strengthen human connection?
Speaker 2:Couldn't agree more and I personally changed my. I quit my job and that was one of the reasons I had, you know, pretty good salary. And I woke up one day and I just said to myself you know, I spent so much time over there, you know, it's not just eight hours sitting at the desk, but it is, you know, time for preparing for work and after. And I was like, if I don't feel happy and I can't be happy, that's, that's me, not everybody's the same, but I can't be happy if I feel lonely and isolated. And there is something called situational loneliness. What, to me, is that you know you're surrounded with so many people, but you feel isolated and disconnected. And this was so painful for me and that was one of the main reasons why I quit my job is because I couldn't handle anymore, you know, just just ongoing loneliness and disconnection and just coming there and feeling that my entire environment, my colleagues, are focused on KPIs given by superiors and for sake of earning money and surviving and making for a living. I know we need that as well, but I think we need balance. I think for everything in life we need balance, and I think we have crisis in the corporate world today of leaning too much towards financial kpis and price that you're paying is is lost connections, human connections, and your question was how can, what can we do and how can we strengthen that?
Speaker 2:I think it starts from the top. What is hard sometimes? I watched some something yesterday it says only four percent of ceos and c-suite you know, top leadership knows about challenges that are faced by frontline employees. So this tells us how difficult it is when we don't have, you know, this understanding in top guys, who hold most power. They don't have full understanding of what is happening out there between clients and frontline employees. So we need them.
Speaker 2:We need top leaders to literally come walk around and talk one-on-one with frontline employees, with clients, to understand what challenges are being faced and then to start slowly building trust. I think the key ingredient that we need for fostering more connections is trust. We need to build trust with our colleagues who are sitting next to us, with our direct manager and with top leadership. We need to feel that you know, when I come to that office, I know that I can be myself, I can be genuinely who I am, without feeling you know shame, or without feeling you, without feeling that I don't belong, or that I will be rejected or anything, and I think this is the crucial part is through trust.
Speaker 2:We can start feeling fine to be vulnerable, and vulnerability is the key. Being fine to be vulnerable is a gateway to human connection.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really resonate with what you're saying, because I've worked in like bigger corporate firms where there's so many people around me, but I felt really lonely and isolated. There was that lack of human connection and also it didn't feel like a safe space for vulnerability either. It wasn't something that was prioritized. So I think that's really important that you said that around being able to be yourself and being vulnerable, but also the environment needs to be safe for you to open up and actually feel like you can be yourself, whereas, whereas you know, for example, my current workplace like it is very much encouraged to be ourselves, everyone talks openly about what they might be struggling with, and that just gives other people permission to also be able to share from their heart too, which then makes us even better performers in turn, because we feel, like you know, we have that trust, trust that mutual trust from employer. So, yeah, just from my personal experience, like everything is saying yeah, 100%, like agree with that, because I've experienced that myself.
Speaker 2:I'm very glad to hear that, because my last role I worked as a consultant with lots of large companies and and I'm so happy to hear it's not a lot of people told me that recently. Especially generations that are millennials and this is, I guess, our generation younger guys as well, you know are, you know, I would rather work for less money but to be happier and to feel more connection to what I do than to have massive age but to feel, uh, you know that my well-being is being fully impacted and, yeah, I'm optimistic about the future. But the question is only how are we going to transition there? Is it going to be painful? And, and you know how what ways are we going to find as collective level from the system and government? Can we rely on them or no, or we have to do work ourselves?
Speaker 2:What means leading the team? So team leader and us, or to be supported by senior leaders? I think we can tackle from all perspectives, but the best is to start. What is what we have control over? What is our teams? You know, having vulnerable, open conversations on meetings and just bringing it up and being vulnerable, being fine to say hey, you know, I had anxiety last week. You know I was a bit depressed. I wasn't in good mood. You know I had, you know, my, my mom or somebody I need to look after. My family member, my grandma had stroke last week, so why wouldn't bring that up, you know, and show vulnerability, and then maybe my colleague is going to do the same and we slowly start building trust and opening up. And I think that's what it starts this positive chain of towards building that strengthening trust within the team. But I really believe it has to. Leader is playing massive role there.
