Crash Out With Me: Toxic Resilience

Your body keeps score, even when your resume says you are thriving. We sit down with Liliane “Lily,” a Dublin-based coach for high-performing women, to talk about toxic resilience and the quiet ways burnout builds when “just push through” becomes your default setting.

Lily shares her own experience with burnout after years in tech sales and what she noticed first: stress that was not only emotional, but physical. We get into what chronic stress can look like day to day, from racing thoughts and poor sleep to appetite changes, cortisol spikes, and that constant fight-or-flight feeling that makes rest feel impossible. We also talk about the difference between choosing resilience and being expected to be resilient, especially for women who are repeatedly given more because people assume they can carry it.

From there, we move into practical tools for sustainable performance. Lily breaks down her foundation-first approach: nutrition, movement, sleep, breath work, meditation, and the identity work that helps you stop tying your worth to your output. We also unpack self-care beyond shopping, how to get comfortable with boredom in an overstimulated world, and why values and boundaries have to lead the plan if you want results without burnout.

If you are a high achiever who wants to keep your ambition without sacrificing your health, hit play, then share this with a friend and leave a review. What is one non-negotiable you are setting this week?

Transcript

Welcome And Why We Crash Out

SPEAKER_00 0:01

And reliance. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the crash out two days in a row. How lucky are we? My name is Madison Butler, Maddie B, if you know me, and this is the Crash Out. I created Crash Out with me simply because I recognize that everyone is going through something. Everyone has something that they are crashing out about. Everyone has something that's taking up brain space for them. And so it is not only a reminder to be kind, but to understand that it's normal that your whole life isn't work. I am super excited about my guests today. We have some things to crash out that resonate very, very, very, very close with my body and my soul. But I would love if you wanted to introduce yourself a

Meet Lily And Her Background

SPEAKER_00 0:38

little bit.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Yeah, so Madison, thanks so much for having me. I'm Liliane, but people that know me call me Lily. So who am I? I am I am a coach. I support female, high-performing female with their energy, their health, and their performance. And all of that, avoiding burnout. So, and just quickly to tell you a bit about me about me. My my background is in tech. So I work in tech sales for 20 years. I'm based in Dublin. So shout out to all my Irish uh friends based in Dublin. I speak with a French accent, so Gabonese from Gabon, Central Africa, and I have French origins as well. So shout out to my Gabonese and French people on LinkedIn and on Instagram as well. And this is this is a topic for me that I'm so passionate about because having worked in tech sales myself for 20 years, I've I've seen firsthand, you know, what is what high pressure, high performance can lead to. And I've seen I've experienced it myself. I've I've gone through a burnout in 2014. I think I was in Switzerland. So I've lived and in different places, worked in different places. I experienced burnout myself. I've seen people in people that I manage or colleagues of mine that went through burnouts, friends of mine as well. So resilience is great. We talk a lot about resilience in the workplace, especially in the tech world. Now, apologies, this is the world that I know the most because this is where I spend all most of my career. But resilience is kind of almost like a buzzword, but it's real, and I think it can become toxic. And we talk uh since the pandemic, we we we speak a lot about mental health, but what about health? You know, holistically speaking, what about health? Anyway, I'm very talkative, I'm delighted because we have a lot of time to speak. So I'm just gonna pause maybe and and let you take it, take it anywhere you want, Madison.

Defining Toxic Resilience

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Well, why don't you tell me what we're crashing out about today, then?

SPEAKER_01 3:00

We're definitely crashing out about toxic resilience, we're crashing out about you know health in general, like it in in the in the corporate world, it's all about mental health, but we we we don't really discuss enough and understand the impact of stress performance on on humans, not only on the mind, but on the body. And this is kind of what I want to crush out about, explore as well, and and talk about personal responsibility as well, because we are not victims, we can take back some control, and there's an element of you know, when you're stressed, you you you think that things are coming at you and everybody is in reactive mode, but how can we take back some responsibility as well, and maybe focusing more on ourselves? And I'm not using buzzwords, I really mean it, and this is what I do with uh the females that I help. So, yeah, this is what I want to crush out about.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

I love this topic. It's such a great topic because a couple of weeks ago, last week, I don't know, all my time is all blending together. When I had Dr. Claire on, we actually talked about both of us have a pretty strong negative connotation and relationship to the word resilience, specifically as black women. And so I would love to hear your relationship with the word resilience and even more so like how can it maybe be a positive thing, but when does it become a toxic thing?

