Fractional
Fractional
Shauna Moran: What you NEED to know about burnout
This week Joshua is on vacation while Lance is joined by Shauna Moran, author of Managing Employee Burnout. Shauna is also a leadership and management training consultant and coach. We focused heavily on Shauna's area of expertise, burnout. In this episode you'll hear:
Shauna's personal burnout stories (Yes, plural!)
Why burnout is prevalent among fractionals
How breathwork helps with burnout feelings
Why taking a vacation isn't a solution to burnout
Win Bins!
Learn more about Shauna:
https://www.shaunamoran.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaunamoran/
Hello, and welcome to episode 65 of the Fractional Podcast. I'm your host today, Lance, and Joshua is out, and I'm joined by a special guest, Shana Moran, a longtime friend and colleague in the remote world. We have a human experience side of the workplace. Yeah, excited to have Shawna here. We've collaborated on some things in the past, so it's always great to catch up. It feels like it's been too long, so this is a good chance for us to hang out and chat. Shawna wrote the book on managing employee burnout, and that's a topic we want to get in today. She does executive leadership. coaching and training and a number of other things. Super talented person. Excited to have you here, Shauna. So yeah, maybe you can share a few examples of things that you do, folks that you work with for our audience.
SPEAKER_00:Well, firstly, it's always a pleasure to be here with you, Lance, and to see you and to chat. I always love our conversations and I've no doubt that today is going to be one of those great conversations. And I'm really looking forward to talking more about this topic. I think it's a really important on, not just in the workforce as an employee, but also as entrepreneurs, as fractional consultants. What I do, you know, I... I found that hard and maybe some of your listeners will resonate. I do a lot of things. And to give you some examples, you know, this morning I coached a C-suite leader on how she could get back in the driver's seat of her career from experiencing unfair treatment from her CEO for the last year, year and a half. You know, so there are conversations that I'm having. Yesterday I was working with a group of managers, new managers, first time managers. supporting them in navigating the complexities of having full-time team members and contract team members and navigating different cultures and how do they show up as great leaders depending on the needs of their team and the cultures of the team and their differences and how do they honor that. And then Wednesday, I hosted a workshop with women all around, been able to identify their impact. What's the greatest impact that they can make in their work, in their life? And how do they do more of that? How do they live more into their zone of genius? and cut, you know, some of that noise, that distraction out, the things that drain them. What does that look like for them in their careers? So, you know, I've been playing around with thinking the type of coach I am. And it always comes down to impact amplification. Like how do we amplify our impact in the world? How do we leave that legacy? How do we leave the world in a better place than it was before we came here? How do we do the things that light us up? Because when we're lit up, everybody else can be inspired and feel safe to light up as well. And I often play in the realms of what gets in the way of amplifying that impact. And a lot of the time it comes down to the things we're going to talk about today, which is stress, which is burnout, which are the difficult and challenging situations of navigating relationships and working with people. So what gets in the way of that? Burnout's a huge thing. Huge. one of the number one blockers that gets in the way of us being truly able to not only amplify our impact in our work, but create sustainability.
