Episode 8

Podcast Transcript

Speaker 1

Hi, my name is Dr. Jo Braid and I am the Burnout Recovery Doctor. I help health care professionals overcome burnout and get that energy back. So whether you’re a med student, allied health professional, or a doctor who is suffering from feeling overwhelmed and exhausted, you’re in the right place. In this podcast, you’ll get your energy back through strategies for burnout recovery. This show will give you the practical tips and mindset strategies to help you recover from burnout in health care. A ready? Let’s dive in. Welcome to the burnout recovery Podcast. Today I am delighted to bring onto the show Dex Randall burnout coach Dex actually coached me in the advanced burnout coach certification and it’s an honour to invite Dex into the podcast today. So Dex coaches professionals from burnout to heart centred leadership. So good to have you here today, Dex.

 Speaker 2

Thank you so much for the welcome. I’m really delighted to be here, actually.

 Speaker 1

Thank you, Dex. So let’s open the floor. Tell my listeners please a little bit about yourself. And what do you do?

 Speaker 2

Well, I am a burnout coach. And I guess I’m a burnout coach. Because I went into my own burnout. I was working as an IT professional as a software developer, and team leader and whatnot. And I go into my own burnout. And when I got into my own burnout, I couldn’t find out how to get out. I couldn’t find out who could help me. I knew a lot of people that I couldn’t really identify anybody who had a solution to burnout. And basically I learned I taught myself how to fix it for myself because I was working in energy healing at that time. So I was doing a bunch of as a sideline to MIT. I was doing Reiki and NLP and kinesiology and that sort of thing, EFT. So I taught myself how to recover from burnout. And I decided that if I couldn’t find a solution, then might be an idea to bring it to other people. There’s a lot of people suffering by that time. And do you want to share some of the

 Speaker 1

The answers you looked for? Or avenues you looked for for support to get out of burnout? Did you find anything at that time?

 Speaker 2

Well, I knew a lot of people in the healing area, I mean, arrived from psychiatry and psychotherapy through all of the other alternative therapies and energy therapies, body therapies. And I also looked corporate, so I googled it. And I look what what are other people doing to get out of burnout, and I found a lot of people talking about the solution to burnout. But a lot of them were just talking about wellbeing, type initiatives, taking time off work, meditating, getting more exercise, eating properly sleeping, am I that was never going to cut it for me. Yeah, I just couldn’t identify anything I needed. And nobody that I’d ever worked with previously. It kind of gives me a lot of hope there either.

 Speaker 1

Can you share with the listeners, what your kind of timeframe was that you might have been aware that you were getting into burnout? And how long you might have been in there before you looked for some avenues out? And how long it took to get out?

Speaker 2

Hmm, good question. I think I really knew I was in burnout, about five years before the big crash. Right? But I don’t think it came as any surprise, I think I knew I’d been pretty stressed out and anxious for a long time. And that I was the kind of person who continued to be that way, regardless of my job. So I started job hopping. Uh huh. Cuz I was not happy where I was. And I thought I would just change my job. And then I wasn’t happy again, I changed my job again. And I got into a bunch of entrepreneurial jobs from I used to work in big corporations and stuff. And I was very much a team builder in the, in the techie space, and that was good for me. And I was, I loved my career so much. For a long, long time. I loved it. I loved the technical side, the leadership side, the client side, I loved all of it. All the problem solving the creativity and all of that. The last three jobs in my last five years were more entrepreneurial. And although I did good work, now, I wasn’t getting traction. And I never felt I was delivering in the same way that I used to deliver. And I wasn’t enjoying it the way I used to enjoy it. And I was feeling the pressure more or worse in a couple of startups. And if you want to go for a high pressure job do that. Yeah. And I guess I really knew I was crashing. And then finally my last job I worked in a startup. I was always the person in charge of delivering product and the founder was the person in charge of not letting me Mm hmm. The Clash of that was too much meat did my head and I’d never I’d never experienced an inability to do my job and deliver on my job before and it was so painful. I just I didn’t really handle it. I got very, very, very stressed. And then in that job one day, I turned up to a meeting with the boss, and he said, Oh, I know why don’t we go and meet these people and do this, spend some money on a report over here? And I was like, no, why don’t we launch a product? And he said, No, no, no, come to the meeting with me. Let’s go and get this report made. I was like, this thought flashed flicker through my head that if I didn’t do something distressed was going to physically kill me. And I’ve never had that thought before. I just said, I’m sorry, I’m done by. I left. And then three weeks later, is when I had the heart attack. Really did kill me. So I was right. Yeah. But having said all that, so the crash was quite slow. Many of my clients to the day will finally realise when I talk about burnout with them, they will self identify in their the symptoms of burnout saying, well, that’s my whole career, right? Yeah. Yeah. But I will say the recovery was fairly quick. Okay, I started. Well, after I had my heart attack, I had to lay on the sofa for three months. He told me not to move. Don’t move off the sofa. So I spent three months. So I did some googling on burnout. And I found the Life Coach School and I started receiving coaching. Yes. And that turnaround with that coaching was so quick for me. I started to feel better in a couple of months. Wow. And that’s when I just okay, I can teach myself this stuff and help other people. Yeah. And that’s, you know, what the thing was that really attracted my attention is they said that life was 5050 good and bad emotions. And that that was the natural way of things. And you couldn’t just have the good ones without the bad ones, right. But everybody was kind of, kind of, in a balance out of 5050, you can’t eliminate an emotion, you’re going to keep feeling all of them. So we’ll bounce out of 5050. But you can intentionally swing it a bit in favour of the positive, which I later realise you can swing it enormously in turn into the positive, but at the time, I just thought wow, 5050 I’ll take it. Because at the time, I was about 9010 in the wrong direction. I was already killed for 5050. Yeah.

