"Ask What Makes You Come Alive" — Selina Barker

Are you burnt out, exhausted by work, or wondering whether the life you’ve worked so hard to build is actually making you happy?

This week on A Thought I Kept, I’m talking to career and life design coach Selina Barker about burnout, energy management, career change and what it really means to create a life that makes you feel alive.

Selina and I talk about why burnout and exhaustion have become so normalised, why women in particular can become caught in patterns of over-giving and self-sacrifice, and how easily we can find ourselves pursuing someone else’s definition of success.

We also explore:

• Why managing your energy can be more useful than managing your time
• The five types of energy: physical, mental, emotional, motivational and spiritual
• How to recognise when work, a career or a business is no longer working for you
• Why burnout can be a sign that something needs to change
• Career change, uncertainty and finding the courage to do things differently
• Letting go of external validation and redefining what success means to you
• Why rest, creativity, pleasure and presence matter
• What it really means to thrive — rather than simply cope

Selina also shares what’s happening in her own life right now as she questions the business she has spent years building, lets go of an old version of success and makes more space for reading, drawing, playing the piano and simply being.

If you’re feeling burnt out, overwhelmed, stuck in your career, depleted by work or unsure what you want from the next chapter of your life, this episode offers another possibility: perhaps the goal isn’t to become better at keeping up. Perhaps it’s to pay attention to what makes you come alive.

Selina Barker is a coach, author and founder of the Project You journals. She has spent the past two decades making it her business to help people break free from the daily grind and create lives and careers they love. She has coached a long list of clients from Google, Apple and UN Women, to recording artists, best-selling authors, and leaders in the tech, finance, creative and music industries.

Her book Burnt Out: the exhausted person’s six-step guide to thriving in a fast-paced world was published in April 2021 and has been translated into multiple languages. She is creator of the Audible Series The Career Change Coach and founder of the Project You journals.

Selina and her work have been featured in the Telegraph, Independent, Sunday Times Style magazine, Red, Psychologies, Stylist, Grazia, Metro, BBC and many more. She lives in London with her husband and their 10 year old son.

https://selinabarker.com/

Project You Pep-talks 

Another Way with Selina Barker on Substack

Also mentioned on the show:

The Success Myth by Emma Gannon

 The Power of Full Engagement by Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of A Thought I Kept, a weekly podcast about the one idea that stayed. I'm your host, Claire FitzSummons, and today I'm so excited to share this conversation with Selena Barker. Selena is a career and life design coach. She's the author of the really wonderful book, Burnt Out, The Exhausted Person's Six-Step Guide to Thrive in a Fast-Paced World. It's a book that offers a really accessible way into understanding why we're all so burnt out right now and what we can possibly do when we find ourselves there. Selina is also the founder of the Project U journals. Her annual journal, Hello Goodbye, is something that helps a lot of people end one year and begin the next. And most recently, Selina has published a new journal called Time to Thrive. This is a really great journal if you've been wondering why you are feeling so depleted and exhausted and overwhelmed. Selina is someone who has spent the past two decades really helping people break free from what is really the daily grind and create lives and careers that they actually love. I was really excited to talk to Selena because I was really curious about how she approaches well-being, but also what she has come to understand about burnout and how it is possible to create a life that we enjoy, that we love, when so much seems to be pushing against that very idea. So this is a conversation that we do explore why we're all so exhausted and how that's become a defining feature of modern life. The difference between managing time and managing energy, and what it means to create a life that actually supports us rather than depletes us. But I think more than anything, this is a conversation that is about questioning what we have come to accept as normal and considering whether there might be another way. So here's my conversation with Selena Barker and the thought, or maybe even thoughts, that she has kept. Hi Selina, it's so, so good to see you on the podcast. I've been looking forward to this for a while, and so now I get to say, welcome to A Thought I Kept.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

Oh, me too. I was so happy to be here. So excited to be here. I'm excited too. How have you been recently? I am going through quite a big sort of career business pivot redesign transition. And this is something that I've been guiding people through, these sort of career pivots for 20 years. And it's actually really lovely to be the one going through it. I've been through evolutions in my career and my business before, but this one really felt like a big one. And I'm actually loving it. I'm actually loving the allowing things to fall apart, and I buzz off these deep, intense journeys.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Well, that's what I'm up to. Where are you in that journey? So when you think about that pivot, are you more in the pivoting away from or the pivoting towards something?

SPEAKER_01 3:37

The wonderful thing, as with all these things, is what started off as this is all not working, and I might have to make a massive change. And this is also because I've witnessed so many clients over 20 years going through this journey. I'm always, I always know that there's a necessary moment of throwing the baby out with the bathwater and being like, maybe this is it, maybe I need it's time for a whole new chapter, and allowing that and then going back and taking the baby back. And actually, it turns out that really at the core of what I don't want to let go of any of it, it's just repackaging everything. I think in the coaching world in particular, and I've been coaching for 20 years, a lot has changed with the arrival of AI and rising cost of living. People don't have the same amount of money necessarily as they used to invest in big ticket coaching. So I'm just shaking everything out and stepping into that terrifying space of uncertainty and unknown, but also, of course, it's a wonderful space full of possibilities. So it's I'm enjoying the roller coaster ride of it. And I definitely feel like I'm coming out the other side and realizing how much I needed to go through that sort of ring of fire to let a lot of my ego that was holding me back and that was suffocating me in my business and making a lot of assumptions about how things needed to be, and just yeah, a lot of that has burnt away. So actually, I'm feeling incredibly peaceful. My life is feeling much more simplified. I've got so much more time already to read more, to draw. I played the piano this morning instead of sitting down to work. It's like, oh my god, I've become an 18th-century lady. That's who wanted to emerge. So, yeah, I am fascinated by these journeys of transformation and a big believer that we need to actually go through the breakdowns, the breakups, the burnouts, the feeling like everything's falling apart in order to evolve and grow. And I believe that we're here to evolve and grow, and I certainly feel I am definitely that's the game I'm here for. So it had don't get me wrong, it had a moment of panic attack in the garden a few weeks ago, thinking that my whole business was like done for. But those are the moments where you're brought to your knees. I'm like, it's a very humbling experience. So yeah, I'm absolutely loving it.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

