ProductiviTree: Cultivating Efficiency, Harvesting Joy

ProductiviTree #5 Burnout, Balance & Breaking the Stress Cycle with Michelle E. Dickinson

• Santiago Tacoronte • Season 1 • Episode 5

Share episode

🔥 Is Burnout a Badge of Honor? 🤔 A Conversation with Michelle Dickinson 🔥

Join Santiago Tacoronte and burnout interventionist Michelle E. Dickinson for a raw and insightful conversation about the realities of burnout in today's workplace.

Michelle doesn't shy away from tough questions, challenging the "hustle and grind" mentality and offering practical advice for leaders and employees alike.

✨ In this episode, you'll discover: ✨

  • Why self-care is the ultimate leadership skill 🦸‍♀️
  • The shocking truth about resilience 🤯
  • How to make mental health a priority in your workplace (without the awkwardness) 🧘‍♂️
  • The #1 productivity killer that's sabotaging your success 🚫
  • Why work-life balance IS possible (even for busy leaders) ⚖️
  • Actionable strategies to break free from the hamster wheel 쳇 and reclaim your well-being 💪

Tune in for a dose of inspiration, practical advice, and a fresh perspective on how to thrive in the modern workplace. 🎧

👉 Hit that play button and let's dive in! 👈

Thanks for listening to ProductiviTree! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share.

🟢 Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4d17NpN

🟣 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/productivitree-cultivating-efficiency-harvesting-joy/id1766690892

🟡 Amazon Music: https://amzn.to/3MILlXS

🔴 YouTube: https://bit.ly/ProductiviTree-Youtube

Connect with me:

