The Symptoms Of Burnout That Most People Miss And 7 Ways To Stop It With Dr. Sharon Grossman

[00:00:00] Zach: it's been a long week and it's only Tuesday, so many of us are right there with you. Stressed, tired, overwhelmed, burned out. Even

[00:00:09] Jeremy: experiencing burnout can be really, really harmful. Not only to the work you do, but also the relationships you have and your overall wealth.

[00:00:16] Zach: in this episode, we're joined by Dr. Sharon Grossman. She'll share how you can crack the code on your burnout so you can recover quickly and prevent it from happening again.

[00:00:24] This is the fit mess conversations with world-class experts in the fields of mental, physical, and emotional health. And this episode 

[00:00:32] Dr. Sharon Grossman: if you are putting your work and everybody else's needs first, and then saying to yourself when, and if I have time, then I'll exercise or then I'll meditate or whatever it is you want to do. You'll never have time. And then that means you're just doing it wrong.

[00:00:47] You got to start with you, and then fill in the blanks around you.

[00:00:51] 

[00:00:51] Now, here are your hosts, Zach and Jeremy. 

[00:00:54] Jeremy: welcome to the fit mess brought to you by athletic greens. Thank you for listening while you're doing whatever it is you're doing right now. I'm Jeremy and he's Zach and we've been through all kinds of struggles and we've ended up stronger because of them.

[00:01:04] And we want to help you do the same. So if you're sick of your own shit and ready to make it. You're in the right place. And you know, that feeling it kicks in on Sunday afternoon, you start thinking about all the work you have to do on Monday, the commute, all the zoom meetings back to back that one guy who never stops talking all of it, drains your energy, kills your motivation and leaves you completely burned out.

[00:01:24] Or if you're like Zach, you've been living on airplanes for the last 10 days.

[00:01:27] Zach: It hasn't been entirely on airplanes, but it has been in four different countries as well.

[00:01:33] Jeremy: And how many, okay. How many flights and how many days.

[00:01:36] Zach: How many

[00:01:37] Jeremy: It's a lot of math. I know. I don't want to make you get out of the calculator.

[00:01:39] Zach: it was a 10 day trip and I took a train from Albany to JFK, flew from JFK to Istanbul, Turkey, , flew from Turkey to Macedonia, where I proceeded to drive all over the country for three days, visiting our offices Flew from there to Vienna caught another flight flew from Vienna to London, right.

[00:01:57] Proceeded to walk 15 miles around London the entire day, and then flew to Belfast Ireland, where I walked around for another 15 miles throughout the entire day. And then I actually went to our office for three days and went to a conference on the last day. And then it took an hour and a half drive down to Dublin.

[00:02:12] Ireland jumped on a plane there flew to Washington DC, and then caught a little itty bitty puddle jumper up to Albany, New York for, I don't even know how many miles or how many hours in airplanes, but it was nine different airports over the period of 10 days.

[00:02:27] Jeremy: That is just nuts. And like, I, I like, I've been busy, I've been doing things, but like for me, like one flight, the stress that goes into packing to go from one place to another by airplane that consumes like 80% of my energy for a day. So I can not even imagine how drained you must be after going through something like.

[00:02:46] Zach: Well, and then last night I got. Albany went to the bag claim to get my bag. After all of those flights, everything went perfect. The very last stop, I was like, where's my bag? And they're like, oh yeah, it didn't make it onto the plane. It's on the next plane, which we'll get here at like two o'clock in the morning.

[00:03:03] You can come back and get your bag. And I was like, , you guys are delivering that and I will take delivery at three o'clock in the morning. Thank you.

[00:03:10] Jeremy: That's amazing. So what did you do? How do you manage the stress of all that? What do you do to, to keep things in check? I mean, we talk all the time about just, , focusing on the next best thing or the next right thing or whatever, but I mean, that's, I mean, cause you're, you're working too, aside from like the travel alone is, is insane, but when you're doing that much work on top of it, how did you prevent getting burned out or did you get burned out doing it?