SPEAKER_01:You work not exclusively, but primarily you work with women in leadership. Is that
SPEAKER_00:correct? Yeah. Yeah, I do a lot. So I started off consulting, coaching, specializing in remote hybrid teams, executive leadership coaching, and then quite quickly into that work, I realized that actually the big problem I was seeing time and time again within organizations, within leaders was burnout. And I actually got quite curious and also The curiosity came from a frustration of how the problem was being dealt with, which was, and we'll talk about this a bit later, but you know, when we look at burnout, especially in the workplace, the tendency is to always put the onus back on the individual and say, okay, well, you know, you need to do more wellness activities or invest in more wellness for yourself, or we'll increase our wellness spend instead of actually looking at what are the chronic stressors, the root causes of why a team, an organization, a leader would burn out in the first place. And what can we do to address those? So that kind of led me on that path of research and And, you know, I worked with a lot of leaders, worked with a lot of teams. Burnout's very close to my own heart because I've experienced it, not once, not twice, three times. And I know what that feels like. And I know how much that can rock your world. And that's where it led me. It was like, OK, why are people burning out in the workplace? What are the common reasons? What are the root causes? Wrote the book, realized, OK, women are you know, as a demographic, it's women that are not taking on these leadership roles because of burnout. And it's women that are leaving the workplace at a faster rate than ever. So, you know, my... My heart called me to work with women and support them in that way as well. Not to say I don't support men. I do. Everyone, you know, anyone can experience that. And I'm here to help everyone. But, you know, when we're looking at how we as women are showing up, it's different to how men show up. Right. And I think it's important to acknowledge that. And that's what I do in the work is really understand and embody the ways in which we work as women. How can we honor that instead of dismiss that? and ignore that. So that's the difference in that work.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So if you're listening to this, if you're a woman in leadership and you're feeling some of these things, what Shauna's sharing with you is resonating. Definitely when Shauna shares how to reach out and get in touch with her at the end of this program, definitely do. That's the plug for Shauna for sure. There's so many questions coming to mind here as you're sharing. The first one is, What are some of those signals that people often blow past, right? That are telling you something's wrong, pay attention, but You know, the pace of work culture doesn't acknowledge that. What are some of those signs that people can be keen into?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you know, everybody presents different, you know, when stress shows up, it shows up differently for everyone, right? So how I might show stress is different to how stress presents itself for you. So... My awareness might also be different to your awareness around stress. So I might notice something in my body and get curious about that and start to kind of understand where that's coming from. Or something might happen. I might have a stress response and I brush past it or ignore it. And I continue to do that until I can't ignore it any longer. So everybody's different. I think some things that we can look out for in ourselves is, you know, death Definitely when we look at the stages of burnout, you know, there are actually five stages of burnout. I won't go through all of them. You can Google it if you want to have a look. But, you know, the kind of main things are in those first two to three stages is sleep. Sleep's going to change. I see it a lot with the clients that I work with, the people I talk to. I'm waking up in the night thinking about work. I'm not able to sleep because of work. My mind's racing at night. If that's unusual, Right. That can be that can be an indicator. You know, the other thing is a kind of a withdrawal. So, you know, once we go past that honeymoon phase. So the honeymoon phase is phase one. And and that's really where we're feeling that stress. And we feel very optimistic. It's like, OK, there's a stressor presented. I'm going to manage this. I'm going to make sure that I go and do my workouts, do my things that support me. It's going to be fine. So we're very positive. Now, if that chronic stressor does not change, then we move into the on set of stress. And this is where you know, stress is continuing to be present. That chronic stressor hasn't improved. It hasn't changed. Sleep starts to be affected. We start to withdraw. We start to feel anxious. Again, we go down through the stages. We start to become more pessimistic about work. So maybe we might be saying, where's my motivation going? I used to love my job. Now I don't love it anymore. Right. All of these things. And then we start to get into things like depression. Right. And that chronic burnout, which is really difficult to recover from. So, you You know, timing wise, we don't just wake up one night burnt out. You know, it doesn't happen like that. It happens over time. And so I think the most empowering thing that we can do in those situations, because stress is inevitable for everyone, let's face it, like we're going to feel it at some point in our careers, in our lives. It's part of this human experience. However, I think the best thing that we can do is understand where exactly it's coming from and be empowered with that, because then we can say, OK, OK, can I improve it or not? Because that's often the question that I'm coaching on is, OK, this is the chronic stressor. Example, unfair treatment at work. Your manager is not a nice person and they're treating you unfairly. So there's lots of microaggressions happening. It's been a chronic stressor for a while. Okay, can we change this? Is there anything you can do to navigate that relationship or be more empowered in those conversations or maybe explore different avenues to processes with HR or maybe it's moving to a different team, right? So what are the avenues that you can do to reduce that chronic stressor. In some cases, there are no avenues except to go find another job, find another manager, really, right? So that's the work that I'm doing on a daily basis with leaders, with individuals, is understanding where it's coming from, what can we do, what's the plan that we put in place to either improve it or reduce it or eliminate it. And from there, people are empowered, right? And I wish I had that when I burnt out. I wish I knew because I just kept blaming myself. I thought, oh, this is just me. I'm not, I'm not good enough. I'm not a high enough performer. I can't handle the stress. I'm too emotional. None of that was the case.