Speaker 1:Team leader absolutely, I 100% agree because, yeah, you could naturally be someone that might like to share vulnerably, but if you have a leader that shuts it down, doesn't listen or puts you down for it, then you're less likely to share again openly because you don't feel safe to do so. So, yeah, it is something that does need to come from the top, and can you give one perspective, maybe?
Speaker 2:yeah, probably not a lot of people will give and I think it is very so. You know there is something called, let's say, trauma work. So there is different modalities and type of psychological approaches, but we know how important is a father-child connection. So when we are kids we need them. We can't survive without connection with family. And as we grow up so they're our primary caregivers mother and father and then as we grow up primary school, high school we outsource that. So we say, okay, now you have teacher, you have caregiver.
Speaker 2:And then when we come to work environment so we finish studying, we come into work environment. So we finish studying, we come into work environment. Our leaders are our authority figures. So they're pretty much. We're not as developed as humans. We still have these needs because they hold power. Our team manager is the guy who can put us on performance management plans.
Speaker 2:So we are scared of that and we are so attached to what kids and what we need most today is we need mature leaders who are like parents to employees and not I don't mean directly parents, but they're secondary caregivers. So they're pretty much affecting our emotions day to day, positively or negatively. So we need mature leaders who are grounded and strong enough or have capacity to hold space for us to feel safe, emotionally safe, in the work environment in the same way that father and mother are supposed to give to their child. And of course that doesn't happen always. That's why we have so much trauma in society.
Speaker 2:But in the workplace, I will say I'll be a bit vulnerable now and I'll say in my personal experience, trauma that I have developed is from the work environment. I haven't experienced anything traumatic as in childhood, but I did later on in the work environment because I didn't feel safe and I felt wounded by lack of care from secondary caregivers, because if I feel that they're going to performance, manage me and I don't have enough money to pay my rent and I get fired or something, I'm in big trouble. So I was constantly in that sense of fear. But yeah, Absolutely.
Speaker 1:I feel like there's so many different ways you could take this right. There's so many multiple like it's not a simple topic, right, and there's so many things that do cause poor well-being in the workplace, right, and there's so many things that do cause for well-being in the workplace. But I agree, there is this sense of like, duty of care from leaders and they do need to have that maturity and I like that you use that word maturity to be able to lead rather than abuse that power and bully people or abuse people or make them feel unsafe and use their job, I guess, like as punishment in terms of like, oh, if you don't do what I say, then you could potentially lose your job, which will make people obviously feel very much unsafe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there is a great scene. With great power comes great responsibility, isn't?
Speaker 1:it right yeah.
Speaker 2:If we are appointed to be CEO, is this company having? What is the purpose of this company? Are we on the mission, are we traveling towards that or no? We are just trying to meet KPIs or something. So I think this is something so important, not just for career, this is for everything in life. Yeah, but it's not easy.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's definitely not easy, but at least I feel like at least now we are, there's more people talking about it, there's more people that are more likely to quit their jobs if they do, through all that trauma because they were maybe too scared to leave, Whereas now I feel even the younger generation, they don't tolerate that kind of behavior as much as like the older generation used to tolerate as well. So it takes time and it takes it's like generational change as well. So it's not going to be tomorrow, but we hopefully get there and like obviously businesses do need to make money to sustain themselves, right? So they have their financial KPIs, which it's normal, like every business has KPIs. But how can they find the balance of, you know, the financial success whilst ensuring that the employee's health andbeing is prioritised? We've obviously touched on a few different areas, but is there anything else that you feel could provide balance to businesses to be able to do that?
Speaker 2:Definitely so. My perspective is, let's say, plentiff Legal Company and somebody started it 100 years ago because they personally witnessed some massive injustice. They decided they're going to study to become a lawyer and they want to bring more justice on the planet. And now, 57 years after this person passed away and this company kept growing, and we have massive you know, international, maybe multinational company that started from somebody's vision and purpose for more just world. But then we apply for job in that company and we see on the day one that this company is far from that. Like the only thing that is asked from us to do is to meet billable hours to you know whatever is in that space to be done and to meet. You know specific kpis around. Uh, you know financial targets and things like that. What is needed? Definitely we need that to survive and to have good salaries and things like this.