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Yeah, like by the way, you inspired me so much because I was actually listening to that interview with Claire, and I just put comments and then she pinged me, and we had a chat for an hour and a half because we we so there was a connection thanks to you, and that's why I'm probably here today. So I just want to give her a big shout out. Yeah, resilience, it's so big. So, because obviously, as a person, as a coach, I'm holistic, my approach is completely holistic, and I please I won't go into that later during the conversation because people are gonna be surprised. But as a person, I am I'm a hybrid, I have different origins, I'm a female, I'm a black woman, I come from Africa, I speak French, so there's a lot there, and you gotta see how that can be linked to resilience as well. So, resilience for me, the first aspect is quite positive because I've I've been brought up in a household where I've been told, hey, as a woman, you have to be resilient. Hey, as a black woman, you have to be resilient. My dad used to say, because he knew we would be studying abroad and eventually maybe working abroad, he always told me, like, you really need to work hard. And and for us, we're not victims, but you you need to do your best, you know, because it's not always gonna be easy. So I always took that, and I think I never forgot that. So resilience has been for me a positive thing because it it it it kind of pushed me to be better, to improve. It it helped me to have a growth mindset. I mean, I didn't know what a growth mindset was until I read the book, but then when I read the book, I realized okay, this is that that was a growth mindset, you know. So I've been raised like that, and my sister's exactly the same. So we have that mentality of hey, let's work for an American company, progress, get a good job, become a manager, a director, and maybe a VP. So this is the positive side. I think the negative side, which is obvious, is when you're when you're taking on a lot and you're thinking, I need to take on, because you your performance will be probably your gratification, and you're looking for positive feedback, and you want to be a good employee, so you always say yes. And I was talking to um a director earlier today, and she's always saying yes, yes, yes, and now she realizes it's starting to take a big toll on her. Can't sleep, can't relax, always working, even on weekends. So I've experienced it myself, and this is when you you crash completely. And and and then there are other situations where in the workplace, and this conversation is gonna take us to so many directions, but I'm gonna try to stay focused. But uh, even as an employee, as a not a senior, as I was progressing through my career, I remember as a student first in Montreal in Canada, I was doing my master's in marketing, and somebody asked me, we had a teamwork, a project to do, and somebody asked me, Okay, so where are you from? You you must be French, right? You're French. And even though I'm French, I consider more myself Gabonese because that's where I grew up. So I'm definitely Gabonese. So if you ask me, I'm Gabonese. So I said, No, I'm Gabonese, and they were like, Gabon, where is that from? Well, it's in Africa, and from that point, it was just hell because that person had trust issues, didn't trust my ability, and in the sense that we were trying to get an A. And so every time I was suggesting ideas, I was being blanked as if I was dumb, and to the point where I lost my confidence. But anyway, the point I'm making is resilience for me at the time meant okay, that person is is really making me feel horrible. I'm losing my my self-confidence, but I can't say anything because this is uh this is teamwork, so that's what you do. Plus, coming from a different culture, when you're in North America, it's very competitive, go, go, go. So I kind of knew it was best to just carry on and push through. And that was my first experience with toxic resilience as a student, doing my master's degree. And then fast forward, I'm not gonna say uh uh the name of the the companies because they are very well-known companies, and I remember going to Philadelphia for a training. I was working for a blue sheep company, and I was going for a training in Philadelphia, and so it was like a big like you had so many salespeople coming for training, and we were in in groups, we had to prep for a presentation, very similar to what happened to me during my master. Same thing, you must be French. I'm not French, I'm from Gabon. Where is that, Africa? And then the person completely was ignoring me. I could not contribute to the group, so that was just uh it was it was just horrible. So I kind of accepted uh that because nobody was was speaking for me. So for me, that was resilient, and I was there for a week, so it was a it was a a week of a hell of hell for me. And what I had learned was like, no, no, no, you you don't cry. I mean, you cry in your bedroom in the hotel, but you you push through, you just do it. And to me, this is toxic resilience, but that's what I've I've I was taught, not directly, but that was my experience with this is how you perform, this is how you grow, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, you know, those type of things.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Do you feel like what didn't kill you made you stronger? Or do you feel like it traumatized you a little?

SPEAKER_01 10:50

I'm just gonna be super honest. I think it made me stronger. That's the worst to say. And I'm I'm not I'm not saying it should be the case of I'm not recommending that, by the way, to anyone. I'm not saying just do what I did. I was not able to do anything else than that at the time. Now I would handle it completely differently, but at the time it kind of made me stronger in a way, but I I wouldn't wish that on anyone, but uh it kind of I manage, but but because I have a strong background, like a strong family background and different things that I'm I'm not gonna go into them because that would be too long, but um I just feel like that was my those two experiences first with toxic resilience.

Stress Symptoms In The Body

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Oh my god, I love that.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