And I love that there's both the piano moments and then there are the panic moments, and it's both, isn't it? There's a real sense sometimes that we think about transformation and we make the decision to change, and then we start here and we move through it, and then we end up on the other side of it. But it is so messy and resonant, and you're in it, and it's entangled with what you let go of, but what you invite in, and there's there's all the things sometimes all at once, and that's okay. It doesn't have to look pretty or nice or linear. It can't be a good thing. No, it can't be that you throw on and see what happens.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Exactly. And it's and I really because I have guided people through this journey for such a long time, and I am so fascinated by it and about the phases of it, even though don't get me wrong, it felt scary at the beginning, really facing that, really feeling and giving myself permission to go, maybe this is really it. Maybe this is it's time for something completely new. I knew the journey, and I knew that you've got to surrender. You can fight to try and hold this together, which I think I had been doing for some time, or just surrender. And as I surrendered, that butterfly just allows itself to go into mush when it goes from caterpillar into the cocoon. I was like, let me become mush and just see what comes out the other side. And the reality is, people who haven't been in touch seeing me for a year or something will turn up in a few months' time and go, absolutely nothing has changed. I'm like, on the outside, not so much, but on the inside, very different. And that that is sometimes what happens, right? Again, sometimes people make big career changes and it looks completely different. And other times they go through the whole transition cycle and come out the other side and find that actually it's pretty, it's not that dissimilar to what it was before, but it's I feel like I'm coming from a really different anchor point, a really different route. And like I say, a lot of it, that ego stuff has burnt away. And I feel like I'm coming from a much more, yeah, I don't know, humble, grounded, aligned place, more about being of service than I got really caught up for a long time in this idea that to be a good coach, I was raised in the era of being a successful coach meant having a big six-figure business and eventually being on Oprah with your best-selling international best-selling book. And even though I've had my moments reading Emma Gannon's The Success Myth, for example, was such a sort of reminder that you need to let go of this desire for fame and fortune. It's kind of bananas. But there was still a part of me that hadn't fully let go of that and still secretly thought I should be aspiring to that. And now I'm like, no. No, no. I just want to be able to pay my bills, maybe put a little aside for savings and have time to draw, read, and play one piano.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

The narrative is so insidious, isn't it? I remember when I decided to train as a coach, and I hadn't been aware of that. I wanted to do it for a variety of reasons. Didn't know about the whole like Oprah pipeline, six-figure business, bookselling. And I was so surprised by it and really uncomfortable with it because I didn't know where I could fit in that. That wasn't part of my value system, it wasn't how I was aligning. And yet it was really hard to resist it because those messages are everywhere. This is how to be a good coach. And I think each industry in each field has its own version of that. But when you find yourself sometimes newly in it, you've been in this industry for 20 years, so you've seen a lot of changes. I've only been in it for what four years. But even then, there's a real sense of like, how do you resist the thing that you think you ought to be when it doesn't hold anything for you? And then and when you are in that stage of finding a way through something, how can you justify to yourself how you want to show up in it when everything says don't do that or don't be that? There's such freedom in it that I'm hearing in pushing back against that and saying, this isn't offering me what I thought it would offer me. And it's not the version of success that means something to me. But if we were to package up pianos and writing and it looks very different, but it's also I find like equally, if not more so, alluring. There's something in that I'm like, oh, that's the piece of it. That's the thing that we want. We want to pay our bills and be happy.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Yeah, exactly. I there was something I think that felt unethical to me in a way that there were it just, I was like, hang on, how has this happened? Ultimately, people who are drawn to coaching, the vast majority, and I did have one person I coached many years ago who was like, oh my God, I'm gonna do what she does, but make loads of money from it. And she went off on this terrifying journey that where she did these sort of pyramid schemes of pay tens of thousands of pounds to encourage other people to pay you tens of thousands of pounds for life transformation. But for the most part, people drawn to coaching are basically witches in modern form who are just like want to work and and sort of this certainly the way I see it, and I say witch in the best possible term. Um very proud to be a witch at heart. But I think that it's so odd. I always say the struggle with being any kind of coach, guide, healer, creative is that it doesn't often it rarely goes hand in hand with a gift for marketing. Yet the ones who are good at marketing are the ones who are telling us this is how it should be done. And I really just ripped up the rule book and I was like, I've been told you at you always do big programs, you never offer hourly sessions, you certainly don't offer them at an affordable price. And I was like, wait, what if I do that and now it's just completely transforming? It just the way I feel about it. That's not to say I won't offer big ticket programs in the future because suddenly I might want to take people on those big transformational journeys, but right now it feels really delicious and really aligned to be going back to doing it my way by my rules, and I guess I had to try it the other way until I got really like over it, really done with it, and realized that actually also not only doesn't it work, but it for me, but I also don't I hate marketing. So since making these changes, I haven't been on social media. I'll be back again when I'm promoting my journal in the Christmas. But I haven't been on social media, I haven't been doing all the marketing things that I spent so much of my time before doing. I'm just doing my podcast once a week, my project UPep talk, and sending out invitations to people saying, Hey, do you want to do this? Do you want to do it? And it's back to real basics, like, and it's beautiful. And I'm just like, why wasn't I doing it like this for all that time? And that's where I've got all this space now to breathe and to be and to go slow, and yeah, I'm delighted, frankly, that it stopped working.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

