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Jennie Blumenthal: How to Identify Burnout & Live Authentically · The Bold Lounge

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Bold Lounge Podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Lee Burgess and I will be your host.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: This podcast is all about those kinds of stories.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Every week we'll hear from someone who has taken a lead or embarked on an extraordinary journey.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Whether they faced challenges or doubts along the way, they persisted and ultimately achieved their goals.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be created.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Tune in and get ready to be inspired.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'd like to welcome everyone to the bold lounge today.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Today I have Jenny Blumenthal, who is a thought leader for women going from surviving to thriving.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome, Jenny, and thank you for joining the Bold Lounge.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me, Lee.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to be here.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited to share your bold journey.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's really important for folks to understand throughout the different podcasts that everyone has their own definition of bold.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's important as well that it runs a continuum.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I think as I've talked to different people, we've seen a side of it that can be very vulnerable and connected to self-awareness and understanding of oneself all the way up to you know what some people call facing the wind or taking a leap or taking a big jump.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: So there's different slots across that continuum.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm excited to hear your particular story and your journey.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd like to just start really with how do you define bold?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like what if someone said, you know, what's your definition?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Why I think I would really say it's leading authentically, which is really built on a foundation of reconnecting to yourself.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because to me, anything that you're doing from that place and sense of purpose actually is bold, but it's it's probably the safest thing you can do in some ways, versus doing someone else's version of what they think you should be doing with your life, which might get you to, you know, a safe place from a career perspective or the quote right thing to do, but at some point might not wind up uh feeling authentically you.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, I think the boldest thing we can do is really understand what we're on this earth to do and then unapologetically go after it.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes that takes a little bit of experience or you know, falling down and getting back up.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's not always like we have that definition.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just speak for my own self there.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I think definitely being authentically you and taking the rein, so to speak, of your your future, right?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I think uh that is a fabulous definition.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: So when you think about your bold journey, I'd love to hear some of the milestone moments along your journey and in your professional and personal life.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll give you a little bit of context.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I spent 20 years in corporate America um climbing the ladder.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I worked very hard for where I got to and wound up being a partner in a large consulting firm.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And on the surface, and in a lot of scenarios, I was really happy with a lot of the accolades that I had gotten, with the team that I had built, was really interested in the personal lives of the colleagues that I was working with and making sure that they felt fulfilled.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but at the end of the day, there'd be this small little voice that was nagging at me that I didn't quite feel fulfilled.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe this wasn't quite the right fit.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And there were a lot of things that felt good about it, but something was wrong.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And like any hero's journey or fairy tale, I shoved that voice down and said, no, this is everything I was, you know, raised to want.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what how could I possibly be unhappy with all that I've worked so hard for?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't want to listen to the fact that maybe there was an alternative path.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, I assumed I had to just work harder, or maybe the next rung or maybe the next version of a calendar app would help me discover the 25th hour in the day.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then everything would feel settled.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: Another planner.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's me.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like I have a I have like a pile of planners.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: I still do.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: They're all empty.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: One's the magic one.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so um all of that um really built to a point where I've got two young kids.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a husband with his own career.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And as we led up to the pandemic, I was in a leadership role, the only woman on my leadership team, and I was constantly out meeting everybody else's agenda.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was on planes three times a week, and it didn't square at the bottom, um, you know, at the at the end of the day with the values that I had, which is to show my kids what it looked like to be a strong career woman, to provide for my family, to be excited about this ambition that I had.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And increasingly I felt this is a very strange thing.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm flying away from the people I love the most.