Have questions or suggestions? Email us at info@santiagotacoronte.com

Michelle E. Dickinson is a renowned figure in the mental health innovation. Known globally as a keynote speaker, workplace resilience visionary, burnout interventionist, TED speaker, and bestselling author. With over 5,000 hours dedicated to training and coaching educators, Michelle's expertise catalyzes profound shifts in emotional well-being, emphasizing self-reliance, and personal mastery. Her dynamic presence and engaging storytelling inspired individuals to unlock their inherent power and lead lives of fulfillment. Michelle's impact is profound and pervasive, extending across a myriad of industries, including logistics, banking, pharmaceuticals, and biotech. She revolutionized workplace cultures, introducing monumental shifts such as the escalation training which become annual staples for seasoned professionals. Hi Michelle and welcome to ProductiviTree Thanks for having me. Thanks for finding me Santiago. Appreciate that. Thank you. you are a burnout interventionist. It's Burn out in the rise or is it declining? Yeah, well, I think so. I think we have a lot of folks who don't take care of themselves. I mean, my practice is growing. So I'm thinking there's a lot of people that need support. Yeah, for sure. You might think that with awareness raising among companies, some might think that, well, companies have burnout programs, work-life balance programs. Some might think that it will be declining. So I was curious to understand why do you think that despite more awareness and people like you helping a lot of companies, why do we have still so much burnout? Because we live in a society where it's celebrated to grind and to hustle, right? We hear people, amazing leaders that I think are amazing leaders like Gary Vaynerchuk talking about grinding and it's almost become beyond being productive, it's become almost a badge of honor to run yourself into the ground and celebrate it instead of. you know, in the name of the grind instead of, I'm gonna find a way to flow. I'm gonna find a way to take care of me and I believe I can be productive as well. How do you know that you're burnt out or that you're burning out? I'm sure there's thousands of people that listen to this podcast thinking, hmm, I feel a little bit overwhelmed, but where do you draw the line between being stressed and being burnt out? Yeah, well stress, so stress in and of itself is not a bad thing, right? Stress, we actually can leverage stress in many ways. the one thing I do want to start off by saying is this is a non-clinical conversation. When I'm coaching people in resilience and helping them, I do not come at this conversation from a clinical narrative. So this is my definition. The way I look at whether you are on the verge of burnout, depression, whatever it may be, it's really around an overwhelm of exhaustion mentally and physically and it can manifest itself into many different things. So when we can recognize that we start to feel chronically drained to the point of no return and maybe you've lost some of your enthusiasm or your passion for things that you love, that's when you really need to take a step back and say, I need to be a little bit self-reflective. I need to not ignore this. I need to not press forward and grind on. I really need to go within myself and connect with what it is that I know I need to do to get myself feeling good before I feel worse. What is the biggest lie about resilience? Everybody loves talking about resilience. It's kind of also a badge of honor, I'm a very resilient person. What is the biggest misconception about resilience? it's so interesting you ask that question. So in our practice, we don't we don't view resilience as the traditional definition, which is you hit rock bottom, you hit a challenge in your life, you you call your way back, you build resilience. Instead, we view resilience as claiming our agency, claiming that we have control in situations where ordinarily you might not be able to see a possibility. So we look at it more as people can live their best life when they reclaim the agency they do have and they stop waiting for their external circumstances to shift in order for them to be happy. This is very interesting because a lot of people think that resilience is getting punched in the face a thousand times and standing up another thousand times and receiving another thousand punches. So you see it more as your space, Yeah, we can build our resilience every single day through how we're taking care of ourselves. So we believe that we are what we repeatedly think and we believe we are what we repeatedly do. And so therefore you don't have to wait to hit a point in your life to build that resilience. You could start with how do I think about adversity and stress and what am I doing every day to fill my cup? because I can't pour from an empty cup. So those two things are so important. And when you are giving those two things attention, you're building your resilience and you're reclaiming your agency. Interesting. We spoke about companies and well, guess that corporate is probably the, the place where because of the exposure where burnout are more visible We see the mental day once a year, we see corporate training of 20 minutes, every half a year. Do you think that this is enough? Are companies doing enough? to prevent burnout. I think companies need to recognize the employee is a person, right? I think there is a degree of responsibility on organizations to create an environment that doesn't apply unnecessary pressures to lead to burnout. But then I think companies could do a better job training employees on how to handle stress, because they're never going to be able to take stress away from them. but what they can equip them with is how to handle that better. And as it relates to their business, their work, if they can handle stress, will always apply to their life. So I think employers really need to look at employees as whole people. And if they help them in general as to be a better human being, they will reap the benefits. So how do we make mental health sexy in the workplace? how do we make it a topic that is discussed on the coffee corners, on the pantries, on the canteen? Something that is really taken seriously because from personal experience, again, you see it in some headlines, but I'm not sure it's sexy enough for companies. Yeah, I think, you know, we've gotten into this, we've gotten into this tired narrative of mental health. The second you say that word to an employee, I'm sure you see the exhaustion in their face, right? So what if we stopped and started to help employees just become a little bit more curious about