Speaker 2:But what is the moment when we dropped the purpose that started this company and I see companies or entities is same as as kid, you know, little baby, you start, you have vision. You know you want to become a parent. So same thing. You know you start company with a vision you want to bring something better to this planet and then you know I feel we can either more like watering plants, you know you can care and look after company and make sure that you know purpose is being served by doing these things, taking more legal cases that are towards justice, social justice. You know protecting whistleblowers, you know doing things if you're a social justice legal company and I think that's the way to protect sacredness of the purpose, initial purpose of business, and I worry that we've lost this. So it is the same with child. You know you have a child and first three, four, five years you feed and emotionally support children and then, after they turn eight or something, they say I can't, I don't have capacity for this, or I'm just going to feed them, but who cares for other things? And then it becomes criminal or something. It just ends up in jail or with so much trauma later on in life because we stopped caring for that kid. And I think it is same what we need to do for businesses. We need to protect sacredness of the purpose, initial purpose of business.
Speaker 2:So my purpose was to build some sort of consultancy or company or tool, technological tool that can help most vulnerable employees feel educated, supported and empowered. And if, for as long as I live up to my purpose and again need to make sure that I survive. You know, look for funding or you know I need to charge for services, I'm happy. But if it happens in five years down the road that I'm just focused on charging as much as possible, and just charging as much as possible and just extracting as much as possible money from government grants, charity funds and from clients and raising prices and all these things, and if my entire day-to-day operations of my business becomes just that and I force all my employees to do that, I am lost, my purpose is lost and this becomes soulless, a business that is just about survival and pretty much and this is needed, as we said we need to pay employees, we need to pay rent of facilities where we work, we need to buy equipment to maintain. So there is so much, there are risks, we need to pay insurance All these challenges that we have.
Speaker 2:What I'm sad about is that we're losing something. What is free, human connection and purpose is free. You don't pay that, but we need to sit down. There is investment needed of time and space to sit down and to really ask you know, are we aligned to our initial purpose of this company and job that we are doing? What is it bringing this planet to look like?
Speaker 2:You know, if I keep doing more of this work, I do this. You know these type of legal cases or you know whatever is job about. How am I bringing? What am I bringing to this planet? So if I'm manufacturing some soda drink like, how is this planet going to look like in five years? We're going to have more obesity or more. You know, more challenges, chronic health issues that we know our soda drinks bringing. But what if I work as a? You know I have social charity company that helps planting trees, so we're going to have planets with more trees and more fresh air for people to breathe.
Speaker 2:So I'm not trying to say that everybody should work social impact business, but I'm just trying to say that every company is having some purpose and the more we are aligned to that and bringing that up on all meetings, and especially from top leaders, there is more chance that we will be closer to that balance and it doesn't have to be perfect balance, but it can be closer.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, I think is crucial, one of crucial ingredients for healthy cultures. If we are all going to work just for money. Then you know there is this. They're bringing that energy of survival and just carelessness. You know it doesn't have as much in depth as if you're going to work, to work on legal case that is helping bring justice or I don't know some sexual abuse that happened or something that really hurt somebody and it be as lawyers can bring something back, some justice there. So maybe this is a bit utopian way of I'm looking, because we know you. In legal cases and everything else in life it is not just some. There are different layers and problems and things and not all is perfect.
Speaker 1:But I think we all do need that purpose. I know it's like the perfect world, the utopian world, but as human beings we do need some sort of purpose in our lives and we need to find that why behind what we do too, and in terms of where we work. If we just work somewhere and the company itself does not know what their purpose is, or they've lost their way and all they're doing is just trying to drive profit without really having meaning behind what they do and why they do it, then that will just make employees not even want to work as hard either, because they lose their vision as to why they're doing that in the first place. I think the psychologist Simon Sinek he has said like find your why. Even as a company, you need to know what your why is, and that actually does impact performance and drives higher results too, because you're motivating people with a bigger vision.
Speaker 2:Can I just say something very important in this part? You said something amazing and I think let's just look from this perspective. So, if you're driven more by our why, yeah, yes, and just look from. We said previously that how important it is to have mature leaders who are grounded and feeling that sense of responsibility and caring. So imagine when companies, if they would start hiring and promoting people based on their character traits, compassion, empathy and human traits and this can only happen if they're more grounded in purpose.
