Running on Empty? How to Handle Burnout Without Losing Yourself | Ivette Naron

Exhaustion doesn’t just affect your energy, it impacts your decisions, your leadership, and the people around you. In this conversation, we talk through what it looks like to lead and live well when you’re running on empty. From learning to pause before making decisions to creating space for rest, prayer, and clarity, this episode offers practical ways to navigate busy seasons without burning out. We also explore confidence in the workplace, why advocating for yourself matters, how to approach growth and promotion, and what it means to balance trust in God with taking action. If you’ve been feeling stretched thin or unsure of your next step, this is a timely reminder to slow down, refocus, and lead from a place of fullness. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to the Vanderblue and Ladies Leadership Podcast, where we help Christian women grow in confidence, calling, and leadership. If you want to excel in your career while staying true to your faith, you're in the right place. Thanks for being here. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. I have one of my favorite guests with me, Miss Yvette Naren, who is one of our senior consultants here at Manderblumen. And about we just got done with two days of consulting meetings. A lot of fun. Yes. Yep. So we are here to talk to you today about a variety of topics, but I think one thing that I'd like to talk to you about is how do you handle that when you're exhausted? Right. Because I think we're both at that. And, you know, it might be this point in the year, this point just in how things are going at this point in the week. But how do you personally deal with being completely exhausted?

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Well, yeah. Well, I think I don't make any major decisions. And you probably know this about me, Jen. I say, I need, I need the night to think about it. I need a day to think about it. I need, I actually tell you how much time I need because I don't want to make a decision when I'm tired and exhausted. Um, I think that's the first thing. And when you're tired and exhausted, um, I think it's also um you're just very vulnerable. Yes. Um, and I think it's just, it's just not a good combination. So get the rest that you need, take the time. Most things are not an emergency. Like I've always realized when I have to make a decision, I ask myself, is something gonna fall apart if it waits 24 hours? And a lot of times when I ask myself that question, the answer is no, nothing is gonna happen that is that if I waited 24 hours, that that is just gonna, you know, just be. I think sometimes we rush, we move too quickly, we make snappy decisions. When if we would just just take 24 hours.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

I mean, it really Well, you have to even give yourself time to hear from God. Like that's still small voice. Um, God is not gonna be able to talk to you if you are consistently busy and always doing a million different things. You need that time to take a break. No, I always, what I've learned over the past couple of years is that I always have this big long to-do list. And I think I've got to go, go, go, go, go. But if I'm completely exhausted, I wait. I take, give myself a day. One of the best things that I do, Vet is like maybe once a month, I give myself a complete day that I don't leave the house. I don't do anything. I just try to recharge and then I can be back again for the next week. And everything on the list eventually does get done. It just might take a little longer than I was anticipating.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Yeah. I would say, well, and when you talk about pray, I talk about I talk about pauses and praying. Like, like, you know, I like the alliteration. I like the things a bit. You do, yep. I'm like, let me take a moment and pause. Let me pray. And you know, there's just something about because if not, if you don't pray, you know what that's becomes, it just becomes worry. And I tell people, if you are such a great, if you're a person who worries a lot, you would have an awesome prayer life. Because all that is, is just taking all of that and putting it in a Godward direction and is just gonna look and you're gonna feel different. It's not, you know, it's not gonna be anxiety, it's just gonna be like my petitions that I made to God. So if you're great at worrying, you would be an awesome, you have an awesome prayer life.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Just turn that around. Miss Optimism here with us. I bet it's very optimistic. Something that happened today is that I think everyone in the company was kind of feeling a little bit overwhelmed. And during our all-staff meeting, one of our consultants was like, let's just take a moment to pray. And I felt in that moment for the first time in maybe a week or so, I really felt a sense of peace just during that prayer time. Right. Right. Yeah. And that's that was communal prayer. You can also do that individually, but just that my body feeling that sense of relief helped me to feel a little bit more energized for the rest of the day.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Yeah. Yeah. When you're you're exhausted, you're not nothing good can come out of that. So I think just understanding that and understanding that reference, like lots of studies have been shown that multitasking actually doesn't work.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

