Episode 15
How to avoid burnout and lead with resilience
So many leaders face burnout, but there’s an alternative to pushing through it. By understanding the deeper nature of who we are and learning to slow our busy minds down, we can tap into our innate creativity and resilience.
Barbara Patterson has worked with thousands of leaders. She discovered that understanding one's inner world and who they ultimately are will transform the way they make decisions and show up.
This leads to a more fulfilling and successful approach to leadership that doesn't sacrifice our mental health or wellbeing. By letting go of old constructs of success and being open to new ways of doing business, we can create environments where people thrive and are more productive.
Key takeaways
- By becoming more familiar with our inner self, we can uncover new insights that can help us create the life we want.
- We often compromise our own minds by conforming to what we believe others or society expects of us as leaders. This unhealthy behaviour can lead to burnout, as well as damaged relationships with our loved ones.
- Are you listening to the voice that tells you you can't do something, or to the quieter voice that offers time to reflect, and invites you to do something other than worry?
Links
Transcript
Welcome to Generative Leaders.
Julia:If you are feeling on the edge of burnout, that you're pushing, you're stressed, and you want to get out from underneath that, this is the episode for you.
Julia:Barb, it's, it's, it's so lovely to meet you for the first time.
Julia:And I've heard so much about you from so many people and the work that you do with, with generative leaders.
Julia:And so I guess my sort of first question for you is, having worked with literally thousands of leaders, what.
Julia:It really occurs to you about the ones that come from a generative place.
Barbara:Yeah, we're gonna go right in there, aren't we?
Barbara:A big question.
Barbara:I love it, and it's lovely to be here and to meet you as well.
Barbara:What I've discovered for the most part is, and as you said, I've, um, been in this work and, um, been working with leaders and in business for most of my adult career.
Barbara:So I've been lucky enough to travel around the world and work with people from many different cultures and companies and entrepreneurs and solopreneurs.
Barbara:And I think as a general rule, or discovery or whatever is that people wanna do well.
Barbara:They wanna bring their best self to whatever they're up to, and they want to draw out the best in others.
Barbara:And there's often a lot of confusion about how to do those two things.
Barbara:But I would say that met really good people.
Barbara:And people with big visions and small visions, but ultimately a desire to want to serve and to wanna show up fully in whatever they're up to in a way that gives them life and meaning.
Barbara:I know you see this as well, but sometimes business or often business is kind of put in this category that, something else is required to do well in business.
Barbara:Like, in other words, happiness, fulfillment, peace of mind, um, connection, rapport, goodwill.
Barbara:Those are nice things.
Barbara:Those are soft things.
Barbara:Business requires grit and ambition and pressure and stress and, you know, and, um, I think over the last few years in particular, I'm seeing this more and more, but a lot of that is getting disrupted in a really helpful way.
Barbara:You know, since the global pandemic, companies, leaders, entrepreneurs are having to get more creative about how to do work.
Barbara:Um, literally people don't want to come back to the office, as we're all hearing.
Barbara:More than that though, I think people no longer want to give up or sacrifice personal wellbeing, health, family, Happiness for the sake of a job or a company.
Barbara:Like that, that idea, which used to look like, yeah, that's what business is.
Barbara:You know, I remember, you know, it's almost 12, 15 years ago now, when I was an executive inside a large global company.
Barbara:If you had asked me if I wanted to take a course on wellbeing, I would've been like, no, thank you.
Barbara:I have things to do.
Barbara:If you would've said, you know, do you wanna take a course on stress?
Barbara:I would've looked at you like you were crazy.
Barbara:Cuz I didn't think I had a problem with stress.
Barbara:I knew how to manage it, you know?
Barbara:But I didn't understand how I was living inside a very pressured system.
Barbara:I, because it had become my norm, I was.
Barbara:Living in an unhealthy norm and not aware of it, kind of like a fish to water.
Barbara:And I thought that's what was required to do well.
Barbara:You show up and you push and you override your body and you override fear and you just keep going and you do all these things, which can still like sound noble in some way.
