EPISODE 58 OF THE MARKETING SOLUTIONS PODCAST: THE BURNOUT CLUB
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
The response to my episode last year on business burnout was absolutely massive. So, I've gone deeper and connected with a number of people who've experienced the same thing and are now helping others. Enter The Burnout Club, the club you never wanted to be a part of. Jess has a fantastic program to help people experiencing burnout, and I wish I had discovered this 12 months ago. I sat down with Jess to discuss what it's like being a Type A Personality and navigating the world of business when you just want to keep doing more, often to the detriment of our health.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Welcome to the Boom Your Biz podcast, a podcast for the movers, the shakers, and even bigger action-takers in business. I'm your host, Sonya McIntyre-Reid, and each week I'll be exploring the question of what really makes businesses and organizations thrive. I'm on a mission to educate, empower, and inspire business owners and myself along the way. Today I'm joined by Jess Jones from The Burnout Club, and one of my most popular podcast episodes last year was actually about my experience with burnout. So, I thought I would find someone who is a bit of an expert in this space to come on and have a chat to us about how we can avoid it, and I guess what burnout is. Thanks so much for joining me, Jess.
Jess Jones:
Hello, Sonya. Thanks for having me.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Why don't we start with what is burnout?
Jess Jones:
Yeah, sure. So, look, it can manifest slightly differently for different people, but overall, it's a point that you can get to when you're feeling completely overwhelmed, generally from overworking. Oftentimes, it's from taking a lot on and juggling all those balls, and thinking everything's fun, and you're running on adrenaline, and then all of a sudden, you hit a wall. And you just feel exhausted and doesn't matter how much sleep you get, you still feel tired.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yes, I have certainly experienced that myself, and I think it's hard when you love what you do and you're sort of running on that adrenaline and that high and excitement of that momentum and progress to, I guess, be disciplined enough to actually rest. So, how can we prevent this burnout?
Jess Jones:
Yeah, sure. So, the biggest thing, and again, it's different for different people, but I have found in the past, after my own burnout experiences and learning about myself because I was forced to is to really listen to your body, and it can be really hard, as you said, when you absolutely love what you do and it brings you joy, and you're so passionate about it, and you're all in. And then all of a sudden, you're starting to get this feeling like you're not resenting what you do, but the passion's kind of going, and you're feeling tired, and you're feeling like the life has been sucked right out of you. And that can be quite disheartening because you put all that time and energy into building this beautiful business or building this career, or whatever it is that you're doing. And then all of a sudden, you're tired and you're feeling burnt out.
Jess Jones:
So, the biggest thing for me was listening to my body and understanding those early warning signs and those cues. And generally, it was sleep for me. So, I know now that I need a solid seven hours sleep and sometimes people need more, sometimes people can run on less. But for me, it's seven is my sort of sweet spot, and if I mess with that, then I feel myself on that road to burnout again, and I need to go, "Right, Jess, what are you doing? You know this is a trigger for you. Get it together and get some sleep." And generally, I can pull myself back.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yep, I have certainly been there. For me, I would then start reaching for more and more caffeine, which would then in turn affect the quality of my sleep that evening, and it was just this awful cycle that I actually really struggled to get out of. What are your thoughts around burnout and caffeine?
Jess Jones:
Look, I think I'm not too bad. I, part of my morning ritual when I get up at 5:00 is that I go and make a pot of coffee, a stove-top pot of coffee, and that is just such a beautiful way to start my day. It's the process of it. It's the ritual. And I think about what I've got on, and I think about what I want to get out of the day. So, that's like my morning ritual that kicks off the work that I'm going to be doing. So, I start with a coffee and then I have a shake at around 7:00, 7:30, and then I make my next coffee, and then I start my day job. So, I work on my business before my day job and I often have one in the afternoon.
Jess Jones:
Sometimes, and I'm going to be smacked over the back of the head for saying this, but sometimes I have a Red Bull if I know I've got a massive afternoon or evening of work in front of me and I will reach for the Red Bull. I've been told off by naturopath friends, but hey. Yeah, look, I do do it when I know I've got a bit of work ahead of me. So, I think sometimes it's just that placebo effect as well. It's going, yep, this is going to help me. This is going to give me a boost. But for me also a non-negotiable is exercise. I work out almost every day or I go for a run, and I need that and that helps me so much. It brings me joy. It boosts my mood, even when I'm feeling a bit flat. And the last thing I want to do is go and lift weights, I still do it because I know how good I'll feel after. And that just, it kind of builds more energy in that boost for the rest of the day as well.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Oh, yes. And I feel like it just burns cortisol and you just feel a million times better. Exercise is an absolute nonnegotiable for me as well. Sounds, Jess, that you've had your own personal experience with burnout which has led you to start this business. So, would you feel comfortable sharing what your experience was?