SPEAKER_01:I have so many questions. First of all, I'm, I'm thinking about our audience, right? Like we have a lot of folks who are listening for either like aspiring or established entrepreneurs who are, you know, one person service providers, or they are founders who might work with those service providers. Both, both jobs are quite stressful, right? Start a founder or service, individual service provider, thinking about aspiring fractionals. What is it about coming into this sort of business, taking on this kind of role that seems to, from what I'm hearing, I don't have any empirical data on this, but it does seem that people that are entering into the solopreneur environment are feeling tremendous loads of stress and wearing out emotionally. What, like, why does that happen at a, did you think it happens at a higher rate for people in this type of role? Why do you think that's true or not true? Maybe I'll just stop there. I'm curious, like your reaction to that.
SPEAKER_00:Immediately, my, the word I thought of is fear. You know, it's, it comes down to fear. Our fear response is activated when we are, when we are going through change, being an entrepreneur, being a, you know, you are responsible for bringing in that money to pay yourself, to pay your bills, to keep your family going. Maybe you were laid off. I know we mentioned that earlier, right? So, and then, you know, there's the conversations of what's happening in the market and in employment and jobs. And so there's a lot of fear But I think, you know, initially when you're starting off in business, it's how can you how can you lean more into that excitement of what you're doing? Because it's that excitement that's going to get you through. And it got me through. You know, I had that excitement of, OK, I'm starting my own thing. I had a nest egg, thankfully, where I wasn't operating out of that. I just need to get a client. Right. Or I just need to to get more clients because that's not a good place to be. So it's the lack of stability, I think, that's often a big impact on just that chronic stressor. And then it's the fact of, you know, being a high performer, right? Like oftentimes fractional entrepreneurs, business owners, they're high performers. So they want to make an impact. They want to prove themselves. And this is new for them. And am I able to do this right? So You know, it's banking that competence can take time and that confidence in ourselves. And sometimes that involves overworking. Right. And then wearing the multiple hats, serving the clients. There's probably a whole host of stressful situations that they're dealing with for clients. So it can be there's a lot there. And I think it's important to acknowledge that setting a business up, especially in this day and age, is stressful. But I think it's what do you want? Like I spoke to an entrepreneur this week and she said, I don't know. I'm on the fence. I'm consulting. I'm fractional. I'm doing a good job. But I'm do I want to go full time employment again? You know, toe in, toe out. And I'm like, well, what do you want? Like, you know, stability. And the main thing is stability. And I hear it all the time. It's the lack of stability. And it's when there's a lull in the business, that's where the stress and the panic comes in. I've been there myself. I know it can be, it can be really hard. It can be really challenging.
SPEAKER_01:Definitely. Right. And, and Folks who've been listening to this for a while know that my story also comes from a layoff, started my own business. We're a one income family and the stress of that was very difficult. I want to ask about stress because I think a lot of times we think about stress as like the bad things that are happening to us, but can we stresses that are generally positives also contribute to that overwhelming of the nervous system. Like think about marathon runners, right? They're doing something that's healthy, it's active, it's an accomplishment, but they aren't putting a lot of stress on their bodies. And sometimes bodies fail because of the amount of stress that they're continuing to be exposed to. And so I'm wondering too, as an executive who's stepping into a new role or a new entrepreneur that's got this new contract and we launch into it and it's exciting work and we're getting good feedback and we're successful and these things feel good, but is that still a stress that can contribute to maybe unforeseen difficulties down the road?