 Speaker 1

Sure enough, can be done. Yeah. Wonderful. Yeah. So that’s great. So what sort of timeframe is that, then search? 2017 2018 …

 Speaker 2

Yeah, that was the latter end of 2017. Took me about six months to recover from the heart attack. And about three months in, I’d started coaching. So that’s about three months coaching under my belt, but straightaway when I when I could see the potential for recovering in the coaching style. I straightaway signed up to become a coach. So then I went on to coach training the following year. That’s when I have my road accident as well. So that go into a little bit. Yeah, yeah, right. Okay. It was all it was all up from there, straight age coaching that straightaway into helping people with burnout, because what I could see is that the need for a resolution for burnout was gigantic. I mean, I saw it at that time is an epidemic. A lot of people I knew were in burnout. And a lot of people I was talking to burnout, but now I see it as almost a pandemic. Yes, it’s not it’s got a lot worse. Yes, five years ago. Yeah. Particularly in COVID. It’s brought a lot of it to the surface for a lot of people for a lot of reasons. I just think it’s the perfect storm in our age of stress, anxiety, individualism, isolation, you know, a whole bunch of factors have come together and the increasing capitalism, pressure and corporate pressure, the diminishment of job fulfilment, and sense of connection and community. It’s all kind of come into a perfect storm, and now you’re lucky if you’re not in burnout.

 Speaker 1

Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. So true. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you for sharing that journey. And I guess my question to you now is in your coaching role, and I know you’ve got a teaching role across different areas as well. Do you think there’s ever been any of your any of a lean back into burnout at all or because in a way, sometimes we still have the same, a similar brain, I guess, in different environments and newer environments that we’ve chosen to go into? Do you see any of that tendency and then you’ve got that awareness that you bring yourself back in? Could you share about that, please, Dex?