[00:03:33] Zach: I don't think I got burned out on top of it. I also shook hands with and met probably between 250 and 300 people. And like had like little small talk with them. , our biggest offices are in Macedonia with like five or 600 people there. And it was just, I was on all day long.

[00:03:53] Jeremy: I'm exhausted. Just hearing the story. I don't know.

[00:03:57] Zach: I kept getting back to my room and just, 15 minutes just breathing, like laying there in my bed, breathing, which. Most of the time led to me falling asleep really, really fast. , but there was a lot of breathing. I made sure that wherever I was, I was hitting the gym, getting the physical exercise out.

[00:04:17] And fortunately, , even in Macedonia, like we went on a walking tour. So like I did a lot of walking and, , I did at least 50 miles over this 10 day period. So. You know, the physical exercise, the mindful breathing, and, I actually played by neural beats in my headphones while I was on airplanes the whole time when I was reading.

[00:04:37] So I tell the story of it, like, , just another day at the office, no big deal, but you know, we both know, like I'm high functioning anxiety boy over here. Right? So like, , flying into Turkey, my brain was going like, , 9,000 different ways of like, what if this happens? What if that happened?

[00:04:52] What if that. So I just really, , tried to focus beforehand on like preparing myself and making sure that I was making the time to meditate and planning, all of these recovery pieces, like the working out and, breath and just remembering that it's just an airport. It's no different than, , a domestic airport.

[00:05:11] , but there was a planning portion to it. Like, don't go on a trip like that, or go into anything that you think is going to burn. Without preparing and putting in place, things that you know are going to help you. So I know that working out helps me. I know that , breath and meditation helps me.

[00:05:29] , just walking, being physically active has been really great. , had I not done those things, maybe I would have burned out, but I didn't because proper planning.

[00:05:37] Jeremy: And that's one of the great tips that you're about to hear in this interview that we have with Dr. Sharon Grossman. She mentioned that she mentioned that if there's a lot on your. Schedule it, put it on the calendar. So you can get it out of your head now and know that I will deal with that. It's got a time and a place it's not right now.

[00:05:52] And that can help you focus on the next right thing. We're going to get to that interview in just a minute, but first we want to share something really exciting. We've been working on, that's going to be launching soon. It's our brand new mastermind program. We're calling it the fit mess method. It's group coaching and support for a small group of people who want to collaborate and help each other grow.

[00:06:08] We'd love to meet with you and find out how we can help you pursue those goals that have been just out of reach for too long. You can find a link and learn more at our website, the fit mass dot. 

[00:06:16] Zach: All right enough about us. I am really excited about this interview. Unfortunately, we recorded this interview before I went on my trip, so I was actually able to employ some of the tactics that we learned about here and got through it , relatively unscaved. Even though if I close my eyes right now, I'd probably fall asleep. Our guest today is Dr. Sharon Grossman author of the seven east solution to burnout transforming high-achievers from exhausted to extraordinary and host of the decode, your burnout podcast. We asked her why she decided to focus her work specifically on burnout issues.

[00:06:50] Dr. Sharon Grossman: love to share this story because I think it is kind of different from what you typically hear when it comes to burnout. I find that I'm usually the one person left outside the circle when it comes to burnout coaches, because usually they've experienced burnout.

[00:07:06] They've recovered. They want to take people through their journey from their lived experience. Was really interesting for me was I was building a business and I had worked for 20 years as a psychologist. So I had lots of experience with lots of different people. But when I was building my coaching business, I really wanted to be more intentional.

[00:07:26] So I asked myself who are the people that I love working with the most. And what I came up with was people who are super high achievers. And my second question was that. Well, can I help them with, and it turned out that a lot of them were struggling with burnout. And so I started to dig into what was out there.

[00:07:46] What was already written on the subject. This was a few years back before burnout was on everybody's subject list. And so at that time it seemed like a lot of the work was focused on organizational change. What you can do to make sure that your organization is having like a good culture and all this stuff.