And so for you, one of the things that I think we don't necessarily think about is when you are pushing through and you're just trying to get through, and even if it does make you stronger, right? A lot of that still manifests itself in your body, in your mind. Totally. So talk to me a little bit about how that felt in your body at the time.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Well, well, first you you you just feel like super, you you feel it like physically. So heart for me, my heart rate, my heart was beating super fast, potentially a dry mouth, lack of inability to focus because I'm completely I feel under attack. So then I was trying to come up with ideas. So I'm talking about that sales training, onboarding training with that major tech company. Well, I was abroad, so it was even more difficult to handle. So uh it then it was super challenging for me to to contribute, so I was feeling insecure, so my heart was beating, I was sweating actually, sweating a lot, and the inability to sleep at night, so coming back to the training the next day completely exhausted physically and and mentally, and then you're you're into that that loop, you know. And as we know, as we know, when we are affected by by stress, it is physical, so we have a kind of a stress response, and the brain automatically switches on the sympathetic nervous system, and automatically you have hormones, you know, cortisol, adrenaline. But the problem is that even if you have cortisol adrenaline, your immune system is kind of suppressed, and you have a lower immune system response, and you have an increase in in blood sugar, insulin, sorry, yeah. So it's really impacts people, it impacts people physically, and that's when you see people putting on a lot of weight when they're under a major stress. I was in Switzerland and I had a burnout in 2014. I was super stressed, working super late every day, weekends, and I remember. And the problem is when you're stressed, your nutrition sometimes, yeah, fight or flight, definitely, definitely. Your your it's not only internally, then you you start craving the wrong foods, then you you you stop and you you get a bottle of wine because you feel like you need to unwind with wine. That doesn't really help, but it doesn't help really. Short term it helps, but doesn't doesn't really work. So and then you're you're you're into that that circle. And the problem is when that stress response never stops because the stress doesn't stop, which is how many people feel at work. And I'm thinking about ex-colleagues of mine that worked in Oracle. I was in Oracle for for years, and other companies where we people are being affected at the moment. So people are in that panic, anxiety, stress mode, and it's really hurting them, like not only emotionally, but physically.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

So yeah, well, and it and it's true. Like, so last night I did another live with end up being my best friend, and she like made a call out that like when I was stressed, like again, I'm biracial, my mom is white, my dad is black. So I'm not always super dark, like in the winter, I get fairly pale. But she even called out like when I was in a very stressful relationship, like my script, my skin was like gray. I looked like a sick Victorian child. She was like, I didn't even know you had undertones. And then I'm also the opposite. Like when I'm stressed, I actually don't crave any food. I can't eat at all. So I do the opposite. I get really, my face gets really chubby from the cortisol when I'm stressed, but then I get really skinny. So then I kind of just look like a bobblehead. There is something that I think is that I would love your

Expected Resilience Versus Choice

SPEAKER_00 15:56

opinion on. So I think there's a difference between being resilient and being expected to be resilient because I recognize like I have to just do it because I don't have another choice. Like I know that about myself, and I live in America as a black woman, as a queer woman, as a neurodivergent woman. Like, what other choice do I have? But life is already kind of hard. And then the expectation around women and black women specifically having to be resilient, I think actually makes that worse. Versus people recognizing that you have to be now, they expect you to also be. So they give you more. They're like, Well, you already do so much. How about a little bit more? And how about a little bit more? And they just keep giving and giving and giving, or well, in their case, taking and taking and taking and expecting you to give. And I guess how does that also impact how you show up in a health perspective?

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Yeah, so I mean, on the kind of the that aspect, I think the my my take is probably different than the take some people would have, black women in America, because the the context in Europe is very different. And and once again, I'm based in Ireland, the context is different, and you can't really compare. The same. I don't want to go into a deep conversation because that would be too long to explain, and we wouldn't have the time. But for me, I take responsibility now at my age. At a I'm a 48-year-old woman who has a background that enables me to at this point in in my season to know how to push back or just to to know like nah this is not gonna work for me. And this is where my take is we we have responsibility, we're not completely victims, and it's good to reach out to someone to get help sometimes. And this is where coaches like myself come.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

So I would love to talk about that because I am also in a season of my life, and I've probably been in a season of my life for quite a bit now where I'm super happy to tell people where they can go and how they can get there and how fast I need them to do it. But for a lot of people, that takes a lot longer. You know, I feel like I'm I'm gonna be 35 this year. And a lot of people ask me, like, how did you learn this so early on in life? And I truly feel like I learned it too late in life that I get to say no, that I get to push back, that I don't have to do it all. And so I guess for you, what did that journey look like getting to a point of knowing that you can push back? And how did you get there? Because I think that's a question that a lot of people have. It's like, how do they get to that point?

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Yeah, yeah. And listen, transparent women, like people that know me, like I'm a no bullshit type of person. I've always been. And now that I don't work for a corporation completely myself, in terms of my ability. Anyway, I'm gonna call the spade a spade, and I'm gonna be real. So for me, I was always somebody who spoke her mind a bit in the corporate world, and I kind of knew it was probably having an impact on my ability to be promoted sometimes, I suspect, but uh definitely I've been made redundant twice when I had excellent performance, I was overachieving. The last time I was made redundant, actually, I was the top sales manager in Europe, but I was still made redundant because there was a change in the org. Nothing special, right? It it happens to a lot of people, and to me, that was the the the turning point where I was like, I'm not doing this anymore at this point, because I think I I want to be on the other side and help women, I don't only help women by the way, but mostly I want to help women with what I know manage their stress, help them with leadership, but offer a more holistic approach. Because when I'm talking to a director who's very stressed, we we talk leadership, but then I I give her we work on a system that she can use to perform, but keeping the boundaries and having a system where she will find her her balance, and this is why obviously everybody is is very familiar with the um the Maslow uh theory,