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: They're enjoying the fruits of the labor that I don't get to partake in, and I'm not getting the connection that I thought I was doing all of this for.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I didn't really understand what was at the root of it.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And at the same time, I was a little disillusioned with some parts of the company strategy and certain bosses.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so there was a lot of things that were kind of adding into the equation.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Then the pandemic hit and we rediscovered the family time that I had so desperately wanted with the four of us in this house.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that really revealed some of the cracks beneath the surface of the relationships I had underinvested in in my husband with my kids.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: I had turned myself into a pretzel to make every single recital and everything I could.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: But really, what that did at the end of the day was made me feel burned out and exhausted without even realizing it because we didn't have that language at the time.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so one of the things I realized is the biggest relationship that I had neglected was the one with myself.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we went through that summer and we rediscovered some of that family time, we got to the end of it.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And my son was delivering dinner to me one night on a 14-hour Zoom call.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, you know, it's this has been a tough summer, but I'm really thrilled that we got some family time and we got to, you know, see each other more.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not on planes.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And he's a bit of my truth teller.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so he chirped back, yeah, it was great.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I saw you on the weekends, but like during the week, you were on Zoom all the time.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: But it was great to see you on Saturday and Sunday.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think something inside me snapped hearing that and thinking, boy, if I don't, you know, I'm looking at my leadership team, I'm looking at all the other people that I work with.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if I don't want to be, you know, 52 and you know, divorced and no relationship with my kids, then what path am I on that or what am I going to do to change this path that's going to put me in a different position where I than when I see a lot of these leaders ending up?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody's story is different, but I know I if I could, I didn't want that to be mine.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so I left and very abruptly actually.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um I started to realize a couple of terrible patterns in my own life, the relationships I wanted to reinvest in, the fact that I wasn't happy.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: I finally admitted to myself.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Found out on a Thursday all of these things, and I quit on a Tuesday.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it was pretty quick that the leap that I took without a parachute.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then I spent the next two years really reconnecting and rediscovering why I stayed so long.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: So that's really my bold journey of realizing that I was in deep within burnout, realizing there were parts of my life that I wanted desperately that I was standing in my own way of, and that some of the workplace uh dynamics I was in was also preventing me from having and taking the leap, but not knowing what it looked like, but trusting that something had to be better than the life that I was living.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, great story.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: I have tons of questions here.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, from the perspective of digging a little deeper, so one of the things you said is you had to get to know yourself better.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like you had identified and were able to say, here are my external relationships that they're not what I think they are.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: What was what was kind of the key indicator that you needed to figure out anything within you?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: And the second part to that will be it sounds like you knew you were participant in reaching the next level of success or joy or you know, next level of work in personal life that you wanted to take.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: So you you knew you had a part in it.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: So how did you know to and what did you know about you needed to learn about yourself?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, from the taking the active role in that, how did you do that?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, a bit of context here.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: I am from a really small town.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a a twin, and my parents raised my sister and I to have you know hard work ethics.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: His their, you know, parents were raised in the depression, fought in world wars.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of you know, history of if you really put enough spit and shine and and work hard enough, you will achieve, you know, great.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Hustle.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Get out there and hustle.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Which is a wonderful work ethic perspective to um to lend.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: The other piece to that is I think I always felt a little out of place in corporate America in the sense that I felt like I had to be somebody else to fit in.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like I had to have the attire, I had to, you know, speak the right way, being a woman in corporate America.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: In actually, I started in a company that was more a group of engineers.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: So traditionally, white men from MIT and Stanford and Silicon Valley who were the smartest guys in the room.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the group that I was with and trying to prove myself.