And I know a lot of people are like, well, I'm the exception. Multitasking does work, multitasking. But really, it is better to do things sequentially. Like, let me handle this. Once this is handled, then let me handle the next thing. If I'm doing like 15 different things at once, or five minutes of this and five minutes of this, you're really not doing anything very well. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Yeah. Multitasking, we like to put it on a resume. We like to tout it. We like to do that. But really, there's something about being focused that is actually more attractable. Um, and so I think um, and you do this really well, you write a to-do list. And I tell people, write a to-dont list. Like these are the things that I'm not gonna do. Yeah, I'm not gonna do this, I'm not gonna do this. This is for my team to do, this is for my employee to do, I'm not gonna like this. Is a to-don't list. And I think when you kind of get that clutter out of your head, that is also very frank, so that you can focus on your true to-do list. And you have to keep your to-do list short. I think sometimes people make their to-do list way, very long. And it's like a race. Well, the day is not a race, the day is a day. It was never like meant to be a race.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

I told you one of my favorite quotes, I have a lot of them too, is we are a human being, not a human doing. Yes. And I think you and I are both human doings a lot of the time, and we need to take a step back and be the human being, which is what God intended for us to do. And if we schedule our whole day, where do we leave space for God to work? Right, right, right. God, you can work from 10:30 p.m. to 1035, and I got nothing on the calendar, but everything else, God, I've got covered from my from my end. Yeah. Not great. And then what about managing people when you're exhausted?

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Yeah. Like I also kind of think about this like when I'm scheduling my one-on-ones. Like, when do I want my one-on-ones? What part of the day? What part of the week? Because I want to be fresh and ready for my people. Right. Right. And I don't want any distractions. Now, so one of the recent pivots that I've made in my in my calendaring is, you know, our clients mostly are kind of, I say since our churches, they're kind of closed on Fridays. So Fridays, yeah, I have done everything that I can that I'm not taking clients, I'm not taking candidates. That's the day that I come into the office and I want to be fully focused and present for my team because that's when I see them a lot of times. If I've been traveling, so I think um when it comes to managing people, they need some, we think our clients, our candidates are they, these, these are just as important. They are not third, they are not fourth. I mean, like they are, and I think sometimes when you're exhausted and you're not taking the time, it they be and they will feel it. They will feel it. They will feel it. So what I've started doing, just as real practical, I said Fridays, this is my this is my staff day. I don't, I I mean, it has to be an emergency for me to take a client now or a candidate on a Friday because I want to see my recruiters, I want to see our operations person, I want to send our paws, I want to walk around. This is my day for my people. I'm starting to start trying to schedule my one-on-ones on that day. Like, and it's a vet's team day.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Like they get all of Evet. I would say that nine times out of 10, if you're exhausted, your employees are exhausted too. And if you aren't taking that time, like you're talking about, to pour into them, they're gonna quit. You're gonna lose those employees because you're not pouring into them because you have nothing to give. That's right. So you've got to make sure that you are full so that you can out of the abundant, oh, it's another Bible verse, Evet. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Thank you very much. That's just what I was gonna say, Vet. Um, but if you're not, if your heart isn't full and abundant, then you can't give anything to your employees. Yeah, yeah. And then you also you lose out on developing them, you lose out on checking in with them, and you lose out on building that rapport with them. So for people who are go-getters, three Enneagrams, people who are go-getters, if you are exhausted, you are not only hurting yourself and probably your family, you're also hurting your employees.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Yeah. Nothing could again, nothing good comes out of being exhausted. It's going to affect your work, it's going to affect your team, it's going to affect your home line.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

So I really like this the to-dont list. The to-dont list. I really like the to-dont list of it. I haven't heard of that idea before, but I have, I have started making this is a new activity that I'm doing. Um, it's an energy and an engagement. Like I think I showed it to you, right? You did. I remember when I said, that depends on the people. It does. It's not the activity. That's all we see. That's that is true. So you can you can do it for a couple days, you can do it for a week, and you just write down everything that you're doing, and then you write down how engaged were you with that activity and how much energy did that activity give you. So at the end of the activity, I write maybe like doing a podcast with a vet. Oh, yes, those are off the chart. But you you show your engagement. So on a scale of zero to 10, okay, actually it goes from negative 10 to zero to positive 10. So I'm, you know, an eight engaged with a vet. And then the energy, negative 10, 0 to 10, do I leave the podcast with more energy or with less energy? Right. And then what you look at is all of the activities in your day that are costing you energy where you leave the activity more depleted. And then I I've been doing this now for a week or so. And at the end of the day, it's it's very clear that when I've done more things that take away my energy than fill my energy, that's why I'm completely exhausted at the end of the day. Right. So once you have that, then you can figure out okay, how can I either eliminate these, put these on my to don't, or who can I delegate those things to that maybe that does energize them? Because as a leader, you can't be running around depleting yourself.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Yeah, you were doing things that God didn't want you and created you to do. Because if they did, and here's the thing, you could do the podcast next week with somebody else. Engagement might be high, but then you left to play. People play a big part of that. That's all I gotta say. So I think you need for people that are building teams. Like I think you can't, you can't, that is such a big component of it. Because you could like the activity, but it's who also you're doing it with.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