Sustainable Performance Hierarchy Explained

SPEAKER_01 20:17

right? So for me, I kind of revamp the whole thing, and I I kind of use something I've created, but maybe other people have created something similar, and this is why I called the sustainable the sustainable performance hierarchy, and basically I put at the bottom the foundation is nutrition, then we have movement, then we have sleep, then we have uh breath, meditation, and then we have uh the connection with oneself, and this is more related to the mind and the mindset, but it is related to identity, and I think the the challenge sometimes with the the corporate the corporate world is that we want to achieve and we are given more it's like in tech sales, you have a target, you reach it, then they increase it because you've reached it. So you had to do let's say one million, then you gotta do one million and two hundred, and then it's gonna grow, grow, grow because these are fast-paced organizations. We need to we we grow fast, and you are well paid, by the way. So I'm not I'm not criticizing those organizations. The game is very clear, but in like as employees, we need to really understand how to play the game and and and and our own health, physical and mental, is our responsibility. It's not the organization. Organization. If they help, if they can help us with that, that would be amazing. But we have to be responsible for that. So some organizations are helping. I've done a few things with certain organizations, even with business schools. Like you, you can you start to see that this is becoming they they understand the the impact on their bottom line, you know, employee retention. We look at research surveys in even in Ireland, and we see that like maybe 25% of people within a year have taken a leave of absence that was related to bless you, to their health, mental health, usually kind of stress related. There's so much data. People want kind of less notification, you know, digital, they just want to turn off the screens, but they can't because they are we are all addicted. But I think we are we are responsible, and we need to take ownership more for our health because this is your health, this is my health, mental and physical. And nobody is responsible for that but me. Because at the end of the day, I'm going to be the one who will face the consequences.

Emotionally Divesting From Work

SPEAKER_00 23:25

So, and this is something that we've been talking about a lot in the show recently. Um, mostly because I'm in this like season of like not anti-corporate America, but I have recently divorced corporate America. I'm also a coach and I spend a lot of my time helping people recognize that it is okay to emotionally divest from corporate America, even if you're still participating, right? Like the way that I view work is something I do, the way I go to the grocery store, the way I go to the gym, the way I do anything else that is like normal to my routine. However, I don't emotionally attach myself to those things. I'm not like emotionally attached to my trip to the grocery store. And so something that was really important to me in my own mental health journey was learning to care less. And not necessarily about my craft or about how well I do my work, but about the system in itself, right? Like when I start thinking about work at 9 p.m., not only am I, again, taking a pay cut because they're not paying me to work right now, but yet my brain is working, I do myself a disservice by giving them that much of myself. And that is my responsibility to unlearn that. But of course, so many of us, our identities are rooted right into what we do. And that in itself, not great for your mental health. And, you know, I work with organizations because I do, you know, I'm not necessarily saying that an organization has to push for you to better your mental and physical health, but what I do think they should be doing is doing everything they can to not make it worse. Like they should be trying to ensure that you don't come to work and end up traumatized or harmed or experiencing something that makes you have to talk about it at therapy. I say this all the time. Like, I think my proudest moment was my therapist was like, I don't even know what you do. And I was like, Yes, I made it. I'm not talking about work with you because I don't need to. How lovely is that? And so I guess when you think about the difference, right? Like there is a level of personal responsibility in knowing what you need because the world around you can't decide what you need or read your mind, and they can't know what you need if you don't know what you need. And so when you think about that balance, how do people actually figure out what they need in order to be healthy? What is the best way to go about doing that? And I know for many, they instead of doing that, they scroll on their phone or they Instagram shop or whatever the thing may be. But how can people start really figuring out what that is for them?

Finding What You Actually Need

SPEAKER_01 25:35

I mean, there are different ways to answer that question. So I'll give you a few, and there is not a one answer that would fit everybody, but I would say definitely slowing down and and just you need you need some alone time to be able to hear yourself think and and feel yourself if I if I may speak like this. So it takes it takes time to slow down to to actually reconnect with yourself. And if you're just head down or focusing only on work, it's it's gonna be challenging to do that. So that's one aspect. I would say to me, it's movement, just doing what I would call basic self-care, which is like, hey, am I eating right? Am I moving? And and and just get time to look after yourself in the way that comes easy for you. Because we all have a tendency, like I'm I'm I'm an exercise addict. So if I'm happy, I go to the gym. If I'm unhappy, I go to the gym. So that that's my place to find myself. And I think we all have some people need to go hiking, some people need to go swimming, whatever thing it is that you would like to do to find peace, do that. And I think we all need to do a bit of soul searching uh at time, and and if you're struggling, honestly, hire a coach. And I'm not saying that because I am a coach, but sometimes you need somebody to help you kind of get those thoughts out of you. And the the kind of coaching that I do is very holistic. And I'm just gonna share this example of this lady that I know that I coach, and she she was she was working, she was so stressed, based out of Madagascar, extremely stressed, high-paying job, really not the kind of money that you and I have made every month, like way more than that. I didn't know that some people could make that much. I I never met anybody who was making that much, and but she was so stressed, so stressed, so burnt. So she let herself become overweight, and she was her she was like 117 kilos, and but at the end of the day, we had to discuss her work. It was about losing weight, but it it was not really about that, it was about what was eating her, and the the stress and the way she was managing things at work. So we ended up working on a bit of leadership, a bit of health, nutrition, exercise, and this is where I brought all my my different skills and experiences as a personal trainer, as a health coach, as an Ayurveda instructor, as a functional breather. I I brought all of that, and I'm missing another one as well, I can't think, but those skills and experience, those tools to to help her. So sometimes we we have to work on different things to get to the it's the tip of the iceberg, but underneath there is always more, so that's why I don't believe in coaching in isolation, I don't believe in that anymore, and that's why I decided to expand my skills because it's obvious when you when you work, you coach people.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