Speaker 2:If you're driven just by financial progress, by profits, if our only KPI is profit, then we're going to hire and promote people who are high performance but they're highly toxic as well yeah so this is why it's purpose very important, because it is going to motivate us as well to hire people who are more compassionate, empathetic and who are more that, you know, yin, yang, yin, softer energy. We need to bring more softer energy to organizations. Now is too much. Young bodies do, do, do. Let's run, let's chase as much profits as possible to please shareholders, whatever. It doesn't matter to have better salaries in the future, but no, let's try to water seeds to nourish these yin, softer energies. What is passion? Human connections, care, compassion, empathy and things like this.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I'm glad that you said that because I do agree, Like I do feel like we live in a society that's very much yang and it's all about output and the driving results and not so much, unfortunately, about the softer skills. But imagine that KPIs within companies, like embedded in those KPIs, were things like compassion, leadership and empathy, like how much healthier the workplace would be and people being promoted on other qualities other than just driving results. Also, I just want to say that I feel like you could be a very high performer and also be a compassionate person too, and, if anything, I feel like there'll be more higher performers if you're in an environment where you know you feel safe, that you're recognized for your other skills other than just making money for the company or the firm. So, yeah, I just I don't feel like they have to be mutually exclusive. I do feel that the modern redefinition of a high performer should include all of these other softer skills that you can be both. We need both.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because let's just imagine a company that is Yin-focused only so we would have everybody being, you know, being fluffy. Oh, let's decorate our office to look nice. Let's chat, have coffees, let's enjoy. You know, let's decorate our office to look nice. Let's, you know, let's chat, have coffees, let's enjoy. You know, be relaxed, and and oh, this client is so like, you know. But yeah, but you need to get salary, you know, at the end of this month. You know we need to to make sure that we meet our deadlines for our clients, and so this is young energy that we need as well.
Speaker 2:And what I'm a bit sad about is that my desire to see more yin energy in corporate world and corporate culture is seen as utopian today, and I think this is urgent need if you don't want to continue with burnout, with high stress, with lost connections, that we have massive crisis now. We need to bring more yin energy as soon as possible, and I lost hope that it will come from the top down. It is very hard, you know. If shareholders are looking for highly performing CEOs, we're going to. You know we have these perverse incentives, which means people are being rewarded for bringing more profits into a company and not rewarded for bringing more yin energy. If we talk in this language, we will have problems. So the only solution is to go bottom up. So it's people like you, me and others recording more podcasts, bringing raising awareness out there to people and then designing programs and tools and things that are bringing more of this out there, and to hope that we have people from middle management who are going to understand this and start bringing into their teams.
Speaker 2:I have hoped this is. You know, this is the only way for us to bring more balance. And then you know not more balance, because you know we want this company to drive or this, and that it is because I'm talking about myself. I want to be happy. I want, when I wake up at 8 o'clock or 7, when I go to, you know, gym and work, I want to be happy. I want, when I come home, to have a smile on my face Of course, not to be miserable and to say happy Friday, why not happy Tuesday? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Happy every day. Happy every day. I agree with that and I actually agree with that and actually agree with that perspective around it being bottom up actually, because a lot of people that are at the top, they're so entrenched in the way that they've done business for a long time that they're probably out of touch as well with the reality of how people in middle management and bottom, the junior people, are actually being affected. But if we're all doing our part and we all then become like one voice and we become like louder, then the top will be forced to change, hopefully. Yeah, you think that you know movements happen in numbers, right? So the more we're talking about this, they will eventually have to start listening from the top and be like okay, well, how are we going to make money if we don't have people that are actually working for us?
Speaker 2:Or then they're not happy and I think with the level of consciousness in top leaders and shareholders. I think it will come from different angles. I think when they feel impact on their bottom line in Victoria, workcover premiums went up for 40% and if we start digging deeper why this happened, my psychological claims went up for 50% in the last few years and you know when they feel impact on their bottom line and they say, hey, you know, I have to pay $2 million for premiums and this costs me money. I need to earn this $2 million and then they will start going to different consultants and I worked as one of these and and asking questions why is this happening? Why have these risks coming up in these levels? And then we start opening these conversations about okay, let's look into culture, how to promote people. How is that impacting the psychological injuries?