 Speaker 2

Sure. And I agree with you, I just pretty well established Is that the kind of people who are predisposed to create burnout or get into burnout are going to be type A personality? Sure, really hard driven, high achieving style of people. And so I’m a type A, obviously, and I find that in my clients as well, I find that actually to be true. And the reason for that is that type A personalities will always drive harder and harder and harder to be in the top 1% of performance, because that’s the only place they want to be. Wherever they are, whatever they’re doing, they always want to be in the top right, or the very, very top, not near the top, at the top. So the amount of effort and energy that they’re willing to throw at that is enormous. But the trouble with burnout is, because of that overwork that hard work ethic that never say die, that give, give, give, give, you know, get more and more success. Because of that we tend to drive ourselves too hard and go into burnout. So if we have the propensity to go into burnout once we’re gonna do it again. Sure. So changing jobs isn’t gonna fix it. Yeah, changing something external isn’t is never ever going to fix the problem as I discovered to my costs. Yes. I think I secretly always knew that. When I’m working with people, when I’m coaching people in burnout, what we’re really doing is winding back all of the propensity part. So we we work on the symptoms of burnout. So people start to regain energy, an equilibrium and resilience and enjoyment and fulfilment at work. But at the same time, we have to wind back those type A personality characteristics that got them into trouble in the first place. Because if, if all you ever do is effort to get out of problems, that’s great for building a career, you can build a stellar career like that. But if you go over the top into burnout, and you keep your foot on the gas, you’re going to accelerate downhill. So if people come out of burnout, we don’t want them accelerating back downhill, getting back into burnout. So I have to change the instincts and drivers, they have to go to how to fix problems by efforting. So what I do with when I’m working with clients is I teach them how to come out of burnout, and how to keep them out of some keep themselves out of burnout forever. Yeah, yeah, changed their style of working. But it doesn’t just keep them out of burnout, it actually accelerates their success level. So they think they’re going to sacrifice something. No, they generally get promotion. Like, if that’s what they come into me for to stabilise in their job, they normally get promoted or earn more money or are more successful once they learn how not to go into burnout, because burnout is a set of behaviours that are actually so draining that they can’t perform at their highest levels. Yeah. And then the capacity comes rolling back in. Yeah, as well as the enjoyment.

 Speaker 1

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So tell me a bit more. I’m fascinated about this concept of coaching professionals from burnout to heart centred leadership, share with my listeners a little bit more why you call it heart centred leadership, because that might be a phrase that we don’t necessarily associate with a leadership position.

 Speaker 2

Now, I went out on a limb with that. Because that’s what’s important to me, with people, as leaders, were people dealing with people, yeah, we work in a business or an organisation or hospital, corporation, whatever. But still, at the end of the day, excuse me, we’re people dealing with people. If we can’t deal at a human level, if we can’t connect, then we’re not working the way humans were. People are designed to work in harmony with each other. This is how the team is always more than the sum of the parts. So if we’re trying to work in a very dispassionate, unemotional way, we’re trying to shut the emotions out at home, leave them at home on the table, go to work without them. It’s never going to create the same amount of success. As if we bond in our humanity, in our strength in our frailties in our care, in our shared desire to succeed and work together. You just can’t get performance out of people, if you disengage your heart, except in the very short term, okay? Humans aren’t motivated by the stick. They’re motivated by the carrot. I’ll tell you, one of the books I think is very good on that is Shawn acre, the potential talks about how an A team will always outperform an individual. Right, but they do it through connection because humans have to have connection. Yeah. So the whole sense of it was to me A, that’s the way I like to work. When I’m working with teams I want them to enjoy. I want to find a way of sorting out the problems such that we can all pull in the same direction like a team and not fight with one another the entire time and resent one another. shortens your life. Oh, yeah, sure, yes. But in the medical, I mean, I work with a lot of physicians as well. And I understand that the medical training trains emotion out of people. And it’s also very demanding about you will always show up, you will always say yes to the way you’ll always do the work, you’ll always serve the people. Everybody who needs to be looked after you will look after. It’s almost like, I’ll just turn the handle and you’ll keep doing what I’ve told you to do. But you must not feel emotionally engaged. I mean, it’s impossible. Yeah. I wonder where

 Speaker 1

we are right now? Yes, yes. Yeah.

 Speaker 2

And all of the people who get into medicine to help people, because they’ve got big hearts. It’s the same with my people, my clients, the clients who come to me tend to be cauterised in the emotional department, by their professional training intentionally. But really, they’re big hearted people. They like to mentor people, they want to care for people, they want to help others grow and succeed. Yeah, you know, I find it very much in the physicians that I work with, but also people in industry and accounting and law, and yeah, all sorts of other things. So I think, if you haven’t got heart centred leadership, where’s your joy?

 Speaker 1

Yeah. What do you think about these individuals, particularly in health care, prioritising themselves? They’re so giving to others, they’re in service of others? How does that come up in your coaching? And maybe what would you say might be a before and after scenario with a client in, in caring for themselves?

 Speaker 2

Well, they’re very much trained to care for others at their own expense. But if you don’t protect the asset, you’ve got no asset. So I think one of the things that I do with physicians is work with them in in terms of what they want, how they want to connect with patients, okay, staff teams as well. All the ancillary people that deal with each day, what do they want out of that connection? And how can they create that because if you don’t establish that, you’re not going to enjoy your job. And if you don’t enjoy your job, it’s going to be exhausting. And that’s what’s going to tip you into burnout. But I don’t know if you’ve read the book, compassion omics. It’s about how to deploy compassion in health care, in a way that rewards all parties. Great, practitioner of whatever kind, and the patients and anybody they come into contact with. And they’ve, it’s quite a scientific book, actually. But it’s about it’s about the monetary return of compassionate, giving compassion in the healthcare context that we don’t think we’ve got time to do. But it’s also about the reward and the ability to stay engaged. And they did one study and they proved that you can in a patient encounter, you can deliver enough compassion to make a big difference in about 20 seconds. Really? It’s about two phrases. Yeah. Okay.

 Speaker 1

So bringing some kind of intentionality into your work rather than being on autopilot. That’s what I’m hearing you say it’s, well…

 Speaker 2

I wouldn’t add anything to anybody’s workload, what we’re seeking to do is reduce the workload but increase the efficiency, which I know, it sounds like what the hospital would ask you to do if you’re working in a hospital, but there’s a way to care for yourself that will allow you to expend less energy doing what you already do, and feel a bit more rewarded doing. And that’s kind of the sweet spot even though the system isn’t changing the system is what the system is, there is a way and I watch people go through this. So I work with a lot of surgeons and doctors and whatever and they go through this programme and incrementally they will start to enjoy their job more and the people around the more without ever having to change the system. Yeah. Which I think is kind of startling because I know the system is set up in a very demanding and increasingly demanding way. And people supposedly haven’t got time to connect with one another, all with the patience. But I think there’s a way of connecting that can be supportive to all parties, which doesn’t take up time. Great Yeah, have a look at compassion on these two will.

 Speaker 1

Thank you, Dex. Yeah, that sounds really good. Okay, so we’ve talked quite a bit about sort of in the system, the individual in the system, your personal story as well, and some of the clients that you coach as well. Would you mind adding in any part of a self care routine that you have that you really love? Or you rarely miss, please?

 Speaker 2

Another good question. I do self coach and I receive coaching. And I think it’s really important to say that so that people know, we’re not some sort of special people who don’t need that 100% over here. And I meditate, and I do all the right things with my body, and my nutrition and my sleep and all of that. But I think the most important thing, because it’s the thing I love the most is, I need to be by the water. So I do go down to the ocean quite a lot. I swim in the ocean, I surf. But this morning, I got up and I just had only a few minutes. So I went down to the harbour and I just sat and I looked at the water and I sat under a tree on a bench. I was as happy as Larry, that’s a non negotiable for me. Yeah, the things that fill my heart really tree, the trees and the birds. Whatever fills your heart needs to take a place in your day, I think. For me, it does.

 Speaker 1

So how long has that been, like an essential for you? Is that since your burnout journey? Or did you actually enjoy that before? Burnout?

 Speaker 2

I know that was pre burnout as Oh, easy. 10 years? Longer? I’d say probably 10 or 12 years I’ve been doing that. Yeah, yeah. Okay. But I think where it doesn’t work is the experience of burnout for me is an experience of disconnection. So when I became stressed and anxious enough and overworked enough and overwhelmed enough, although I was doing those things, my human connections with the group of people were not as strong. I didn’t feel as connected or I didn’t. I didn’t engage as much with the group. And I think that’s really key as well. So when I go down to the beach now, there’s a bunch of people that I hang out with, and we go and swim together, and then we can have coffee together and stuff like that every day. So that’s a really important part of it, too, because we’re drawing in, in burnout is, it seems like the only thing we’re capable of this the worst thing we could possibly do. Yeah…

 Speaker 1

Yeah. Yeah. Keeping that community around you. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Good. Thanks for sharing that. I guess, I guess we’re coming towards the end of our interview today. Is there anything in particular you wanted to share to my audience who are learning about burnout recovery? The different ways different people might approach burnout recovery? Is there anything else you’d like to add at all in the chat we’ve got today, please, next?