Well,

Movement That Fits Your Life

SPEAKER_00 29:23

that's funny. So my coaching is very similar. I'm also a certain bipersonal trainer, purely because I believe it in movement as like a gift back to yourself. But I think for so many people, right, it becomes like another shitty thing on their calendar. And so that's what I try to help people and learn, right? Like, movement doesn't have to suck. I think the internet has sold us this like really shitty dream that everything at the gym has to be the same. Like you have to go and do movements you hate and they all suck, and you're doing Bulgarian split squats, you don't want to be there. And what I try to remind people is movement is whatever you need it to be, right? Like, is it lifting weights because you love it, or is it going hiking because you love it, or is it going running because you love it, or rollerblading because you love it? It doesn't have to be static and it can also be seasonal, right? Like you can go lift for six months and be like, you know what, that's getting a little scale for me. I'm gonna get outside and I'm gonna go hiking or I'm gonna go running, whatever it may be. And I think for a lot of people, that is really hard to unlearn again because so much of like the gym thing is wrapped up in how we view our bodies versus like how do we actually feel in our bodies. At my absolute like most stressed, I will say I was making the most money I've ever made. I was making a lot of money. I gained like a hundred pounds. My face was very round, I didn't have the time to work out because my job literally did not allow me to like be away from my phone for more than 12 seconds at a time. And now for me, the gym is like the place where I get to just not think about anything else except what I want out of life. And for you, how do you use movement as a tool to help prevent burnout?

SPEAKER_01 30:58

So at the end of the day, first for me, movement is finding what so I my expression that I always use is tell me what's your movement. So whether I'm coaching in English or in French, it's gonna sound something like what's your move? What's the thing that you like to do? And some people just like to walk. So I actually've done a coaching session walking with a client because that was putting her in a better space. So it really depends. I start with what the person likes or knows she likes, and sometimes she doesn't know, and we need to try different things, but uh, I I don't use movement only, so that's why holistic coaching that could be movement is is my first because I'm uh I'm an addict, I love movement, but I use breath sometimes, I use meditation, and that's why I experiment myself different types of things so that I can I can help people, I can support people better. So that could be that could be exercise, that could be that could be the gym lifting weights, that could be classes. I'm a less meal certified instructor, so all the body pump, body attack, and I I know all the classes they do that I don't do, so I could leverage that or online classes. Some members don't want to go out, they just want to they just want to train at home. I have people that I coach more on the health side of things, so I go to their house and I train them in their house. I have a client at the moment that I see, so it really depends. But what I know is that a lot of the time stress is in the mix. I have this lady that I'm that I'm coaching at the moment, she's uh like a high executive, she's very stressed, but she came to me for it, it was more around her body composition, but when we spoke, it was stress-related, so we're addressing stress, lifestyle, habits, it's it's a mix.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

What about for you? What's your favorite form of movement?

SPEAKER_01 33:22

My favorite form of movement is I think I have two. I have I love to lift weights. Uh, I'm 48. The last time I did a body scan, I was 40 muscle, so like I have muscles, I love to lift weight, I love cardio. I do classes like body attack, like super intense, like you're jumping, it's power. So I love cardio. I'm a hybrid, so I I pretty much can do any type of exercise. But and at the moment, I'm I'm training for a race, so I'm running twice every per week uh just to get ready for a 10k. But I'm not a good runner, I can be, but I I need to run enough to to become one potentially.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

I'm trying to convince my partner to do a high rocks with me. That's like my I would love to do one by the end of the year, and like I'm so good with all of the things, minus the like the running, and not even because I'm not good at it, I just like truly don't enjoy it. And I think partially that's like the ADHD, so it feels so repetitive. We're lifting weights, doesn't feel that way. And that like I just get very bored running. I don't know.

Self Care Beyond Buying Stuff

SPEAKER_00 34:29

So yeah, one of the things I also wanted to touch on here is I think going back to the beginning of this, we talked a little bit about buzzwords and a lot of these things end up in the media, they end up on TikTok. And one of those buzzwords that is super prevalent, and I don't think anyone knows how to do it correctly, at least not super well, is the concept of self-care. I think we are sold this like very marketable CPG version of self-care, right? Which is like, you just need a new body soap, you just need to go get a massage, you just need to blah, blah, blah. You need to buy something. Um, and for me, when I really think about self-care, right, like it is more internal than that. Like I am doing a really good audit of how am I feeling right now in my body? How am I feeling in my life and my relationships? Does the work I'm doing serve me? And really spending time with myself versus like, yes, a massage is very nice, but does it solve for the inner work? Not necessarily. So, what do you think about self-care? How do you define it?