Speaker 2:I think we are very early in this journey, but I think now is the best time ever to do more work there, and I think, yeah, there is a lot of space, and my other theory is if large organizations don't become flexible to adapt to these needs when it comes to people. Yeah, so I'm talking about people, space now, human resources and people risk, recovery, injuries, well-being, like if they don't improve in that space something as soon as possible. I think we will have, you know, a lot of people quitting jobs and moving into fast growing startups yeah, and smaller businesses that are going to disrupt massive companies, including legal sectors. So this is a risk for them and it's better I think it's better for CEOs and shareholders to start looking into how to nurture and bring more energy and bring more balance or to be at risk of being disrupted in the next five to 10 years.
Speaker 1:And that's something that is happening already and will continue to happen. So it's not like a theory kind of thing, it's actually happening. So these law firms, for example, the large law firms that are very much based on this old school billing model and they don't really care about how much turnover they have in terms of people and they don't care about the well-being of people Well, they're going to have to start listening because their pockets will be affected if they don't.
Speaker 2:You know and I'm just saying from my personal perspective I'm not saying that everybody's having same values as me that everybody cares, you know, their own well-being or something. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't. A lot of people would go for money over health, and this is another problem that we can talk about. But I think you know, I quit a really good paid job, good position, a lot of flexibility, but I didn't want to pay the price of feeling isolated and disconnected. And yeah, we all have different motivations to live. But I said I would rather go and volunteer on an organic farm. I went to a near-sunshine coast to volunteer. I would rather do that than to sit in the office and feel so lonely and disconnected. I really reached that point that I was so just too much. It was years of trying to figure out what is problem. Was it problem in me or in companies? And then I changed several jobs and I worked with several clients and talked to them and then I found, yeah, this is crisis we really have. It's not just.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it literally is a crisis. So in the work that I do, so I the audience knows I'm not sure if you know, les, but I work as a lawyer as well as a career coach and in terms of my work as a career coach, I speak to a lot of burnt out lawyers, lawyers that literally say things like what you said, I would rather work at an organic farm, or I want to, you know, just quit this job and do something completely different, because I'm just so sick of feeling this way, feeling isolated and miserable. So it's happening in huge numbers and so many people are leaving because they're just burnt out and it's a real crisis so what happened was in October last year.
Speaker 2:I quit my corporate job and I went to, I created account on there is voofing platform. What is you go to volunteer on organic farm in exchange for accommodation? Yeah, and I said, you know, I spoke always about, you know, unhealthy cultures and I want to quit and do some purpose work and I want to live in nature and be more, you know, have organic foods and all these things. And I did it. So I went, I volunteered, I spent there a few months and, oh my god, it was a big shock for me. On the other side, yeah, I felt this corporate job, you know, living in sandringham near the beach, you know, having good salary, driving good car, I felt I swang all the way towards this capitalistic kind of materialistic world. Yeah, and then I went all the way to other extreme, where I was in Bellingen community, like hippie community, in the village, in the valley that is half an hour drive from little town, I didn't even have a car, you know. I sold everything and went to pretty much to forest and I was sitting down one day I said what am I doing to myself? I'm crazy, I'm so isolated.
Speaker 2:Now, again, and I'm writing a book now I'm going to publish in a few months Hopefully, if I finish, start of next year. It's called the Urban Hippie. And the Urban Hippie is this perfect balance? Or perfect balance or some balance between too much capitalistic nine to five jobs and the other extreme is, you know, going and living on an organic farm. And then my book is all about how can we stay in this society where we are but then making little micro changes in our day-to-day life that are bringing a balance to our lives. And I feel that touching both extremes and feeling pain and suffering on both ends gave me this perspective so that I can feel free to write about this.
Speaker 1:I love that and I think sometimes you do need to experience the extreme of the other side to come to the middle of both sides, right, and I think a lot of people in our society these days are wanting that. They're wanting to bring the, I guess, the relaxed nature and peacefulness in their day-to-day life. You know, for example, I live in Melbourne. It's a very busy city, it's a big city. How can I bring, I guess, a sense of peace that you feel when you go on holidays, for example, in your day-to-day life and, for example, I like to meditate in the mornings. I make sure I move my body every day, practice gratitude and have strong boundaries around work and all of that and prioritize family. But, yeah, it really does take that conscious effort of making it work for you and finding that balance, whatever balance looks like for you. There's no perfect balance. Can I ask you?