themselves, turning off all the external noise around them and connecting to themselves? What if we could lead employees to start to be better self-aware employees for their own good? Because that would have a ripple effect. So in my opinion, it's like, the reason why so many people are stressed and overwhelmed is because we live in a very highly stimulated environment, right? There's so much information coming at us. There's so much external noise that gets in the way of us connecting to ourselves. So like what if we could help employees just start to connect with themselves more, learn who they are, learn what they need for themselves so they can advocate for themselves, and help them shift how they're looking at stress and adversity. Because one of the things I ask in my coaching practice when I intake somebody is I ask them this very simple question, is life happening to you or is life happening for you? That lens on stress and adversity shows up in every aspect of their life, from their work to their home life. If you believe life is happening to you, you immediately wear the victim mentality, right? And so a challenge shows up at work. You are going to look at that challenge through the lens of, of course, life is happening to me. What if we could help them foster a organic curiosity as to what is this here for? What can I learn from this and how can I not be so quick to be resigned and feel the victim and be more growth mindset focused? Like, okay, we're gonna handle this just like we handled every other adversity that's shown up in our lives. We're powerful. That's a really important way to help people be much more equipped to handle the unpredictable. It's almost like from being directed in a movie to create your own movies, so to speak. Yes, yes, you can't remove stress from people. You can't remove adversity. So why not equip them to just be able to ebb and flow with it? Hmm. What role plays stress in people hating their jobs? Do you think it's a major component of people not enjoying their tenures and, you know, hopping companies? Yeah, it's so multifaceted. So immediately I want to say that... There's a couple of pieces to this. So people oftentimes find themselves getting into roles that they need to provide for their families and they may have deviated from their passion. That's a fundamental thing that only they can course correct. So that's huge. So if you're fundamentally making a living doing something you don't like, you really got to take a look at that. That's key. I think a lot of people, especially the ones that come to me, have nothing outside of work. They literally are working so many hours a week and then handling life responsibilities at home and then repeating that process over and over and over and they have nothing outside of it that fills their cup, that is going to give them energy, that is going to have them step away from their responsibilities and from work. just to recharge themselves a little bit. They're hanging like a trapeze going from one vacation, nine months later to another vacation. And that's not enough. Like we have to have daily and weekly practices that are filling our cup. So our perspective is different. meditation, therapy, tequila. When life gets overwhelming, what's your to go stress relief? Yeah, you know, there's no one silver bullet, right? So the first thing I would say is check your basics. Are you getting enough sleep? We cannot perform to the best of our ability and feel good performing if we're depleted, right? So sleep is something so basic, can literally shift your entire experience of your day if you are not getting it. So do the checklist. Are you getting enough sleep? Are you moving your body? We process stress when we move our body, but most people don't have time to work out. Well, go for a 15 minute walk and clear your head and get fresh air in your lungs. And you will already help yourself reset your energy. So like those two things. And then, when was the last time you did something you actually loved? Like when was the last time you picked up the instrument you used to love to play or? You did something that gave you a vacation, whether it's paints or whatever. Doing the thing that you know you're gonna draw juice from that can just help you temporarily step away can make a big difference. But how do you break the cycle? How do you get out of the hamster wheel when you're so into it? And, you know, the idea of playing that instrument that you loved come almost like a stranger to you. no, I don't have time to this. I need to do that. I need to do this other thing. How do you break the cycle? Yeah, it's so funny. We truly do just keep going until we hit a wall. It's so, I mean, it's so true. It's like, but if you realize that that's not getting you where you wanna go, you have to take a step back and look at what it is that you're doing. This is why I do an audit with my one-on-one clients. I say to them, we're gonna take a hard look at your life, every aspect of your life, because you've probably not. checked in with yourself because you've just been autopilot, autopilot. And so we look at all these different aspects because they need to get present to the impact of not doing things. And a lot of times people, their body will break down and wave the flag to get their attention. So you have to have the strength to say, I'm gonna take a step back, I'm gonna start. looking at what is working and what is not working. Because only I can do that for myself. No one's coming along and saying, you need a break. I'm gonna take something off your plate. Only you can say, I need a little something from me. What is in your mind the number one productivity killer? That thing that people do every day that destroys their focus and their productivity without even realizing it. Yeah, they fall into their day. The number one thing I see in my one-on-one clients when they come to me, they are falling into their day. So let me explain to you what that is and why I think it's a productivity killer. They have no intentionality for how they begin their day. They basically hit snooze, snooze, catapult out of bed, high cortisol, already stressed out before the day has even started, and it's a beautiful new day, okay? So they're already immediately at the effects of their day. That is gonna have a domino effect throughout the day because they're not creating a little bit of intentionality for themselves before the requirements of the day kick in. So if you wanna be wildly productive, in my opinion, start your day with a little bit of intentionality. And I'm not talking about an hour long priming routine that is gonna take away from your sleep. I'm talking... sit down, have a