Barbara:But when you begin to look in the direction of.
Barbara:How our internal state is shaping everything we do, our inner climate.
Barbara:What's happening inside of us moment to moment is having a direct relationship with whatever we're up to, whether that's a conversation, whether that's trying to influence, whether that's trying to innovate, connect.
Barbara:Whatever that might be, our inner world, our inner state is the starting point of that.
Barbara:But that was a hidden variable for me.
Barbara:And so it was, it meant, it was also a hidden variable for the people I worked with, right?
Barbara:It wasn't until I started to get aware of this and an understanding of how our mind creates our inner climate, how, in a level, any level of reactivity, my listening, my ability to communicate effectively, my ability to create is affected at some level.
Barbara:To the degree that I am sped up, constricted, overwhelmed, inside of me is the degree to which I'm compromised.
Barbara:And this was so powerful for me to see.
Barbara:Because I thought that the only way to bring my best self was to push and, and override certain things and to, you know, be busy and you know, have stamina.
Barbara:All these things that I respected in leadership started to look a little differently when I just saw the simple truth that in a freer, more relaxed in inner space, we naturally are more creative.
Barbara:In a freer, more present mind.
Barbara:We're naturally able to connect with people.
Barbara:In a freer, more present state, we have access to more bandwidth, to more creativity, to more innovation.
Barbara:You see, I didn't really see that relationship before.
Barbara:And so that was the beginning of really transforming what it meant to me about, oh, if I wanna bring my best self before that looked like I better have a lot of thinking, I better be managing myself, I better be on it, I better come prepared, I better, you know, practice, do all these things, right?
Barbara:But when I started to explore and really discover, oh, states of flow don't happen with a lot on our mind.
Barbara:Oh, that feeling of connection and those aha moments of inspiration and problem solving are happening when I have less on my mind.
Barbara:Oh, my ability to be present to someone sh happens when I show up with less on my mind.
Barbara:You see, I started to notice all of these things that my competencies, our talents, our ability to problem solve, to collaborate, to influence, were all amplified in a positive way when I was less gripped internally and less reactive and less over-prepared, you know.
Barbara:So, so that relationship.
Barbara:And that realization transformed everything for me.
Barbara:It transformed the way I taught, the way I coached.
Barbara:It transformed the way I moved in my own business.
Barbara:You know, I, I work with a lot of companies and organizations or entrepreneurs who, their frame of reference for success is push, and be very demanding and ask people to sacrifice.
Barbara:And you know, if you wanna get promoted then you're gonna go above and beyond, like, you know, so in an understandable way, they are perplexed and, and sometimes frustrated.
Barbara:Cuz they're like, can we just go back, you know?
Barbara:And when you think about it, that makes sense because that's what success looked like.
Barbara:You know, all those things look like a requirement to success.
Barbara:Yet in general, and I'm speaking in general generalities right now, so please forgive that piece of it, but people are saying more and more, no thank you.
Barbara:There's something that woke up in people over the last couple years about mental health and family and wanting more time and, oh, I don't have to work 20 hours a day.
Barbara:I can actually be really efficient in six.
Barbara:You know, like people started to see, and so old constructs of business and success have started to fall away, which I am totally excited about, I think is amazing.
Barbara:And yet I can understand the confusion right now.
Barbara:And so, If people can realize, all we're really looking for now is a new way.
Barbara:All we're looking for now is how do we create cultures and teams and environments where people can thrive and the business can be profitable?
Barbara:How do we not expect people to work endless hours for the bottom line, and we still are able to make our shareholders happy?
Barbara:I, you know, and these questions, I don't have the answers to all of them, but what I do know is that you put people in a room and a free open mind, that we have the potential for new thought.
Barbara:We have everything we need to create something new and a new way to do business, A new way to access the creative intelligence of our workforces without sacrificing health and mental health and wellbeing.
Barbara:I know that's possible.
Barbara:It just requires a willingness, an openness, and an understanding that anything is possible.
Julia:I'd love to take you back to that point that you made of, you were in a mind that was busy and it had stuff to get done.