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that there's a lot of a work persona and a corporate identity that I started to build early on that allowed me to play in those rooms and feel like I fit in.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the best quotes that I love from Brene Brown is you know, the difference between fitting in and belonging, where you're changing yourself so that you are accepted versus belonging because you're you're showing up truly as you are and accepted for that.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think over time, I almost feel like it was layers of paint that there were more and more layers of this persona that people accepted in the workplace and less and less of the authentic version of me that got the promotions.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I remember it really clearly when my the company I was working for was acquired.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was building my reputation.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: I had a personal brand for, you know, speaking my mind, but doing it diplomatically in a smaller firm where people could speak their minds.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: We were acquired in this larger firm where it was a little bit more of a genteel culture and you didn't really say what you meant.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: You you might save that for the conversation outside of the boardroom or in a in a hallway, but you certainly wouldn't speak truth to a superior in a conference table.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember a superior boss had basically said, Great, now that you're here, you're giving me all your revenue because I'm I'm the boss.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, no, no, this is a contract I won.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And he immediately branded me as having sharp elbows and you know, you need to just get with the program.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was one of those things where I really, you know, even in that transition, realized if I show up as authentically me and say, what you're doing isn't fair, yeah, I'm getting pregnant as difficult to work with, you know.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I noticed that the the more I softened those elbows and the more I stroked egos and the more that I made people feel comfortable and and happy as a course of doing business, the higher my star rose.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was an interesting moment for me to say, I think I'm a nice person overall, but to have to not speak the truth and have to make sure that you don't, in order to feel that you are moving up in that corporate scheme, I think was something that I built over time.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it got to a point where I was thinking between that and being a working mom and a wife and a Sunday school teacher and a daughter and a sister, I don't know who the person at the center of all of those roles is because it's so many different things to different people.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm the nurturing mom when I'm at home, but I'm the, you know, tough but kind, fair boss when I'm at work.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm the, you know, the soft Sunday school teacher when I'm at church.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was one of those things where I think I started to realize I didn't even know who that person was at the middle anymore.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's really what helped me, you know, get to a point to say I need to get back in touch with that and understand how much of this is conditioning, how much of this have I just adapted in order to fit in versus what's authentically me.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of how that transition went.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: I bet a b a lot of people, I know I can relate to a lot of things you said.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think you actually get rewarded for being disingenuous to who you are potentially.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: And what I mean by that is kind of how you eloquently described it is like if you if you're authentically you, and sometimes I think as a female versus a male who would have said, Yeah, I don't think that's actually the right way to do that or distribute the revenue, maybe the response would have been different for a man versus a woman being branded, you know, sharp elbows, I think is what was said.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I do think that plays into some of it, and then we actually have to maybe conform or become something to survive or to thrive.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like if I want to thrive, and I'll just put that in air quotes that you all can't see, is that you know, if I want to go to the next level, if I want to get a raise, if I want to become partner, whatever it may be, you have to actually not be you, which feels hard on certain days for sure.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you know, one of the things that I think is important too, what you said is like we're raised a certain way, like you need to have retirement, you need to have insurance, you need to have stability.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think I'm you know, I'm fifty, so I think you know, my parents the same way.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: My mom in high school had two or three jobs the whole time.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: So they were all part-time equal equaling a full-time salary, but so she could be at school or do the pickup or does she was doing the spinning of the plates, and so I think I got some of that too uh from her.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so some of that we have to realize that it's okay to not maybe be that what you you know went to school for, you know, you know and you think about this is what I got brought up to do, what I was taught to do, and it almost feels like that's also you know a change when you think about I I need to quit to find myself to re you know, reignite and revive some of my relationships, and some of them are actually with myself.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I think those are all really important points.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think the other thing you said is that the pandemic actually led to you seeing some of this, which you probably may not have seen it if you were traveling or doing your you know your normal thing.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I think a lot of us can relate to that too from that perspective.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: You actually then I think moved on, and you know, as you were going through that process of learning you again and you know, recapturing some of the moments with your family.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: You actually decided to, you know, write a book.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: So can you tell me a little bit about your book?
