Kelly Swingler on How to Stay Ambitious Without Burning Out (#070)

Burnout rarely arrives without warning. Burnout expert Kelly Swingler explains how to recognise its early physical, emotional and cognitive signs—and why the body often senses trouble before the conscious mind does. She explores how toxic workplaces, blurred boundaries and a loss of identity contribute to burnout, while offering practical ways for working professionals to protect their wellbeing without giving up their ambition.

5 Key Takeaways

1. Burnout begins before the breakdown. Fatigue, poor sleep, physical tension, digestive issues, irritability and reduced concentration can all be early warnings.
2. The body often knows first. The nervous system may detect prolonged stress and threat before the conscious mind recognises burnout.
3. Losing yourself increases the risk. Burnout becomes more likely when workplace toxicity is combined with weakened values, boundaries and identity.
4. Ambition is not the problem. People can sustain demanding careers when their work aligns with their values and they feel safe enough to set limits.
5. Recovery requires more than rest. Preventing recurring burnout means reducing sources of toxicity, rebuilding a strong sense of self and redefining success on your own terms.

About Kelly

Kelly Swingler is a burnout researcher, TEDx speaker, author and creator of Burnoutology—the discipline and practice of understanding burnout. Drawing on 12 years of experience, more than 11,000 coaching hours and work with over 700 leaders, she developed the Burnout Equation to explain the relationship between toxicity, sense of self and burnout. Her doctoral research examines burnout’s long-term cognitive effects. Today, Kelly trains specialist burnout coaches and advises leaders and organisations worldwide.

Timestamps

03:07 Toxicity Minus Sense of Self Equals Burnout
08:36 The Early Signs of Burnout Start to Chip Away
15:36 Losing Yourself in a Toxic Environment
22:12 The Personal Awareness to Say Enough
28:56 Redefine What Success Looks Like
40:40 Building a Stronger Sense of Self
45:38 Coach the Person Where They Are
51:28 Your Sense of Self Is the Foundation
52:53 Making an Impact Whilst Keeping Yourself Whole
53:19 Advice to Students: Find Your Own Voice
54:42 If I Had Dinner with Brené Brown
57:05 Be the Blue Fish
58:13 Burnout Is Showing Up in Coaching Rooms

Bottomline

Burnout is not simply the price of ambition; it is often the result of staying too long in situations that pull us away from who we are. Recognising the warning signs early—and making choices grounded in our values—can help us create meaningful success without losing ourselves along the way.

#Burnout, #WorkplaceBurnout, #BurnoutRecovery, #BurnoutPrevention, #MentalHealthAtWork, #WorkplaceWellbeing, #LeadershipWellbeing, #ToxicWorkplace, #StressManagement, #ProfessionalWellbeing

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

And I think some of it relates to what we call kind of sunken investment. So actually, you know, for some people, they've spent 10, 15, 20 years in particular organisations, and yes, they know they should leave. Yes, they know it's toxic, but also they're kind of weighing up. I've only got five years until I retire, or I've only got two years until the kids leave for university, or I've only got two years until this thing happens. So I've just got to get through the next two years or five years, and it's almost like I've survived 25 already, so another two might feel okay. But you're almost like literally kind of having conversations with the right. Have you got another two years in you? Right? Have you got another two years to give to this organization? So I am seeing this happen more.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

Hello everyone. Welcome to another edition of the Contra Minds Podcast. In this episode, I'm talking with Kelly Swingler, Bernotologist. She's the creator of Burnoutology, a self-described field for diagnosing and treating burnout across cognitive, somatic, and neurological systems simultaneously. She runs a master burnout coach program, one of its kind in the world, and a burnout collector. She's currently doing her PhD to study the cognitive impact of burnout. I began my conversation with Kelly asking her about the burnout equation that she widely talks about and her neofetal failure and the early symptoms that she could sense when the burnout happened. We then spoke about how burnout is first recognized by the nervous system and then by the conscious mind, and the importance of the sense of self in burnout prevention. She gave her perspective on how burnout can be prevented, how a sense of values, decisions, and resonance with various things that you do in life are very critical in burnout prevention. Over to my conversation with Kelly Swindler. Today's episode is proudly brought to you by Effortless. Effortless is the ultimate solution for startups and SMBs seeking seamless money management and compliance handling. Effortless wasn't just created by anyone, it was crafted by chartered accountants and entrepreneurs who understand the pulse of startups and SMBs. Visit www.goeffortless.ai and embark on a journey that will redefine the way you do business. In your definition, what is the burnout equation and how did you come about this definition?