[00:08:03] And I thought that's really important. 

[00:08:06] If you are working in one of these organizations, you can't afford to sit around and wait for them. 

[00:08:12] Right. That's not very empowering. And so I thought I can take all of my years of experience 

[00:08:18] being a therapist and really apply it in this area to really help the people that I like 

[00:08:24] working with the most in the thing that they struggle with the most.

[00:08:27] So that's kind of how that all came about.

[00:08:30] Zach: Oh, that's awesome. So, so what exactly is burnout? It can mean so many different things like this week for me has been it's Tuesday. It's already a long week and I've, I've already got a non-alcoholic beer open, like it's, and it's not even five here yet.

[00:08:47] So what is burnout and what, how, how do we get there? What happens.

[00:08:52] Dr. Sharon Grossman: That's a really important question and part of why I come out here, because I think a lot of times people don't know that they're burning out and that's the real danger. So we all use terms like stress and exhaustion to describe how we feel. And I think it's important to be able to connect the dots. So there is something called the stress burnout continuum, and when we are exposed to stress, Over the long haul where it's chronic, that's where we enter the land of burnout.

[00:09:22] And so it can feel very familiar because we all are familiar with what stress feels like, but it's a very distinct difference between just being stressed and feeling burned out. So one of the things you notice when you're burned out is that. You're feeling that mental and emotional exhaustion, which is quite different from how you would feel if you just ran a marathon and were physically exhausted.

[00:09:47] It's the fact that you have a hard time focusing. You've got that brain fog that gets in the way. And when we shift out of your work into something else, then all of a sudden your faculties are back online. So it seems like it can be very focused on this one area. Because maybe you've exhausted your resources or you're feeling really stressed out about what's happening at work.

[00:10:12] But then if we said, Hey, do you want to go out for dinner tonight? You 

[00:10:15] might actually feel quite differently in a new setting. 

[00:10:19] Jeremy: How would you differentiate it from. 

[00:10:23] Dr. Sharon Grossman: The way I like to think about overwhelm. It's kind of like when you've got. Multiple tabs open on your computer. Everything starts to slow down because it's draining the system and what happened. Over time when your computer gets to a point where it's so overwhelmed, what does it do? It shuts down and has to restart, right?

[00:10:43] It just can't keep going. And it, I think it's very similar for us when we put too much on ourselves. And we're thinking about all the things that we're doing all at once. So I like to say, especially for business owners who are wearing all the hats, you can do all the things, but you just don't know.

[00:11:03] Think about all the things that you have to do or for anybody who's working on a goal. Each goal might have multiple steps. And when you sit down and you think about, oh my God, I'm going to have to do this and this and this and this. It can feel overwhelming, but you don't have to think about all the steps.

[00:11:18] All you have to focus on is what you are working on right now, that next step for you. And when you get there and you've accomplished. Piece of it. You move on to the next one. So if we can just focus our minds on one thing at a time, instead of on all the things we can eliminate the overwhelm and it doesn't feel so stressful, we're more focused and less anxious about all the things that are yet to come.

[00:11:42] Zach: I don't consider myself, uh, an overachiever high achievers. Other people have labeled me such, um, Jeremy's nodding, I think. Yeah. Yep. Um, and I think one of the reasons, like I get handed things all the time, like if nobody knows how to do it, it lands on my plate, even though I don't know how to do it, just because I can, I can get it done.

[00:12:04] But, you know, with that comes this wonderful feeling of, I don't know what I'm doing. They're going to find out that I don't know what I'm doing. Imposter syndrome. Is that a big part of this?

[00:12:17] Dr. Sharon Grossman: It absolutely can be. Yeah. So a lot of times I'm in burnout looks differently for different people. So for some people. These are, , often people who overthink things, they tend to live in the land of anxiety. There's a lot of worries about the future. A lot of catastrophizing, a lot of negative thinking, a lot of, judgements and things like that.

