Today, we're talking about burnout. Yay. We're talking about specifically how to avoid burnout as best you can. Ideally never experienced burnout in early-stage entrepreneurship. And I want to focus on early-stage entrepreneurship, because if you do things the empire's way.
You know that we're not going to keep chasing and hustling and grinding for the sake of it, for the sake of those shiny objects. We are all about simple, scalable, profitable business models. I want to focus on the early days for side hustlers, for people in their first years, because that's when the grind feels the toughest.
That's when it feels the most relentless because we haven't yet necessarily hit that beautiful snowball and tipping point where, oh, reach is easy because we already have 20, 000 followers, so of course a lot of people see our stuff and more people share it and see it, and it's a beautiful virtuous cycle.
And, oh, we've already worked with So many clients that we have social proof and testimonials and referrals coming in and we're booked out with our clients and all of those beautiful things that happen when that tipping point starts to click into place when those things start happening. Of course, it creates.
Money and therefore time freedom in your business, which makes burnout a lot easier to avoid because you can delegate, you can afford help. You can afford to do less because you're building less because your business model is in place. Your funnels are in place. And now all you have to do all you have to do, but is feed the beast with traffic and content and all of that good stuff.
[00:02:38] Personal Experiences with Burnout
So wanting to focus more so on the early years and also because that's when I had my harshest experiences with either burnout or pretty damn close a couple of times. So I'll tell you about those. I want to kick off this episode by letting you know that I am very busy right now. Like I'm working a lot right now, a lot more than I would like to work on average over time.
Bye. And I also want you to know that's okay. Burnout isn't about necessarily the hours you're pulling. And we'll talk about that in more detail. Burnout for me is when you are doing too much for too long and it's facilitated as well. If what you're doing You don't enjoy, of course, if there are tasks and activities that are draining to you and the big kicker, in my opinion, is you don't see the end in sight.
It doesn't feel temporary. It doesn't feel intentional. It feels necessary to live in that pace at that level of overwhelm to achieve your goals. And you constantly feel like you're not doing enough and you're running behind. I'm busy right now because I decided for my life and business vision to launch a second business this year.
I decided to prioritize heavy cashflow by taking on a lot of private clients this year. I decided. To launch my podcast, my website, my group coaching offer before going to France this year. I decided to go to France this year. So I knew in the context of becoming a mom, having a baby, having a newborn, I knew that this year would be busy.
I knew that I had to also prepare to struggle with fatigue at the end of pregnancy, take two months off when I had my baby and so on and so forth. It has been a big year, but there's a sense of it being on my terms, temporary and intentional. It's not sustainable or values aligned for me to keep working as much as I'm working at the moment, even in the medium term future.
It's not something that I want. But I'm a couple of months away from this changing dramatically because of all the other things that I've put in place. Once my group coaching program and curriculum is built, guess what? It is such an incredible curriculum. I'd be surprised if I had to update it and change it in the next two or three years.
Seriously. Like it is everything I could have hoped for and more. And that's something that is going to work for me for many years to come also with my business model shifting to focus on group coaching. It means that private coaching, as was always the intention, is going to become very rare and exclusive for me and something that I will only say yes to when it is the perfect fit and it feels super good and it's the right time and it's something that I do out of love.
But my main business model is focusing around my signature offer, my group coaching scalable offer. There's so many things clicking into place, including my relationship with Badass Careers. That means that I know that this isn't my default and it's worth it to me to be here right now. It's worth it to me.
[00:06:30] Strategies to Avoid Burnout
So before we get into this conversation, I want us to acknowledge that there are seasons of business, right? There are seasons to put your head down and sow your seeds and get ready so that you can reap what you sow. You can harvest the goods and have more financial and time spaciousness in different periods, for example.
And just like that. There are seasons of business, there are seasons of life as well. And in different seasons of life, you may prioritize different aspects of you, which means that your definition of success is earning half what you did last year. If it means that you can work 10 hours a week instead of 40 or whatever that looks like.
All of these things are valid. I will never shame someone for working hardcore on their dreams. I will never say that it's not the right thing to do to work a 40 hour a week and spend 15 hours a week on your side hustle. If you're building your future and you're building options for yourself, I'm not going to be the coach for you that says everyone should be working 12 hours a week full stop.