SPEAKER_01 35:27

Okay, so for me, actually, when when I was made redundant from tech and I decided to go coaching full-time, I really had to take a look at my life. So, this is me being super blunt and sharing, putting like just giving myself as an example, which is not perfect, but uh, I just had to take a hard look at myself, and I realized that just from the stress, the the always being on, I kind of realized that the the the workplace was not that that environment did not resonate with me anymore, and I kind of knew because I could feel it inside, so I had to take a look at myself and be like, okay, do you really want to do this? And and and I had to start to understand okay, what is real and what is fear? A part of you is afraid to take that giant leap because all you know is working in tech, having a very nice salary, being busy all the time, and that's all you know. But so you have to listen to yourself, to that voice, and you have to pay attention and push the fear around. And so for me, it looked like removing as well certain people of my life that were not necessary, so that I can have more clarity. Because with certain people that are not really aligned with who you are, it's harder for you to find yourself because let's say in tech, not not everybody, but there's a tendency to to drink because you finish your your molf, your quarter, and then you go for drinks and etc. And then this is it it becomes part of your life. So I had to remove certain people from my life uh that were very good people, but for my own sake, I had to be like, okay, this is this is this is not helping me to have clarity in terms of who I am, what I am, and and once you slow down and you take the time, I went back to hey, I remember when I was a little girl, my favorite game was to be the teacher, was to help people. I was always trying to fix people around me. Now we should not fix people, but I was I was kind of trying to support people around me, and that has always been me, but I haven't been able to let that per that person express herself in a in a corporate environment. So so yeah, I think it's about taking the time, slowing down, removing the distraction, and and thinking, okay, what it is do I really need, really, and just and and and just start with that and and just take the time to do reading is helping a lot. Reading, and and just spending time with with with people that that will help you grow and and and just remove the anything that is toxic around you, people, things. I clean my diet even more. I spend more time on activities that that give me energy and positivity. So you need to create that energy around around you, and we are responsible for that. We have control, and it's it's kind of taking back the control and say, okay, what do I need? I don't need this, I don't need that, and just remove it, and then you have less clutter in your head, and you can actually think without forcing it, then things are coming to you in your head, and you start having more clarity, and then you you nurture that clarity with uh like a healthy lifestyle, and I'm not talking about food necessarily, thoughts, people you surround yourself with, content you consume. We we live in a society where we are becoming very passive. Obviously, we know people are struggling to focus, but it's about like, hey, just just get books, you know, read about the stuff that you have an interest in if you want to learn or grow, but you will have to sit down and and be still.

SPEAKER_00 39:45

So that's actually a really great lead up to my next

Practicing Boredom And Stillness

SPEAKER_00 39:49

question. So when you were talking about tech, you you mentioned, you know, you're always busy. I do think we live in a society where people use busyness as a way to stay distracted from whatever is going on, whether it be internal or external, they find ways to be too busy. And a lot of times that busyness is like right here in your in your hands, right? Like you're scrolling, you're doing whatever. But how can people get comfortable enough to be bored? I think one of the things that our society really struggles with is the concept of being bored because we're so overstimulated all the time and we have, you know, an encyclopedia in our pockets and all of our friends in our pockets. But that boredom can feel scary because then you can start to really hear and feel what you need. How can people start getting comfortable with that level of boredom?

SPEAKER_01 40:41

Yeah, that's that's a tricky question because I could give you a recipe and do I know exactly what works for for everybody? Once again, I think America is is a bit more extreme on that than Europe, possibly. This is I I used to live in America a very long time ago, and I've been going back and forth with work, but this is kind of uh every time I came, for instance, to San Francisco or those places, I felt like the pace was was definitely faster than the one we have. And then in Europe, if you're in Paris versus Dublin or London, it's not the same, anyways. I think people struggle with but you have to slow down. That that's and and how do you do that? Is sorry, could you repeat the question? Because I've been going, I have 1,000 thoughts in my head.

SPEAKER_00 41:35

No, it's fine. So I think one of the things that we kind of do to avoid feeling things is doing stuff, right? Like you ensure that, like, think about you know, for me, anytime I've gone through like a pretty bad breakup, not necessarily recently, but in my I would like make sure every hour of my day was planned, so I didn't have time to be sad. When actually in actuality, you should be sad, right? Like you should go ahead and feel your emotions. But how do we get people comfortable enough to be able to be bored enough to actually sit with all of that?