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I started to do some of that work on myself and I applied that consulting mindset to my own perspective and thought, okay, I'll go out and try to figure out why I stayed in some of these toxic places or toxic bosses, or just, you know, um, maybe a healthy culture.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I brought an unhealthy mindset to work and my relationship with work to it.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Why did I stay there so long?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And what was I really trying to um achieve?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: If I get to the top of the corporate ladder, what was waiting for me?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Was it peace?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Was it financial security?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like what was I, what was keeping me there?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: And as part of that, I realized that I had had the choice the whole time.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's definitely things that happen outside of us in terms of other people's behavior, but a lot of this is, you know, our mindsets and patterns that we learn over time that make us feel like we don't have a choice.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I can't leave because I'll leave my team behind is like the number one thing I hear for the female executives who I counsel who are thinking about quitting.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I can't leave because who would I be without this job?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I can't leave because uh I'm the breadwinner.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: So therefore I have to have this role, even though the role is, you know, probably three times what they've ever thought they'd make in their life, and they can certainly feed their family on much less and actually get something back from it.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: So we tell ourselves these things and don't realize we're in a jail of our own making sometimes.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so as I started to go through that process, I started cataloging like what were all the podcasts and books and things that would help me really see some of this.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: I started therapy for the first time in my life, which was such a gift and should be a national benefit for everybody.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so, of all of those things, I was walking with a friend and I was telling her some of the things that I had learned and her jaw dropped and just said, You have so much information.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: What are you going to do with it?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, it's almost like I've been going through my own corporate rehab.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: I guess I could write a book.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the name stuck.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: I tried to name it other things, and every time I just kept coming back to the fact that it felt like I was doing my own corporate rehab.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and if you think about, you know, rehab being uh, you know, trying to restore something to its original condition, that's really what I was doing is restoring my connection to me, who was I before all of these things in my life had me either take on personas or mindsets or patterns that might not maybe serve me for a time in my life, but as a full adult, I can choose to set those aside now.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't have to run my life based on them.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's where that aspect, you know, really came clear for me in terms of being corporate rehab.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what I named the book.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: I started to talk about it and put out some information on it as I started to pull the manuscript together, which really talks about the process that I did.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I invited if anybody else wanted to tell me their story, I was going to include some of mine.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I started having requests pile in for people to say, I gotta tell you my story.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: It was almost like a tharsis for so many women who don't get to tell their story or feel like they're the only one, that they were in a situation and the boss made them feel like they it was just you.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: You just need to work harder and trying to help them understand what part of it might have been them, but what part was, you know, the environment you're in.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so so far I've interviewed 300 women.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the stories are everything from inspiring to uplifting to heartbreaking and infuriating that um this is the state of what female executives have to go through to feel that they can be their authentic selves at the highest levels of the organizations that they lead.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so as I started to put it together, I thought, okay, if I'm gonna write this book, how do I actually catalog what I did?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And like any good consultant, I had a framework and it really nicely aligned to the word rehab.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: So rehab stands for first recognizing your story and understanding kind of all the things that happened to you over the course of your life.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: The second is E, which is evaluate um all of your patterns and relationships and roles that you play in life.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: H is for heal and do any of that nurturing and self-compassion that you need to repair things that have happened with you.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: A is for arise and growing all of these new skills and um and things.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the fun part where you get to actually try new things and keep us growing, which really injects energy.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the final part is build for B, um, which really talks about building a new life and career that's more aligned to what you authentically want so that you can make some intentional choices.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that's really the process I've been taking with the book.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's been um a labor of love for sure, because it feels it.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: I started it thinking, I don't care if anybody reads this, I just want this catharsis to be on the page.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm now like, I want to just give it away for free because I want as many women to hear these stories as possible.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I wish I had had it in my life to know that it wasn't, it wasn't me.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: There's things that I could do, but there's parts that were me and there were parts of the environment that I was in.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, just like anything you'd hear in rehab, like getting a sense of the things that you can control and the things that you can't, and then making intentional decisions about those things applies just as well to work as it does to any other substance abuse.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think it's it's a personal path.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's the thing.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like there is no, um, I have a framework, you have a framework.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's individualized in what I did and what you did in our situations.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: And and at in 2020, when I quit my job and went and started my own business, I didn't call it burnout.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: I I just I didn't even use that term then.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: I just said I was a nub, but it literally was the burnout.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's important.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think there's symptoms or do we have things that we could say?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think I'm getting close.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think I got to a point of being extremely unhealthy.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, having moments of high blood pressure or you know, things like that that you know, that was my moment.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was in a meeting and my eye, it had it burst a vein from blood pressure, just having to kind of you know sit there and not be authentic or be authentic and then kind of know what was coming.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I think you know, from that perspective, like I can't do this anymore.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm actually can't can't see it.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's like there.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, what do you think if there's like symptoms of burnout?