What was the moment for you that you realized I'm done with this?

SPEAKER_01 13:24

So actually, the moment was I had launched Time to Thrive Live. So my journal is called Time to Thrive, and I launched Time to Thrive Live, and I launched it three years ago, and it done really well. First 48 hours, over 50 people signed up. Gorgeous to run. I was really looking forward to running it again, and this time my list is much bigger, it's four times as big as it was three years ago, and I did lots more in terms of the right things for marketing, getting people in the mood for it, and did a free five-day energy reset, which was gorgeous. I thought that I would get a good number again, if not more than three years ago. And I launched it, and the first 48 hours I got almost no sign-ups. And I was like, What? So I just, and this was supposed to be the next chapter, the next income, the next piece. And so I and also it's been a slow burn of watching my coaching business really start to dry up over the past two years, and talking to a lot of other coaches who do similar stuff to me, similar types of coaching have been also saying, and quite a lot of people in the sort of field of therapy and coaching and uh sort of retreats and things like that have been saying, What's going on? Where is everyone? And I definitely think the combination of AI and the rising cost of living has been has really been at play. However, in my particular case, I think that was I also playing a part unconsciously of blocking it energetically because I'm now realizing very quickly, I think I wanted this to fall apart. I think I because I because it was requiring me to do so much marketing that I didn't want to do, I'm like, I just I was like, it's not sustainable. There's too much that I'm doing that I just have to force myself to do. And that's just not I love my work, it's such a source of joy. So when it's feeling like it requires so much effort, then I have to find another way. Which is the name of my other podcast, Another Way. My philosophy. But yeah, and sometimes you have to. I do believe that sometimes when things aren't working, consciously you're not fully aware of it, something on the inside that it's similar to burnout, something on the inside will just break things, destroy things, shake things up. And I think I was unconsciously or subconsciously, whichever one it was, playing a part in that. So I don't also want to say it's not working for all coaches out there because everyone's having totally different experiences, and some coaches are absolutely thriving, and that is wonderful. So I do recognise that, yeah, that I was for sure on some level really wanting this to not work. And so that was the big, but that was the big moment that this launch just not working, not having the sort of sign-ups that it had done three years ago made me go, oh wow, things are not working how they used to. And I was like, it's over, something new's gotta happen. And that's where I had a moment of a sort of panic attack moment where I was like, because the money's gotta pay bills, but I very quickly just went, you know this journey. You've guided people through this journey so many times over the past 20 years. Just let yourself go, let yourself fall. This is and I listened to a lot of spiritual podcasts that weekend just about the hero's journey and the importance of disorder followed by reorder and the descent down, and I was just listening to all that kind of stuff, and yeah, turning into the gooey mush in the cocoon to see what would come out the other side.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

It's such a it's such a sort of interesting place to arrive at, isn't it? Because when you realize that had the thing worked, you would have maybe created something that wasn't for you anyway. Yeah, you know, I was that yeah, and in a sense, what you're doing, like you so much of work is about designing a life that you want, but we can inadvertently find ourselves not designing but making a life that we don't want. And yeah, and we look up and we look around. I think that happens so often to us, and we think, how did I get here? I was being successful, I did all the things, I followed all the advice, I'm in this place, and suddenly this place is we don't recognize it, we don't recognize ourselves, we don't want it. So there is something in that sort of that moment that you're like, okay, this didn't work, and also let's let it go. And also, there's maybe a relief in it not working of some kind, because that would have taken you somewhere else.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

Such a relief. And the relief, interestingly, was there almost instantly. There was a whole load of other stuff going on, but the relief of what I net what what wasn't working and everything that went with it, that like I say, and I've say this so many times when I'm coaching other people, you need to throw the baby out with the bath water, and then you go back and see what is the baby that you want to get. And but with going, this is no longer working, I've got to face this hard truth. But with it went all of this marketing and striving and this need for recognition, which, according to my astrological birth chart, is in there, it's like a need for recognition. But when my ego, what my ego believes is recognition, is just exhausting to and I'll never achieve it. So I'm really in this interesting exploration of okay, so if I've let go of that and it feels amazing, if that is in my astrological chart, this need for recognition, what is that in a healthy way? And I actually I think the recognition comes from me. I think the recognition comes from me, and I thought it had to be external. That's why I know it's something that Yeah, I think the recognition had to come from me.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

But that's so hard, isn't it? That's so I feel I think it's so exciting and wonderful, and yet, like it's as particularly as women, it can be so difficult to recognize in ourselves what are we recognising? Where we're being successful, what's working for us, what feels good even, what we're feeling, what we're thinking. It can be so difficult to allow ourselves to even get to that space.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