Julia:And you didn't wanna be taken into that room to come up with those new ideas.
Julia:What, what was the moment for you where, where you saw there's a different way?
Barbara:I think for me, there, there was a moment when I was sitting at my desk and looking out the window and this was, um, in the first year and a half of my own business.
Barbara:And so it was about 11, 12 years ago.
Barbara:And I realized that I.
Barbara:Was started to get anxious about clients, that I needed to be doing more.
Barbara:And so I felt myself get kind of stirred up and then I started getting busy.
Barbara:I started to like do, to-do lists and ideas and in that moment I saw, I just like had enough presence of mind to just stop and say, I don't wanna bill my business from fear and insecure thinking.
Barbara:I do not want that to be the motivator.
Barbara:Like I could just feel, I'm like, that's exhausting.
Barbara:I've done that, I've done that.
Barbara:Um, and at that moment I didn't really know how to do it Different.
Barbara:Not that I lived in insecure thought all the time, but it was often fearful thinking like, or that get to get busy.
Barbara:You know, that kind of, that got me motivated.
Barbara:But I've been hearing from teachers and mentors in this field that this innate reservoir that we all have within us of creativity, of wellbeing, of resourcefulness, that there was something in that direction, that if I got more curious about, could potentially transform things for me.
Barbara:You see, at that time I had no evidence that it would work because it looked like my striving, my push, my grit was the thing that had made me successful.
Barbara:But yet something inside kept saying, pay attention.
Barbara:There's another way.
Barbara:And so I got curious about what if I didn't overthink everything?
Barbara:You know, what if I didn't think my intellect was the source of doing well, and I got curious about this innate capacity of our minds to be creative, to problem solve, to help us rise to the occasion?
Barbara:Could I see that maybe there's this deeper nature, this deeper intelligence that is available beyond just my intellect?
Barbara:You know?
Barbara:And I started to see why our intellect is amazing, uh, but it's, in the intellect lives, our experiences, our lessons, our failures, our education.
Barbara:You know, it's the filing cabinet, right?
Barbara:So I could build my business from all the strategies I've learned.
Barbara:I could build my business from what's worked in the past.
Barbara:I could, you know, use my intellect and everything there to do it.
Barbara:But I also started to see that there was potentially another resource available to me.
Barbara:And in this resource was fresh and new.
Barbara:And this was where creativity, where I could potentially have a new experience of myself and how to build a business.
Barbara:In this direction was the unknown.
Barbara:And so the question for me at that time was, was I willing, was I willing to let go of all my experience and all my ideas and experiment with, could I have less on my mind and do well?
Barbara:Was there some other source available to me other than my behaviors and my thinking?
Barbara:Was there something else available?
Barbara:And, and there was.
Barbara:And so this, this question of can I look and see that all of us come, not just with this amazing intellect, but also with this inner reservoir of creativity, of wellbeing, of insight, of connection, of love.
Barbara:You know, before I had, I've had experiences of all those things, but I never had considered that every single one of us has this as a part of our design.
Barbara:Before I had it in the camp of kind of nice experiences that I would get to have every once in a while.
Barbara:But when I started to say, wait a minute, what if we are both this amazing human that has all this great experience and these things that have happened and, and we also have within us this deeper nature, this reservoir, this channel, this space, this place that is beyond our thinking mind?
Barbara:And when I started to look at the holistic view of that, the both and that we are both and, I had to really say like, well, what's the practical implications of that?
Barbara:Cuz I'm kind of a practical girl, you know, it's like, sounds a little woowoo, which I can get into woowoo, but how does this help me in my business?
Barbara:And what I began to see was if I know who I am beyond just my experiences, my thinking, my achievements, my life, if I understand the deeper nature of who I am as well, I realize like, I'm willing to take more risks because I, I see my innate resilience.
Barbara:I know that our minds are designed to help us problem solve, to help us figure out.
Barbara:I know that each of us, this human spirit, this innate resilience helps us rise to the occasion.