SPEAKER_00:Do you run marathons?
SPEAKER_01:I've done one, yeah. Okay. And I end up with with some injury afterwards.
SPEAKER_00:OK,
SPEAKER_01:on the body.
SPEAKER_00:OK, so I mean, I'm curious and I don't run marathons, but I'm curious why. I know you said there was stress on the body, but what did you do after that when that stress was on the body? You had some injuries. Yeah. What was your kind of plan after the marathon? What did you do?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So after so after the marathon, I did some other adventures and I and I really overdid it on. Something like a snowshoe up a mountain in the winter and came up with a hip injury that that kept me from being active in the way that I wanted to be again for four or five months. Wow. Still. Yeah. So there was a point where my body said, you're done. You're not doing that anymore. Oh,
SPEAKER_00:sounds like you learned a lot. And it sounds like you have to listen to your body. Your body gave you no other choice.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And if you look on me there.
SPEAKER_00:And I think that's what often happens with people with high performers. They have to learn in that way. They have to learn the cost of overdoing it to do it in a more sustainable way. But you've hit the nail on the head there around You know, is it good stress, bad stress, healthy stress, unhealthy stress? And that's I like to call it healthy stress, unhealthy stress. When are we in healthy stress? So healthy stress is we're starting a new project. We're excited. We're pumped. Yeah, we're putting in some extra hours. Absolutely. You know, we're hosting a little bit. We're in the buzz of that. We have a timeline. We have an end date. We're working towards that. We're in that sprint mentality. We're doing that marathon. But then after the marathon, what are we doing? We're resting. We're recovering. We're taking some downtime. We're maybe doing a retrospection of what went well with our training. What didn't? What could we improve on next time? And we're coming back into that stage of rest and digest. And we're giving ourselves time to catch up, to reflect. And I think this isn't just the way that we work. This is the whole world. Like, you know, if we if we stop If we just stopped and thought about things and, you know, just retrospectively looked back, even on the last six months of all the learnings that we've likely had in our life and started to bank those and be with those before we moved on to the next thing, you know, how much better would we feel? So I think that's a big thing that is, I know that's a big thing for teams. And it's something that I always say. Absolutely. If you're going fast, especially in startup land, fair, you're going fast. But build in those ebbs and flows into the seasons of your business. As a fractional entrepreneur, nobody's going to tell you to take vacation. You have to plan that for yourself. You have to look fast. at your own data of what you need, your rhythms. Like you have as an entrepreneur, the opportunity to set that up. Yet oftentimes as a fractional, we're stuck in the nine to five mindset. You know, I have my business five years. I'm still, sometimes I still find myself in the nine to five mindset. Well, I haven't done enough work, you know, or, oh, it's only 3 p.m. It's like, no, it's very different. It's about output as opposed to input. But I've also learned, what works for me and what doesn't. I know that I'm more productive in the winter. I know that I'm a little bit more tired, but I'm generally more productive in the winter. I know in the summer I want to spend more time outside and in the garden. So I will go harder in another season. But I also know I need things to look forward to during that season. I also know that I can't do five days on calls. Can I do it? I need at least two days. I need a day kind of off four days a week, I try and work and I need a day of deep work because if I don't have time to plan, to think, to, I'm not going to be good for my clients, I'm not going to be good for me and I'm going to, that's a source of chronic stress for me. So, you know, I think as fractionals, as entrepreneurs, it's thinking about what are the constraints of my day? What are the non-negotiables of my day that lead me to feeling my best? It might be breakfast in the morning with your family, You know, it might be taken at two hours of a lunch break. It might be only taking calls on certain days of the week. It's different for everyone. But start to think about those things. What's an even for those who are maybe still in a workplace right now? What's your perfect day? What is your perfect work day look like? OK, you might be so far away from that right now, but you can start to work towards it. So, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, there's when I When I, when we did the introduction, right, I said, tell, tell folks a little bit about what you do or some examples of what you do. And you said like, that's a hard one. I think that's true for so many entrepreneurs. When you ask the question, what do you do? The struggle to answer that is there, but I don't think we ask ourselves, what do we need? And if you ask somebody, what do you need? Would they struggle to answer that just as much as what do you do? I think we're probably more sure what we do for people than what we need for ourselves to be able to do that. And yeah, I think you were describing what you need. You've obviously done some thinking about that. You've intentionally tried to be aware of what you need to be successful. And I think for so many of us as entrepreneurs, we think to be successful, we need this many dollars or we need this outcome, right? But like, what do I really need if I stop and try to answer that? Do I know the answer to that question? Maybe not. Maybe I would struggle to answer that question if that's true. If you're listening to this and it's true for you, like, I'm not sure, it's a good time to maybe take 10 minutes or hours to think about that.