Yeah, I think for me, the recognition piece, what I was craving outside validation for was for my work. So it was this craving to be recognized for what I do, or that I'm good enough, or maybe even that I'm special enough. And it was all of this, like, and actually that's the stuff that really burnt away. It was suddenly like, oh my god, it's not about that at all, Selena. It's a really it's recognizing what I am good at. I've always said I feel I was born to be a coach and a very intuitive coach, and there's the witchy side, and I'm good at what I do, and I the the beauty in it is being able to experience that in my sessions and to know that I'm certainly not perfect, and of course I'm but I know that those sessions are powerful and they're nourishing, and they I see people flourish and I see people come home to themselves, and I'm like, what more could he possibly want? So it's really coming from that being rooted of like I'm here to be of service and feeling connected with the other coaches, the other witches, the other therapists out there, the other people who are have devoted themselves to making a difference, and what a great community to be part of. And that's all I need now. What why was I because I also have a published book and I just like but it yeah, so it's really the relief of being set free from a lot of that ego need hung that hungry ghost, never fulfilled need for recognition, whatever it thought that which was only being sitting on a a sofa next to Oprah. Poor old Oprah.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

It's like it's a very crowded sofa. It's a crowded sofa. I haven't asked you a very important question. Meaning your record, it's more than 20 minutes. This is so exciting on the podcast. I asked someone about the thought that they've kept. And I think in a way, this does I think it does speak to the thought that you're bringing. Let's see. What is the one thought that you've kept out of all the well-being or not well-being ideas that are out there?

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Well, you know, it's so interesting. Before recording this, I said to you, I've got two thoughts that I'm bringing to the table. Two sort of things that I read and had real aha moments. One was about 20 years ago and one was about seven years ago. And for some reason, both of them, I remember the sofa I was sitting on, not Oprah's. I remember the sofa I was sitting on when I read it because I remember exactly where I was. I remember what I was looking at because it was, it really was one of those light bulb moments where everything, something, something really awakened in me, a sort of understanding that unlocked something. I want to share, I feel like this, this now maybe is the first one of 20 years ago. But I think it's a quote by and lots of people who have heard it, by Harold Thurman, who was an African-American author, philosopher, mystic, civil activist. And he was quoted as saying, don't ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive, and then go and do that because what the world needs is people who have come alive. And when I read that quote, I was so really early on in my career trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And I was really, well, it's more than 20 years ago, in fact, then it was about 23 years ago. And I was really tied up in like, how can I make a difference? How can I make a difference? What can I do? How can I help save the world? I was really into environmental campaigning, but it felt exhausting. And so when I read this quote, it gave me, it was like this light bulb of like, oh my God, so wait. It was like permission to put myself, my needs, and my pleasure and my joy and my fun at the heart of what I do. And in doing that, I would make a difference by being alive in the world because I was doing the things that made me come alive. And it was like one of those moments where you're given a sort of you put the coordinates into your inner GPS, and it's suddenly, oh, this is a great direction. And it was just, it's it just turned everything on its head, and it's honestly been one of the biggest guiding principles for me since then for my own life, but also in guiding other people. And always start off with asking people what really makes you come alive. It's a question that I have in all of my journals, my Goodbye Hello journal, which is a sort of end-of-year, start-of-year journal that I've been doing now for 10 years. And that's always a big question. What makes you come alive? Who are the people that you feel most alive around? And questions like that. And I think it's such, such a powerful question to ask ourselves. However, going through this recent transition, I had a moment of going, well, hold on a second. So what if I'm doing the things that make me come alive? If they're not working and it's not what people need, then actually, does it work? So I had a moment of doubting my guiding principle that I've had for 23 odd years, but actually I quickly came around and went, but it wasn't making you come alive, Selena. Actually. The marketing I was having to do, the the effort, the forcing, the sort of the striving, it wasn't making me come alive at all. In fact, it was suffocating me. Not the stuff I love, which is my membership and my journals and my coaching, but the business model I'd created because I wanted to go big and be on Oprah sofa. And I wasn't dreaming about Oprah Sofa in fairness, but it's getting to that level. Yeah. It was still there playing in the background. So it wasn't making me come alive actually. So I'm back to nope, it's still a solid, it's still a solid GPS coordinate to put into my inner compass. I'm still holding on to that. And I feel really alive now, really alive in this journey.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

What do you think you believed before that? So you're sitting on the sofa, there's this moment of recognition, maybe there's something in that speaks to you. What do you think you believed before that moment 20 years ago?