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Are there things that you know that we could look for or we could say yes, yes, yes, or maybe?
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, absolutely.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: So the World Health Organization defines burnout first as chronic unmanaged stress.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: So if you think about that definition, and then you think about what might have been in your life as of 2019, and then you think about the things that we went through in this dumpster fire of the last two years, everyone had some sort of you know chronic stress.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: And in some cases, we can manage it, and a lot of cases it's too much, it overwhelms the system.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: The three main indicators of that uh first are exhaustion, the second is cynicism, and then the third is inefficacy or feeling like nothing you do really matters.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: So if you think about those three together, and typically we define it as burnout only if those all three are met, but often one of the symptoms is more intense than another.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things I think it's interesting is looking at Burnout in women, and particularly, you find that because women tend to be doing more caregiving, whether that's of an elder or a child or of their community sometimes, there's burnout now that you're seeing in the home and in the workplace.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: And when you have women trying to operate in all of these different roles, sometimes it's happening in both places.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then you're basically using some of the validation from either place as the relief valve.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so you see people over-identifying with a work identity, maybe because they're feeling burned out at home.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then you get the burnout at work too.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: So those are the things to really watch out for are the cynicism, the exhaustion, and the inefficacy are the things that are the main pieces there.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: And fortunately, I'll just put in a last piece of this that for you know all three of those things.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think any working mother is going to be ticking.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think the whole thing is.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I think yes to all of them.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, that's kind of the job description.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: So how do we avoid that?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I think that's a piece that's something that's extra, you know, if you are working or if you are taking care of any type of child or elder care, I'm seeing this a lot now, too, with the sandwich generation, that it it winds up being an extra toll just because the amount of time that it's taking in all of those different roles is so much more than before.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that that really came out in the book, which was interesting, is I did all the interviews, is when I talked and asked about, you know, what was it that people thought that was a big, you know, why why they felt like they had to stay or what was driving some of the insane hours, a lot of time it we could trace it back to the hustle culture of feeling like you had to be on and you couldn't miss something and fear of missing out and everything's productivity, and I have to get my kid into the summer camp or I have to be the first on this work trip or I won't get the promotion.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: And when you add that piece in too, if you're in a culture, whether that's in your community or in your workplace where everything is productivity related, you're only good as your last deal.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: You better get on the plane because otherwise this other person's gonna get promoted.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: It contributes even more to that burnout because now you're not just managing your own symptoms, you're you're it's the air you breathe.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's the piece I think that that relationship between the two started to become much more clear to me as I heard these women's stories.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it's certainly a huge thing we're gonna need to watch out for for women in the workplace for years to come.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think one thing that came to mind as you were speaking, and we're both members of Chiefs, so a shout out to the Chiefs who are listening is feeling supported and empowered by other women.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I will say I've not always felt that way in the workplace.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it's an interesting thing, and I don't know if that ever came up in any of your interviews, but not so much to focus on that, but how can we support each other better in the workplace?
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because not everyone can quit their job or take a leap, and that has its own stressors.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: But I think one of the important things you talk about in your book and in your work with your clients is here's things to plan for, to think about.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: But I I like the idea of also being supportive of one another.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: Is there anything that comes to mind from all your conversations?