[00:12:38] That can really be an emotional toll. On the system. Right? And so when we think about all the stress that you feel, we often put it externally. Like we say, know it's all the things that they want me to do. All the things that other people expect of me, I have so much that I need to get done, but really, I think a lot of the pressure comes from within it's the pressure that we put on ourselves.

[00:13:04] And sometimes if we are in a very demanding job or industry, And we show up with all of these internal expectations to be perfect, to be the best, to be the fastest, to be, you know, whatever, fill in the blank. Then we've got a lot of internal and 

[00:13:20] external pressure all at once. And that's where you start getting crushed.

[00:13:25] Jeremy: So I wanted to talk about how to start turning this around and get control of overwhelmed, but we, we've also focused a lot in the conversation so far on the workplace and sort of job demands. Clearly we're all burned out on the way the world's been the last couple of years where we're ready to either get back to normal or whatever the next normal is or whatever.

[00:13:42] So are, are there different tactics, uh, to battle overwhelm, whether it's in the office or at home And dealing with just the day to day stuff? 

[00:13:52] Dr. Sharon Grossman: Yeah. So, as I mentioned, overwhelm is when we're focusing on too many things at once. So if we can dial it back, you might have a list of all the goals, all the projects, all the tasks, and then if you can schedule them. So, you know exactly when you're going to be focusing on each one of them, then you can eliminate it from your mental computer and say, okay, like now it's all taken care of.

[00:14:15] I know exactly when it's going to get done now. Time, is it, what day is it? What do I need to be doing right now? Because have already determined that in advance now I just have to focus on getting this done. And so if we can do that, then it's kind of like we're shutting all the tabs on the computer and saving them in some sort of folder and saying, when you're finished with this test, go to that folder and pull out the next thing on the list instead of keeping them all over.

[00:14:40] Zach: so as we're, as we're trying to turn around, , what are the things that are happening? You mentioned a few things like brain fog and things like that, but like taking care of oneself is often the last thing that we do, , how do we ? Turn that around to actually start doing that for ourselves and, and managing this.

[00:14:58] Once we start seeing the symptoms.

[00:15:01] Dr. Sharon Grossman: that's a really, really important question. So I'm glad you asked it. One of the things that we see is we definitely burn out because we're not. Recharging our batteries if you will. So we're all familiar with our cell phones because we all have one. And certainly if we want our phones to work for us, we tend to look at what is the battery at right now?

[00:15:22] What do I need to do based on that you make a decision. Do I need to plug it in or can I keep running with it? And I think we need to start asking those kinds of questions for ourselves, but what I find more often than not is that the. The barrier to engaging in self care is typically some sort of a mindset.

[00:15:40] So it's usually either a sense of guilt that other people need. And I can't take time out for myself because that would be really selfish. So we're putting other people ahead of us putting ourselves on the back burner or we're focused on the productivity, on the accomplishment. And therefore we're going to put the task ahead of us.

[00:16:03] And the mindset is always like, well, when I get this done, everything will be. But we all know that that is a falsehood because as soon as we finished that, we've got a whole to-do list of things that are, is always waiting for us. And that list never ends. Right. So we have to learn when, to where to draw the line, when to say enough is enough.

[00:16:23] And it's kind of like with our phone, if we were to continue to play with our phone, talk with people on the phone, use it with the apps and everything else that it helps us do. And we weren't paying attention to the battery. At some point, it's going to adjust. Get, you know, get out of juice. And so we have to think about what are our needs in every moment.

[00:16:44] So our needs might shift. And when we talk about self care, that's a really broad term. So what does that mean for you? It might differ from person to person, but it might also differ for you at different times of the day, different days of the week. You might be in a different mood. You might have different needs, right?

[00:17:01] Not like maybe right now you're really drained. You need something to boost your energy. What is that for you then? That's the kind of question you need to ask. Right.

[00:17:09] Zach: Yeah.

[00:17:10] Dr. Sharon Grossman: So what would you say? What, what would help you kind of have that boost of energy?