Jess Jones:
Yeah, sure. So, I'm a bit of a serial entrepreneur. This is my sixth small business. I absolutely love this space that I'm in and I've been sort of obsessed with entrepreneurship since I was about 21. So, all that kept in mind, I was doing different things and had a few different businesses. And then the last business I had was called Soar Collective. It was a regional business women's community. And when I started it, it was in one location and we ran six networking events per year. We ran a national awards program and an annual conference for businesswomen called SoarCon. I worked my arse off in that business and I had two little kids as well and was in a relationship at the time with the kids' dad. And all on the outside looked like it was shiny and bright and amazing.
Jess Jones:
And it was. In my eyes it was. I was absolutely killing it. I was getting plenty of media. The community that we built were thriving. They were happy. The feedback was great. The events were amazing. We'd had some finalist announcements for business awards. We were ticking all the boxes. But to have that kind of commitment and passion and devotion for something, it means other things were being neglected. And I had my blinders on big time. So, my business gave me everything I needed basically to thrive and to enjoy what I was doing. But it meant that my partner at the time was feeling like he was on the bottom of the list. And honestly, he was. The kids were above him because I was parenting two little kids, as well as breastfeeding. I was sleep-deprived, and I did not prioritize my health and wellness at all.
Jess Jones:
I wrote blogs about it. I shared inspirational Instagram posts about it and reminded people to take care of themselves, but I was not. And I was getting rubbish sleep and I don't even know how I did it. And I honestly, there's so much that I just don't even remember because I was just running on this crazy, fun, amazing high, but other things were kind of suffering in the background. So, eventually, third year into the business, about mid-2017, caught a cold from one of the kids, ended up turning into the flu. I was bedridden for days. I had crazy temperatures, hallucinating, but still tapping away on my laptop. I had a part-time marketing role as well, and I was sending emails and not even remembering what I said.
Jess Jones:
So, I had to stop that. And my partner and I were blowing at the time, so he wasn't even talking to me, and I was so ill, and yeah. It was kind of in that point that I had this huge realization. I had to ask myself some tough questions and really took a look at what I was doing to myself, and to probably to the relationship as well. And first of all, decided I needed to do something that brought me joy that had nothing to do with being a parent, a partner, a business owner, entrepreneur, networker. And so, I took up Latin and ballroom dancing, and that brought me joy and kept me fit, and introduced me to this whole beautiful family of dancing people, and ended up being another thing that kind of got in the way, I guess, of the relationship and didn't quite help because it was another a couple of nights out as well.
Jess Jones:
So, I sort of took that on and I started looking after myself a bit better. But I knew at that point that by the end of the year, I wanted to sell my business and end my relationship. And so I did. It got to December and I'd sold the business. I think settlement was around the 1st of December, and I ended up splitting with my partner at the time just before Christmas. We are all good now. We're good mates. We chat every day. He's a top bloke and we have a great friendship. We're really lucky. But that burnout fried me for months. It took me so long to recover and it made me so, I guess, over it, over the scene, over being a business owner, over entrepreneurship, so bad that I ended up kind of softly culling anything to do with business that was around me, like business-owner friends, any profiles I followed. I stopped reading business books. I stopped watching any videos to do with business. That really, yeah, cooked me. It was a big burnout and it took a very long time to get over that.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
It sounded like you needed a total reset.
Jess Jones:
Exactly.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
And how you feeling now?
Jess Jones:
Yeah, well, that was a few years ago. I ended up merely swapping my obsession for business with dancing and decided I wanted to compete because I'm a Type A and a massive overachiever. So, I couldn't just let it bring me joy. I decided I had to go out there and kill it. So, I did. I found a dance partner, started competing and was traveling all over Victoria for competitions, and training in every waking hour. So, I'd had no more business stuff going on for the first time since I was 21, and wasn't consuming myself with entrepreneurs and instead, yeah, did it with dances and dancing. So, I was in the studio all of the time. I was training at home. I rearranged my lounge room, my house, and put stuff up on the walls of my schedule and, yeah, got full on into it and loved it.
Jess Jones:
But a couple of years later it led me to another burnout. So, it shows that it's not really always about what you're doing. It's about how you're doing it and how you're prioritizing the rest of the things in your life, and whether or not you're managing your mental and physical health and wellness as well as whatever you're passionate about. And I didn't know how to do that. All I knew was go all in and give it everything you've got, and I'm still like that. But now I understand that balancing out everything else as best you can, it doesn't work every day. But to kind of have that balance means you get to be your best at whatever it is you're doing, whether that's as a student, as an employee, as an entrepreneur, as a parent, or all of the above for some people. Finding what works for you means you can be the best version of yourself.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
I think you've really hit on a point there and a question that I have been asking for a long time because I'm definitely a very similar personality type to you, where I go all in. I feel like if I am passionate about something, I go all in, a hundred percent. And actually, my swimming buddy says to me, "Sonya, you've got to learn to pace yourself in the pool, in business, and in life." She was like, "You just go a hundred miles an hour, and then you fry yourself," which is honestly, it sounds very, very similar experience that I've had. And I started using exercise rather than business as my passion outside of business to try and have a bit of balance in life and took that to the extreme. So, then I was physically burnt out and then also mentally burnt out with work. So, how, and I still don't have the answer, Jess, how do you enjoy something without burning yourself out? I feel like I just don't know how to do it. Any tips, very welcome.