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Yes, the burnout equation is uh so the burnout equation itself is is basically tells us that toxicity minus our sense of self equals burnout. So toxicity minus sense of self equals burnout. Now, toxicity can be, you know, and there are lots of different studies and lots of different research out there. So up until recently, um the kind of number one cause, if you like, what we were seeing as burnout globally was toxic workplaces. Earlier this year, so earlier in 2026, there was another research study that was concluded that looked at kind of 60 years of burnout research, really, and that told us that the number one cause of burnout was actually not so much toxic workplaces, but actually having unclear job expectations. So if we've got people within the workplace, then we can kind of look at it from there. But actually, burnout doesn't just have to be related to the workplace. Burnout can happen to us because of health, neurodivergence issues, mental health issues, caring responsibility, parenting, thoughts, habits, there can be lots and lots of kind of things from there. So really toxicity is anything, I suppose, that kind of drains us, right? Anything that's not good for us, anything that's not healthy. That sense of self, then really like who are we, right? Uh what are our values for what gets us out of bed in the morning, what drives us, our passions, our motivators, but really kind of who do we understand the person to be that's looking back at us in the mirror? And I suppose my first iteration of the burnout equation, although I didn't know that's what it was at the time, it took me, it took me kind of years, years to get to that point, but was actually after my first experience of burnout. So in 2013, I was an exec level HR director. I still refused to admit at the time that what it was was burnout. And I think very often we don't know it's burnout first time round, right? Sometimes it takes us two or three or four. I know people that have been through it five times and then they're like, I don't, I don't want to be here again. So it's very, very rare actually that we will know it's burnout until we're kind of coming through the the first side of our first sight of our first. But I had taken some time off. I I had to have, as a result of the physical impact of burnout on my body, I ended up having to have two operations in 48 hours after seven months of pain and lots of kind of unanswered questions about what was going on with my body, both of which ended up being related to burnout. And I'd taken a couple of weeks off, the only time that I'd had off during this seven month, uh seven-month period, and I went back into the workplace and realized, and it had been glaringly obvious for years, really, but I'd gone back into the workplace after this period of absence, and I realized just how toxic that environment had been. But more than that, I realized just how much of myself I had lost by being in that toxic environment. Because I think when we're in toxic, and again, toxic environments, toxic workplaces, habits, patterns, behaviors, thoughts, whatever we're kind of looking at from that toxicity perspective, I think what we miss a lot of the time is how much of ourselves we either lose or adjust or adapt, or we, you know, we start to act or think or talk in a way that is not aligned with our own values. We start to maybe, I don't know, kind of play a little bit of tit for tat, right? If you're acting this way, I'm gonna act this way. If you're doing this, I'm gonna do this. If you're gonna copy in the whole organization, I'm gonna copy in the whole organization. And I think we can we can start to do that. And I didn't realise at the time how much of myself I had lost, how much of myself I was modifying and changing in order to try and create the change that I wanted to change inside this toxic organization. And I have now, you know, I've over 12 years now, I've coached over 700 leaders through burnout, um, you know, C-suite executives, leaders, HR leaders, TV personalities, athletes, uh, doctors, professionals, therapists. I've coached lots and lots of people through this. And I think the same thing kept kept, you know, kind of staring me in the face, really. The level of toxicity that these people were living with and the what the impact that it was having on themselves, how much of themselves they were losing or being forced, forced to adapt. So yeah, I think my my the early iteration of the equation to came in 2013 when I went back into work having having taken a few weeks off after surgery, but it has continued to show up in every single coaching conversation that I've had, really. And now I train coaches and HR professionals in in being burnout-informed professionals and/or being master burnout coaches. And as a result of that, whenever I share the equation with them as well, they're like, I'm like, that's like it's so obvious, right? I can see it, I can I can see I can see how it how it fits and and how it works. Of course, now they're they're using it to help their own clients.

SPEAKER_02 8:43

So uh you talked about the Jan, July 2013.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

When when this really happened, and uh so the one question that I wanted to ask you was what is the physical symptom uh that uh gave you the first signal that it was a burnout uh before it became undeniable to you that it was a burnout?

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Yeah, and I think that's a really interesting thing. So the the really kind uh quite literally gut-wrenching pain that that I was experiencing had started to come from a lot of digestive pain, a lot of digestive issues. It almost felt like I was kind of being stabbed in the stomach from from day one. But again, if I look back on that, so I and I had seven months of that pain. I mean, that pain was causing me to pass out. Um, I couldn't stand up straight, I was very kind of hunched all the time, it was just becoming overwhelming. But again, as I look back now, and and I suppose understanding now what I know about burnout and how how long it can take for those for those signs to actually really begin to take hold. It could be something subtle, like it could start with headaches, it could start with digestive issues, it could start with more tension and tightness in the body. Now that can come from tightness in the jaw, that could come from the shoulders, it could be lower back pain, hip pain, sleep issues, we can become more uh our we can lose our attention, our focus can start to go, we can become more cynical, more snappy with people, uh, we've got less attention, less time, less energy. So there's lots and lots of things there. But again, I I think over all of the years that I've done this, it's almost like each of us see we see those early signs, and yet we can excuse them. Maybe the fact I've got I've got a headache is because I haven't drank enough water today, or I've spent too much time on my screen, or I need new glasses, right? Maybe I've got digestive issues because of something I ate I ate last night that's upset me, or again, you know, I've been drinking too much of the wrong thing, or I've got a bit of an upset stomach. It's almost like the signs, I almost kind of say that I think the signs start to chip away at us like they're there, and they can be quite subtle, and they can be quite subtle for a really, really long time. But we ignore them and we excuse them and we blame lots of external factors, and yet for every single person that again I've coached through this, there has been something that has made them say, okay, now I need to start to pay attention because it's almost like the whispers have all of a sudden become like a gut punch, right? Something dramatic has happened that has made us, okay, this now isn't right, and now I need to do something about it. Now, for some people, some clients that I've worked with, that big sign has been a stroke or a heart attack. It has been the first time that they passed out. It has been, um, you know, for I've got uh one client who like just burst into tears uncontrollably and had, you know, kept doing so like six times in a morning and thought this isn't right. For one person, you know, one client I remember them saying it was a panic attack. They literally had to sit under their desk in a meeting room, they'd gone into a really severe panic attack and just found themselves kind of hiding under a desk in this state of panic. So I do think the the wake-up call, the the kind of you know, metaphorical gut punch that many of us have can be very different, but the the similarities in terms of some of those tiny little signs and tiny little whispers that would have been going on for a long time, they tend to be quite common for many of us.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

So, in hindsight, do you believe uh someone else or somebody else would have intervened?