That's not my version of reality. And that's not how I've been able to grow so incredibly quickly. So acknowledge that it's okay to have seasons. It's okay to have your values around working hours and time and your own relationship with time. I am not a routine person. I don't like morning routines, evening routines.
I don't stick to habits in a very plug and play way. My days never look the same. I don't get up at the same time every day. I'm not that kind of person. So I will never try to codify my business to work 12. 5 hours per week, year round. That doesn't work for me and it doesn't work for my dreams.
[00:08:33] Energy Management Techniques
All of that to say, this is going to be very personal, but there are absolutely strategies that we can put in place so that you can avoid tipping into burnout when it becomes too much for too long and sustaining your energy and your resilience from the inside out so that you can sustain higher levels of working hours.
Temporarily in your first phases of business. Now, of course, time is our most valuable resource in life and as high achieving CEOs, like we want more of it. That's if you could have more what would you pay to have more time? But the reality is there are only 24 hours in a day and those hours need to be divided up.
By sleep, things that we do for our mental and physical well being, time with our loved ones, family commitments, our own fun and relaxation, moving our body, whatever it looks like, okay? And of course, Holding down a full nine to five job for my side hustlers out there. So the reality is only ever going to be so much time that we have or that we can create.
Of course I can tell you to, cut Netflix or, stop doing this, stop doing that. Never scroll on your phone ever again, all of that kind of thing. But at the end of the day, those will only be quite marginal gains. I learned the lesson around time and energy and the relationship with those two things and burn out the hard way.
I think for the first time really in that first year that I went all in on my business, because I wasn't full time on Badass Careers. I was working two days per week for L'Oreal still. And I did that for almost a year after leaving, I pitched myself to them as a consultant freelancer, and I secured a contract with them where I was still creating and working on projects for them from a distance, which was just like, had never been seen before.
I also had my not even French YouTube channel and I was creating sponsored content and videos and getting Google adsense from my YouTube videos as well. So I consider that I had part time work, let's say for that first year. And then on top of that, I was still like not working on badass careers full time, but working on badass careers full time as an AI.
Absolutely worked on it on the weekends as well. Not every weekend, but a lot of weekends and maybe not every day of the weekend, but definitely like it was very normal to see me saying, Hey, sorry, I've got to work on this on a Sunday, for example. So I was going hard and what I found, I think hardest of all is not the time itself.
It didn't bother me. Like I've always worked quite hard. I would say in terms of hours, like working for the number one world's luxury group, working for the number one world beauty group, working in tech, working in consulting. I had worked Sunday afternoons before I had, checked my emails in the evening after dinner, I had done that, like high pressure corporate life.
And that didn't scare me, but I think What did get to me in the end was that constant overwhelm and mental load of juggling at all. And also the emotions attached to it, right? The guilt for wanting to be somewhere else when I was hanging out with friends and wishing that I was working, for example, or the resentment I felt when I was working on L'Oreal projects, when I wanted to be working on my own thing or the constant stress of feeling like I was behind, it wasn't going as well.
Quickly as I wanted it to, as I needed it to in my mind, very harsh expectations on myself that I felt like I was never meeting. So I really started to work on this and realize that a lot of this is very much a mental game and it's very much a relationship and a perception of time thing as well. A lot of the exhaustion and the burnout I was experiencing was from these feelings.
It was from this experience. Of the time that I was putting in and the juggling that I was doing. So while we can't influence necessarily how much time we have, or the fact that we do have to put in the hours when we are building a business, the biggest thing I want to focus on that I think can make a dramatic shift for people and really protect you in terms of your resilience and your relationship with all of these things.
It's not time management, but it's energy management, ensuring that you have enough energy to work on your business, even when time is limited and supercharging the hours you do get and going hard in those hours while simultaneously plugging as many energy leaks as possible in your other areas of life.
You know how you meet some people that could be at work, that could be colleagues, that could be just at a party, whatever. And some people are absolute radiators. Their energy is contagious. You smile, you laugh. It's expensive being around them. And likewise, other people are very. draining, negative, they're like energy vampires sucking it out of you, right?