Jess Jones:
Well, it's taken me my life to work out how to do this. I've had my family after the second burnout, which was actually more like a breakdown. I ended up in hospital for a few days, which kind of seemed like a circuit breaker at the time. But looking back, it probably didn't do a massive amount of help, but it certainly gave me a break with having to take care of anything besides myself. It was nice for someone to be taking care of me and to not have any responsibilities. So, I guess I'm trying to see the outside of that point, but it really sucked having to ask for help as someone who's always been very independent. I've always had the attitude I can do anything and if I don't know how to do it, I will learn. And you can't stop me. I've always been like that.
Jess Jones:
And after that breakdown, my family started to call me runaway train. So, yeah, I can laugh about it now. And at the time I was just like, "Screw you guys. This is my personality. This is who I am." I remember my dad saying to me once, "Why do you have to be this way? Why can't you just change your personality a bit?" I was just like, "Dad, do you realize what you just said to me?" And a lot of my traits, not all of them, but some of my traits, good and bad, come from him. So, we naturally clash over things anyway.
Jess Jones:
But I think it's interesting when people want to try to mold you into something else. This is who we are. Sounds that you're very similar. And I think it's about being very disciplined. And if you can apply that obsession and passion and discipline in other areas of your life, you need to decide, or you need to be ready, I think is another thing. You need to be ready to make that commitment to do it for yourself as well because you cannot do all of the things for all of the people for all of the areas in your life if you are broken. You can't do it.
Jess Jones:
So, you have to. It's not selfish to take care of yourself. You have to put yourself first. And it's taken me a long time to be truly comfortable with saying that and being proud of it, in fact. Because if I don't put myself first, if I don't get my workouts in, if I don't have my shakes, if I don't take care of myself, if I don't have the sleep that I need to kick off each day, then I'm going to be a terrible parent, and a terrible friend, and a terrible daughter, and business owner, and employee.
Jess Jones:
You have to understand how important that is. And once that clicks for you, then it would just be a no-brainer. Everything else will fall into place. So, I still am busy. I am on a board as well. I'm a communications director for the Frankston Football Club. So, I have that. I work four days a week in my day job as a marketing consultant. I run this business, and I have my kids every second week. So, I'm busy as hell, but it's by choice. And I've built my lifestyle around the things that I know I want to commit to, the things that make me happy, and the things that are good for me and my kids.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
I think a way that has really helped me, and it sounds sort of you've done something similar, but I've almost set rules for myself around how many times a week I will work out, how many hours sleep I will get, the hours that I work and being disciplined to stick to that so I'm not going over, and then burning myself out has seemed to help, having really sort of strict boundaries for myself around what I'm doing. Is there anything else that you would sort of recommend to anyone that is a similar personality type, such as rules or how they communicate with people if they're feeling guilty about the fact that they need to look after themselves?
Jess Jones:
Yeah, sure. I think it is tricky being this way sometimes. But I think you have to get to a point where your understanding of who you are and what you want and how you work best, and then embrace the hell out of it. Because if you're not embracing it and nurturing it, then you're not getting the best out of yourself. And we're all very unique, amazing human beings. And there's only one of you in this world and we need you the way you are. And that's for everyone listening. So, nurture and embrace yourself and all of your amazing qualities because you just need to make the most out of the life that you've got. Life is so bloody short and we see it all the time, especially when we lose people close to us or friends lose people close to them. And we all make these big decisions to make changes and take care of ourselves, and do what brings us joy, and do what makes us happy, and then we fall into the old routines and ways, and that perspective is gone.
Jess Jones:
So, I think it's really important to remind yourself that your longevity and your happiness in this life, and the joy you bring to yourself, and the joy you bring to others has to be number one. It's so important. Otherwise, what on earth are we doing here? So, back to the question. Routine, I thrive on structure and routine and I know that's not for everyone. But without it, I'm heading for burnout. So, I know I have to do it. So, I have a week one schedule for when I have the kids, and a week two schedule for when I don't. And there's similarities, but there's also obviously gaps where the week that I don't have the kids I obviously work a lot more on the business.