SPEAKER_01 26:45

Oh, it was absolutely that my purpose was to, and my value needed to come from helping others and making a difference. And there was there's and making a difference is still a huge value of mine, and I love it. Making a difference and seeing that I'm making a difference really does make me come alive, and actually, it's probably in recognising that for myself, that's all the recognition I need. I love to help people's ideas come alive, but really to help people come alive and to flourish. But before that, it was very much at the sacrifice of my well-being. So it was in burnt out. I talk about how we really need to look at the ways we've been programmed, particularly as women, this idea that we are our role in life to be a good woman, to be a good person is to be looking after the needs of others. And we shouldn't really have to think about our needs at all, that it should be fulfillment enough. And that our role is to sacrifice ourselves for others. And we see it in so many industries, particularly caring industries, this idea that we should willingly sacrifice ourselves and somehow get some sort of inner glow from doing that. I really think it was that very deep programming that had me wanting to make a difference, but I was going down a path of for sure self-sacrifice in the process. I didn't matter, only the making the difference mattered. And that quote went, oh no, you matter the most, and you need to do what makes you come alive, and that will have a ripple effect and help others to come alive. So it's from the inside out making a difference. It has to start within, and then you share it outwards rather than that you can't pour from an empty cup. It's so many people. I talk about in burnt burnt out, I came up with four burnout archetypes, and one of them is the overgiver. And that's the the one you you know the saying you can't pour from an empty cup, but the overgiver is like, or can you? Maybe I can, and you're certainly gonna try. So I was definitely one of those. I was definitely thought that it was a sign of virtue to to want to make a difference and to want to save the world. Definitely in those days, I was caught up in that humans were destroying the world, we must protect the earth. It was just such a powerful wake-up call that I needed. And it's interesting that he, as looking now, that he was a mystic and he was a Christian mystic and he was a minister. And so his words came from a really deep, deeply resounding spiritual place. And it did feel like it it did something, reprogrammed something in a very deep, on a very deep level.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Okay, there's a few things in what you said there. One of them was as you were speaking, there is something about that idea of how you I think you say in your book, there was a moment that everybody was saying, I'm feeling burnt out right now, I'm feeling overwhelmed, I'm feeling so tired. And there was an acceptance that's just the way it has to be. Like for us to show up in our professional lives and our working lives and our relationships, we just have to be constantly living on the edge of burnout, and we're accepting that. And there was this wonderful moment when you were like, Oh, enough. I'm not accepting that it has to be that way.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

And I'm wondering about that sort of sense that you have sometimes where you're like, it doesn't have to be that way. Like where that comes from in you, and that sense of no, enough. We don't have to be burnt out, we don't have to be exhausted. We can be alive, we can thrive, and we can be happy.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

Do you know what? That's why my podcast, I've got two, one is the Project UPep talk, and the other one is another way. And I started another way because that is such a part of what I'm about is saying to people, if you're not flourishing and thriving in life, and I don't mean in moments where life has thrown a curveball and you're going through something really tough, but in the moments where life is ticking along, if you're not thriving, if you're not flourishing, if you're not feeling really good, then there has to be another way. We are designed to thrive. That our bodies are designed for us to thrive. So if you're not, let's take a look at what could be causing you to not be thriving. Always love the analogy of a garden. If something's, if something isn't flourishing in a garden, let's take a look at what's going on. Because it should be flourishing, right? So I think there's always been a part of me that's enjoyed, not at a young age, but when I finally did rebel in my 20s, and I was like, what happened in my 20s actually is I went into the world of work, went to work for the Ecologist magazine, I was the and found my way into being, blagged my way into being the marketing manager. Hilarious because I hate marketing, which I actually did admit while I had that job. But anyway, about six months in, I was like, I had always struggled at school with just finding it so boring. I'd got good grades, but I was like, part of me just oh, it was just switched off by having to turn up every day, being told what to do, sitting at the same desk. And I was like, one day you'll be free. One day this education treadmill will be over and you'll be free. And it was my only way of getting through it. So when I stepped into the world of work and I was like, oh, this is the same, I was like, I can't do this. I was like, I felt like a caged animal. I was like, no, I'm not doing this. And I said to someone I was working with, I said, you know what? I know there's people out there who are doing work that they really love that makes them come alive, that feel free and they're just doing it their way, following their own rules. I'm gonna go find them, learn from them, create my career like them. Then I'm gonna come back, I'm gonna show other people how they can do it too. And he said, You've got to speak to my brother, Rich Alderson, because he's starting this career change online thing. So I met up with him, and a few years later, we co-founded Career Shifters, which is still around today and is turning 20 this year. I'm not part of it anymore, but it's still going. And that is what I did. I quit my job to the horror of my parents, and I was like, I've got to find another way. I cannot be in an office, I cannot have a boss. And both my first two bosses agreed. I was terrible with authority, said it to my face. And so I did find another way. And so, my adult from the very early on in my adult chapter of my life, after my child chapter, I became very rebellious and was like, no, don't I the status quo, you can tell me that's how it should be done. Watch me do it differently. It was a a very motivational energy for me to be told this is how you should do it. And I'm like, I'm not doing it that way. I'm gonna find another way. And that has been, yeah, my my approach ever since, and therefore helping other people to find another way. Don't assume what you've been told should be your path in life is the only way. You've got to live life by your own rules.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

In burnout or burnt out, and also in time to thrive, you write about spiritual energy and motivational energy, and there are these five energies, and I'm wondering whether we can look at those different energy types because those five energy types, there was a lot of surprise in those for me, and they do speak to the sense of aliveness. Like, what does aliveless look like? And how can we move from burning out to the sense of aliveness? So, what are those five energy types and why those five? How did you arrive at those?

SPEAKER_01 34:28

I would love to know. So, you found you were there were things that surprised you about the five energy zones. Which was which were one of some of the biggest surprises? Can you remember or as an overall life?