[00:17:15] Zach: Well, I can tell you in the morning, it's usually coffee. That that's step number one. But, before that actually that's step number two. So step number one for me is actually going to the gym or some kind of physical movement, first thing in the morning. So I get out of bed. I go do an hour of CrossFit or an hour of yoga, one or the other every single day.

[00:17:35] And then I have my coffee, like, so I, I really try and get that baseline. Energy set. Right.

[00:17:41] Dr. Sharon Grossman: Well, that's excellent. And I love that you said that because a lot of times people talk about. They don't have time for exercise and they don't have time for fill in the blank, any type of self care. So I think the idea is if you can start your day like that, then you've already taken care of that piece and then work follows.

[00:18:01] And I always tell people, you know, if you are putting your work and everything else, everybody else's needs first. And then saying to yourself when, and if I have time, then I'll exercise or then I'll meditate or whatever it is you want to do. You'll never have time, so you have to write, and then that means you're just doing it wrong.

[00:18:19] You got to start with 

[00:18:20] you and then fill in the blanks around you.

[00:18:25] Jeremy: When it comes to self care, what are some of the common things that you tell these, these high achieving people that, that don't make time for themselves? Or are there just a few that, that sort of come to mind that these are the automatic? Like, these are the things that most people aren't doing. 

[00:18:40] Dr. Sharon Grossman: As I said, I think it really depends on what your needs are. But the first thing that I typically tackle with people is just their mindset, because usually that's the thing that gets in the way. So it's not that they don't know what to do. They just have all kinds of ideas about why they shouldn't do it, why they can't do it.

[00:18:56] And so first we just want to clear up all the clutter from their mind so that they can actually start to do the things that they know are going to be good for them. Once we get that out of the way, then we can start talking about how to be really strategic about your energy. So I'll give an example. I was working with one of my VIP clients and he had a day of the week where he worked till eight o'clock at night.

[00:19:19] So when he came home and especially because he's an introvert. He didn't want to engage with anyone. He didn't want to play with the kids. He didn't want to engage with the wife. He just wanted to come home, have his dinner and sit and watch Netflix. And I said to him, that's cool, but let me ask you this question.

[00:19:40] When you get up off the couch, do you feel more energized, less energized or about the same as when he sat down and he had never really considered this. And after having asked that question and reflecting on. He said, you know, I think I actually feel less than our dyes then when I sat down. So I think the lesson in that is that there are some things that can be part of our self care, but we have to be strategic about when to focus on those kinds of activities.

[00:20:11] Is. In that moment, we need a boost and those things are going to not give us that boost, but rather exert more energy out of 

[00:20:19] us. And I think it's also important to think about what kind of programming are you going to watch on Netflix? Are you going to watch something that maybe is uplifting? Like maybe you're going to watch.

[00:20:30] A standup comedy and you're going to laugh and that's going to help you to release some of the stress and the tension. And that's going to be more energizing or are you going to watch a horror film? And you're going to get into that fight or flight, and you're already in like high stress mode. So these are the kinds of things that you need to be strategic about when and what you do based on what you need in that moment.

[00:20:56] Zach: I want to ask about, , emotional intelligence and its role in either managing burnout or contributing to it. Right. I think if you take in a whole lot more, I know I run high on HMI queue, and I can recognize really quickly when I'm spending. And I don't know if it's emotional intelligence, but I also know that I spin out faster in emotionally charged situation. So can you talk a little bit about that and how it plays a role and maybe even helps you recognize.

[00:21:27] Dr. Sharon Grossman: Yeah. So for people who are listening to this week, this is another one of those terms that we hear a lot, but we may not completely understand. So emotional intelligence is comprised of. Really, I would say two buckets. One has to do with yourself and one has to do with other people. So if we're looking at the bucket about yourself, that's comprised of your self-awareness.

[00:21:48] So that means being aware of the kinds of thoughts that go through my mind and how I feel when I'm in certain situations, what do I do? How do I respond? Right. Like having all that self-awareness is really great because from that place, we can then start to. Implement all different kinds of strategies to make some changes.