SPEAKER_00:No, Lance, I think that's a great point. And I want to kind of just highlight that. It's like, what does success, you mentioned, what does success mean to you? And it's not just dollars in the bank for a lot of people. And I think it's very important that we think about what is our definition of success, because that's allowed to change. Like my definition of success today is very different to when I was 25. And so it should be. But that's okay. Am I allowing myself to have a different definition of success? So I think defining what success looks like for you, dollars can be a part of that. Absolutely. Financial abundance, stability, own that. Absolutely. But maybe it's also peace. If that's a success... criteria for you, if that's what success looks like. You know, how are you making sure that you're working with clients that bring you that sense of peace? Or maybe it's alignment or maybe it's, you know, flexibility. So I think that's a really important point is to think about that, allow it to change too.
SPEAKER_01:Something else that I'm curious about when people say they're struggling with burnout, or if you may bring this up to their boss or manager, I'm overwhelmed, I'm exhausted. And they say, well, just take a vacation. I think that's a good idea, but is vacation time the answer if you're struggling with burnout? What does that leave out of the equation? Yeah, tell me what you're thinking there.
SPEAKER_00:Love that question. No, vacation is not the answer to burnout because think about it. You're taking a break. You're going away from the source of stress, but you come back and the stress is still there. It hasn't improved and it hasn't changed. So unless something changes, it's not going to work. Unless you come up with a great solution on your vacation to address the sources of strengths, I mean, wonderful. So your best thing, and sometimes you do, sometimes you need that breakaway to regulate yourself enough to see that the wood from the trees. Because when we're in it sometimes, we can't see it. We're emotional, we're stressed, we're in it. So what do you need to do to get that higher perspective? And who do you need? Oftentimes it's who can be in your support system to help you get that view. And then understanding where the stress is actually coming from and what's the plan, what's possible. Because I often find, you know, once we know where the source of stress is coming from, Like one source of stress that affects both entrepreneurs and people in the workplace is a lack of clarity on roles and responsibilities. So how does that affect us? Well, if we don't know what success looks like as high performers, we're just going to do it all. We're going to be unsure. We're going to have a level of productivity anxiety. We don't really know if we're meeting expectations or not. So we're probably going to overwork. And with that lack of clarity, we're going to feel that that sense of being maybe a bit confused, unsure, and that's not a good feeling, but that's a source of chronic stress. So if you don't know what's expected of you for a long period of time, whether that's from a client, from your manager, from your team, from your organization, and you're just doing a lot of different things and you don't know if it's actually working or have an impact, that's a source of chronic stress. So you know, what can you do in those cases? You need to have a clarifying conversation with your leader, with your team, with your client. You need to get it on paper. You need to make sure there's an alignment check. Here's where I'm at. Here's how I'm seeing things. Are we on the same page? How are we going to measure this? How will we know if we're successful or not? So Taking a break doesn't work. Addressing the source of burnout works.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know how much you share in your book or you want to share here, but do you have any story or personal experience that you'd want to share with listeners that, I don't know, do you think might be helpful? I think people are attracted to stories. So I'm just, yeah, I'm curious about your story, how much of that you'd be willing to share. I know we don't have a ton of time, but...