SPEAKER_00 12:37

I think this is a really interesting question because again, looking back, lots of people were trying to intervene. And this again is the nature of burnout. If I were to see the signs in myself back then, and if I were to see the signs in somebody now and say, I think you're experiencing burnout, we need to do something about it. Actually, where I suppose where I begin to kind of geek out and get quite fascinated, really, really, is actually the neuroscience of what's going on, what's going on within our nervous system and our body and our brain. And actually, when we're kind of on the brink of burnout, when we're going into that, our body is quite literally in a survival mode and it's forcing us to just keep on going. Now, if we think about this, and um people may have heard a very similar analogy before, but it is almost like our body goes into a state as though we're kind of being chased by wild animals, right? And if we were being chased by wild animals right now, uh our brain doesn't suddenly say, you know, Kelly Swami, just like like chill out, right? Grab yourself a nice cup of tea, chill out, you know, enjoy the sunshine, just have a nice, you know, have a nice chat. Our body and our brain will actually keep us running for survival, whether we've got to, you know, climb up trees or jump into rivers or just keep on running, you know, running across ground. Our body wants to keep us going. And if somebody even on the outside is kind of, you know, don't worry about it, we've tamed the animals, right? That they're not going to do anything. We're not going to be paying attention to that because we are just going to keep on fighting. And quite literally, that's what's going on within our body. Our that threat response continues to keep us moving. And so people can say to us, you Kelly, I'm really worried about you, you need to stop. But again, the physical science, the physiology, the biology, the neurology, all of the neurosciences say, no, that's not right because I my body wouldn't be experiencing this amount of stress if I were safe. And so it keeps it keeps us going. But what I do say to people is if you are worried about somebody, be this a colleague, a family member, loved one, friend, whoever it is, if you are worried, I talk to people about what I call bread crumbing. Okay. So that could be, I've just listened to a really amazing Contramines, you know, Contrabines podcast, right? Have a listen to this. They were talking about burnout, or here's a book or a podcast or a blog, or if it is in the workplace, maybe having like some team meetings about burnout and the early signs and understanding how people are feeling. Because again, what I've seen over the 12 years of doing this is that if we point it out to people, that threat response almost dials up even more, and we think we've we've got to keep moving to keep safe. But if we allow the individual almost enough of those small breadcrumbs to find their own answers, then they are less likely, they're more likely rather to make the changes that they need to make to stop them reaching that full-blown burnout in the first place. So breadcrumbing is absolutely ideal.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

Okay. And uh did you see that as the reason for the burnout, which is really the way I would put it, is uh, you know, would you tell your 28-year-old yourself, right? Um slow down, or was the pace a part of what you had to get there? And many people uh are you know having contradictions around this, right? Which is uh, you know, I need that pace to get there, but I'm in contradiction with myself because I may not want that pace, yeah, but I don't want to slow down. So is that the kind of uh contradiction that creates this kind of a problem?

SPEAKER_00 16:46

I mean it can be sure, yeah. But I think you know, if we take it back to if we take it back to the burnout equation and and and I think if I if I look at my own life during the burnout equation, I also what I didn't realise at the at the time, particularly during those 12 years, I had some, you know, a number of undiagnosed health issues relating to women's health. And I think they at the same time as pushing in my career and working in my career, they were causing a lot of masking. They were causing me to push through a lot of pain anyway. So I think there can be reasons, whether it's health issues, mental health, uh, it could be stuff that's going on at home. There can there is, I think there's there's often something again that's causing us to lose our sense of self. And that loss of sense of self can be masking, it can be pushing too much, it can be it can be the toxicity. If I look at my own experience, I say, yes, you know, I I became a mum of twins at 20 completely unexpectedly, and and I was a you know, I was an exec level at a C-suite level HR director at 30, then reached burnout at 32. In the final organization that I worked in before I reached burnout, on the first day in that role, now I had been headhunted into this particular position, but on day one in that organization, every single part of my being, intuitively, physically, everything, was telling me to leave the organization. And I and I didn't, and I didn't. On the very first day of going into that role, every single part of me was like, get out of here, right? This is not the place for you. And I stayed. And so I ignored my intuition. That was really the first time that I had ignored ignored my intuition. I'm I am a very intuitive person, I'm a very intuitive leader, and I ignored it. And I put it down to a few things. I put that feeling down to like this is the biggest role that I've ever had. It's the biggest amount of money that I've ever had, it's the biggest amount of responsibility. So I almost kind of put aside those intuitive feelings to think it must, it's just first day nerves, right? It'll be fine. And yet that feeling continued and continued and continued for months, and I still kept resisting it. And so I stayed in that toxic environment that was becoming more and more toxic every single month. And two and a half years later, then I ended up at burnout. Now I had to twist and change a lot of myself within that organization. There were lots of questionable things that were going on, and I kept trying to be the one to fix it, and I kept trying to be the one to change it. The kind of earlier part of my career, I'd had eight years where I'd ended up having seven different promotions. I was used to working hard. Even now, you know, I'm still in my own business. I am still a hardworking, ambitious, driven woman. I love drive, I love creating impact. I love the work that I'm able to do. And my values, my mission, you know, when I when I was in HR, I genuinely wanted to create better places to work. And I was doing a lot of that. You know, I was working on projects around individualism in the workplace. I scrapped annual performance appraisals. I was doing, you know, putting in people first initiatives and making sure that we were putting people before policy and human-first workplaces. I was creating loads and loads of amazing things and creating better workplaces. And that was being shown in our customer service data, our employee engagement data, like everything was reflecting that. And then I went into this toxic organization. I knew it, I, you know, as part of the recruitment process, I was told it would be hard and that there was a lot to change. And yet I think it was that somewhere along the way, I lost myself in this is the biggest, best job that I've ever had. If I can turn this around, I can then go and do anything. But I really I really, really lost myself with within that organization. But I I think I became more, I suppose I became more driven to achieve in that organization because I could see how brilliant it would be if we got it right. But at the same time, I was also pushing myself to my own personal limits because of the health issues that I was almost kind of masking underneath. And and I knew that if I'd started to kind of talk about those or almost kind of give in to those, I wouldn't be able to achieve the role that I wanted to achieve in the first place. So I think it was those sorts of things. Workplace, workplaces and workload can, of course, become too much for people. And if the workplace and the workload falls into that toxicity category, then yes, we're going to be more prone to burnout. But again, I think it's it's having those two things at the same time. Lots of people thrive and do brilliantly when they've got really, really intense workloads, and if the if the environment or workload or work life or relationships or whatever is toxic at the same time. But the missing ingredient really is that sense of self. You if you have a strong sense of self, if you're living in line with your values and your morals and your ethics, and you are in those kind of really uh heavy workload type environments, you can still avoid burnout because you've still got that sense of self. And actually, that sense of self allows you to almost kind of balance the toxicity and maybe even. Like be able to switch off at the end of a workday and and focus on what it is that you needed to do. But the the environment that I was in really caused me to lose a lot of of that of that sense of myself, and I was almost kind of fighting for survival daily within that organization. And so I think the two combined is ultimately what contributed to that.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

Um I have a related question to this. Of course. Uh uh one of the challenges that people face, uh, like what you said, is really not having a sense of self uh in terms of whether that's the job that I can do. It's not it's not really the toxicity of the workplace, but my own assessment of my capability to take that role, uh, have the resilience to play that role, uh, and that always is something that you overestimate and you end up uh having a burnout. Uh, how do you really uh assess that? Because there might not be toxicity uh at all, or there might be some sense of toxicity in any workplace, but your sense of self uh of what you can do is something that you always overestimate. And how do I really uh, you know, I would say plan for it or assess it?