[00:22:07] So first we always want to start with self-awareness and then from there, the second piece of it 

[00:22:12] is self-management. Now, when you 

[00:22:15] don't have good self-management you might be completely self-aware that you're spinning out, but you may not know what to do about it, how to spin out less. Right. And so that's where EKU training can be really helpful.

[00:22:28] One of the things that I teach my clients is that. When you feel really stressed out, for instance, it's not necessarily because of what's happening, but it's about the story you tell yourself about what's happened. So you might say to yourself, oh my God, this is like, so it is too much for me.

[00:22:50] There's no way I'm going to be able to do this. Or if you've got imposter syndrome, I might sound like I'm going to totally screw this up. People are going to find out, I'm getting myself into a whole bunch of hot water. I can't do this. Right. You start getting into that negative space of all of these different thoughts and.

[00:23:06] Then you start to feel all the emotions associated with those thoughts. So we automatically assume that it's the situation that's created those thoughts, but, or are those feelings. But if we change the thinking around our situation, we then can change how we feel. So one of the things I often do is I help my clients reverse engineer, how they, how they feel about a situation.

[00:23:31] Right. So I'll say, okay, let's say it's COVID and you're really just stressed out about this whole thing. How do you want to feel about the fact that COVID is here? We're not going to change it. It's still here, but you have a choice. Do you want to feel really stressed out about it or do you want to feel something else?

[00:23:49] And typically they'll say I want to feel calm and I say, great. How do you need to think about COVID in order to feel calm? And then they'll say. Oh that even though this is happening, that I'm okay or they'll come up with some version of that and I'll say, okay, great. So now say that to yourself and see how you feel.

[00:24:10] And they're like, yeah, I can actually feel quite different. And that's a really important key when we, when you talk about emotional intelligence is that there is this correlation between our thoughts and our feelings, and then to take it one step further when we are in a certain emotional state. We are more likely to behave in a certain way.

[00:24:31] So when you are all riled up, you're more likely to lash out or be really impulsive and do things that you maybe don't want to do or that you regret doing after the fact, right. Or if you're feeling really overwhelmed, you might shut down and not set boundaries and not really take care of your needs.

[00:24:51] Right. So it shows up in all different ways. What we need to really be mindful of is that we have control over ourselves. And that's the only thing that we have control over. So when you start to recognize, this it is very empowering, because you can realize that I can change how I feel I can change. What I do.

[00:25:14] And it all starts with my thoughts, right? If I can really become aware of what's going on inside my head and start to implement some of these strategies by asking better questions and by, you know, taking some of these tips from, you know, we draw from cognitive behavioral therapy 

[00:25:30] and from All 

[00:25:31] these different places, then it all starts to come together.

[00:25:34] And all of a sudden the thing that was really stressful or really upsetting before 

[00:25:39] it was kind of like, oh, you know, I know. I don't have to feel that way anymore.

[00:25:44] Jeremy: Yeah, it's a, it's the old name at detainment rule, right? I was a, this is something I like, to do with my kids is, you know, they'll come home from school with all the stories of so-and-so did this and that person did this. And I was so Fred drives me crazy when, and I always just try and come back to well, how did that make you feel Because the story doesn't matter, like the feeling that you attach to it is the thing that that you can control. And I always try and use that as a teaching point for them to like, just reframe what's what's happening during their day so that they don't. Become subject to all of the chaos around them.

[00:26:14] Like, like so many of us do. 

[00:26:16] Dr. Sharon Grossman: Well, I think the name of detainment is really, I would call it a self-management strategy because what it does is it says, I recognize that I have these emotions and sometimes just saying what it is you feel helps you feel less of it. So even before we change any of the stories, just like acknowledging how we feel helps us feel less of that intensity, right.

[00:26:39] Less of that district.