Speaker 2:a question how do you feel now when you've introduced all these? I'm not sure for how long are you doing this, but it seems. Ask you a question how do you feel now when you introduced all these? I'm not sure for how long are you doing this, but you know, it seems that you're happier at your current job and what you do career confidence and podcast, do you feel, uh, the full imbalance or you feel there are areas you can work more on?
Speaker 1:yeah, that's a yeah good question. Thank you so much for asking. Yeah, like I always struggled in terms of my legal career, I always struggled to find a role where I could fully be myself and where I didn't allow my job to completely take over my life, because being a lawyer can easily take over your whole life and I never wanted it to define me. So, in terms of at the moment like I do feel like I found job, and in terms of me running a business like I do feel like I found a job, and in terms of me running a business in an area that I'm passionate about and supporting other lawyers in their career, I do feel like I have found peace. But it does require a lot of like discipline. You know, like with my job, I work four days a week and I'm very strict around like finish times, so then I make sure that I do have time to dedicate to my business and other interests in my life as well.
Speaker 1:But yeah, obviously there is always going to be, I guess, that push and pull and struggle of what you're going to prioritize in that specific season of your life, and some seasons of your life will require you to maybe prioritise a bit more hours of work so you can get things up and running. For example, if you're just starting out in business, you know you might have to like, yeah, put in more work at the start, so then you can get things going how you want it to look like. But I feel like it's just about being adaptable and flexible to every season of your life. I don't have the perfect balance, I don't have the perfect answer, but at this right now, in this season of my life, I do feel like at peace with where I'm at.
Speaker 1:I don't feel burnt out, like I really enjoy being able to use my skills and my brain in different ways. Like when I'm working as a lawyer, I'm using that analytical side, problem solving skills. Then, with my coaching, there's so much various skills. There's communication and empathy and also problem solving too in that regard, as well as like marketing and things like that in terms of business skills that you have. So, yeah, I feel like I've found my. I keep using the word peace because that's how I feel internally, but yeah, it does require conscious effort and conscious work and discipline around what you're prioritising day to day.
Speaker 2:Thank you for sharing, maya, and I think yeah, I think your listeners will be happy to hear what you shared, even though it wasn't in plan for our chat today, but I think it is, so that can give hope.
Speaker 2:You know your listeners who are now sitting in toxic environments and looking for a way out and when they hear your story, you know that it is not easy. So they know yes, there is hope to feel less trauma, to feel that this burnout will go, to feel healed, but it's still going to require some discipline and even in the future. I can see my life now compared to eight months ago when I worked in corporate job in Melbourne CBD. The big difference is there's still challenges in life, but I feel my, my heart is open and I can say that in that sense. You know, like my grandma had stroke 10 days ago so I had to sacrifice a bit of gym and workout and morning meditation because life brought me new challenge. But you know, I know that I'm grounded in this value being habit, so I'll bring them on board again.
Speaker 2:Life will throw some lemons onto us and it is, I think, required to have some self-compassion. What I'm trying to work on more these days, because I'm a bit this challenge with a lot of lawyers, your type of personality, and it's very hard on ourselves, very hard on ourselves. I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but it's a similar personality. It is, I think, having that compassion and then, just following our intuition, you started in podcasting. This is amazing. You followed your heart, your calling that you felt somewhere inside of yourself. You did it and inspiring others and, yeah, happy that I can be part of that today.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Well, I love you know, speaking to people like you. That's why I started this podcast just to share different perspectives on how you can create a career that you actually enjoy, and there's so many different ways that you can do that and you're never like you're never really stuck in one job If you're miserable. There's so many different ways that you can do that and you're never really stuck in one job if you're miserable. There's so many ways that you can make a change and it's all a choice and, as you said, life throws lemons at you and sometimes you just have to adjust some things and it's never straightforward. But yeah, I feel like we all do have a choice in terms of how we can create our next chapter.
