Latest / Hustle Rebels: Burnout Recovery for Over-Achievers / Rest Is the Rebellion | Burnout, Hustle Culture & the Worth-Through-Work Trap

Transcript

Rest Is the Rebellion | Burnout, Hustle Culture & the Worth-Through-Work Trap · Hustle Rebels: Burnout Recovery for Over-Achievers

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I have been working since I was 12.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Not chores and an allowance working, working, working for someone else.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it feels like all I know is to work for my worth.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Can you relate?
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the weekly recharge.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Renee, former firefighter paramedic, current burnout recovery expert, and full-time recovering overachiever.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you're new here, this is where I read you the letter I wrote this week.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: No guest, no agenda, just me thinking out loud about burnout, hustle culture, and what it takes to stop performing your life and start living it.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Plus, usually one practical thing that can go along with it.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: So grab your coffee, your lunch, or don't.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Do nothing at all.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, that's kind of the point of these.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: But if it relates, feel free to subscribe to the Hustle Rebels podcast and the weekly recharge newsletter in the show notes.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get back into it.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: At 14, I was waitressing at a local restaurant under the table because I was too young to legally be there.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: In high school, I petitioned for early release at 1 p.m.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: I had all AP courses, I had earned it, and I used that freedom to go to work at Dunkin' Donuts on weekdays and waitress on weekends for some more cash.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And on top of that, there's Fords, Musicals, Jazz Bands, Youth Group, you name it.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: I was in it.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to notice what I did with that free time that I had fought so hard for.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: I filled it with something.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: I genuinely did not know what rest was.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Even at such a young age, it's literally as if I came out of the womb instilled with the idea that I had to earn my worth by working.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, that's another newsletter.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Here's how deep it went.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: When I had my emergency surgery, the one where I had almost died, and the surgeon told me that it was going to be 12 weeks of recovery.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: My first question was, how long until I can go back to work?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: How long until I can produce again?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Two weeks later, I was walking on the treadmill, and three weeks later I was back gigging, making Nick carry every piece of equipment while I stood there, feeling like absolute garbage.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And at one point, I literally felt like I was about to pass out while I was singing.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: But I still stayed because I had to prove that I could do it.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: To who?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's a really great question.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still working on that one.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Then I left the fire department and I started this business.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna be frank with you, I'm pretty sure I walked out of one burnout and directly into another.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was so locked in on building programs to help you not burn out that I completely lost the plot on what it meant for me not to burn out.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that hilarious that we do that even in healing?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Especially in healing, I guess.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Same engine, prettier paint job.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Always give 100% optimize the recovery, perfect the nervous system regulation, grind at not grinding.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the internet will just tell you it's your ADHD.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's just the type of person that you are.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: An all or nothing, and you just can't change it.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure that there's probably a meme for it.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty sure my sisters probably shared it with me.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's always a meme, right?
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Nah.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's just the unhealed self, running on a set of societal rules that taught us that our worth is measured in our output.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Rules that we absorbed so early that we mistook them for our personality, so we just keep producing.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: No matter what our body is screaming at us.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the body is always screaming.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: We just got really, really good at calling it something else.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Ambition, discipline, drive.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes those things are real, and sometimes they're just fear wearing a really good outfit.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: So here's where I've actually landed.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been following along for the last few weeks, you've watched two threads keep showing up.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Take our time and simplicity.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: They weren't a content strategy, they were a symptom of me finally actually listening, and they've made their way into everything, including how I now work with people.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Burn the blueprint is still here, and I still believe in it 100%.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: The self-paced identity reset, the brain spatting sessions, the whole thing.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: It does exactly what it says it does.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: It gets underneath the blueprint that you were handed, and it lets you put it down, put down a rule book.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: In the first week, it's still free, so you can go ahead and feel for it yourself before you decide on anything.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing to prove to me at the door.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I've also opened up something new alongside it.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Me walking with you.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Not a curriculum, not a finish line.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: This one's for when you're just done.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Done being burned out, done being tired in a way that sleep just doesn't touch.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Done sacrificing pieces of yourself for a system that has never once given back.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not gonna start now.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to hand you a worksheet about it.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be right there next to you, giving you permission to live your own fucking life.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because you've already worked hard.