cup of coffee or tea, mentally get your head in a good place, maybe say a prayer, maybe do a meditation, maybe read something that inspires or motivates you, and really declare how you want your day to go. you mentioned news and immediately came to my head social media and doomscrolling. Is doomscrolling adding fuel to the burnout fire? All that social media and information overload does is it pulls us away from ourselves. Absolutely. You are bombarding your brain when it's just trying to wake up in the morning with so much stimulation and it's just trying to wake up. mean, like, you know, when you're in the shower in the morning and you've not done the doom scrolling, you can have brilliant ideas because your brain is fresh. Don't cloud it with the noise when you are first waking up. Give yourself a chance to be in that space and to benefit from those creative thoughts that your brain wants to have. It's work-life balance real or is a myth? Is a unicorn that we are chasing sea? What I see is that there is a this tendency to think that the higher you are in a corporate scale or in a job, the more busy that you need to be and the less work-life balance you will have. It's kind of like accepted. I see it all the time around me. is it possible to be a big boss? Let's not say a big boss. Is it possible to be a managing people, large teams and still achieve some mindfulness and well-being. Yeah, I mean, look at some of the most successful leaders in the world are doing it. And a lot of them have rigid, you know, self-care routines. Absolutely it is. They're probably successful because they're making the time for themselves. Whereas most people think immediately it's sacrifice, more sacrifice, more sacrifice. I don't think so. I think if you want to show up and be the most effective leader, You have to demonstrate what you want your people to model after, right? Like you have to show them, you know what, I had a really stressed day. I'm taking off at four because I got to go get that run in because that's how I process stress. Like really owning it and talking about it and doing the things that you know to fill your cup so you can show up for them. Because leaders work for their people. How do they support their people if they got one foot on a banana peel? You know? You mentioned at the beginning of this episode, said something about Badges of Honor, Burnout of Honor. How do you fix a toxic workplace? One of them where the more badges you have here on your chest, the better regarded you are. Yeah, I mean, it so starts from the top. I think that leaders don't realize who they're being and how they lead. What they say or don't say creates that subtle ripple effect, right? And what's tolerated and what's celebrated and what kind of environment they want to foster. I think it all starts from the leaders that are running the organizations. When I was in a corporate job, I remember watching some of the leaders and they would walk the walk and talk the talk and those were the ones that were the most respected because you saw them as human and not like put on a pedestal and just seen for the accolades that they've gotten but understood as a human being and what they needed and how they really wanted to care for people, wanted people caring for themselves. It does start at a leadership level, the kind of culture to create more balance for people. Do you think this can see when you speak about large companies, you might have a toxic workplace as a whole as an entire company, but you have you can have also pockets of toxic teams. Do you think that when you start from the top, this can completely change how an entire company work life balance looks like? I think it's interesting because I think we underestimate too the leaders that run those departments, those pockets, right? We underestimate them. There can be, I mean, I just reflect on my 19 year career in a corporate role at various companies and we had a little oasis where other people were living a real. toxic experience, right? And it was cultivated by the leader in our department that, I mean, I'll never forget one of my most favorite bosses were like, he would ask me, are you happy? Are you happy doing the tasks that you were hired for? If not, I wanna broaden that so that you're doing more of what you like. He wasn't stupid. He knew that if I was happier, I was gonna produce more, right? So he was a completely different. person and leader than I had ever had before. But then I remember having other leaders that were, you know, measuring you against somebody else and they had, you know, 10 years more experience, which just constantly kept you feeling down. So it's so important how the leaders lead, the vibe they're creating and the culture that they're doing in their little micro cultures within an organization. What is one workplace tradition that we need to immediately fire? Something that we should stop doing tomorrow forcing employees to come together and share beyond their comfort. Right? Like I feel like there's a lot of good intent, a lot of good intentions that go on, especially when you're talking about eradicating stigma in the workplace. That cannot be forced. So like when I was in my corporate role, I remember there would be these opportunities to bring employees together. and you would hope that they would talk, but they're not going to talk. It has to be organic. The only thing you can really do is create the space, and if they come and wanna talk, great. If they don't, they don't. So stop trying to force and start trying to just cultivate a space for people to just be able and feel like they can be vulnerable and they can trust, because you can create. the space all day long, if the culture is such that people don't feel like they can openly speak, it's pointless. I was talking with someone today about introverts versus extroverts and how these things can be and these exercises of being vulnerable. can, I have the feeling, Michelle, they can be even counterproductive for people that is, introverted that they live the reality in a different, I don't want to say in a different way, but it's just a bit different than other people that is more open to go and open up in a team's call with 80 people, things that I have seen myself. Yes, no. my gosh, you create instant anxiety for that poor soul. Yeah, I mean, like, I don't know, I call myself an introverted extrovert, but there are moments where I'm like, don't ask me to talk, right? Like, and I have to feel that otherwise I feel overwhelmed and anxiety. So, makes sense. What is the craziest transformation story you have seen? Have you worked with someone that made a big, big shift in their mental wellbeing that completely