That's a good point of it. And I think also if you're starting to kind of keep track of those, keep track of them for each employee. So maybe, so I have, let's say, I have eight employees reporting to me. That's yeah, maybe six of my employees do energize me and developing them is really motivating. But maybe two of them are always negative, you know, never want to get better, always just want to complain. And maybe those two employees drain me. Maybe something needs to happen with those two employees for your mental health.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Maybe they would do better with another mentor and you have to be okay with that. Yeah. Sometimes that could be hard. Like we kind of kind of take that personally, or maybe they're just not the right fit. Like it could be either way. I think we have to have people to look in the mirror and be like, maybe I'm not the right person for them.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Yeah. I think that's a really good point of it. I think that's a really good point. And I will also say that difficult conversations, even though you might be dreading them and you might think, I don't want to have this difficult conversation with this employee. Sometimes those can be energizing because you get the employee to a place that's gonna be better for you and for the employee.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Right. You um, because you walked away like more energized because there was clarity, there was something. And you and I have had multiple conversations with employees where that has happened at the end. We're like, well, that went terrible. Or oh, I'm so glad we had that conversation and we were able to do it. And I think, I think I love your activity. In fact, I was I'm I'm gonna have to steal it. Yeah, steal it a vet.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Steal it event. Well, I'm gonna steal your to don't so we got that. Did you have a question or two that you you were uh that you had on your mind a bit?

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Um is that not necessarily well, these weren't really particular to kind of what we were talking about, but um one of some of the things that I mean, as we're kind of thinking about this podcast, we another topic that has come out is about confidence. Yes, um, and one of the questions that I I have also wrestled with as well, be to be transparent and honest, is you know, we talk about you know promotions and things like that. And um that takes a certain level of confidence to be able to do that and to ask for that. And so, and I think as for sometimes as ladies, that that's even, I don't know, I just feel like that's another, it's just even harder for us. I don't know why. Or I can dive into that psychology another time. But my question, because one of the things I've always told to teach my children, and my daughter's the same way. I'm like, Cena, you don't have to walk around and telling people you're this amazing dancer. If you're an amazing dancer, people are gonna see it, they're gonna recognize it, you're gonna be invited, you're gonna do this, this, and this. But I've also come to realize in my working professional, maybe I don't know if that's always the case. So, my question to you, Jen, is why should someone ask for a promotion when shouldn't their accomplishments just be enough? How do you navigate that in the workplace?