SPEAKER_00 23:27

Yeah, and again, I think this is a really interesting one. Again, the longer that I do this work, I think for lots of us, we we almost um like wait for a crisis to happen, right? Before we then start to look in the mirror and say, who am I and what is it that I want? And and again, I think I think that's that's a lot. I mean, some of that, again, right, burnout is systemic. And yeah, I think if we look at it, we're not asking children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews about who they are or their values, right? How how early on in life do we start asking at uh asking our children, right, what do you want to be when you grow up? We don't ask them who they want to be, we don't ask them what's important for them. We very much go straight like, what do you want to be when you grow up? And for some of our children, we're almost starting that career path from birth, right? In in some families, okay? So I think we kind of put that. So I think for even if we kind of look at look at you know, children to start off with, we our children are born into our families where we might say, these are our values, this is what's important to us, and therefore this is how we work. And then our children, as uh ourselves as children, we go into schools and we are told these are the values, these are the rules, this is what you must do. And then we go into colleges or universities or we go into workplaces and we're told these are the values, these are the behaviors, this is what we expect from you. And I think very rarely do we go into that knowing what our own personal values are and who we are and what it is that we really want, unless, of course, we get the opportunity to have people ask us those questions, be that careers advisors or coaches or mentors or parents or family members. And so I think for many of us, we wait until we get into a crisis and then we don't recognize the person that's staring back at us in the mirror, and then we start to do almost the kind of personal exploration work, right? And maybe we are, I don't know, climbing through the Himalayas or something, aren't we, on this journey of self-discovery? Or uh, you know, I've I've been on a few kind of uh yoga retreats in India myself, right? Kind of Rishikesh and and Dan in uh Dan in Kerala on some kind of Ayurvedic retreats. And I've had conversations with people that are, you know, in ashrams or sat on the sides of river, uh, on the on the side of rivers, like looking to you know, have the moment of this is me, you know, this is this is my moment of clarity and and this is what I've been looking for. And and I think if we could start that earlier and have that as part of, I don't know, an introduction to work or an introduction to university or include that into schools, and we did some values work and some exploration work around that stuff, because I think ultimately by the time we get into jobs, if we've, you know, we've kind of had a lifetime of being told this is this is what we do, this is how we must must behave, but if we've never actually had that time to think, is this the right job for me? What are my strengths? What am what am I really good at? You know, I I know what my strengths are, I know what I'm brilliant at, and and likewise I know the stuff that I'm not particularly good at. And and again, I think in workplaces what we tend to do is we tend to want to focus more on developing the things that we're not particularly good at rather than developing the strengths of the things that we are amazing at. And I think if we focus actually, if we kind of flipped that and developed more of the strengths, I think a lot of that would would would almost kind of you know, not overcompensate in a negative way, but almost kind of enhance how we could go into some roles. And some of us will be, again, if you know, if we kind of think about it in in terms of kind of energy, some of us are morning people, some of us are night owls, some of us have different dips throughout the course of the day, some of us will work better in team environments, some of us will work better in isolation, some of us will work better in the morning, some of us will work better in the afternoon. You know, there's if we look at kind of Daniel Pink's book, When, for example, that talks about, you know, kind of different chronotypes and how we can impact differently during the day, how I think he mentions in there, you know, how kind of in the legal system, for example, judges will make different decisions in, you know, in court based on whether somebody's gone into court in the morning versus in the afternoon. We, you know, how driving instructors, for example, pass people based on morning or afternoon, depending on whether they're morning or afternoon people. And I think if we just had that level of understanding of ourselves, and we were realistic in thinking, what are we brilliant at? Now I I can manage my time and my energy, and I always had done. And you again in my in my HR role, I could jump from, you know, kind of meeting to meeting very quickly. But at the point that, again, you know, there's kind of physical signs of burnout, you know, I was involved in 16 different projects at this in multi-million pound projects, you know, that that becomes too much. And you know, and just trying to have those conversations was overwhelming. And again, you know, if I had maintained a strong sense of self during that, I would have said enough. But because of that level of toxicity in that organization, I didn't feel safe, I didn't feel psychologically safe to say something needs to give. And yet in the right environment, I would have been able to do that. And so I think again, we need we need the personal awareness to say, is this my strength or not? But also we need the organizational awareness to saying we are asking too much of people, and we need to make some changes at the same time.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

Uh, is there a correlation between what you just said and uh what is the benchmark of success?

SPEAKER_00 29:19

Uh again, benchmark of success.

SPEAKER_02 29:21

Because what happens is uh there is a society which actually says, you know what, hey, you are a HI director of this large multinational, therefore you're successful. Uh but now you are a burntologist and you created a new category, and uh you are you're probably uh successful in your own terms, in your own benchmark. So which means that uh more than toxicity, it is about your sense of self and your sense of the benchmark of success uh that also is critical to uh whether you will burn out or not burn out, and that's a hard decision to make, right? Because if you talk and tell people that I am the HR director of this MNC, people say you're successful, and now if you go and say, you know what, I'm a burnoutologist, they'll say, Hey, uh, so what? Uh you know, you're not successful because you're not a HR director in a large company. So that sense of success and how you determine it for yourself, is that a critical component of burnout reduction and burnout removal?