[00:26:41] Zach: Yeah, I know. I run, I run really high on the anxiety side and I knew I never knew it was anxiety. I just kinda thought that everyone had, , planned out every possible scenario that would happen in a five minute interaction. Just thought that was normal. But when somebody actually told me I had anxiety, like nothing else changed. 

[00:27:03] But then everything started to change just because I knew what it was. I recognized it and it was, it was mind blowing how much different my life got, just knowing what it was.

[00:27:14] Dr. Sharon Grossman: Yeah, I think sometimes we're afraid of the quote unquote diagnosis and the stigma and all this stuff. But in truth, having a name for your experience. Gives you that aha moment. It's like, oh, that's what's going on. I've been wondering my whole life. And now it's like, okay. And why that's so helpful is because then if you know that it's anxiety or if you know that is burnout, you can have tailored solutions based on that diagnosis.

[00:27:40] That's why we have a title for it in the first 

[00:27:41] place.

[00:27:44] Jeremy: So bringing it back to burnout, , for someone who's at home, just they're feeling it there, the tank is empty, they got nothing. What are like two or three things that they can do today to start recharging those batteries and get ready to take it on again. 

[00:27:56] Dr. Sharon Grossman: So, as I mentioned, the first step is always self-awareness. And I find that sometimes because we're not necessarily nuanced, uh, people have a lot of questions about it. Like what stage of burnout, M I N, or if I'm feeling all of these different things. Is that burnout or is that something else? And so one of the things that I like to recommend people do is to start by downloading a burnout checklist that I created, which answers a lot of those questions.

[00:28:22] So it'll help you figure out what are the symptoms, what are the things that you're currently experiencing? What stage of burnout you're in and based on that, what you should focus on next, because everybody's going to need a little bit of something different depending on where they're at. And, , From there, we can start having more detailed conversation about what are you bringing into the situation?

[00:28:45] You know, today we talked about emotional intelligence, but there's so much more that we bring in. Between our programming, our personality, we have our own environmental stressors that we're facing. All of these things kind of come together into the perfect storm that can end up being burnout and people burn out very differently.

[00:29:06] And also because burnout is on a spectrum, some people are lately burned out and some people are more kind of in the medium spectrum. And some people are completely at the end of their rope. And depending on all these different factors, it's going to show up differently.

[00:29:20] Zach: think I've been at every single one of those points. My life like that. And I it's just amazing 10 years ago, like getting lightly burned out was the end of the world for me. And now lightly burned out is, is not that big of a deal cause I can manage it a little bit better. , so I love the way you put that though.

[00:29:41] Like there's no one size fits all burnout. It's different for everyone, 

[00:29:46] Dr. Sharon Grossman: exactly. 

[00:29:48] Zach: so, but you, in addition to that you have your own podcast decode your burnout, right. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

[00:29:54] Dr. Sharon Grossman: Yeah. So what I love to do on the show is actually when people come on and they share their burnout story, I'm listening for these three contributing factors and I am basically decoding their burnout. So I'll say you are. Burning out because you've had these environmental stressors and you've got this kind of programming that maybe came from, you know, and they'll, they'll talk about, oh, you know, my mom used to be a super high achiever.

[00:30:20] And so I learned that from role modeling. And from a personality standpoint, I talk about, are you a thinker feeler or a doer and Zach at the very least what we've kind of established from what you've shared today is that you're a thinker and that's definitely part of why you're burning.

[00:30:40] Zach: Yes. I spend a lot of time in my head for

[00:30:43] Dr. Sharon Grossman: Yeah. And, and, and I think why this is so important why really developed the decoder burnout format is because I wanted to create customized solutions for people who are burning out, depending on how it's showing up for them, as opposed to just this generic, like, okay, everybody let's go meditate. 

[00:31:02] Jeremy: All right. Where do we learn more about the podcast, the, uh, the, the download that you mentioned and, and all of that. 

[00:31:08] Dr. Sharon Grossman: Yeah. So if you go to Dr. Sharon grossman.com forward slash burnout checklist, you'll be able to download that. Tool that I mentioned, which is a great first step. Everything's also available on my website. There's links to the show, or you could just look up decode your burnout on any place where podcasts are available.