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: You've been working hard since you were a kid.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: The problem was never effort.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is that you were told the life that you're working for gets handed to us at the end.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd like for you to have it now.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's the deal we were sold, right?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Grind now, freedom later, freedom at 65, freedom when you've earned it.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: I almost died in an age where later would have been a lie.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we deserve to live our lives now, not at the finish line, not once our body is decrepit and already spent, sacrificed to a system that literally never gave back anything once.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: It took the good years, handed us a pension, and a bad hip.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is our life, ours, not our bosses, not our parents, not the version of us that some institution needed us to be.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And there is nothing to prove.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: There never was.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: That was the con the whole time.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, in a society built on overproduction, the most rebellious thing that we can do is learn how to rest.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Not optimize it, not biohack it, not stack it with cold plunges and supplement protocols that we're spending copious amounts of money on, and a wearable that grades your sleep like a fucking rapport card that we outlived in high school, because that's just the same machine with better marketing.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean actual rest.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: The unimpressive kind, the kind that nobody claps for.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's true rebellion.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: So you can book a call with me, we can figure it out together, or you can grab the first week of Burn the Blueprint for free.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Either way, this week's practice is gonna be a simple one, but not easy.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's easy for you, you're either doing it wrong or you're already free.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: So then I want you to tell me your secret.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: So first step, find your proof.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Ask yourself one question.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: What am I still trying to prove?
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: And to who?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Don't philosophize it.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: The first answer that comes straight to your mind.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Write it down.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's usually embarrassingly specific.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: A parent, a coach, a boss, maybe a version of you at 14 who was told that they were only valuable when you were useful.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, book the hour.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Actually put it on your calendar, maybe on your phone calendar.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: One hour this week.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Treat it like a shift that you can't miss.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because your nervous system only respects things that look like obligations right now.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Will work up to freedom.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, produce nothing.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing that generates output in that hour.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: No podcast in your ears that counts as learning, no walk that's secretly cardio, no cleaning, no resting productively.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: You are not allowed to come out of this hour with anything to show for it.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's the entire point.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely nothing.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then number four, let it suck.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Around minute 11 or 12, you're probably gonna get really itchy, really restless, maybe a little angry.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's not boredom.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's your nervous system detoxifying from a lifetime of usefulness as safety.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And say it out loud.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is uncomfortable and I am not in danger.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Breathe out longer than you breathe in and just sit with it.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then number five, notice what comes up for you.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: When the hour ends, note what showed up.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Was it guilt?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Was it grief?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: A to-do list that you suddenly had to write down?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's your data.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's the thing that's running the show.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: You just met it with the noise on top.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, number six, do it again next week.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Once is an experiment in data.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Doing it in repetition is rewiring your nervous system.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then if you're new here, this week didn't come out of nowhere.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you just landed in this inbox, two things are worth backing up for.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Last week I wrote about not being rushable, about living on your own clock instead of borrowing someone else's.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: That one was the crack in the wall.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: So this week is what came pouring through it.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: You can watch it on YouTube or listen on your favorite podcast platforms.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then over on Hustle Rebels Podcast, I sat down with the women behind Interval Paper to talk about their good enough guide and how they reframed something that I truly have been actually getting wrong for years.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: How good enough isn't lowering the bar, it's not settling, it's not slacking, it's not the participation trophy version of life.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's learning to love yourself exactly how you are right now.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that doing that doesn't drop the bar at all.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: It actually raises it because it turns out you build better things when you're not building them to earn your own approval, which is a hell of a thing to hear when you've spent 30 years of proving.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: You can also watch that one on YouTube or listen on your favorite podcast platform.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're feeling nostalgic, you can read the previous newsletters by checking them out, following the link to the weekly recharge newsletter in the show notes.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Twelve year old me thought that working was how you became someone.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still unlearning her.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Slowly, simply, but again, taking my time.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Then you're allowed to do the same.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: See you guys next week.