SPEAKER_00 30:31

Yeah, and I again I think it plays in if we again we bring it back to the burnout equation, right? Who's is the is the definition of success is that adding to the toxicity or adding to the sense of self? And if it's adding to the toxicity whilst reducing the sense of self, again, we're at the point of burnout, if it's increasing the sense of self whilst reducing the toxicity, we're preventing burnout, right? So we we can kind of look look at the balance from there. I think again, for so many of us, I suppose this comes back again to you know, right right from kind of childhood, doesn't it? We, for lots of us, we are told the definition of success is we need to study hard. And if we study hard, we can get into a good college, a good university, a good whatever that may be. If we do that, then we'll end up in a good job. And as long as you keep on working really, really hard in that good job, you'll get paid loads of money. You can then buy yourself a nice house, a nice car, have a nice family, you'll be successful for the rest of your life, right? That's that's kind of again what what what many of us get told. But actually, for some people, that's not success. And I I genuinely thought it was, it was for me, and you know, I I turned 40 during the pandemic, and I can remember having a kind of like what like what's what's happening? No, I'd I'd been self-employed and running my own business and you know, kind of growing my team by that point for six years, but I hadn't really thought past 40 because I'd got this C-suite position HR director at 30, and I thought I would just continue, I genuinely thought I was a corporate lifer, and I thought by 40 I'd be in a bigger organization, maybe a global organization in an HR director role with a bigger house and a bigger car and bigger holidays, but kind of like just more of what I had already. And I think that definition of success is is really interesting because actually when I'd first left corporate, and because of the things that I was doing within HR, I was already speaking on lots of different stages. I was I was winning ri winning awards, but within the first couple of months of starting that company, I was asked to speak at a at a women in business, uh women in leadership event for a global bank. And would I go and and deliver this talk for them and talk about you know kind of women in leadership and and what this all looked like? And I was really delighted because I thought I'm only a couple of months into business, right? This is this is an amazing opportunity, kind of, you know, go me, this this is great. And yet I had a panic attack in my car on my way to that to that talk, because that was, I think, where the realization hit me that I was no longer Kelly, the award-winning HR director, you know, kind of exec level role with this huge organization. I was just Kelly. And that was a real kind of turning point for me because actually, was could I be enough? Was I enough without the big job title and without the big salary and without without the big company name behind me? And I genuinely had a panic attack on the in the car on the way to this. I had to pull my car over. I was, I've got to, you know, I've got to tell them I've got food poison or I've got stomachache, or there's something wrong with me, or I need to tell them like my house has flooded, or there's something wrong with my boys, you know, I've got to like I can't I can't I can't like can't I can't go I can't go and deliver this talk because I'm just me. And and that really became a turning point for me, and and it's still something that I have continued to work on a lot over the years. But yeah, I think would you know, and if I were to have a conversation with anybody now, you know, would I necessarily be considered a success? Because I haven't got, you know, a multi-million pound organisation. I don't employ a massive team. I've you know scaled back even a lot of my speaking opportunities at the moment. So I'm not even, you know, kind of traveling around the world as I used to, talking about burnout on on global stages. You know, I spend a lot of my time now kind of at home in you know, in this in this environment, training other coaches from around the world. Would anybody else actually from kind of looking in look at that and say, well, you're you're a success? Probably not. But actually, would I then look at them potentially? And are they working 80 or 100 hours hours a week for a six-figure salary, never spending any time with their family, always running on exhausted? I would have looked at that as success, you know, at the at 32. For me, at you know, 46, that that's no longer success. And so I think also our definition of success can change with our career, with our role, with our parenting or not responsibilities. You know, what success looked like for me at 20 looks very, very different now at 46. And I think it's almost giving ourselves permission to redefine what success looks like for us at varying different stages of life.

SPEAKER_02 35:16

Fantastic, fantastic. Uh, you're also doing a PhD on the cognitive impact of burnout.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

I am indeed, yes. Because I'm because I'm a glutton for punishment and love exhausting myself all of the time.

SPEAKER_02 35:30

So I did read about that, and uh uh is there anything that you find in the research uh that reinforces some of the concepts that you've been talking about? Or are there any surprising findings uh which are early? Uh you know, you've not completed your PhD, but I know you are in the process of doing it. But is there something interesting that you are figuring out there which uh you would like to share?

SPEAKER_00 35:57

I think what's what's definitely interesting in terms of the long-term cognitive impact is how it impacts simple things like just like decision making, very early kind of decision making. So even really simple things like what do I wear and what do I eat in those early stages as we start to come out of that burnout, even before we start to think, what do you know, do I go back to this workplace or not go back to this workplace? Do I look for another job? Do I retrain? Do I get another career? Do I start my own business? Whatever those kind of questions, and those those questions could actually feel huge. But I think again, for lots of us that experience burnout, and nobody is immune to burnout. I think that's really important to kind of point out. But it actually is kind of type A, high achieving, high performers that are actually more prone to burnout, but everybody can experience it. But then when we do get to actually, do you want to go back to the workplace? Do you want to start your own thing? Do you want to start looking for a new job? Those decisions, the not being able to trust those decisions, then starts to feel overwhelming. And that's when we come back to then, I suppose, the links with the nervous system. So I'm I'm actually really excited to see then what that cognitive impact, how much does it lessen, almost kind of how quick does it lessen, um, to allow us to kind of get back into feeling safe and comfortable again. But I'm also, I think as a result of that, I'm I'm then kind of feeding in and hope to have this. This is what I'm working on at the moment. But as part of that research, looking to understand actually if we then were to put in almost some kind of nervous system work within that, if we've got almost like a group of participants that that do that versus those that don't, or those that haven't and those that have, um actually, what would that look like and and how could that start start to make some changes? So yeah, I'm I'm I'm excited to I'm excited to see where it where it all continues to go, really.

SPEAKER_02 37:59

Interesting. So I think uh your key point is uh when it comes to burnout, the nervous system picks it up far ahead of your conscious mind.