SPEAKER_00 34:36

Oh, I absolutely can. Yeah, no, it was an um, I always thought that energy was just physical. And I say that, so I went through I was somebody that was very disembodied, hyper focused, didn't do any exercise. Nor did I. Didn't understand why we would do that, thought it was a waste of time. And then in my when I hit my early 40s, I went through a moment of chronic fatigue. I'd never not had energy. I'd always been somebody that actually that's not true. I have circled in and out of burnout, but I didn't realise that was happening to me. And then I had this massive crash and didn't have any energy. And for the first time in my life, I thought about energy. That was the first time I think it actually had even come into my mind, even though I'd been through these kind of these crashes before. I just didn't frame it that way. And at that moment, I still only thought it was about physical energy. So I'd say to my partner, I don't have energy to exercise, I don't have energy to move, I don't have energy to get up the stairs. It was about movement, it was about stopping, it was about what my body was doing. And coming out of that, I had to learn about that it was more than physical, and for me, that's when I really found out about emotional energy, and I really connected to spiritual energy more. So I think that's where it was coming from, and I think just the way you put it together and that you bring in motivational energy and mental energy I now that I'm standing off because I can find myself being more acutely aware of like cognitive load and like multitasking and those things.

SPEAKER_01 36:14

So, yeah, I'll bring in the other thought that I was going to share today, which was when I was researching burnt out and writing the book and trying to because I didn't go to the publisher publisher saying, I've got the answer. I was talking to the publishers about a completely different book. And then I said, Of course, the book we really need is a book on how to stop burning out. And they went, Oh, we need that. Everyone needs that. Why don't you write that? And I was like, because I'm not a burnout expert. They said, but you've been helping people who come to you burn out for like a decade. I was like, true. And they said, What? Just write the book. So the book wasn't written as I'm an expert, I've got the answer. I was like, this is happening everywhere, and it shouldn't be, and we're resigned to it. What the hell's going on? There's loads of brilliant books out there already on burnout, looking at the societal reasons and all these all the sorts of reasons why we're burning out. I was like, but I just want to, as a coach, meet someone in the moment where they're just like, I am, I can't keep going on. I cannot cope like this anymore. And that's the real universal feeling of burnout, I think, is just like you that feeling you just can't cope anymore. And there are different ways of burning out. So some people it is from overgiving and overgiving and self-sacrificing, and it's a very emotional burnout, that compassion fatigue. Then for some people, it's very mental. It is from just constantly bombarded with having to make decisions and worry and problem solving and just huge overload from work and from house admin and just never switching off. And those are the kinds of mini burnouts I used to have where it would feel like my brain had just gone on strike and I couldn't make any decision without bursting into tears. And I'd be like, oh no, I've done it again. How have I done this again? And physical burnout actually, when you're burnt burning out, you do feel physically exhausted. And people can sometimes physically burn out from doing too much physical, just going crazy in the gym, and that adds to it as well. But for the most part, people are usually experiencing an emotional or mental burnout, but then that also impacts on losing all motivation and having a sort of spiritual crisis as well. But so I'm reading all of this stuff, not thinking of these energy zones at all, and I read an article by Tony Schwartz, it was a Harvard Review article, really popular, and it said, Don't manage your time, no, manage your energy, not your time. And again, I remember the sofa I was sitting on, and it was late at night, everyone else had gone to bed and I was there tapping away my laptop, feverishly looking for, and the moment I read that, it was like that is the answer. Burnout is an energy crisis, so we need to understand how to manage our energy. So I got their book, it's right next to me actually, The Power of Full Engagement. It's by Tony Schwartz and Jim Lower, and they'd worked with tennis champions for years. So I always think sports psychologists are really the best people to learn from with so much of actually what we do in coaching, but particularly around energy, because it makes such a difference. It's everything, right? You need to have that person in their full, flourishing energy when they step onto the court or the playing field. So they recognize that teaching these tennis champions how to manage their energy, they could take that into the corporate workspace. And Tony Schwartz, in particular, has been doing that for I think a couple of decades now. So I devoured their book and they talk about physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual energy. Now I started reading this just because I was writing burnt as I started writing burnt out, the pandemic started. So I was had a four-year-old at home. I was writing a book, and I had suffered from fatigue. I was just always tired, and I didn't exercise either, Claire. And I thought, I'm tired. Why in the world would I want to make myself more tired by doing exercise? My mum and my husband were always saying, Maybe if you did more exercise, Selena, you wouldn't be so tired. And I was like, I don't think you guys get. I don't have the energy to do exercise. And then I start reading this book, and it's guess what? With physical energy, it's about rest. Yes, it's also about movement. And exercise will give you energy. And when you're writing a book, it will also energize your mental energy. It will clear it out, it will de-stress you, it will reset your brain, give it oxygen, do all these things, and you can go back and you can sit again and write for another couple of hours. And it was like, oh, what is this witchcraft that you are teaching me? And within, honestly, as I started to put into practice these very simple approaches to managing your energy, which I've very much developed and evolved. And actually, even their emotional, they talk about emotional energy and mental energy. We have slightly different approaches to it. And then they have spiritual energy. And I was like, actually, I think spiritual energy and motivational energy are two very different things. So I'll go through the five of them very quickly. So physical energy is about movement and rest and relaxation. But they say something beautiful in their book about we are oscillatory beings in an oscillatory universe. Like we are ebb and flow, and we need to be constantly in this rhythm of back and forth, yin and yang.