SPEAKER_01 42:06

I think you have just to start uh making free like just having time with yourself and not necessarily having uh you don't have to have a friend with you or something to do, just just decide, okay. I'm not gonna plan, I'm just gonna have this time and I will see at that time what I want to do. It's I I don't have an honest solution to that. I think it's uh it's a personal decision, it's a choice. It's like anything. If you go to the gym and you start lifting weights, at the beginning it feels so uncomfortable, but you need to you need to tear those muscle fibers, right? And at first you you don't really want to, and then it can become something you you start to be in love with. So anything takes time, and to to to make a reference to wine, it's like it's like wine. Sometimes you need time to appreciate it. So I think certain things in life are acquired tastes, and and even learning just to not to have something planned is uh I would say it's weird, but it it's kind of hard to be healthy, healthier when we have not we have not been. So we need to grow that muscle, which is weird because uh we should all be dying to have free time and with nothing planned, and and just take the time to to see opportunities, to think. Like I think it's Chopra who, and even though he's not very popular at the moment, but I think it's Chopra who says, We are beings, we're not beings, we are we we do, we do all the time, and we need to come back to just just be, you know.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

So I think that is, I know for me that's really hard. I really struggle with if I don't feel like I am being productive right now, I have like a really hard time being able to relax. Like even this morning, right? Like I work for myself. So like if I don't have a meeting, there's really no rush for me to do anything. But even if I stay in bed later, I'm like, I have to get up, I'm not being productive. And then I have to be like, for what? What exactly do you have to do right now? And I really struggle with like not feeling like I have to produce in the moment. And so I think for me that has become a practice. And so something I kept hearing you say when you talked about your coaching clients were a lot of your high earners are really stressed. Um part of that is when you're a high earner, like inherently your identity gets a little bit tied into what you do because the lifestyle you're creating for yourself is fairly prevalent, it is visible, and that is inherently tied to your work. So, how do you help people break out of that mentality where they're so deeply rooted in their work that it is the only thing they see?

SPEAKER_01 45:04

Well, the first thing we do is uh okay, first I want to go back to something you said. Sorry, because I thought I was so the thing about creating time to not be productive necessarily for ourselves. I can see it, I'm working for myself as well. So it's kind of now it's been going on for four years almost, kind of used to it, but it's like when you have time, unplanned time, where you have okay, I don't have anything on the calendar. To me, this is when I have the best ideas in terms of creativity, things I want to do. But for those things to come, you have to have the space for that. You have to have the mental space and the time where you're going to be reading about something. So I think it goes for people that are self-employed, but even for people that are highly stressed, working a lot, but they never allow themselves to have that time, unfortunately. So, how do I help people?

Values First Then Build A System

SPEAKER_01 46:04

The the first thing we do is definitely focusing on values because at the end of the day, values are we all have them, even though organizations claim to have them and don't always practice them. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, but we won't go there today. But the point is, as as people, we have values, and we we might not be aware of those because we've never vocalized them. But these are kind of things, standards or things that they're kind of our anchors, things we never do or things we always do. Like for me, honesty is a big one because my parents, I don't know, they brought us like that. So for me, I'm actually too honest, so honest that I will speak my mind. So this is a value, and I have to embrace it because this is who I am. So I have issues with people that are not honest, and it's hard for me to work in an environment where honesty when it's the opposite of honesty. I I struggle, I'm in pain, I don't trust people, I'm just like, this is not a place for me. So I do that work with my my clients just to uncover their values because usually usually that indicates first how we're gonna be able to collaborate and how we're gonna build a system because that's what I do. I use I always build a system so that the change that we are working on, usually for a minimum of three months, we can build a system for them and it's gonna be anchored on their values, and from that, we're gonna build on a system, and that that framework will include the five elements that I've mentioned earlier as part of the what I call the hierarchy of sustainable performance, where we're gonna focus on the mind, leadership, and all of that, but we're gonna go down to hey, like how you to achieve those things at work to perform, you need to have that mental energy to have that mental drive. But that mental drive, guess what? Your your body, your mind is connected to your body, and how do you feed that body? That's where you're getting your nutrients, your energy, and how you're moving that body, how you're taking care of your house, you know, how you're looking after your house. So if you have a messy house, not a clean house, messy, it's gonna be really hard to find that energy and maintain it sustainably so that you can actually sustain that energy and sustain those results in those environments where it's it's a marathon in a way. When you work in sales, for instance, I'm just talking about the thing that I know the most. It's a marathon. You have a let's say one-year marathon, which is your the fiscal year, where you have a big number on top of your head. And this is shout out to all the salespeople who are probably listening. So you have a big number on the top of your head, but every month, depending on which type of organization you work for, you have a sprint. So the the the last organizations I work for for the last 10 years were scale up super fast pace, and it was every every month, yeah. You're sprinting, and then you stop for five seconds, it feels like five seconds because then the month starts again, and you have another number on top of your head. So, you know, in the gym we talk as a personal trainer, it's like this is not interval training, this is hit. This is like it's really exhausting physically and mentally. So, yeah, this is how I kind of help uh the the people.

SPEAKER_00 50:07

And sorry, I went in a so I know that in 2014 you experienced some level of burnout, burnt out, and obviously you've made it to the other side, which is not an easy feat.

Non Negotiables To Prevent Burnout

SPEAKER_00 50:20

But I think one of the things of getting to the other side means that you have to set some pretty strong boundaries with yourself to make sure it doesn't happen again. So, for you, what are some of the non-negotiables that you've created in your own life to ensure that you don't end up back in the 2014 headspace?