SPEAKER_00 38:09

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:10

And you're trying to you're trying to find insights around that is really what your key research is, is really what I understood from whatever you said.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

Yeah, the body will feel it. And again, if we go back to what we were saying in terms of some of those signs and symptoms that we were talking about earlier, right? They really are, you know, the the nervous system talking to us about things that are happening, right? So that the nervous system obviously goes into that kind of threat response really quickly. So the nervous system goes into that, it's then giving signs to the body. So some of those physical symptoms, um, and even if it's not symptoms, it could be fatigue, it could be tension, it could be illness, it could be all those sorts of things. And then it's almost like the mind starts to process what's happening. And I think actually when we look at it, and you know, again, as part of the research, I want to be able to kind of understand coaching as an intervention for burnout and what that might look like, but also incorporating some of this nervous system work within coaching in in the first place to allow to do some of that change. But I suppose it's looking at the reverse of that because I think logically, what we want to do when we get to the point of burnout, logically we want to be able to understand what's happened to us. How has this happened and how do we stop it happening again? But the brain is always kind of offline, right? If we if we I suppose if we look at it in the simplest sense, the brain has always kind of gone offline. So logically, it can't give us any of those answers. But we know if we try to make a decision or if we try to move forward, again, the body's giving us the signals, right? The body's giving us that gut reaction, or it's causing tension, or it's causing tightness, or it's causing more illness or fatigue or something. And it's almost again, I think what's really common for those of us that burn out, it's almost like we're able to separate mind and body. Again, you know, my body was quite literally shutting down for seven months, and yet I could I was still working from my hospital bed every time that I was being admitted to hospital. Almost like I knew the pain was there, the pain was debilitating, and yet somehow I almost felt separate from my body because as long as I could keep on working, I could keep on working. Yes, I'm experiencing pain, but I can, and that's what I see with lots and lots of people. So it's almost we have to kind of rejoin the mind-body connection again, get the brain and the nervous system speaking to each other, getting everybody to kind of understand what those dots are again and not ignoring some of those signs, right? If we're logically trying to answer something, but the body is in a freeze mode, or we get that tension or tightness, we've got to almost kind of be able to speed up the process for the brain to say, okay, the body's giving me this signal, what does that mean? And then we can start to put think logically about the steps that we need to take to make some improvements. So, yeah, that's my that that's my geek out for the next few years, anyway, in terms of in terms of joining all of these dots.

SPEAKER_02 40:54

Interesting. Uh, when I look at your uh you know Bernard equation, uh when you talk about toxicity minus sense of self, uh, do you believe the sense of self is a fixed capacity, or do you believe my sense of self can be improved, which can then get better than uh you know toxicity? So is there an ability to kind of grow my sense of self?

SPEAKER_00 41:22

What's yes, what's been your experience? Utterly, yes, absolutely. And I so again, I think for lots of us, not everybody, and a lot of what we're talking about today is is is I suppose kind of uh you know stereotypical, isn't it? We're kind of talking in terms of broad theories. But yeah, I think for lots of us, as we said, we we get to the point of burnout, we don't recognise who we are. Many of us don't know, and we might say that in coaching or to partners or or family, like just I don't know who I am anymore. So it's almost like when if we're coming through burnout, we're almost kind of starting from zero in terms of that sense of self. But we can start to uncover and unpick, and we can start to do the values well. I mean, even just again, for me over the last few months, I've done a lot of work again around my values and understanding those. And they've changed considerably from you know what they were last time. Now, the underlying thread may still be there, but actually how I talk about them, how I understand them, but also how I want to use my values. You know, I don't just now want to say, oh, that's one of my values. I'm now looking at how I can use my values in in making decisions, personal decisions, life decisions, health decisions, business decisions. Because if it's no longer aligned, I don't want to do it. I've not got the constraints anymore of, you know, young kids at home. I've not got the constraints anymore of being in a corporate environment. And so actually, I can now, I suppose, focus even more on that sense of self and linking that to everything that I do. As I said, you know, career, life, relationships, friendships, work, everything from that perspective. And so I think, yeah, I think there is defin, I think there is a core of this is me. And I think once we know this is me, I mean it's you the kind of growth and opportunities for that could be exponential, right? And we can keep developing it and keep growing and keep questioning. I mean, I often say to quite a lot of family and friends, I think once you once you've kind of started on this route, it's it's never ending, right? There are always different dots to join. There's always different questions that you can be asking. So I I probably think now this, I don't know if I'd necessarily call it kind of self-discovery or self-exploration or or whatever it is that you want to call it, but I think it's just certainly for me anyway, I think having now started it, it feels like an endless journey, but in a good way. I mean, I'm not, you know, it's not forced. I think it just gives me an opportunity to just keep reflecting, keep growing. You know, am I am I happy with where I'm at? What needs to change? How could I be even more me? And how could I reduce, you know, it what's the toxicity? I mean, I I do kind of regular, kind of quarterly now, kind of like little toxicity audits, right? And I get it done. Doesn't have to be like though I'm in a toxic environment, but again, you know, where could I be? And it's you know, am I spending too much time on social media, for example? So as I said, I've I've now come off, uh, I'm no longer on Instagram and TikTok, for example, for work, because I realized I was spending too much time on them. That was something that was toxic, and it was also causing me to question my sense of self when I was on it, because social media by definition is constantly telling us that we're not good enough, we, you know, we need to spend this much money, you know, Instagram every third post is an advert, right? Telling me that my face needs to change or my hair needs to change or my teeth needs to change, or my glasses, or my clothes, or my outfits, or something. So it can be those sorts of things. It doesn't necessarily always have to be a kind of quest for a sense of self, but are there things that are happening that are causing our sense of self to shrink? So it can be small things like that, or it could be bigger kind of values pieces, it could be stuff around how we work, where we work, the type of clients that we want to work with, how we want to behave at work, the type of leader we want to be, the type of parent that we want to be. Um, you know, that I mean it can be, you know, you've got two, you know, I suppose two sides of the coin and completely different ends, ends of a spectrum. But I think, yeah, we can just continue to keep building and developing and shaping that that sense of self as we go. And I and I do think the more we build that sense of self, the less we allow the toxicity anyway.

SPEAKER_02 45:28

Interesting. So you're almost talking about a resonance of the various decisions and roles that you play. And if you have a certain sense of resonance in all those decisions and the roles that you play, then your chances of burnout is far lesser. Is it what I'm taking out as a summary of what you just said?

SPEAKER_00 45:50

Yeah, totally. Perfect summary. Perfect summary. Love it, yes.