SPEAKER_00 41:35

I really like that because I remember thinking that physical energy was like you would start the day with this is like a battery, right? You start the day, you're all charged up, and by the end of the day, there's nothing left, right? And when you start talking, thinking about it as the ebb and flow and the oscillating, you realize that there are moments that your higher energy, lower energy, and it can get depleted, but it can get recharged. And that can all happen in the shape of a day. Yeah. Yeah. Really helpful.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

Yeah. And we have this ultradian rhythm, which is like the circadian rhythm, which, and this is very much attached to mental energy. And these all of these things, it they don't sit alone, they are all interlaced. But your ultradian rhythm is roughly every 90 minutes, your brain activity, it's like it's on, it's firing up all cylinders and you're go, go, and you're fully absorbed. And if you really get in flow, you're like completely time loses all concept and you're really in it. But naturally, your brain, after about 90 minutes, you it will start to dip. Your brain's energy will start to naturally dip. At that point, you'll start to look around, start to get distracted, you'll start to feel hungry, you'll start to maybe start scrolling your phone. That's a sign that your brain needs a break. So at that point, you need to step away from your computer, do something for 20 minutes or so that will recharge and refresh your brain and allow it to have that downtime. If you don't do that and you push on through, you start heading into the stress zone. And as you head into the stress zone, because you're forcing yourself, so you're usually using that inner critic, like you can't get up and don't be lazy. So you're and adrenaline starts kicking in, or you caffeinate yourself, you add sugar to push yourself along. But now you're no longer in that natural ebb and flow, and you're now forcing it. And as you start to push towards the stress zone, and this is the I love to tell people in the workplace, your IQ drops. So you get stupider, you make more mistakes, you and the more you get into the stress zone, the more you cannot access any part of the brain that is to do with higher thinking, the rational brain, the intuitive brain, the creative part of the brain, they're all out of order. Like you there's no access anymore because you're now in the stress zone and now you feel like the the the tigers are chasing you. And when we start to understand the importance of listening to our bodies, but also just even if you are living from the neck down and you haven't started listening to your body and know what it's saying, and you certainly don't follow what certainly don't obey it, then just taking those breaks every 90 minutes. And if you're at home, I don't know, go and put the wash on, go and buy milk at the shops. If you're at work, go and walk and get a coffee or whatever it might be, go quietly and sit in a room and read for 20 minutes, whatever you need to reset and re-energize, then you're topping your energy up throughout the day. Because this idea we start with a certain amount of energy and just use it up until we're like crawling to bed, that's not how, that's not how we operate at our optimum. And I think so much of what we've told about productivity is so wrong. But I also really struggled myself until I had this framework of managing your energy, I really struggled with well-being and self-care, which I know is a big topic for you because I knew I should do it. It felt like another thing on my to-do list and I didn't get I couldn't see a direct correlation with do these things and you're you will feel so much better. You'll be more at peace, happier, more fulfilled, but also you'll do your best work. So now for example I managing my energy helps me to be the best coach I can be and that's really important to be to me. Managing my energy helps me to be the most at peace and the happiest I can be in I want that for me. It's also nice for my husband and my son to have that version in the house. But it really gave me such a simple framework of understanding physical energy it's about movement and rest to keep that physical energy topped up emotional energy is all that delicious work that you do. It's really about looking after that heart of yours and making sure that you're doing the things that bring you simple pleasures and the play and the creativity but feeling your feelings getting healing support when you need healing support mental energy the mind when it's really at its best is calm is alert is focused isn't full of distractions. So a big part in both burnt out and time to thrive is about our use of our devices and the importance of switching off not just at the end of the day although that and not just on weekends on hot and holidays which people struggle to even do that but having moments to step away and let your mind shift gears to take a break honoring those old trade that old trade and rhythm motivational energy has two parts one is the bigger picture stuff are you living in aligned with your values what is the life you're creating that's yeah that bigger picture stuff. But it's also about when you're doing stuff that is hard the boring stuff particularly the hard stuff what can you do to motivate yourself to keep yourself going and it could be like if you wake up in the mornings you're like oh I don't even want to step out of bed what things can you do to boost your energy and get you feeling empowered and motivated and then spiritual energy is really tapping in is more about tapping into that spiritual energy that is all around us. And for some people that can be getting out in nature standing quietly amongst the trees for the other people it's meditation finding that inner sanctuary for other people it's prayer for other people it's spiritual practice it's tarot cards it's all sorts of things and interestingly I was really looking forward to doing Time to thrive live myself because I was like the spiritual energy is the one I really want to focus on. I don't feel like I have it enough in my life. And then when I had this whole oh my God my business is not working it's falling apart what just came in was I just dived into that spiritual energy and just listened to read spiritual books, listened to spiritual podcasts and I was like oh I got it in the end just not the way I expected. So now I really feel tapped into that spiritual energy. And that's the one that holds us that's the one that when I have run courses live courses on it before people often fart are surprised at how the spiritual energy is something they didn't realize they needed but it was perhaps one of the most important energy zones for them and I love that I love that discovery.

SPEAKER_00 48:18

So it's such a fascinating one isn't it because often we think spirituality is I don't know faith belief religion and yet the way that you write about it it's so expansive it's so connected to wonder it's so much about ritual it's just a whole different way of being in relationship to spirituality that can really offer us something I find it really exciting but also really calming and it doesn't have that oppressiveness we might think when we think about traditional ideas about belief and religion. There's a risk of of going wandering absorbing it like seeing which pieces of it work for you. I really like that the energy that you bring to that as well. We are almost at time and I'm just I'm wondering whether we might do our rapid fire round should we try this do a few. One of the words that I'm really fascinated in is dreaming. And dreaming is something that that I wonder what sort of assumptions we have around it, what expectations we have around it but you are someone that allows people to dream.