Speaker 2:And there's so many opportunities out there. If you look how government like job seeker, for example, agencies they're so low. I'm not criticizing them, but but the fact is they're low user experience. You go there and there is no much chance you will get some. You land some good job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like there is very little chance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there are so many opportunities for us. If we want to start our business, just in this employment sector, we can start. You know, do some startup business or any other industry. There is space for starting something new and bringing our own I would say signature trade or our own perspective, and there is massive demand in all these areas. Yeah, I think whoever wants to start their own thing or do there is so much space these days so we don't have. My point of is we don't have to stick to toxic jobs. It's important to practice our well-being first, because in my personal experience I struggled a lot. Healing took way longer than what I expected it will. Yeah, sometimes it's better to quit earlier.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and late. Absolutely, yeah, sometimes that is the answer. Absolutely, I agree. Before we wrap up I've really enjoyed this conversation, laz, and I could honestly talk to you for hours, but before we wrap up, I'd like to get your perspective on and this is something that I ask all my guests what does career confidence mean to you and what's one practical tip you can offer the audience to build their confidence in their career?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think we covered in different moments of today, but let's see if I could put in one kind of thing, one saying so, I think purpose, I think you know even putting physically, this is bringing more yin energy that we spoke about. You know, putting hand on our heart and just sitting with that, you know, closing eyes in a bit of meditation or whatever people like to call it, and just feeling like you know what would give me more peace, what would make me happier Like, what would bring smile to my face tomorrow or next week, how would it look like? And then just exploring. Is it around people or I thrive better if I'm on my own? Okay, if I'm better. You know around people, what environment where I'm being, you know what is environment where I feel more safer and more empowered to be myself? Does it exist or I have to create my own?
Speaker 2:And then you know, step by step in next few months, getting closer to that. What is thing that I'm passionate about? Like this, what I'm doing with you now is you know that I'm so passionate about it, and I think confidence comes from listening our own intuition and having courage to step into that space and being fine to pay price for that. So having less money and, if there is need to, maybe changing our, you know, eating less in restaurants and ordering less foods and spending less money every month. So bringing more minimalism into our life, but doing something that is closer to our heart, I think that is the way to go and I think confidence comes automatically as a result of us being in tune with our hearts.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's a beautiful answer. Thank you for that. And, laz, where can my audience find you to connect with you and get to know you more?
Speaker 2:So far on LinkedIn at least, it's as LAZZ, atomic and, yes, everybody's feel free to reach out. Something that I can you know I would be more than happy to chat about with people is, you know, that transition from what I did. I can just share personal examples, I don't have any business right now or something, but I'm happy to support others, to give this encouragement to quit if they feel job is toxic and, maybe, you know, to help just with advices. What did I do to live a minimalistic life after that so that I can make that transition into a new thing, what I'm doing now? So, yeah, just a bit of encouragement is something that I can offer on a volunteering basis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just as a kind of support to people, because I know how much of pain I endured last year around September, october, before I quit my job, I was in deep depression and burnout. I collapsed even. You know I was. I went for an incentive and I just fallen onto onto ground and I felt, you know, I went all the way into extreme burnout. That I wouldn't wish anyone, but I know some people experience that or similar was. Yeah, and I'm happy to give some advice or support somebody who is really struggling because I'm feeling good now, or even them just you know people, if they didn't reach out, I'm saying here in our chat that you know healing is possible for people who are struggling at the moment. And it is just you know. First thing is quit whatever is toxic. Remove all toxins from your life, not moment. And it is just you know. First thing is quit whatever is toxic. Remove all toxins from your life, not just job, it is food, unhealthy relationships, like. Remove everything toxic from your life and then start slowly introducing healthy habits.
Speaker 1:You know, cleanse with good food diet and slowly introduce whatever you have capacity for yeah, I love that and I'm gonna link your profile to the show notes so people can connect with you and, whenever you have capacity for yeah, I love that and I'm going to link your profile to the show notes so people can connect with you and ask you questions and, yeah, I guess, have a conversation with you, and I'm so happy that you're in a much better place now, that you're happy, you're at peace and that you're thriving and you have really appreciated your perspective and the value you've brought today on the podcast. I know that the audience will resonate with a lot that you said. Thank you so much, les, for your time, for your wisdom and for being on the podcast and for being vulnerable as well.
Speaker 2:It was a pleasure. Thank you so much, Maria.
Speaker 1:Thanks for tuning into the Career Confidence Podcast Like what you learned today. Why not share this episode with your work, bestie, and leave us a five-star review on? Wherever you listen to your podcasts on, we'd absolutely love to get into more ears and help more women, just like you, build fulfilling and thriving careers. Until next time,