SPEAKER_02 45:55

Yeah. Uh so I have uh one more question around the three types of burnout that you're talking about, which is frantic moral injury, and finally borrowed. Yes. And uh uh specifically on moral injury, right? Have you ever coached a client who's gone through a moral injury, right? And uh the right answer was actually leaving the organization, but the client did not want to hear it, right? Because most of the time that's what we do, right? I've had a moral injury in the workplace, I know it does not work, but you know, I'm getting paid a six-figure salary, uh, you know, uh, and uh you know uh you kind of uh coaching that person, and that person does not want to hear, leave this job. So, how do you handle uh that? Because that would be the starting point for the burnout and the final uh I would say nail in the coffin, right? Yeah. How do you handle this kind of a situation?

SPEAKER_00 46:55

Yeah, I I have seen this probably more often than I would have wanted to see in all of my coaching, actually. Yeah, and and actually we I run uh uh I have a group called the Burnout Coach Collective, and we're actually seeing this happen a lot more with other burnout coaches that that I train. And I think some of it relates to what we call kind of sunken investments. So actually, you know, for some people they've spent 10, 15, 20 years in particular organizations, and yes, they know they should leave, yes, they know it's toxic, but also they're kind of weighing up, I've only got five years until I retire, or I've only got two years until the kids leave for university, or I've only got two years until this thing happens. So I've just got to get through the next two years or five years, and it's almost like I've survived 25 already, so another two might feel okay, but you're almost like literally kind of having conversations with them, right? Like, have you got another two years in you? Right? Have you got another two years to give to this organization? So I am seeing this happen more, and I do think globally, as we see more uncertainty around job markets and and what's going to look like, we've obviously there's AI stuff, there's political stuff, there's cost of living, there's I mean, there's there's so much stuff that we could talk about on a global level, isn't there? That's kind of feeding and fueling job markets at the moment and job certainty and career growth and leadership and and all sorts of things. And and it is a reality for some people. Yes, of course, the obvious answer is leave and go somewhere else. For some people, at the moment, it's like they, and again, there's two things. Do I have the energy to look for something else in the first place? And also, is there another, is there something else out there? Because the job market is telling me no. So we're seeing this, I've seen this rise considerably over the last five years, more so over the last two years, because of what's happening kind of globally, economically, politically, all of those sorts of things that are going on. And I think if somebody genuinely cannot leave, be that for financial reasons, um, or local, you know, work location, ease of life, the way it fits around caring, caring responsibilities, parenting responsibilities, finances, whatever the reason. I think because coach is what's really important then is really to understand that we don't we need to coach the person where they are. And so actually, for sometimes it's not about coaching them out, but it's about coaching them and getting them to a point so they can stay. And how do you allow, how can you work with them and coach them in a way that allows, again, increased sense of self-reduce the toxicity? So, do they need more boundaries in place? Do they need to be speaking up more in meetings? Do they need to be making better decisions? Do they need to find ways to just, you know, kind of once once the workday's done, they just switch off and clock off and then they spend more time with family and friends and loved ones doing amazing stuff that's gonna energize them and restore them and make them feel better, ready for another day in the job tomorrow that's gonna be toxic and drain me and all those sorts of things. Now, some of those decisions are gonna be very, very dependent on every single one of those individuals. But I do think from a moral injury perspective, is we're seeing rise more in sectors like education and healthcare and the legal sector and also within HR, because we've got all gonna we've got individuals that genuinely care about what it is that they want to be doing, whilst we've got systems and processes and environments, uh, be it political decisions, government decisions, be it funding, we're expecting people to kind of do more for less, be it the increase, you know, AI coming in, whatever that might look like. I think, you know, if we take healthcare, for example, more and more healthcare providers, particularly if they're publicly funded, want to be doing more for less. You've got people on, definitely here in the UK, you know, very, very low wages that are trying to save the lives of people while the systems around them are broken. That's causing moral injury. Not every single person, though, that works in healthcare wants to leave healthcare because every single part of them, and again, from their values piece, is about this is what I'm here to do. You know, I've trained to do this, this is what I'm here to do, this is what I want to do. I just need all of the stuff to get fixed around me, and then everything will be okay again. And so I think we're seeing moral injury burnout increase. And I think for those that like genuinely need to stay or want to stay within those roles, we need to be looking at different ways to decrease the toxicity and increase the sense of self to allow them to. I mean, we may not even go as far as saying to thrive in those environments, but to survive in a happier, healthier way within those environments until such a time that they feel safe enough to be able to leave, and or until the market is safe enough for them to leave, and then they can they can go and do something else.

SPEAKER_02 51:48

Great. Uh, so one of the analogies that I use uh for burnout prevention is you know, if you look at rainforests, they build fertile soil for the tall trees to stand, right? So uh similarly, uh, you know, what is the equivalent of the soil for burnout prevention?

SPEAKER_00 52:14

Oh, amazing question. Again, I'm gonna come, I'm gonna come back to the sense of self, right? I think the soil has to be like who we are, right? Our our strong foundations. What's going to allow me and you and listeners, what's going to allow us to stand firm in our sense of self and say, these are my values, these are this is what matters, this is my passion, my drivers, this is what gets me out of bed in the morning, this is what matters, this is what I love doing, getting people to stand firm. So almost like we become our own soil and our own foundation in order to then like become our own tree. Now, of course, yes, we can talk about self-care and well-being and of course the foundations that we need, if you like, around the sleep and the you know, good food, staying hydrated, exercise, spending time with loved ones, all of those sorts of things. But actually, I'd see those more as almost being the kind of uh, I suppose the food, right? So kind of the the rain, the sunshine that kind of you know feeds the soil, feeds our sense of self to allow the tree to be able to grow. That's kind of how I'd how I'd look at it from that perspective.

SPEAKER_02 53:22

What is your definition of success?

SPEAKER_00 53:25

My definition of success for me at the moment, my definite my definition of success is knowing that I am making an impact whilst keeping myself whole.

SPEAKER_02 53:40

Can you repeat that once more, please?

SPEAKER_00 53:42

Yeah, making an impact whilst keeping myself whole.