[00:31:30] And yeah, there's a lot of other tools and resources 

[00:31:33] on my website as well.

[00:31:35] Jeremy: . Our thanks to Dr. Sharon Grossman. She's the author of the seven easy solution to burnout transforming high-achievers from exhausted to extraordinary.

[00:31:42] And she's the host of decode your burnout. It's a fantastic podcast. You should check it out. You can find out more about her and the work she's up to in the show notes. For this episode@themass.com.

[00:31:51] Zach: So definitely one of the takeaways that I had on that is being mindful of what's in your control. If your task list is going to be overwhelming, take some extra time to plan it and how you're gonna accomplish each thing. By knowing how it will get done. And when it starts to feel a little bit more manageable. Taking my trip as an example, like I spent. I don't know, 30, 40 minutes, like on a whiteboard, really just planning out every single step of the trip so that I knew, , at this time on this day, I'm going to be here and I'm going to be looking for this or looking for signs that say this and another language, like, you know, just put it all together plan it all out.

[00:32:27] It becomes more manageable as opposed to, I'm going to go to another country and not know what the hell I'm doing when I get there.

[00:32:34] Jeremy: Well, you know, and when you're doing that, that one thing, if you're focused on planning, if you're focusing on the next thing that's on your today. Just focus on that because multitasking is bullshit. If you can't focus on one thing, then , you're just going to get overwhelmed. It's going to feel like too much because your head is all over the place and you're going to do a lot of things really poorly.

[00:32:52] So focus on that one thing you're working on now and let the, the rest of it, , fall in line, the way you planned it. When you started the process of whatever projects you're working.

[00:33:01] Zach: And then the last point was really important for me as well. , don't pour from an empty cup, , if you're taking care of others and not putting the focus on yourself, it's going to be a problem. You need to make sure that you are taken care of first before you can take care of others.

[00:33:15]  It's okay to put yourself first, as much as you can. I know for me on this trip, I spent extra time. For myself, making sure that I was prepared for things, , with my meditation or, , skipping the group breakfast so that I could just spend a little bit more time.

[00:33:33] Recharging my batteries. And one of the things that I did, like I wanted to make sure my body was fully functional and working the whole time. So not only did I work out while I was there and, , go for massive walks, I brought a whole bunch of travel packets of athletic greens with me. Thankfully they never, they didn't get confiscated in customs, but I had, I felt like greens every single day while I was there.

[00:33:55] Jeremy: Those travel packs have come in handy. You know, we've been traveling back and forth back to Seattle since we moved to Canada and having those travel packs is just so handy. 

[00:34:01] I started taking athletic greens because Zach told me to, for months, he shared why it was so helpful for him while I was swallowing three fistfuls of vitamins, three times a day. I have to tell you, I noticed a difference on day one. I felt better and didn't have that 4:00 PM energy crash that I thought was normal.

[00:34:17] Now I've been on it for several weeks and I love it. It's packed with 75 high quality vitamins minerals, whole foods, sourced, super foods and probiotics, and it works with any diet plan and it tastes. For less than three bucks a day, you're investing in your health for a lot less than your cabinet full of vitamins or your daily coffee habit.

[00:34:34] So reclaim your health and arm your immune system. Now with convenient daily nutrition to make it easy. Athletic greens is going to give you a free one-year supply of immune supporting vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. Those are so. All you have to do is visit athletic greens.com forward slash fitness.

[00:34:52] Again, that is athletic greens.com forward slash fitness. To take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. You'll also find that link on our website, the fitness.com.

[00:35:02] Zach: All right. That's it for this show, but don't let the conversation on there. Join us in our Facebook group, where you and fellow fitness listeners can connect for monthly challenges, accountability to reach your goals just a cool bunch of people being really supportive.

[00:35:14] Jeremy: That link is also at our website, the fit mass.com where we will be back next week with a brand new episode. Thanks for listening.