shifted from one corner to the other? Yes, exactly. just recently wrapped up coaching with a sales executive for a startup out of New York City. And he came to me because he needed help with self-regulation. A younger dude raised in a, I guess, in an aggressive startup environment. several different companies, cutthroat environment, aggressive leadership, and he's now responsible for a team. So he's just, he was just demonstrating what he was taught. So we talked a lot about self-regulation and helped him learn strategies to regulate himself, to feel better so that he could lead more effectively. That was the complaint and the concern and the ask was, help me be a better leader and lead others without being so direct. And I need to be more regulated so I can land my messages, even when we're under these high pressure, high stakes scenarios. So it's been such an amazing experience to witness him having strategies that he knows he needs to do, that he's doing, therefore he's showing up and he's gaining the respect from his peers and from his team. And he's ultimately more effective now with leading that sales team. And so that's been amazing to watch because yeah, he was very hot blooded when he came to me and like very, very direct, very curt. And I was like, okay, we're going to, we're to talk about how you can enhance your leadership through self-regulation. Who handles stress better? Is the CEOs or people that is at the top or is the middle managers? Have you identified patterns between certain levels of leadership and handling stress better? Do you think that at the top level, the people reach also because they can handle better stress? I don't know if we can say that, right? Like I think we would want that to be because they're the ones people watch, right? And we learned from them. But I don't know that we can make that blanket statement. I think for people to reach the top, there's a variety of motives that get people into those high level positions. It might just be they're the top performer, not necessarily they can process stress or they know someone or whatever. Whatever the reason is, I think at the end of the day, what we have to remember is that whatever level you are within the organization, people watch you the closest when you are under stress, right? When you are choosing to react or respond in that heated moment. Those are the moments that define us as leaders, right? Like how is she gonna act in this situation? How is he gonna respond? Right? Because we're all watching that. We wanna see how are they handling it. And it's those who have those strategies and mitigating tools to help themselves and the positive self-talk and all of that. They're the ones that show up. They're the ones that people are looking at going, that's a solid leader. So it's the ones that just have the skills at the end of the day. It's not necessarily what level you're Can you give some advice to people, managers, that for whatever reason, they are new managers or they are busy with their own work and might be missing signals from their team members about being burned out or being overstressed or overworked? How can you be more aware of what's happening? I think we have to always be reminded that we work for our people and we serve our people. Yeah, we have responsibilities at work, but like we serve our people so our people can perform to the best of their ability without barriers, without issues. So we always have to be checking in with them. I say, you you have to have a touch point with them so you're aware of what's going on with them. you have to build a rapport with them. You have to make it your business to build a rapport with them. So you know, and they feel safe. God forbid they feel safe. They could go to you and say, I'm dealing with something. I need a day. And there's no ramification or there's no fear or there's no hesitancy that you have that close enough relationship. So when life happens, they can feel that comfort in reaching out. I always say do the stop start continue on a regular basis, asking your people what should I start doing, what should I stop doing, what should I continue doing so that you're constantly aware of how you're landing because you don't know how you're landing. You know how you think you're landing but get that feedback so you understand if you're being short on time, they're not hearing it as you're being rude. You're just being direct. You can't let things get lost in translation. Always be doing stuff like that. Michelle, one last piece of advice. Today we're recording this episode on a Friday. Afternoon for me, morning for you. It's the last day of the week. Probably lots of our audience will be finishing a week packed with events, work, stress. And it's a great moment, to think about the next week. So to all of... our listeners, people that are listening now that are feeling a bit overwhelmed, that has been on this hamster wheel for a few weeks, what is the thing that you advise them to do next Monday or this weekend so they have a fresh start or a fresher start next Monday? yeah, so do this. So take a step back when at the weekend is a perfect opportunity. Take a step back and ask yourself if I was to look at this past week and I was to ask myself what my energy level was one to five, what would my average score be? One being I have no energy, five being I have the most energy. And if your energy was really low, you then need to start looking at what does it take to elevate that energy. So then you have to go to your practices and say, what have I been doing around sleep? What have I been doing around movement? How has my diet been? How's my hydration? And start to look at, what is it that I can do a little bit differently this week in pursuit of getting a five on my energy level? Because if we have good energy, then we have the ability to create. We have the ability to see things as half full versus half empty. When we are low on the energy, it impacts so much of just our outlook on life. So really take inventory and ask yourself, is my energy low? Because then I need to do something a little bit different this week. And maybe this weekend is a great opportunity for you to disconnect from all responsibilities and just go play like a child. Thanks, Michelle. And I'm taking your advice. I think I had like a three week, So maybe it's a good time to enjoy the week and play a little bit, go out, walk, have some good food and take care of ourselves. Michelle, I want to thank you so much for being with us today here. I enormously enjoyed this conversation. Pretty packed with actionable things to do. to rethink our relationship with work somehow. Amazing. Thanks for having me. Thanks, Michelle.