The same goes for tasks at work and home, moments of your day, people you're surrounded by. A lot of energy exists in our life and our work and our whole ecosystem. And while there are a lot of things that are outside of our control, there are actually a lot of things inside of our control, or at least inside our circle of influence.
So I want to talk to you today about specific ways. That you can start creating more energy in your life and work, protecting your energy and directing your energy in a more efficient way so that you can continue to put in more. The work and the time without burning out, because in those early days of business, it takes a lot of energy to build this thing, because you have the least amount of return.
You're not getting the dopamine hit of, constant client inquiries, sales notifications, hundreds of followers every week. And so you're giving so much of yourself. You're putting so much into it and generating so much. I'm talking about actual work you're generating and content and things like that.
But as well, the emotional impact of that for the least amount of return upfront, because you build your foundation. You're building your brand. You're building it. You're building your business out. You're building your business model, your funnels, your office suite. So how do we stick at it and how do we keep showing up when we're not necessarily getting a lot of emotional return?
And quite frankly, neurochemical return with our happy chemicals. That's why I've become obsessed with this concept of energy. So what are some ways that we can create energy? Let's start with that one. When it comes to energy creation, we need to think about the, three main buckets where energy exists.
For me, energy can be created physically, emotionally, and cognitively. Okay. For me, there's a slight difference between emotional processing centers and the cognitive intellectual side of things. And we all have energy boosters and energy drainers. Obviously, what we want to do is audit our life, our work, our business, our ecosystem, and figure out how can I add more boosters in without necessarily taking up more time?
And how can I cut or limit more of my drainers? Because we are all responsible for our state and our wellbeing. And we need to have some rituals and habits ready and available and tools that we can use to move through draining feelings, thoughts, and behaviors as quickly as possible. So some examples.
[00:17:23] Physical Energy Boosters and Drainers
Things that are scientifically proven, or maybe it's a personal thing for you, but scientifically proven in these examples that I'm going to give you to boost energy from a physical standpoint, movement, walking, dancing, I don't care, quality sleep. Naps. Breathing. Deep breathing. Mindful breathing. Drinking water.
Drinking water with a squeeze of lemon in it, in particular. Literally posture. Power poses. Shoulders back. Chest open. Stretching. Primal screaming into a pillow. All of these examples have been proven. To boost energy very quickly, even the topic of sleep, are you maximizing your bedtime routine or your bedtime wind down process?
You'll feel good. It can be five minutes to optimize sleep. And then when it comes to physical drainers, again, science backed alcohol, caffeine, too much screen time, like working late, like overworking at work. And then Also looking at screens all night on top of that, skipping lunch, skipping meals, of course, what you're fueling your body with, and even things like working in bed.
Although I personally choose to reject that one because I love working from the couch or bed. So these are just ideas, but for you, what are the things that you do physically that can boost your energy? And what are things that you're doing to your body or treating your body in some sort of way that you could try to cut or limit, especially in this early phase of the business build.
[00:19:08] Emotional and Cognitive Energy Management
When it comes to emotional energy, examples of boosters, time with friends, overnight date nights with no kids, spending time in nature, gratitude practices, meditating, affirmations, And clearing limiting beliefs and confronting your inner critic and the shit talk that you're telling yourself and.
Replacing that with more positive, empowering stories, drain is from an emotional perspective saying yes to things you don't want to do, dreading going to an event, dreading doing that thing because you said yes to something you don't want to do. It can be emotionally draining people that negative friend who's on repeat, stuck in a loop, complaining, venting about the same stuff over and over again.
It can be consuming more content than you're creating when you're consuming and you're in comparison and you're looking at what everyone else is doing, except for you, that's draining from an energetic standpoint, catastrophizing, worrying about things that haven't even happened yet. Always thinking about the worst case scenario, very emotionally taxing.
So what are the things that you can put in place to enhance emotional energy and have pockets of that more often or intentional moments of that built into designed into your weeks or months, and how can you start to limit the drainers? And what about the cognitive aspect, things that can boost your energy from a cognitive standpoint, focus mode, limiting notifications on your phone, on your devices, only doing transactional work, like checking emails twice per day and sprints and blocks rather than jumping in all day long, reading a book for fun, getting creative, just doodling for a while, just coloring something in.