SPEAKER_01 50:36

Yes, I love that question. Okay, what's first there is something that I listened. What's what's the name of the lady who was the CEO of Essence magazine? She's a black woman of African descent. I forgot her name.

SPEAKER_00 50:51

Don't worry, I'll Google it.

SPEAKER_01 50:55

It was Vonga something. Anyway, that lady had had a sentence that really inspired me. She said, if you're not happy where you are, don't change who you are, change where you are. So that's the first thing that is non-negotiable. If I'm in an environment whether it's professional, actually have turned down a client because I've I really felt like that was not gonna be a fit. And at this point, let's say, because you never know, if I was ever to go back to the corporate world, I would not stay in an environment where it was not it was not sustainable. So for me, it's the place where you work, it's never gonna be perfect, but is is that the right place for you? Now, sometimes it feels like it's a non-negotiable, it's it's people feel like they have to negotiate, but it's for them to decide what are their boundaries. And this is resilience, but is it toxic at this point? If you know you don't you don't want to be there, but you still have to be there. Are you doing that organization? Is it positive for them? Is it positive for you? So you have to make up your mind. So this is a non-negotiable now. Health is a non-negotiable for me. So nutrition, this is the foundation. This is the foundation. The one thing we control, and then nobody else controls, is what we do with that hand, what type of food we put in our mouth, what do we drink? Do we drink water or do we drink 10 cups of coffee every day? Guess what? That's gonna have an impact on how you feel. So, what we eat, what we drink, movement, everybody needs to move. We know that you don't have to lift weights or to run, you can just go for a walk. And you know what? Walking is known, it's it's excellent for it's a great cardiovascular exercise, it's good for your muscles as well, it's good for your your joints, and it's good for your brain. It actually lowers the cortisol level. So, walking, walking is great, so walk in nature, so this is non-negotiable, and then I think getting help when when I need help. So, as a coach, I had a coach for a year, as sales manager, I had a coach because no, we we can't do it alone. It's it's kind of tough out there. So if you have somebody that that's to me, that's support, and you learn from from your coach, and then you can you can fly on your own, but I think it's it's it's a non-negotiable to get help and not trying to think that you can you can do it all by yourself. So, yeah.

Final Nugget And How To Connect

SPEAKER_00 53:55

So I love to end with a fun question, and we got one in the chat. Have you ever wanted to have a picnic? One like they used to have in the Great British Break Bake Off. So, actually, transparently, I love a picnic. I am a picnic girly for my 30th birthday, or maybe my 31st birthday, my mom planned like an extravagant picnic. But even last week I said to my partner that I needed a new picnic blanket. There's nothing I like more than eating cheese outside, personally. So, what about you? Are you are you a picnicker?

SPEAKER_01 54:27

No, no, no, I'm not a picnic girl, not not really. I'm I'm um I'm a hike, I I love exercise. So I would go hiking, hiking in nature. In in Ireland, we have beautiful cliffs, so just just go and hike by the sea and in the green. So that's what I like to do, but yeah, outdoors, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 54:52

I love I truly madly deeply I love Ireland so much.

SPEAKER_01 54:56

Have you been? Have you have you come to Dublin?

SPEAKER_00 54:58

I have, yeah. I did like a big long trip around the whole, started in Dublin, went all the way around this way, ended up in Mead before I flew out. Oh my god, wonderful. And I got I got a brand, I got a clear, blue, clear day at the cliffs of Moor, which is like unheard of. So I feel that's very true. I feel very grateful. So I know I know that we are at the end of our time, and so I always like to end with two things. What is the thing that if anyone leaves with one nugget of truth from this conversation from you, what do you want that thing to be?

SPEAKER_01 55:31

Well, you don't have to be a super woman. What are your boundaries? Are you looking after yourself physically and mentally? And don't forget, you're if we don't look after our buddies, the rest is not gonna work. So the high-paying job, if we get sick in the end, it's just not gonna be very useful.

SPEAKER_00 55:59

And most importantly, A, where can people find you? Who should find you, and who do you want to work with?

SPEAKER_01 56:07

So I I can work with anyone because I I believe a coach, I can coach, I can coach anyone, but I I tend to coach more female, high performing females, so a lot of women in tech, high performing females who need help, a holistic approach to their performance, and they can find me, they can email me info at healthy-over50.com, or they can go on my website www.healthy-over50.com. And I have kind of a business side, but they can get in touch from my website if they want, or on LinkedIn, I'm everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 56:52

Well, thank you so much for hanging out today. If you were listening to this on the podcast version, all of those links can be found in the bio below this. So if you want to work with Lilianne, you have the opportunity to please make sure you find her connect her, even if it is just to read the content she puts out or have a little chit chat. But I appreciate y'all so much today, especially you for joining me. Thanks for everyone who came to crash out as always. Have a lovely day. Please drink some water, get some sun, and I will see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 57:21

Thank you. Thanks for letting me crash out with you. Of course. Bye. Cheers.