SPEAKER_01 49:18

I feel like we are told as we're allowed to dream as children but it's not real it's make believe and then we're told I was very much told as I stepped into the adult world stop being such a dreamer. That's sure everyone wants to do work that they love but it's called work for a reason was literally what my mum said to me so get out there and just suck it up and I was like hold on everyone's telling me to stop dreaming how about if I actually lean into it and start to take my dreams seriously and what I realized was how much opportunity we have albeit those of us in a privileged position to take our dreams and turn them into reality and I actually think that the magic we have as human beings is our ability to dream things up that don't yet exist and then turn them into reality. It's like it's like the the fairy godmother with the magic wand except you don't need a fairy godmother and you are the wand. You hold the wand and the fact that this is so unique to human beings I think that there is a special kind of fulfillment that comes from that process of dreaming something up and then turning it into reality. And it could be a small dream does not have to be big dreams but that process of making something imagined that comes from the heart there's a whole topic about but did it come from my heart or my ego? We're gonna have to find out. Who knows? But if you want to go for it and then through action and commitment the magic of commitment and taking action and it takes courage you turn that dream into reality or you certainly play full out to turn it into reality. It doesn't always and sometimes we create our make our dreams come true and realize that oh God I've created a monster I don't enjoy this at all. I'm thinking of work and business and stuff like that. But yeah I'm a big believer that it is our magic as human beings to turn our dreams into reality.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

Oh I love that. Okay my second word for you is thrive. So thrive is a word that is around well-being a lot it takes on different resonance I think depending on who's talking about it.

SPEAKER_01 51:19

So thrive what is thrive to you Selena thrive is is all tied up with learning to manage your energy and learning what it what you need in order to thrive or to flourish and I do think the best analogy is of a garden where it's learning what that soil needs what your and actually I'm a mediocre at best gardener. I'm not even good at gardening much better at managing energy of human beings but think of a good gardener in this analogy it is about understanding what the different parts of your garden and the plants need to thrive and flourish. It takes experimentation but ultimately it's a feeling it's a feeling of aliveness and for me when I talk about thriving in the context of managing your energy it isn't just about feeling vibrant and full of energy I am like that but no people don't need to be it's also about feeling peaceful and feeling filled up and feeling content and feeling connected to all of life that for me is what it really is to thrive.

SPEAKER_00 52:25

My last word for you is actually aliveness and so this is actually perfect because we can go back to your quote.

SPEAKER_01 52:32

So when you think about aliveness now for you what do you hope it will be for you and how do you think you'll hold on to it oh aliveness interesting because obviously I'm in this sort of new chapter of how I'm working and therefore in a way how my day to day is so aliveness is feeling present actually comes from being present like in conversations like this I feel very in the moment very present very in flow I'd be exhausted if we did this for eight hours in the day it requires a lot of energy and then later after this feeling present will be to sit in the garden and put my feet in the grass and to hear the birds and to feel gratitude and send a message to the trees in my garden or the the bird that's feeding on the bird feeder and connect with it and feel just feel the energy of that. So it's really feeling present in the different moments and the different moments of my day it comes from presence which historically I'm not that good at I get very in my head and not present at all but that's the journey right and there's something about so aliveness needs a version of attention doesn't it as you're saying that I absolutely agree with you like this is like a heightened energy and afterwards partly actually because of your books I now know that after this then there has to be a moment of a different kind of energy for me and I have to pay attention to something else.

SPEAKER_00 54:07

And so for that aliveness to be maintained there have to be those different I have to pay attention to it. It doesn't just exist. Right? It's not just it's something that you manage and you cultivate and you nurture and you nourish.

SPEAKER_01 54:18

Yeah because I think it's really natural for us to fall into autopilot in life that to just almost switch off and just go through the motions. It takes intention and our attention to become present I think that yeah it's it requires practice and I think sometimes our natural setting is to be on autopilot.

SPEAKER_00 54:46

So yeah I like that it's bringing that attention and intention to the moment thank you so much for being here and bringing your two quotes they speak so beautifully to each other and to all the things that you're doing and inviting in and letting go so thank you for sharing where you really are right now. I really enjoyed that thank you thank you so much for listening to my conversation with Selena I loved how Selena challenges the idea that exhaustion is simply the price we pay the living a full life. Her work really does invite us to notice what we've normalized to pay attention to our energy and to remember that thriving isn't something reserved for a lucky few. So I'd love to know whether the thought that Selena brought this week is one that you'll keep, share or even forget. And that is a quote by Howard Thurman that is don't ask yourself what the world needs ask yourself what makes you come alive and go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. If you'd like to learn more about Selena and her work you'll find links to her book, journals, programs and website in the show notes. And if you're curious about what we're up to at If Lost are here right now then do come over to the website and you can find out more about how to order our book how to work with me and how just to find everyday guidance for your lost moments. As always thank you for spending your time with me I would love to know how and when you listen to these episodes whether it's on your morning commute whether it's when you're gardening whether it's when you're doing a dull task and you're hoping to make it better. Let me know when and how you consume these episodes and grateful that you've spent some of your time here with me today. I hope it was energizing in the best possible way. So do take care of yourself and I will see you next Monday for another conversation and another thought worth keeping bye for now