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: Just some tips, so like we we can see it.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we we know when it's happening.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: When you know someone is in you know in a meeting or getting more and more assignments because they're really good at it.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, the curse of the competence, you know, that that does happen at times.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: What advice would you give to women in the workplace to one support each other and then also to take the first steps to plan for something different?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and I do coach about this specifically, so you're you're absolutely right that I hear from it in the interviews.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: I now coach executive women and I hear from it all from them all the time that they either feel like someone has you know trampled on them in a meeting or they've seen something and they didn't want to speak up.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: The first thing I would say in terms of women supporting other women is to remember not to fall into the trap of a scarcity mindset that women in the workplace is not, you know, pie.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if you get something, I will get less.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: And there's only so many of us, so we better make sure we, you know, get that token spot.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: It really is about creating a bigger pie and really making sure that you're lifting up others as opposed to feeling like you're competing.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that can come from, you know, your the own mindset things that run in the background.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times it can be stoked by the workplace itself that, well, we just put a woman on the board.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: So do we really need a second one?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: What do you offer that's different to her?
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then you you're in this false dichotomy as if there's only room for two women, you know, as opposed to if if there's 10 people on the board, there's 10 spots, not one.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's the first piece of just not adopting a scarcity mindset, but having an abundance mindset is crucial.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: The challenge with that is in a lot of cultures, that's not the way things get done.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that leads to number two, which is find your tribe.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Find a group of people, hopefully women and men, but people that can really help amplify your voice, other women's voices, and make sure that you're not only relying on them as your personal board of directors for key decisions, but also help in amplifying your voice in in meetings, in decisions, helping to pre-grease, you know, conversations, that type of thing.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: I know in chief, we have a LinkedIn pod where everybody can contribute, you know, things that they're going to post on LinkedIn, and then others can amplify those voices so it gets more reach.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Something simple like that helps to actually elevate those voices so that it doesn't really get lost in the noise.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: And the last thing you you'd ask is, you know, what advice I would have for women who are trying to make some of these trade-offs, who may want to stay in their job, may want to stay in corporate America, but switch roles, don't know where to start.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: First off, it's very hard to have clarity of mind when you're burned out.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: So that would be my number one thing is just remember it's really hard to be thinking about passions and all of these things in a state of thriving if you're actually trapped in a moment where you're just surviving.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: So just give yourself a little bit of grace and figure out what you can do in that moment.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's getting a Starbucks, maybe it's, you know, learning meditation.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody's going to be different with that.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: But just give yourself a little bit of grace so that you can put yourself in a space where you can actually dream.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's no different than trying to tell someone in a war zone, you know, to start painting.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like it doesn't work, right?
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're surviving bullets, right?
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: So once you can shift that, whether it's in meditation, a lot of people just do that five minutes a day just to kind of get themselves into that space so they can open that up.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: Then really focus and start with why.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Why are you on this earth?
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you had to write an obituary for yourself tomorrow, what would you want it to say for real?
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then look at, you know, what are the things that you want to do that could, you know, help you achieve that, but don't get stuck on the what.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think we get really focused on how am I going to do that?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if I did this and I joined a nonprofit and left my big job, how would the kids get this funded?
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I might as well just not leave at all, as opposed to just focus a little bit more time on what are the things that make you feel alive?
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: What are the things that give you energy?
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: What did you love to do as a kid?
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: What is that thing that you've always, you know, put off?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: And just spend a little bit of time letting that come to you as opposed to being so quick to say, how am I going to monetize that?
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: What could I do?
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Would that pay the mortgage?
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's something you can do on the side in addition to your job, or maybe it's it's the next path for you, but really start to focus on why.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good point.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think what you know, how do you want to be remembered?
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: How do you want to have lived your life?