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Because I'm teaching my children the opposite of this question that I just looked at. Yep. I've I have an answer for this. So I know Sienna. Sienna is an amazing dancer. Dancing is gonna be different. Dancing people are gonna see her, they're gonna want her, they're gonna want to recruit her. They are you know, she's gonna be a rocket uh in New York City one day. Because people can see that, and that's a value that people have athletics, you know, um, sports, dancing, that kind of thing. I have never, I not never, that's too dramatic. I rarely see that happen in business. I rarely see the employees that are doing a really good job out of the blue, the boss comes up to them and says, We're gonna give you a promotion, we're gonna give you extra money. That doesn't necessarily happen. It might happen in some companies, but in companies where everyone is overwhelmed, everyone is, you know, feels like the weight of the world is on their shoulders, they're not, it's back to what we were talking about with being drained and being exhausted. Your manager is probably thinking about how can I help the company, you know, what what are things that I can do to help the employees, but they might not be thinking about your promotion. So, what I have learned, and this is maybe not something that's fun for everyone, but unless you ask for that promotion, unless you come with the metrics, you know, this is what I've done, this is the value that I bring, and then show the company why you're valuable by doing that. And you have to ask. You really have to ask. And I know, and you know, there's maybe psychology with men and women, men are much more comfortable asking. Just recently, I would say over the past couple of months, we've we we're growing rapidly. So we've been hiring a lot of people. And it's really interesting. We've hired probably a handful of men and a handful of women. And it's really interesting the differences in the way that they're negotiating. The differences in the way that they're when a job offer goes out, the men and the women point blank always handle it very differently. Okay. I want to hear more about this topic, Jen. I thought you did. So, in my experience in business, and I've been in business a really long time, the men never accept the first offer. And the men, I don't I don't know if this is true across all businesses. I'll just say that this has been my experience that the men come back and ask for a ton of money. And that comes to the question of confidence. So, in general, the women who get the job offers are grateful and they say thank you, I accept. And in general, the men say, uh, I'm gonna consider it, but I'm gonna need it to be this much money. And it's not $5,000 higher, it's not $10,000 higher. The men are like, Yeah, I'm gonna need at least $20,000 or $30,000 higher. And they by doing that, for me, I don't, I, I don't care for that. But for me, it so even though I don't like it, I have seen that that works with leadership because leadership sees these people must be very valuable because they think they're worth this amount. And women, if women are saying, yes, I'll accept this offer at $40,000, okay, well, that must be how much a vet thinks she's worth is $40,000. Whereas let's say, I'm trying to think of the male equivalent of a vet, maybe Ivan. Ivan. So Ivan gets the job offer for $40,000. And Ivan's like, uh-uh, I'm not worth $40,000. I'm worth 80,000. If you'd like to hire me, go with the 80,000. And that's a gamble for Ivan because the company could say, well, we don't have 40,000, see you later. Or the company could be like, wow, Ivan must be twice as good as a vet. Let's go with Ivan.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Which is a little bit odd, and um, because my HR self just like, like, just, you know, I've always kind of also operated under this is what a job is worth, what a job is worth. Here's the range for it, here's the entry level, here's to that. And I think people in HR that probably just heard that, Jen. I mean, how would you respond to some of their yes? They are just like, no, we create, you know, ranges and and we have job titles, and this is a manager, and this is director, and this is, you know, this is the C-suite. How dare you? You're basically just destroying uh a compensation framework.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Like, well, there's a couple different things. We use something called ERI. I think it's um economic root resources and things like that. Research institute. Research institute. So we were looking on that, our HR manager and I today, because we're putting out an offer for a marketing person. And so we went on ERI and we put all the information in, the cost of living, all the thing, you know, where we're located, years of experience, and it gave us a good range. And then anywhere within that range, we're gonna we're gonna make an offer within that range. But now we know when that employee if if that employee comes back with a counteroffer, if it's within that range, it might be something that we consider. Right. For us at Vanderblumen, if it is not within the range that we would consider, then for me it's a no. For me, it's a no. Um, I would say though that with a lot of small business, there is so much flexibility in the salaries. And until the company, until a company gets to be 10, 20 million dollars, they're not necessarily doing salary banding. So the people that come back, in my experience, men, with those higher dollar amounts, if a company's not doing salary banding, they may get that dollar amount. Right. So I think the takeaway for this is always applies Ivan. When you're I can't do that. I don't when you're gonna but maybe the takeaway for the women is you can be confident in asking for a raise as long as you show that you're worth that amount. It is a gamble, as a lot of things in life are, because you could come back and you could say, okay, you're offering me 40, I will take the job for 60. The company might say no. Right. But then you just need to have enough confidence. It's like when you buy a house. You know, you can offer below, but then you might lose the house. You just have to be comfortable losing the house. Right, right, right. Yeah, you have to be, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Yeah. Very, very interesting. So, my next question for you is then how do you gain that confidence when you're still growing in your experience? Right. So you're asking for this promotion. You are you come with like these are my accomplishments, um, but you're still growing in that. Like, how do you kind of navigate that tension?

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Well, I would say a couple of things. We've talked a little bit about having a mentor. So, recommending that a mentor works with you to get you to that level. And then someone that's been there before you can say, I have been there before you, you actually are quite talented, or I have been there before you, and this is what you need to work on to get the skills to be able to do the job. So, mentor is one thing. I would also say it always helps to have someone who's on your side, who's got your back. We were talking about that with an employee earlier, Yvette. That if if you have someone that believes in you, that person can prepare the way for you a little bit. And that person can talk to leadership about maybe the skills that you're too shy to brag about. So even if you don't have 100% confidence that you're gonna be an amazing sales director, you do have skills that you can hone that people can celebrate you for, and then mentors that can pour into you to kind of give you the additional skills that you may be currently missing.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

I love that you brought up like listen to what your peers are telling you about you. Because I think so, and that, and I'm not not that you were looking for like all this affirmation, but I have had people speak into my life and said, of that, why haven't why aren't you doing this? Or why don't you do this? Or why don't, and I'm like, because I haven't been asked. That's why I had that. And that's the answer. I said, Yeah, I'm waiting to be asked. And they're like, You'll be waiting a long time. This is not like getting married where Steven's gonna propose to you at 19. You're gonna be waiting a lot. You know, you wait for the guy to ask you out, you wait for the guy to marry, like to ask for, like, but I would say for you know, for some people, that is also admirable. Like they wait. I know I've also managed employees, and I'm always looking, I've always said, like, if they ask me, that's like a big turnoff. Like, I'm I'm I want to surprise them. I'm ready to go into the review and be able to say, you've been doing such a great job. I want you to know we normally give 3%, or I'm giving you a promotion, or like, but you're telling me that that's not how the world works.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