Barbara:Well before I thought I'd better research and plan and problem solve and what if scenario plan to, you know, try and circumvent any, any risk or anything going wrong, right?
Barbara:I was relying heavily on my thinking.
Barbara:And this was kind of a radical thing of what if I didn't have to do that?
Barbara:What if I didn't have to think it all through beforehand?
Barbara:What if I could just engage with ideas?
Barbara:Engage with inspiration, try things out, be more experimental and less precious with, you know, getting it right?
Barbara:What would happen?
Barbara:Well, what I discovered is I started to do things and access a potential I had within myself that, um, I've never accessed before.
Barbara:You know, I was willing to fail more because I didn't have it linked to, my, good Barb, bad Barb, right?
Barbara:I just started to move in my business with less constriction and more ease, with more daring, more vulnerability, more realness.
Barbara:I started to look at my rushed mind as a habit of mine, not, not a good idea.
Barbara:And I started to slow down more inside.
Barbara:And as I slowed down more inside, my impact grew with my clients.
Barbara:You know, I remember early on when I was learning this and I was mentored by George Pransky, he said to me, he said, you know, how do you do with boredom?
Barbara:And I was like, uh, yeah, I hate boredom.
Barbara:And he said, um, he kind of laughed and he said, well, as long as you don't see boredom as a state of mind, you will stay busy inside and you'll run from it.
Barbara:But if you see boredom as state of mind, and you see it just as thought, like all thought it'll move through you.
Barbara:And if you can live through the feeling of boredom without reacting to it, it will fall away, because all experience falls away.
Barbara:And as it falls away, you will drop into more depth, and a richer experience of life that will change all your relationships.
Barbara:And he said at that time, he said, I've seen your work.
Barbara:I know you have impact.
Barbara:You wouldn't be where you are in your life without it.
Barbara:And he said, but I promise you your impact will significantly change.
Barbara:And it, it was another one of those moments where I was like, I'm not quite sure what he's talking about, but I'll take it.
Barbara:And so part of my journey was learning to slow down inside, learning to respect my thinking, less and respect more of the innate capacities we all come with.
Barbara:And so like most consultants, most coaches, people in the helping field, our own journey becomes a catalyst for how we help our clients and the people in our lives.
Barbara:And so as I started to see more how incredibly resourceful and brilliant we are with less on our mind, you know how I started to see that we have a lot of conditioning and a lot of ideas about what it takes to be successful in business, and I saw those more as made up concepts and started to test the other way, is less really more?
Barbara:And started to see it more and more with my clients as well.
Barbara:You know, I, I did a podcast for a couple years as well, and I was lucky enough to interview, um, at least over a hundred leaders from all over.
Barbara:And these were leaders that had been in looking at the understanding of the mind and their deeper nature as well.
Barbara:And at the hundredth episode, I did one of those, what I've learned in a hundred episodes, right?
Barbara:You know, and I think what was really interesting, not necessarily surprising, but really interesting was the number one theme by far was when they saw, when entrepreneurs and leaders saw that they were okay no matter what, it changed the way they moved in their business and in their lives.
Barbara:When they saw that that okayness, that resourcefulness came from within them and they had what it takes to manage whatever life throws their way, it allowed them to, as I said, for myself, be more creative, less precious about things, more open.
Barbara:But it also allowed, um, many of 'em talked about they could keep work at work and be at home and home.
Barbara:They weren't bringing work and worried and stress.
Barbara:They weren't gripped by the idea that they had to manage everything as tightly, so their health and wellbeing, they had more access to their wellbeing.
Barbara:And I think that's, it can sound like a very soft thing.
Barbara:Yet these are people that run some cases, multi-million dollar, billion dollar businesses.
Barbara:People that.
Barbara:You know, uh, work in crisis situations.
Barbara:People that, you know, maybe it's a business that's just them, but supports their family or it's a huge global organization.
Barbara:And to realize that the knowing I'm okay no matter what could be as transformative in business, that's where that the profound meets the practical, right?
Barbara:Again, coming back to I.