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I feel like I'm going to continue writing books on this because, you know, part of the work that I do is also my work as a human being. You know, I have a tendency, my tendency isn't to relax. My tendency is to do and to create. I don't like, I'm all, I've always new ideas. I'm an enthusiast, Enneagram type seven, absolutely love it. Like you give me an idea, I'm on it. So. That's my tendency. That's my blueprint. And it's fantastic. It's given me so much and helped me so much in life, but it's also hindered me a lot. So I have to be really cautious of just myself my body how I'm feeling what I need because I am holding a lot of space for people and I'm I'm helping a lot of people too and I want to make sure I'm at my ultimate best for that as a coach so it took me a long time to get here and I don't think that it's I don't think that it's the journey's over I wouldn't say I'm here it's I'm actively working on this every day and you know the first time I experienced burnout I was maybe 24 first actually work from home job so working from home had quite a bit to do with it. But, you know, it was actually all to do with me. You know, I didn't have the self-awareness. I didn't have the wisdom, the experience, the knowledge to understand my needs, right, as a young, ambitious woman. So when I look at burnout, I look across the three pillars, the self, the leader, the organization. So the first time was to do with me, right? I had to own that. I had to learn. That was my on me, my fault, my lesson to learn, my lessons, because there were many. The second time I experienced burnout, I was in a really high performing team, loving life, loving the work, full alignment, you know, great team. Yeah, there was a there was a bit of work. You know, it was we were working a lot. We were traveling a lot, but it was fun. I was Definitely highlighted my career, but I experienced burnout. And the reason I experienced burnout was because of my manager. I experienced unfair treatment at work for about a year, year and a half. And I had that chronic stress present for so long. It just wore me down. absolutely wore me down, Lance. And again, I didn't have the knowledge to understand or the wisdom to understand what was working or what was happening, should I say, and what I could do about it. And it actually wasn't until another leader approached me and said, hey, I see what's going on and it's not OK. And I was like, whoa, validated. Because it's who can help you understand where it's coming from? Like, is this on you or is this coming from something else or someone else?
SPEAKER_01:Maybe I'm making this up. Maybe I'm crazy.
SPEAKER_00:Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I'm just not cut out for this. Maybe I'm not cut out for the corporate world. Maybe I'm just too sensitive. I mean, for empathic women, story of our lives, right? Maybe I'm just too
SPEAKER_01:sensitive. How many times does that happen? Yeah, I'd get thrown around.
SPEAKER_00:But no, it wasn't the case. So that led me down a process where I was empowered, I was validated, I was supported, and I was able to make a change in that situation. And it wasn't just me, of course, right? Like, you know, it all unfolds after the fact, but I didn't know back then. And then the third time I burnt out was a lot to do with that lack of role clarity. You know, I got that promotion, a high performer, wanted to perform, wanted to do well, wanted to prove myself, you know, that constant feeling like you have to prove yourself and just did not have that clarity and also did not have that support. So a lack of support is also a source of chronic stressors. So if you're not getting support as a leader within an organization, if you don't have support from your manager, if you don't have support from maybe a coach, maybe other leaders, if you don't have a mentor, that's They're all sources of chronic stress. As an entrepreneur, if you don't have a support system, it's going to be a chronic stressor. Find other entrepreneurs. This podcast, wonderful. A support system. Reach out to people. Maybe a business coach in some cases if you have that option. But your support system is everything. So I really learned about that in that career. And then I set up my own business. And, you know, I wouldn't... I wouldn't say it's been plain sailing. I've never felt stress. I definitely have, but I haven't experienced those levels of burnout. I definitely felt a chronic stress last year when I became, you know, the one, the sole provider of the house for a couple of months. And, you know, that definitely brought on a lot of chronic stress for me. And again, you know, just a huge learning even in that, you know, it was after the fact I realized, oh, That was quite stressful. You know, looking back on that, that was quite stressful. But I just got on with it. Right. Like I just had to figure it out. So I think there's entrepreneurs. There's lots, lots more root causes. And maybe one day I'll write a book for entrepreneurs. Who knows? We need it.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks for sharing. Something that you were talking about earlier. kind of came to me as I was thinking about personal experiences and stories. I had a project that I launched a while back and I was really pouring myself into that. And I took like a three-day weekend with a couple of buddies and we hide up in the mountains in Oregon. And for the first time in a long time, I remembered starting to feel like I don't want to go back to work on Monday with my project.