It's just really I'm like just naive. It's just really not how the world works. I would say in a small business where everyone has a lot of bandwidth and there's a lot of development occurring. So I used to work in a place where there was a people had extra bandwidth and we always did a lot of development. And because we did all that development, those situations would happen. And one of my favorite career stories is about when I was working at Lush and our the owner of the company met with each of us on the leadership team and said, you know, what do you think could be done to improve the company? Like literally carte blanche. And I came up with this whole plan of what I thought should be done to help the company. And he said, Jen, go ahead and do it. And he gave me this new title and he put me in charge of a whole wing of the business that no one had been in charge of before. And it was so exhilarating and it was so fun. And it's very rare that that happens. That's not going to happen at most companies. And if you're waiting for someone to give you that opportunity, you're going to be waiting for a really long time. You are of it. I I'm on what you were saying before, I have a friend who's looking for a job, and she thinks that she can only look for a job in things that she's actually done. But that's that's not the case. Like her friends and me, we were all telling her, these are the skills that you have. Look for jobs that use these skills rather than jobs that have the same title as you've had before. Right. I think, I think maybe a big theme about this is like the self, like autonomy and and you know, self-direction. And you really have to advocate for yourself and you really have to make sure that I guess I don't know what necessary to make sure, but you really have to advocate for yourself.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

Because no one's gonna advocate for you. Right. It's advocating for yourself. And I will tell you, um, you know, because I one of the things I tell my daughter and my kids is when it comes to career, I said, let me tell you something. God will place you places. He will, I promise you. Man likes to market, but God places. And it's, you know, hearing this from you, and for some of our listeners, like it could be a little on edge. It makes me a little bit on edge because I will tell you, most of my jobs, I will 1000% say, God placed me there. God placed me there. You we God uses people. If you get a promotion because you asked, that's also God placing you there. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

So I think it's like it's a wrestling of those concepts. It is a little bit. Can I tell you another interesting story from my time here at Vanderblumen? Something that's been different. Um, so prior to Vanderblumen, I had never worked in a church organization or a church or parachurch. And a big difference when I'm interviewing people, and I may have said this if you guys have heard this before, but um in business, when I say, What do you want to be doing in five or 10 years? The people have an answer. I would like to be the COO of a nonprofit that does $15 million worth of charity work, something like that. And every single person that is in the church space says, wherever God wants, I don't know where I'm gonna be in five to ten years, wherever God plants me, wherever God wants me to be. And I always I think that there's such a big dichotomy about that. But God uses people. And if you really, I'm just saying, if you sit and wait, maybe you will get plucked and put. Somewhere somewhere, but you have to work on your skills. You have to get mentors, you have to get people that are gonna advocate for you, and then you have to advocate for yourself. Right, right, right. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

No, I think I think it sounds like it's a little bit of a both hand, too. You know what I mean? Like it's you can't just you can't there's a type of waiting where you're being very passive, and there's a type of waiting when you're also being active. So maybe quote unquote, if you are in a waiting season, because chances aren't somebody's always waiting, you're always waiting for something. Yeah, you're waiting for this, you're waiting for that. Yeah, you're always waiting for but there's something that you need to be doing in that waiting season, right? Exactly. So um I think it's like I think it's a marrying of those concepts and figuring out.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

That's a really good point about a lot of people. Um I've heard Christian people say, well, if God wants me to find if God wants me to have another job, God will have that job show up on my doorstep. Right. But why don't you apply for some jobs? Why don't you do some networking?

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Why don't you build some skills and then God will give you the job? It's like saying, I'm praying for a baby, I'm praying for a baby, and then there's no closeness with you and your spouse.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

That's not gonna happen. Or I'm praying for a husband, but I'm gonna sit in all the time in my apartment and eat my pizza and my ice cream, and I'm never gonna go out and do anything.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

There's got there, you've all been you've got to be doing there's something that God has for you to do in the waiting. Yeah. And how you wait and what you do in the wait will determine how frustrated you are in the weight, or how it there could be some exhilarating moments in the waiting. Right. Like there's a lot of growth that can happen.