Deep work sessions that are gamified. You give yourself two hours to focus on something. You set a timer and you don't let yourself get disrupted, and you go for it and you get into flow. Dopamine and gamification, like getting to inbox zero every day, clearing my dms every day, like gaming, gamifying it and making it fun.
Drainers that are co, like from the cognitive standpoint, doom scrolling, taking on the too much mental load. Being the one who has to organize all of the logistics, all of the after school activities, everything for the family or everything for your friends. Putting things inside your business model that feel like have tos instead of want tos.
Playing to the shoulds instead of the want tos. Desires. So these are just some examples, but I already know that if you audit your entire energy system, you'll be able to identify things that boost you, that you can rely on tools that boost you. And it can take two minutes. It could be a two minute dance party before sitting down to work.
It could be anything big gulp of water, turning off those notifications. Like it can be so simple and it can be your non negotiables like once a month. I have a girl's night with my best friends and we have a sleepover, whatever. Another thing I would encourage you to do is, ask yourself, how can I anchor into my purpose more often instead of thinking about these things as tasks before getting into them?
How can you. Remind yourself why you're doing this and visualize your future more often. That's very energizing. How can you stay inspired and exposed to big ideas? Could you surround yourself or join a community of people who are as motivated as you to change the world? Like the energy inside Empire Era is magnetic.
It is people are just constantly inspiring one another just by being in the same presence of people who are doing the damn thing. Or if it's not about the people, how can you make ongoing education and learning a regular habitual part of your life? How can you always stay exposed to ideas? Not from a procrastination standpoint, as in you've read three books, but haven't created anything for your business this week.
But how could you swap out, your true crime podcasts at the gym, for example, with some inspiring audio books. And I'm not saying this has to be forever, but in this phase, how can we start doing these kinds of things that are going to energize you in all of the right ways? How can you limit lo fi people in your world temporarily and increase your exposure to more high vibe people?
How can you stop spinning and stressing so much about all the things that you cannot control? I don't have time to overthink. I have to keep moving, how can you set boundaries and say no more often? Another really important way you can create energy is to swap out these dead energy habits you have.
Think about the daily habits, rituals, just default mode, the way you operate in your day. What do you do almost every morning? What do you do first thing when you wake up? Because if it's check your phone and scroll and look at the news or like whatever that is your eyes are barely open. You might want to review that.
Are there any habits that could be negatively affecting your health, your productivity, your business success. And for each negative habit, rather than, you about judging yourself, but ask yourself, why do you do it? What comfort does that give you? What advantage does it give you? Like you'll be doing it for a reason, even like negative things, like over 18 gives you comfort being busy all the time makes you feel important.
Like we all do things, even harmful things for a reason, but ask yourself, why are you doing that thing? And how could you swap it out for something that's more empowering or healthier for you? That is ideally helping you to still meet the need. That the original bad habit was meeting in the first place or move past your need for that need.
And which existing habits could you habit stack with? So could you listen to a podcast while you shower? Could you brainstorm five content ideas every time you brush your teeth? Could you do a gratitude practice every time you drive to work? How can we link up with the things that are already taking your time and make those more energizing experiences?
How can you celebrate yourself more often? So many of us are these overachievers, absolute perfectionists who are so hard on ourselves and we're going and going and we're not there yet and so we're not celebrating. That is a recipe for disaster, right? How can you celebrate yourself more often and acknowledge yourself more often and do something to celebrate how far you've come, how incredible you are, and how well you're doing more often, because this is one of the reasons that.
I didn't let myself stop that first year because I wasn't there yet. I wasn't there yet. I wasn't there yet. And then when I got there, not only obviously did the goalpost shift, because you think that you'll be happy once you hit 10 K months and then you're like, Oh, look how much potential I have. I might as well go to 20 K.
You so often keep moving the goalposts. And you're so often focused on all that's left to do that. You don't even celebrate yourself. That was probably one of the biggest reasons I had a crash at the end of my first year of business. And I was like, I can't do this anymore. And that's when I really decided to.
invest in a team and change the way that I did things. But it was actually wild how I always felt anxious. Like it wasn't working when objectively there was so much to celebrate. