What If You Aren't Burned Out...You're Just Carrying Too Much Alone?

Burnout Versus Isolation

SPEAKER_02 0:00

So everyone calls it burnout. But did you know that sometimes it's not the work that's draining you? It's you carrying it alone. The weight of being the one person that everyone leans on without having someone to lean on yourself. Today we're gonna talk about what isolation actually costs and why asking for help isn't weakness, but it's the skill that most leaders never learn. So welcome to Modern Leadership Coaching. Hi Mark.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

I'm Teresa.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Hi Teresa. I missed you last week.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Oh yeah. I miss being here.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Okay, good. Because we're talking about a deep one today. So we're talking about how loneliness of leading it gets lonely at the top, is what people say, right? Uh and why so many people in these positions of responsibility just really exhaust themselves. And it's not necessarily from the work, even though sometimes they think it is. It's because they're carrying it alone without any kind of support.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

So what's the difference between actual burnout and the exhaustion that actually comes from isolation?

Why Leaders Carry It Alone

SPEAKER_02 0:57

I would say that first off, I have unfortunately been through both of these. One was the actual working and overworking and not sleeping and all those kind of things where the anxiety would like carry throughout the night, wouldn't allow me to sleep, and I'd be back at it the next day. And obviously, this looks a little different for from different people because I've had people that have experienced burnout. But a couple of things that I experienced that I thought were burnout actually came from me trying to shoulder it and do it all alone. And so I want to separate these two things just because I've had a lot of, let's say, coaching sessions with people who have been going down what they think was the first path of burnout, but it's because they were saying yes to everything, trying to figure it all out all by themselves, feeling stuck, feeling like they have to push harder, feeling like the only thing that they can do in order to get to the next level is continue to grind, grind, grind. When in reality, there were different ways that they could be doing it, different ways that they could empower other people. There were other solutions, but the only thing that their brain would convince them of, which, you know, obviously because it's trying to keep them safe, is like, you've got to do it. Nobody else can do this for you. It all has to be done right now. And if it's not done this very second, everything's gonna fall apart. Yeah. And I found that to be the case is sometimes it is legit burnout, which is why, you know, going to see um a therapist or somebody who can help you out with that is so important. But sometimes you might actually notice that it's isolation. It's you going into your own mind, trying to find your own solutions, and you're just not having somebody that maybe could see something that you can't see to be able to call you forward. That's what comes up for me. Anything different for you?

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Well, no, that that makes total sense. First off, a lot of people have trouble asking for help. And it just creates this mountain of stress and overwhelm. So the way that you know we're talking about this is different than how most people think it is.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

Yeah. Yeah, I I think people tend to group a lot of things together. And there is like real legit burnout.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

I remember going through it myself. I remember getting shingles. I remember, I mean, I eventually developed an autoimmune disease. Like there's a many things that came as a result of that. But there were a lot of situations in my life where it was I was isolating, right? And it's we typically tend to do that, where a lot of people, especially if like they're high performers or high achievers, right, they take everything on their shoulder and they try to figure it out themselves. And that's kind of like a badge of honor that we kind of wear. But in reality, it's actually hurting not only us, but everybody else around us. So I'm curious, like when you think about like people in leadership roles, why do you think those people in those kind of roles convince themselves that they should be able to handle everything alone?

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Mm-hmm. Because they think that that's what leadership is. That you you do need to do it by yourself because like you're somehow proving something. It could be an ego thing too, where it's like, well, you know, if I want it done right, I gotta do it myself. Or different misconceptions about what leadership really is. And leadership is not like that at all. We talk about it all the time. It's about empowering other people and modeling the behavior that you want to see in others. But I think that there is this misconception of leaders being the ones that take on things on their own when there's so many people around them that could elevate them as leaders, but also the, you know, the whole team.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

What comes up for me in this space, very much related to what you were saying, is helping people like in the corporate space who are quote unquote leaders, right? And from what you just said right there, a lot of them do think like I need to have all the answers. I can't show them any weakness. I've got to basically prove to them that I know what I'm doing because otherwise they're not going to take action for the things that I'm telling them to do. And in reality, it's a lot harder to tell somebody what to do than it is to collaborate with them, come up with a better solution, and have them get buy-in with it. Yeah. Um, whenever I'm doing, like, let's say coaching or teaching in the corporate kind of environment, which LAPD was kind of like a corporate type environment, is the leaders who make the biggest, not only um waves, but also who are the ones who produce the most results, are the ones who bring problems to their team. They have some ideas of what to do, but they know that it's not just them. Um in working in a silo, there's only one brain. But if you have like a collective wisdom of like five, 10, 15 brains, even the people who are like the naysayers, the people who, by the way, we need them because sometimes they need to point out things that like it's not all, you know, Polly Ann and everything's gonna work out, right? But if we didn't have those conversations, we wouldn't be able to see those things either. Right. And after I take people through like a workshop like that, you'd be amazed at the results and the buy-in that everybody now has because they were collaborating when putting this together as opposed to solving it the way that the leader does. So, so this whole idea of I've got to know everything, it's another protection mechanism in our brain that's trying to keep us safe, right? It's like, well, if I want to stay a leader, if I want to continue to get this pay, or I want to be seen as the person who has all the answers, then that's gonna be like the long-term solution for me and for the company. But that actually is what derails the company is because when you have people especially high up who think like that, and everything is relying on just them and the decisions that they make, not only is that a lot of pressure, but if they make a wrong move, which they're going to do because they're human, we all make wrong moves, right? And they're only living in their own head, they're actually going to bring down the entire team. And I've seen it happen time and time again. I see a lot of people who reach out and they want some type of coach to be able to help not only guide them, but guide the um, a lot of times they say, Hey, can you help guide the people that I'm leading? But in reality, it's guiding the leader to be able to guide those people. Um, and even like taking them through a workshop, it's not just us having a conversation with our people, right? It's us bringing them together and having a great learning conversation with the leader involved. And it always makes it so that they grow faster, they come up with better ideas, better solutions, and they have a better working environment because they're not just depending on that one person.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

Yeah. And you're also showing other people that being a leader is not going to be this awful thing, right? Nobody wants to look forward to burnout and overwhelm and just constant stress. So if you tackle this, like you'll be able to encourage people to seek positions like that and seek uh management positions.

SPEAKER_02 7:13

That's a very key point. I don't want to move on from that yet, because I feel like so many people who are in the space are afraid to become leaders because they think that's what has to happen.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:23

Let me tell you like, no matter what your brain says has to happen when you become a leader, you'll be a better leader if you do the opposite of that, right? Because your brain will do whatever it can to keep you safe. Of like, oh, hey, um, I don't want to be a leader because I'm gonna have to do this, this, and this. I'm gonna have to remove this, this, this and this. And there might be some patterns that you've seen before you, but you can also be a pattern breaker. That doesn't have to be the case. You can go in and you could change the way that that dynamic works and literally help the company or help anybody, the clients, if you're a coach, anybody, you can help them on a different level because you're willing to think differently.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Yeah. Yeah. So let me ask you this. So, like, you know, once someone becomes aware of this, right? That burnout is isolation, what does it look like when someone finally admits that they need support?

SPEAKER_02 8:09

So what happens when somebody finally needs support and they admit it is in the leading up to it, it is very nerve-wracking. It's like, I don't know what's gonna happen. I don't know like what when I say this, what how people are gonna take it. And there's a lot of like this whole anxiety that I see that is built up. And by the way, I'm saying this from also personal experience because this happens to me a lot. But what I've noticed is when we're coaching people through this, it's like there's a lot of anxiety of what's gonna happen. And their brain goes down the path of like everything's gonna fall apart, right? In their own version of that. But once they do, it is the biggest relief for them when they see how other people respond. Now, I don't mean that like we should be dependent on how other people respond. Because you're going to have some people who are going to poke the bear, but like the vast majority of people who are in that space are more than likely going to rise up to that occasion and you're gonna see things on another level that you've never seen before. And I gotta say, like 99 times out of a hundred, this is what happens. But our brain convinces us not to do it, not to push it off or just not say anything. But once we do, the feeling of relief that we have, and then the results that we get because of it, because we're willing to admit that, you know, this is what Brene Brown talks a lot about when it comes to like vulnerability. It's not vulnerability for vulnerability's sake, it's vulnerability because you're actually going through that, but you're connecting on a deeper level with people because you're telling them that you're human, that you have these experiences too, that you don't know it all. And maybe you've been there longer, and maybe you've like had some expertise. But guess what? They have expertise too that you don't have. And when you can do this kind of stuff, it just creates a cohesive environment so that everybody can achieve more without having to do more. I mean, it's the that's the added stuff.

A Skill For Helping People

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Yeah.

Isolation Shrinks Decision Quality

SPEAKER_02 9:46

Quick pause. If you've ever been in a moment where someone you lead or love is stuck, and despite genuinely caring, you walked away not sure you actually helped. Well, that gap has a name and there's a skill for it. I put together a short video that breaks it down. You can watch it at modernleadership.us forward slash mastery. We'll go from there. Now back to the show. Okay, next one. So how do you think isolation affects the quality of decisions over time?

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Yeah. You start to become really narrow-minded. Because if all you're doing is just trying to come up with ideas or you have a particular perspective, then there there isn't any room to find new ideas. Right. So I think that that's obviously going to affect the quality of your decisions because there's only going to be like one path that you take, right?

AI Can Echo Your Blind Spots

SPEAKER_02 10:41

Yep, yep, yep. I want to bring something up very similar to this, but it is also in the AI space. Okay. In the AI space. Cause I think we can actually think that we're talking to another human and we're talking to AI, and we don't realize that some of the AI out there is just talking in our own language. And basically what it is is kind of like repeating the same things that are keeping us stuck in our own brain, and we keep buying into that system, right? Here's what I have recognized. And that is like when we are like trapped in our own brain, right? We only have like one solution to problems. And most of the time we're not open to finding different solutions. A lot of times we would ask in a coaching session is how could you or how might you be able to do this and this, right? But oftentimes when we're in our own brain, it's very hard to do. We have to consciously do that. But I've noticed that if, like, let's say I'm uh using AI, when you go in there and you start like, hey, this is what I want to do, this is how I want to be able to achieve it, and this is what I think is holding me back, it won't challenge some of that thinking. Sometimes it'll just be like, oh, hey, yeah, I think this is what you should do, right? And it gives you some ideas, but you have to actually program it to make sure that it's like, no, I need you to call me out. You're not my friend. You need to like be as if you're a separate identity and don't make me go off the rails, but at the same time, give me some ideas that maybe I haven't thought of before, right? And it's crazy because I see a lot of people using AI and they're using it in a way where they're not using it as their thought partner. They're kind of like just using it as the person who's thinking for them instead. And what it actually does is it's grabbing onto what you're saying and then going out there and duplicating what it is you're saying, and you kind of like fall into this pattern of getting it. It's a loop. Yeah. It's it's a it's a loop. Feedback, and it's not, by the way, this is not AI's fault. This is us programming it and making sure that when we're communicating to it, that we're not looking for a best friend, right? We're not looking for somebody who agrees with everything that I say, who wants to jump in the pool. We're looking for somebody who wants to take a critical eye at this. We're looking for somebody who, hey, my family depends on this, like of me showing up this way. And so I want to get your feedback and your your thoughts around this. But I think a lot of people don't know how to use AI yet. I mean, I know we do because we're like so ingrained in this, right? Where it's like, how do you use AI in the coaching space to be able to um uh what's the word? To be able to use both of them um in a way that that creates a powerful synergy, which I think is gonna be the wave of the future. It's not all AI is gonna be coaching because there's there's just a human element you can never create inside of a computer, but there are things that it can do way, way better, right? And so being able to figure out that piece, and I know you want to say something.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

Well, no, but to that that that point that it's never gonna be human, obviously, but like imagine having those conversations with humans, right? Like let's say going back to the corporate world, having conversations like that with your team. First off, it's not a machine. You know, these are people, and these are people who actually are in there. They know the work, you know, they they know the behind the scenes, and it's like generating those conversations that way. And just like you said, like in a you know, collective wisdom kind of way.

Psychological Safety Starts With Leaders

SPEAKER_02 13:32

Yeah, yeah. One one thing that um that I might want to talk about, and maybe we can um we can pull the um audience here. Maybe uh there's a I think there's a link. If you go to Apple, there's a little button that says um send us a message or send us a text or something. And um, it's always there if you have questions that you'd like us to answer. But one of the things that I have been um thinking about doing or bringing to the podcast is this whole idea of creating psychological safety. And it's because it's very much on the uh topic that we're talking about today, where it's like you have to create an environment where people feel safe enough to share their ideas when they're struggling, their vulnerability. And there's some, there's a there's processes that we put in place. I mean, a lot of times when we teach in our inside of our certification, people don't understand that's what we're kind of teaching, is to create a safe enough environment that when you're coaching or having a conversation with your kids or having a conversation with your spouse, like you have to create an environment where your people are not gonna feel ashamed or guilted or that you're going to overreact in that situation because then you're setting them up to not have that conversation ever again with you. Right. And so there is a part here about how do I communicate this and how do I do it in a way that feels safe. But sometimes as a leader, you're the one who's creating that environment. So it might not feel 100% safe yet because your um subordinates aren't necessarily going to go out there and try to create a safe environment. That's kind of like your responsibility as a leader. But that's something that I want to hit on. And and uh if I mean, if we get enough feedback from people who want to hear about how to create a safe environment, um, maybe we can bring that to the podcast. So if that is something you guys would be interested in, hit me up via email, social media. I mean, we have a million different places that you can connect with us, or just click on that text us button and it'll send us a text.

Pride Hidden As Being Busy

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Yep. All right. So I have another question for you. All right. So where does pride show up disguised as independence?

SPEAKER_02 15:15

Yeah. So uh we were actually talking about this the other day on one of our coaching calls, right? Um the whole idea of like um our pride and our ego, right? Like obviously we we need our our ego um in some respects to keep us safe in real life situations and things like that. But there's times where we start to get these these thoughts of like, oh, I can just do this. I can figure it all out by myself. Like that's what I was built for. That's who I uh that's the type of person that I am, right? And what we do is we kind of label ourselves as that's just who I am, and that's my superpower. And the reality, we don't know and realize just how much it's pulling from us because it feels quote unquote good, right? Um, I mean, I remember um this is something I never say anymore, but I used to say it all the time. Like when I was growing the coaching business and working LAPD full-time and we had young kids and stuff like that, people would say, Hey, like, how are you doing? Right. And it was like, I'm busy. Like uh things are like really busy, like really crazy, right? And um, first off, two two things I want to say there. Like, um, number one is I would wear like a hardworking badge. Like, look at me, look at me, I'm busy. I I didn't realize I was doing that at the time, but I'm like, hey, I'm kind of busy. And I kind of felt like I was maybe saying that also to protect my time because uh, you know, if I'm so busy, like they can't ask me to do something else for them, right? Um but when you think about this whole idea of like um uh being quote unquote busy, right? Even saying that out loud actually doesn't help you in that situation or whatever it is you're going through. Because when you are saying it out loud to someone else and you start to believe it and you start to convince yourself, then you start to just go down that path of like what that creates for you, right? So when you're in that moment and like you uh want to spend more time with your kids, or you have something else that you want to you want to do, right? And you have this perpetual in your mind, like a limiting belief of like, I'm just so busy, just so many things going on. You don't realize that you could make a different decision, you could make a change, you could do something else entirely different. But when you really do believe that I'm just so busy, I just got so much stuff going on, you close the door from all those other things that could come in and kind of help you, right? It's a whole thing, also as well as like being exhausted. Like I'm just so exhausted today. And it's like one of the things is like that we ask our clients a lot is even if that were true, like how does that help you? How does thinking that help you? The answer is it doesn't, right? You could get to the end of the day and go, I am so exhausted. And then it convinces you not to do those messages that you need to send out, or not to spend time with your kids, or not to, you know, read them a bedtime story, or not to spend 15 minutes, you know, talking to your wife about like um how your day went or things like that, right? Um, but in reality, you can also say, I'm so exhausted because I put in so much energy and effort today, um, that this is what it feels like. And also I'm gonna go do these things because they are important to me. Like, like it's it's a lot of times we we use those things actually against us and it actually get causes us to spin and become more and more tired.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Yeah, we give it, we give these words a lot of weight.

SPEAKER_02 18:05

We do. Yeah, we do, we do. So that's where I see like um this whole idea of like your ego and your pride is in reality, it's tricking you into thinking it's helping you, just like, oh hey, I'm busy or hey, I'm exhausted, right? A lot of things going on. But in reality, it actually doesn't help you. It takes away your power and it doesn't really get you to step into the best version of you, and then you're not modeling behavior for others.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Yeah, I think it's so important to watch our language. Yeah, right. Because even if, you know, obviously, you know, we have conversations, passive conversations with people who are like, yeah, it's busy. But like you said, it it your brain starts to believe that. And now everything that comes your way, I mean, it it could be it could get to the point where it's like that is like what you do and who you are, where you're just constantly like making it busy. Even if you don't have to make it busy, right? So it's like you're constantly saying yes to things and it's like you you have to keep up that lifestyle, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

Yep, yep. Well one thing before we um we ask the next question. Um you were talking about uh it kind of slipped my mind. Say that say the beginning part that you were talking about again.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

The giving the um we have to watch our language.

SPEAKER_02 19:16

Oh yeah. Um yeah, having to do with the language. So as a coach, we understand language is important because it's the only thing that we can see that help us find to find out what the person is thinking, right? What's going on in their mind. So when you are at a coaching session, definitely pay attention to language. I mean, that's the only thing, body language too, right? But like also the verbal and nonverbal language, we can see it and we can we can actually see what's going on inside their brain a lot of times, depending on what they're saying and what they're not saying, right? Um, but even outside of a coaching session, like um when we're talking to our kids, anything like that. Like if you hear specific words, like we know that like um ultimately it's your belief that what drives your behavior. So we need to find out what's going on inside. And if we're having a coaching session, we can do that. But it's not just a coaching session. We can also like listen to the stuff, even the whole idea of like burnout, right? Hearing and listening to what people are saying and going, huh, like I wonder what's driving that behavior. And is it driving them towards burnout? Are they isolating like what's going on? But like one of the best ways of doing that is listening to what people say, but also, like you said, yourself, being able to hear some of the things that you're saying, because a lot of those things we're trapping ourselves into those labels.

The Simple Next Step

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Yeah. So can you answer this for me? Uh, what would you say to someone who reads this title in particular and thinks that's me, but I don't know what to do about it.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

Oh, okay. So um, I'm gonna challenge that. You and you know absolutely what to do. You know somebody right now that you could reach out to and just have a conversation with. I'm not just saying me. I'm just saying there is somebody in your life that you could reach out to and have a conversation about this. Because, like, one person just thinking about this by yourself, you're not gonna find the solution. Like what they say is like, where you created the problem is not where you're gonna find the solution. And that means there's somebody that you need to reach out to to have a conversation with. And I gotta tell you, like, this isn't one of those things where you're gonna be leaning on the other person uh per se, and you're gonna be burdening them. People, especially people who really want to help people, which is literally everybody in our podcast who's listening to this, are are heart-centered. They want to make an impact in people's lives, they want to make sure that they're helping them. We we feel amazing when somebody reaches out to us and they want to have a conversation because they want to get some help. So whether that's me, somebody else, a family member, your spouse, like whatever that is, you know what to do. Your brain is trying to convince you that you don't know what to do. And I'm gonna come back and say it. You do know what to do. Just go out, reach out, have a conversation. Say, hey, is it okay if I share something with you? Do you have a few minutes? Have that conversation, right? And and feel how relieving it is when you let it out, but also see how the other person receives it. Because when you ask for help, not only does that help you, it helps them too. Cause think about how amazing it feels to help somebody when they need it, when they're at their lowest. When they're reaching out for help and they think of you. Out of everybody else on the planet, they think of you.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Yeah.

Therapy, Support, And Closing

SPEAKER_02 22:06

That is powerful. So I would challenge challenge that and say, you do know what to do. It's just you're uncomfortable doing it, but that's okay. This is like what we what we teach here. It's not the comfortable moments that actually define us, it's the uncomfortable ones when we move anyway. And that's the opportunity you have today. All right, guys. Um, I hope this topic really hit home. We hear a lot of people going through this process of like um going through burnout. And some of that is actual legit burnout, and some of that is just trying to carry too much of this alone. If you are somebody, obviously, if if you're going through this path of burnout, I would highly encourage you to go to a counselor, go seek therapy. I mean, I've gone, I don't know, seven plus times in my life through different situations, and it always is super helpful. But if you also notice that you're just carrying it alone, it's time to reach out, have a conversation with somebody who cares, because that could be the game changer for you. All right, everybody, have a great week. Stay safe out there and keep leading from the present.