Jess Jones:
The other thing is having something that starts your day, that is like your, like I said, kind of like a ritual, the way that you start the day and you always do the same thing. Some people like to meditate. My brain's a bit noisy for that so I've never been good at it. But music is another one for me. I always have music on in between meetings and stuff. It brings me joy, have a bit of a dance while I'm doing stuff. If I'm feeling stressed, I have a little dance in my office. I've got a home office now. I've just moved house. And it just brings me a lot of joy to say in my office so I'm going to say it. The house I was in before, I had in one room, my lounge room was my home office, my gym, my lounge room, my music room all in one so I'm really happy to be in this space.
Jess Jones:
And that's another thing that's super important is having a space, whether that's in your home or if you're back in the office that feels really good for you. You have to make it kind of inspiring and happy, and really engage all the senses. So, having your water or your favorite water bottle or whatever there, having if you like smelly stuff burning or having a candle flickering, having some music on when you can, a couple of quotes on the wall if that kind of inspires you. Even photos of your loved ones nearby is also nice because it kind of reminds you of what you're doing and who you're doing it for as well. So, things like that. Look, everyone's different, but for me, yes, strict on the routine, the sleep, understanding the things that I need to be the best version of myself. And it's generally around music, working out, running, friends, and family, and coffee.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah. So, I guess it all comes down to, at the end of the day, making sure you're setting up your environment and your routines or lack of routine in a way that's individual to you, but makes you happy and helps you thrive. And I think embracing this idea that we are all different and you might not necessarily be able to work from 7:00 AM to 8:00 PM every single day in this hustle mentality and get the best out of yourself. You probably going to head towards burnout. I just don't think it's sustainable in the long-term. And in accepting that we're not machines and we do need rest, I think goes a long way in preventing burnout.
Jess Jones:
Yeah, absolutely. That hustle movement is long gone. And I was a part of it. I was a enabler of it in the past, but now that's just not what's right for me, and for most people. I just think that the biggest thing that you can take away from this conversation is to understand that self-care is not selfish. And it's something that you should be doing every day and every week, not just scheduling in the odd one-hour massage, or grabbing a six-pack of your favorite beer, or having a couple of bottles of red with your mates on the weekend, or a yoga retreat, or whatever it is that is in your head as a self-care activity. You need to kind of break that idea and understand that scheduling regular self-care is what's really good for you, and it keeps you in a good place. It's like preventative treatment rather than waiting till the damage is done and then going, "Oh, I need to look after myself."
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah, and it's really, really hard once you do hit that burnout to then take a step back and acknowledge that you need some serious rest. And it takes a long time to bounce back from that. So, you're right. Prevention... better, trying to fight your way back from burnout as I'm sure you and I both experienced.
Jess Jones:
Yes.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Jess, where can we learn more about you and I think you're offering a program at the moment? Is that right?
Jess Jones:
Yeah, that's right. So, you can go to theburnoutclub.com and there's a page called Help is Here, and there's some information on there about a course that we're running from middle the middle of this month, February actually, called Breaking Up With Burnout. And it talks about those long-term fixes rather than the short-term ones that I just spoke about, and how you can kind of structure your day and look after yourself so you're getting the best out of yourself all of the time, instead of running like a hamster on a wheel and waiting till you crash and then trying to fix it then. Because oftentimes it's, like you said, it's so much harder to get back up once you're down. So, let's just try to help ourselves more so we don't fall down regularly in the first place.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yes. Oh, so good. So good. But I think the hardest part with that is I think we've all heard the self-care side of things, but actually doing it is another story. So, from the looks of things, your program takes people through how they can customize that to themselves. And how many weeks does it go for, Jess?
Jess Jones:
It's a five-week program.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Fantastic. Oh, looks so good. And I honestly it's something that I wish I had discovered last year before I crashed.
Jess Jones:
Yeah, look, me too. And I've tried to build it that way so that people can see that there are even the tiniest changes can really make a difference in your long-term health and wellness. So, I tried to keep that in mind. What would I have needed a couple of years ago when I was at that point and what would have helped me? So, I hope that it helps other people as well. It's been nearly three years for me, burnout free. So, and I want to keep going this way. I was close a few weeks ago. It was going into a weekend of moving house, running off 17 hours sleep in three nights. And I did that because I knew I was going to lose three days to work. And so, I pushed myself and I had less sleep, and then look at that. I was nearly heading down that burnout path again. So, I applied all the stuff that I've learned over the past few years. And, yeah, within a few days, it had pulled myself up and I was all good. But yeah, I was close. But it made for a good story. [inaudible 00:26:30] burnout.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
And I guess that's it. The constant monitoring and an understanding of yourself is really, really important.
Jess Jones:
It is. That's right.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Well, Jess, thank you so much for your time. I will pop a link in the show notes to your website so people can check out your program and yeah, hopefully, you keep staying burnout free.
Jess Jones:
Absolutely. You too. Thank you so much for having me on the show.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Thanks, Jess.