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I think this is from my experiences that have, you know, along my bold journey, like life's not guaranteed tomorrow.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like it just isn't for anyone in your life.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: And that's scary, but at the same time, that's how important the presence is.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think you know, your advice is really important for people to hear too is that it doesn't have to be zero to a hundred on the day one.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like, just take 30 minutes for yourself a day to like be able to take a breath or five minutes or five, you know, it doesn't even have to be 30, but man, it it we need to think about this in steps, and it doesn't have to be instantaneous that you have the solution.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's helpful to think about it too, is that's again a reflection of the relationship with yourself.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you're reconnecting to yourself and you've been caught up in the hustle culture or running a mile 100 miles an hour for a long time, the minute you remet yourself, you wouldn't propose.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: You would take some time to get to know her.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't expect to like know your life's work and passion in a minute.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then five minutes you have between closing the deal and folding the laundry, it might not come to you.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: You got to give yourself some time to kind of get to know yourself again.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely need more than one cup of tea to get through understanding yourself.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: And and I I love the analogy, and you wouldn't, you know, propose on your first date.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I think, you know, from that perspective, I think some of us think we have to do it immediately.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then the second important point you made, which I think resonates and should resonate with a lot of folks, is you might not have all the answers immediately.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: And don't talk yourself out of, you know, you may have moved a couple notches into thinking and getting to know yourself, but then like you talk yourself out of it and you go back to, I can do it.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, because I felt like in my journey I'd be like, on one day I was like, I can do it.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: The next day I was like, I'm going, I just can't make it.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I was going through this like up and down of like, I also don't want to mu fail myself or my family or my parents or whatever it may be.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: But I think getting through that zone, whatever you want to, you probably have a name for it, but there's a zone in there where you could talk yourself out of like where you had started to kind of get to know yourself and figure it out.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's such an important point, I think, for folks to hear.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad you brought that up because I think part of what you're you're meant mentioning as well is that part's really scary.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there there's there's all kinds of names for it.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've seen the valley of despair where you're like, okay, I'm gonna make a change, and then the other side of the valley is like enlightenment, but in the middle is like this up and down crazy drawing.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that's normal, right?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's normal, but that's not what we celebrate in this culture.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: We celebrate like you worked really hard, you said you wanted to do this, you did that, you get the gold medal, as opposed to tracking all of the ins and outs of the things that we don't post on Facebook that are for the real life of how this goes.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it can be scary when you take a look at yourself and think, boy, what am I responsible for versus what are other people responsible for?
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: I can almost guarantee you, if you are a human, there will be things that you're responsible for that you don't want to own up to or you don't want to have to look at.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it can be really scary.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that goes right back to the bold definition that we started with that if you're leading authentically and you know that it's it's what your soul is telling you, or you feel in your gut that this is the right thing to do, or this is the right next step, you can't go wrong.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to go all in, but you can't go wrong by just taking that next right step.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Take the improv class, talk to a recruiter, you know, update your resume, get coaching, whatever it is that helps you feel like it's a tiny piece, I think is something that really just helps you to set on that path and keeps you grounded for the days that will come that feel scary, that feel like maybe I made a mistake, or I don't know if I'm cut out for this.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it keeps you really grounded in that goal.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that is great advice.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I could talk to you for another hour for sure.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll appreciate uh meeting you and getting to know all that you're doing and all the good things that you're doing for others.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: All the links for Jenny will be in the the podcast information there to contact her, follow up and information on her book and connecting with her.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I just want to thank you for coming to the bold lounge.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I know today you've connected and inspired with probably many of the listeners, and I just appreciate all that you're doing to help others and congratulations on your bold journey and where you are and where you're even taking it to the next level.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, Lee.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: I so appreciate that.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd have to say the same back to you.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: I know you're really doing bold things with all of the work that you're doing.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: With I think your retreat's gonna come at have at the same time that the book's coming out, so we'll have to figure out some sort of collab.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that would be great.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: We will celebrate together.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely, but I'm thrilled for you as well.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks so much for having me.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge Podcast.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: Through the continuum of bold stories, vulnerability to taking a leap, you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others through their unique and important story.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others and share the journey of those with a bold mindset.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journey with you.