SPEAKER_00:And
SPEAKER_01:for me, Yeah, for me, it was because I usually like my work. I'm usually really excited. And and the work I was doing was meaningful and impactful. But it was this this kind of flag of like, there's something wrong. But it was kind of a clarifying moment for me of, wow, I haven't felt like like I don't really resonate with the folks who are talking about the Sunday scaries and always feeling like they don't want to go back to work on Monday. Like, I often am excited about the work ahead of me. I'm doing meaningful work. I'm really helping people. I feel the impact of my work. I'm learning. I'm growing. So those are all positive things. I generally like the people I worked with. But what was it? What was going on for me that I felt like I didn't want to go back to work? And it wasn't just that I was in a beautiful place doing wonderful things that were refreshing for me. I think there was that lack of clarity in what success was going to be. It was a new project. There was a lot of unraveling of what had been done before. And I was feeling quite overwhelmed. And yeah, it was a good flag for me to... What was my resolution? I think it was to slow down and start expecting less of myself. Because I felt like I needed to solve all the problems right away and get things going the way I wanted them to be. And I think there was a point where I was like, you know what? And my wife always tells me this too. You're doing great work. You expect more of yourself than I think anyone else does. So... Slow down. And that was good advice.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, thank you for sharing that. It's I mean, I can resonate so much. I'm sure every high performer listening is probably nodding. a way to that story. Like, yes, yes, we know what that feels like. Absolutely. And it's that expectation that we put on ourselves. And here's the thing, right? That high performance, that figuring it out, because we'll never just figure it out. Give a high performer any problem, give them an unmanageable workload, give them an unrealistic timeline, they'll figure it out. And nobody would probably know that they were stressed in doing that. Because they're high performers, right? And...
SPEAKER_01:Feels like the story of my entire life.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Nobody knows. And then the high performer gets the promotion or gets more work or gets another client because they've done so well. And then they're in that again. So it's like, oh, this is... I'm grateful that I can do this and I can figure all of this out. And I have this aspect to the way that I work and the way that I am. But also it's causing me this pain. And... this level of stress and it's not good for me. It's not healthy. So it's redefining and it's coming back to redefining success. And we're allowed to do that. It's like, okay, thank you version of myself that overworked, that took on too much, that figured it all out. Like, thank you. Thank you for that because you've got me to where I am today. But this version of myself, what does this version of myself do? this version of myself, I set boundaries. You know, I really take time instead of just being the yes person, story of a high performer's life, take time. Let me think about that and come back to you. Magic words, right? Giving ourselves the space to actually think about what's realistic or not before we commit to things and commit to timelines. It's asking for support, even if you feel like you can figure it out yourself. ask for support, advocate for yourself, whether it's on a client project, whether it's internally at an organization, ask for more support because you're giving. Oftentimes we're giving so much to others. We need to be making deposits in that bank account of ourselves, of our well-being, not just the withdrawals. So there's a reframing. It's still honoring that version of ourselves who has that capacity to do a lot, to hold a lot, to endure a lot, to perform to this standard while also holding that kindness to ourselves, celebration, recognizing ourselves. And what is it that helps you recognize yourself, right? Because it's not our go-to as high performers. We focus on the gap rather than the gain. So what can you do to remind yourself? It sounds like your wife is that reminder. She's reminding you all the time. Lance, focus on the gain. Look at what you've done. You're doing amazing. So who's your person to remind you of that? Or what are your practices to remind you of that?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because we can at 100% see what's left to be done all the time, right? It's never good enough. Never there. Never will be.