 Speaker 2

Well, I think you and I share quite an understanding about burnout, even before we came into this, and we have been trained in the same style of coaching, and I think everybody has their own flavour of that, that they that that they can be successful with. So I think there are a range of different ways. What I don’t think works with burnout, though is, is the superficial wellbeing, type of stuff, it’s good to do. And it’s wonderful to have in your life, it just isn’t going to fix burnout. So I would caution, people telling people to do yoga or eat better or sleep better. I think that is trying to deal with the symptom, not the root cause of the problem. I think there are a lot of ways I mean, I put quite a few years into his centralising the basic toolkit to get people out of burnout as fast as possible. And I think what’s really worked there is to show people themselves so people in burnout are very disappointed in themselves. And typically rather disconnected. They’re quite shut down. Both of which are excruciating, but I think disappointment in the self because we’re such high achieving people, once we hit disappointment with ourselves that the human cost is horrible. So first of all, I teach people what amazing people they are. I invite them to look at everything that’s wonderful about them. And I think without doing now, their focus is always on what they’re doing wrong. What they stuffed up what they forgot to do, where they didn’t meet targets. That’s almost all of their focus. So I think the reorientation towards appreciating themselves and the beautiful human being that they are is really, really important thing in the beginning of coaching that they’ve lost contact with their essential goodness. And it’s especially painful for people in a vocation that they got into to, to help and support others. Yes. Very, very painful. So I deal with that I do deal with all the Type A personality traits, perfectionism, and people pleasing and overwork. And not saying no to people and all that. Yep. Procrastination. And whenever I think I think we need to see the champion inside us. And that’s what I help people bring back to light. Because at the end, I quite nice actually. Yeah, I’m okay. This anti. Maybe I’m even a decent parent. A decent spouse. Maybe. Maybe that’s still possible for me. Sure. Shout. Yeah.

 Speaker 1

Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. Things we appreciate about ourselves, which we don’t. I may have mentioned that to you, at some point. was fundamental to my own personal recovery. I had lost track of anything that could be good about me. 

 Speaker 2

Really? Yeah. It was. It was. I didn’t want to get up in the morning. Yeah, I didn’t want to see myself reflected in anything, because all I could see was the bad. Yeah. Because we’re a bit all or nothing. We’re either brilliant at the top of our game, or no, there is no other. There’s no plan B. Called the mediocre. Yes. The awful. Yeah, yeah. Sure. People fall back in love with their lives, their work. The people, their lives themselves even.

 Speaker 1

Yeah, it sounds like why it ties in with the heart centred leadership concept.

Speaker 2

Yeah. When I say when I tell that to people on a console, they’re looking at me, like does not compute what.

 Speaker 1

But what I remember about your decks, and going through your coaching is sort of holding that space ahead of the person in front of you confident that they’ve got every chance, every possibility of growing into that space. And you’ve you’ve very much Holding, holding that there for them and knowing it’s only a matter of time, they’ll be there.

 Speaker 2

Absolutely. And I promise them that too. I guarantee. I guarantee them, they’ll get where they want to go. But I need to hold that space for them, I think until they can see for themselves. Yeah, because I can already see the good enough. Wonderful people. Yes. Even when they come to me and they crashed. They’re still wonderful people. I can see that straightaway.

 Speaker 1

Fantastic. Look, it’s been great to have you on the podcast today, Dex. Thank you again, for all the coach training that I was lucky enough to do with you with your first round of the advanced burnout certification earlier this year. I understand you’re doing a second. You’ve got your second group going through now as well. I do.

 Speaker 2

Yeah. Yeah. It was so lovely to see that group together, wasn’t it? Yeah. And, and I’m, I would just like to say that you have come out of it sparkling. And I’ve watched with all your rise to fame and glory. Since then, I think you’re an amazing coach, you are amazing resource to the people in your industry and in your area. And I really, I’m just sitting here applauding your success all.

 Speaker 1

Thank you so much. That was unexpected, unplugged and paid for I really appreciate that. So kind. Well, let’s, so I’ll put some links in as to where people can find you. Is there anything you’d like to say about that? Right now, Dex? randall.com. And your podcast is burnout to leadership. And your social handles? Our coach decks, Randall across all different socials there. There we are. Yeah, you said it yourself. Yeah. It’s been really great to connect with you today. Thanks for your time in sharing your deep why’s and experience around burnout and bringing so many clients around the world out of burnout.

 Speaker 2

Super to see you today. And I’m glad we’re all doing this work to be honest with You. Absolutely. We do. Great. Thanks so much. 

 Speaker 1

Thanks. Thanks, Jo. Thank you for tuning in to the Burnout Recovery Podcast. If you liked what you heard, please hit subscribe and head on over to my website at drjobraid.com. There you can download my free guide with 10 tips to take if you’re nearing burnout. See you next time!