SPEAKER_02 53:46

Fantastic. Um, the next question that I have is uh what would be your advice to an 18-year-old in an university uh when it comes to uh burnout prevention and preparing themselves for a life where they don't have this kind of a situation?

SPEAKER_00 54:08

Oh, get really clear on who you are and what you want, like really, really dig into that, truly dig into that. I think if we could yeah, if we could answer that question at 18, I think it would be brilliant. I'm I'm doing this actually with my 15-year-old stepson. And um, again, I think you know the the stuff that's coming out, I think if that's you, yeah, who are who I like? What drives you, what motivates you, what are you passionate about? Um, if we had to, like if I said you could never do that thing again, that kind of drives you, how would that make you feel? And and how can you do more of that? Like, how can you find your own voice, your own values, your own strengths, your own drivers, your own passions? Uh, yeah, get get that sense of self, like get that soil, like get those foundations really, really strong. Know who you are, and as a result of that, then I think that would help you make better decisions about what career you go to, what company you'll go to, what kind of leader you want, what kind of work you want to be doing, the type of organizations, the type of friends that you want to spend time with, um, just everything. I think that would that would make a massive difference.

SPEAKER_02 55:12

Nice. Um, if we were to uh invite three people for a dinner, uh, you know, people who either are living or dead, who would that be and why would you invite them? And what would you want to know from them?

SPEAKER_00 55:29

Oh, what would I want to know from them? First, I'm gonna say Brene Brown. Uh, I think the gifts of imperfection, as I was kind of in between burnout one and burnout two when that first came out, I was actually gift, I was actually gifted the gifts of imperfection. And uh I think with that with her, I've I've been lucky enough to spend some time in audiences with her, and um I was I was accepted, or I wasn't able to go in the end, but I was accepted onto her Dare to Lead facilitation programme in uh in Texas as well. And so I think being able to have a conversation with her again about values and and life and uh what she's been able to do. I think recently, having seen her kind of talk about the fact that she would never have done the Netflix show, that she would never have done the TEDx talk, you know, I'd really want to kind of understand why, because ultimately that's you know, those those two things have helped her kind of grow exponentially. So I think I I think I'd love a more of a conversation about that. I think one of them would then be uh kind of really personal one for me, and I think that would actually be my my dad's mum, who I I never got to meet. Sadly, she'd uh she had passed away um before I was born, and so I think I'd want a conversation with her. I think I'd want to understand more like about my dad as a child, and I think I would want to uh be able to kind of pick her brains about kind of life and and her values and and her drivers. I think I get I get told a lot, uh, or was told a lot as as a as a child that I was I was kind of bit uh like more like her, and I think I'd I'd want to understand that. And then I suppose another personal one for me at the moment we've uh on the you know on relation to that, I think I think would would be my dad. I want to I want to sit with my dad. My dad has sadly uh recently just been diagnosed with with advanced cancer, and I think I would want I would want him there for a conversation with you know with his mum and and to talk about those values and kind of life and and share some share some of those memories. And and I think, you know, I think probably between the four of them, knowing knowing my dad and and again how curious and inquisitive he can be, uh, I think you know, getting getting Brenda involved in some of that conversation and again, you know, knowing knowing her kind of family values and and what that would look like, I think the four of us would have a great dinner.

SPEAKER_02 57:38

Fantastic. Um last two questions. Uh what's one piece of advice that you got? I'm sure you would have got many, uh, but one piece of advice that you cherish and you value even today.

SPEAKER_00 57:58

I think, yeah, I it was a coach. I was uh I think I just started my business. I'd she'd been one of my coaches whilst I'd been in corporate. And when I started my business, uh she she kind of really dialed it up for me even more, and that was to continue to be the bluefish swimming among the goldfish. And really, you know, what she really meant by that was I get there's an analogy, isn't there? I think I think um there's a there is a picture, I think if you Google it, you'll kind of see it, but it's kind of goldfish going in one direction. There's a blue fish in the middle of them that's going in the in the completely different one, and I think it really is like don't be afraid to stand out and be different, don't be afraid to kind of swim in the different direction if it doesn't feel right for you. And so I think that that has continued to stick with me for I don't know, 12 years or so now. Uh, but just yeah, continue to be the bluefish swimming swimming among the goldfish.

SPEAKER_02 58:50

Very nice, very nice. And uh my last question is what's one thing that you believe in that others don't agree with you?

SPEAKER_00 59:03

Do we have another hour for this one, Swami, for us to for us to answer this question for you? Um, I think probably the biggest thing for me at the moment, actually, is that I I'm at a point where I, given that we we can see the uh bring, I'll bring it back to work, right? And I think the biggest thing that I'm seeing at the moment is around coaching. And at the moment, I do not believe that coaching is safe unless it is burnout informed. And I say that because we're seeing the stats in the research telling us that, you know, kind of up to 91% of adults, you know, just here in the UK, again, if we looked at it globally, but we've got at least 91% of the workforce that is experiencing stress or chronic stress, that's that will lead to burnout if things don't change. I can't believe that as coaches, we're only coaching the 9% of people that are not stressed and experiencing chronic stress. And so I genuinely believe at the moment, and it doesn't mean that you have to be a burnout coach, but I think, you know, burnout is showing up in coaching, in coaching rooms, in coaching relationships, whether we know how to spot it or not. And I think as coaches, we can do more harm than good if we do not know what we're looking for, how to amend our coaching and what it is that we need to do. And I know I'm already getting some some pushback from from many people in the coaching community about that. But right now, I do not believe that coaching is safe unless it is unless it is burnout informed. So I I will continue to keep shouting that one.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:25

Thanks, uh thanks, Kelly. It was a lovely conversation, a lot of uh insights, uh authentic uh opinions, and uh the way you expressed this was really fantastic. It came from the bottom of your heart and really enjoyed this conversation. Thanks for taking time and talking to the Contraminds podcast and our audience.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:48

Thank you very much. It's been a real pleasure to talk to you. I've really enjoyed it. So thank you again for the invitation. I hope, I hope, I hope some part of the conversation is useful for your listeners. Thanks. Thanks.