SPEAKER_00:Do you have a win bin? A
SPEAKER_01:what?
SPEAKER_00:So I have a win bin on my phone, right? So I'll just show you. Oh no, you can't even see it. But it's wins 2024. And let me just, let me just read out like, and some of these are more basic things, right? So like a win. Kept the whole house running financially for nine months on my own. That's
SPEAKER_01:huge.
SPEAKER_00:Win. Win. Huge. You know, yes, signed a client, updated my pricing tier, you know, got a really great introduction to a client. I actually haven't signed that client, but just the fact that I was introduced, thought of, you know, these are things that 50% open rate on my emails. Like these are things that I forget as a high performer because I'm always focused on the next thing. As you said, we forget these things. We focus on, oh yeah, we still haven't done that. But come on, like these are really great. This forces me to spend time and I update this every week. I'm like, okay, what are my wins for this week? Because it's so easy to forget. I
SPEAKER_01:bet there's a hundred. If we have a hundred listeners, there's a hundred people, like you said earlier, nodding their head, right? Like this is a common trait of high performers is to not remember the good things that happen. In their work.
SPEAKER_00:And then they beat themselves up because they have a big to-do list. And it's like, well, look at how much you've done. Give yourself a break.
SPEAKER_01:No time to celebrate that. We've got to accomplish more stuff.
SPEAKER_00:I know. So a lot of the high performers work on a nervous system level is learning how to be safe when we rest. You know, like, and...
SPEAKER_01:Will you say that again?
SPEAKER_00:The work of a high performer on a nervous system level is to feel safe to rest, to feel safe to just be safe. and create space for that. And that feels uncomfortable for a high performer that's doing a lot, but that's our, that's often our medicine. And that's why I do a lot of breath work, you know, because it's an active practice that we can do that brings us into just that being state. And yet it's an active practice. We're doing something with the breath there. So that's a whole nother podcast maybe, but you know, for anyone that maybe resonates with anything we've shared as a high performer, would highly recommend some breath work, you know, as a way to nourish yourself, especially if you struggle with meditation or you struggle to get into that because the mind is so active. The breaths can be a fantastic gateway to that, to just that peace.
SPEAKER_01:So if you're sitting here and you're listening to this, you're riding in your car, however you take in podcasts, and you're just saying like, okay, I think I'm in that high performer category. So much of this resonates with me. I want to know more. What's the best way that people can, A, access all the tremendous content that you've produced over the years? B, get in touch with you if they're interested in what kind of services would those be? What kind of a relationship do you have with individuals who reach out? How do they get in touch with you? All of that stuff.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks, Lance. I mean, connect with me on LinkedIn. I realize that any other form of social media is not good for me. So I'm always on LinkedIn. So connect with me on LinkedIn. Send me a message there. let me know where you're at. If you just want to connect and chat, you know, if you have your own business, wonderful. If you're, you know, a leader, you're struggling with burnout, you kind of want to be more in my community. If you're a woman, you can sign up for my newsletter. It's www.seannamoran.com is my website. Go and take a look at my work. But if you want to sign up for my newsletter, it's the same seannamoran.com forward slash newsletter. And I send out weekly newsletters every Friday, specifically for women in leadership positions all around the things we've spoken about today. So yeah, any of those things, be happy to chat with your community. And thanks for having me, Lance. I really enjoyed the chat. We went everywhere with that conversation, but...
SPEAKER_01:yeah well thank you for being with us i enjoyed it as well i learned a lot always great hanging out with you shauna so yes definitely get in touch with shauna if you have any feedback or questions for the the fractional podcast you can always reach us at email fractional.fm and we'll be back again in a couple weeks