Barbara:What we see and understand about our inner world and who we ultimately are will transform the way we de make decisions the way we show up.
Julia:So it is so funny Barb, cuz as you were talking, my mind was creating this metaphor of this sort of two worlds that you were traversing.
Julia:And in the one world it was everything you'd ever known.
Julia:And it was kind of like, well, you knew what was there.
Julia:And you kind of made the choice that there was something more.
Julia:And it was almost seeing you put your goggles on and kind of leaping out of this black and white world into this technicolor world, where you were held with this huge parachute that then allowed you to just, look and see what was possible.
Julia:And I think that a lot of people listening to this podcast, you know, they're gripped in that world where they're insecure, fearful.
Julia:They know that things aren't quite working for them.
Julia:But it's like, well, what's the alternative?
Barbara:When I first started to explore for myself this idea of what it means that we all have within us this sort of creative potential of our minds, this resilience, this ability to connect to something greater than, you know, our intellect, and I started to look at what the benefit would be because I've kind of always been like an achievement oriented, you know?
Barbara:So, uh, it really was the idea that I could look to sports.
Barbara:And I'm not a huge sports person, so don't worry, we're not gonna spend much time here.
Barbara:But I find it fascinating that in the field of sports, they've been talking about the idea that, you know, if you go into a game, gripped about the score, you don't do as well.
Barbara:When they talk about flow and you hear someone describe it, they'll say, it's like the crowd went quiet.
Barbara:I just was present.
Barbara:I knew where the other people were gonna be.
Barbara:And I, you know, it's that kind of energy In sports, we've, over time we've taken that as like, oh yeah, that makes sense.
Barbara:But we've never transferred that to leadership.
Barbara:I mean, I think we have recently in over the last number of years.
Barbara:But I think that's intriguing.
Barbara:What is that?
Barbara:And, and there's a lot in the world now, like business hacking and how to get into flow states.
Barbara:And the cool thing about that is people appreciate, well, what is flow state?
Barbara:We're into it because it, we're more creative, we get, we problem solve, we do deep work, we get things done, you know, again, that achievement oriented, which I can totally appreciate.
Barbara:But I think there's a bigger opportunity there, even beyond like trying to hack ourselves so that we can produce more and better ideas and all of that, which again, I'm, I'm into that part too.
Barbara:But there's a bigger opportunity there that I think, if we can see that perhaps the way we've been moving in our lives and business has been misunderstanding about what it's required to do well.
Barbara:And so I mean that very literally.
Barbara:Like, my work with people is always more impactful when I do my best to show up real and present.
Barbara:And I've seen this with leaders.
Barbara:You know, I've worked with many clients who, you know, walk into and they think, oh, negotiations.
Barbara:I'll give you an example of one client that had huge negotiations with the bank and this person had never been in this type of negotiation before.
Barbara:They were literally on the verge of losing the majority of their business.
Barbara:But because she had begun to see that she could show up present and listen to something beyond the noise of her mind, that she could listen to this deeper signal and it would guide her in the middle of this, and the more she could stay neutral and present, she started to realize that she was getting clues.
Barbara:She would get clues about kind of where the tone or where something was headed in the conversation and she would know how to redirect it.
Barbara:She also got really comfortable saying I don't know the answer.
Barbara:I'll get back to you.
Barbara:You know where prior she talked about trying to show up gripped and ready and braced to do, you know, bargain and push against, and yet she had seen something for herself and said, what if I don't do that?
Barbara:What if I let go of all those ideas about and I just show up present?
Barbara:And over time and over a few meetings, these negotiations went in her favor.
Barbara:Now they ultimately went in both parties' favor.
Barbara:And she contributes that to her ability and willingness to show up present and just listen and trust that she would get informed.
Barbara:So it's a practical application of something that feels maybe more elusive.
Barbara:Yet the truth is, if you look, data shows more and more that when we're in a more constricted, noisy internal state, we miss things, right?
Barbara:We don't hear as well or we get captivated by our mind versus what's actually happening.
Barbara:Again, in a freer, more present mind, we hear nudges, we hear clarity, we see things with more perspective.
Barbara:That's practical.
Barbara:So, I have a client that was working on a contract.
Barbara:It was a company and a big contract that they wanted to win.
Barbara:And in the middle of the contract, She got a red flag that something wasn't quite working.
Barbara:But in the desire to move things along and win the case, they, you know, the contract, they just went forward.
Barbara:Well, sure enough, after the contract was signed, things got a little wobbly and this red flag came back.
Barbara:Now, In the midst of her reactivity around that, like of course like all of us, we get reactive.
Barbara:She was angry at herself for not slowing it down earlier and addressing it.
Barbara:She was worried now that it wasn't gonna go through.
Barbara:Like a human we have reactivities.
Barbara:But because she knew her thinking wasn't as strong in a reactive mind as it is in a more clear and present mind, in a more neutral mind, right?
Barbara:That knowing like, oh wait, I'm reactive, so I'm not seen as clearly.
Barbara:I'm reactive, so I'm not gonna have as many creative solutions.
Barbara:I'm reactive, so I don't wanna trust my thinking, right?
Barbara:Her knowing, the simple knowing of that, of her own, what was happening inside of her, allowed her to wait until the reactivity passed, like all reactions do.
Barbara:And as she started to get more neutral, she started to have different ideas.
Barbara:And she shared that what was most fascinating is she spent a few days really struggling with how to resolve this.
Barbara:But she knew, she trusted that as she got more neutral, ideas she didn't even, couldn't think of now would come to her.
Barbara:And sure enough, as she got more neutral, different ideas came and from that she was able to move forward.
Julia:Barb, it's been a fascinating cantor through the general to your experience to some specific stories and examples of how this is a, a very practical application of understanding, in essence, how we all work.
Julia:And clearing up that, that misunderstanding.
Julia:So, if people wanna learn more about you, your work, how to get in touch with you, how would they go about doing that, Barb?
Barbara:Yeah, you can find me on barbarapatterson.com.
Barbara:There's uh, a number of free resources, um, that speak to some of the things we've talked about today.
Barbara:So for sure you can do that.
Barbara:I have a few new things that I'm in the process of getting out there as well.
Barbara:And so hopefully those will be done in the next, uh, including a new online program, but also some new free resources.
Barbara:Also email is barb@barbarapatterson.com So either way.
Julia:Wonderful.
Julia:Barb as always, wonderful conversation and thank you for taking part today.
Barbara:Yeah.
Barbara:Thank you so much.
Barbara:It was a pleasure to speak with you, and thank you for everything you're doing.
Julia:I was really struck in the conversation that Barb and I had by how hidden the variable is of our inner state, from ourselves, from those around us, from everyone.
Julia:It's invisible.
Julia:But how really seeing that hidden variable is actually the answer to everything.
Julia:It's where everything gets created.
Julia:So how can you start to get more familiar with your inner state and see how that's driving the actions that you're taking?
Julia:The second thing that really resonated with me from the conversation with Barb is how much we're compromising our own minds by what we think others or society expects from us as leaders.
Julia:And how that's really unhealthy, and can lead to burnout, and to damaged relationships with our loved ones in every dimension of our lives.
Julia:So what did you take away from this conversation that could stop compromising the perfection in the design of your mind, and your ability to lead others?
Julia:The third area is where are you listening from?
Julia:And it's been a recurrent theme in a lot of the episodes that we've had so far.
Julia:Are you listening to that voice that tells you that you can't do this, that it's gonna be hard, that it's gonna be difficult, that it's gonna be challenging?
Julia:Or are you listening to that more quiet voice that suggests that maybe you slow down?
Julia:That maybe you take time to reflect?
Julia:That maybe doing something different than pushing and stressing and worrying.
Julia:Would be a good idea?
Julia:How can you listen more to that space?
Julia:If you found this conversation helpful and you think someone else would too, feel free to share it with others.
Julia:You can do that at generativeleaders.co.
Julia:It's been a pleasure spending time with you.
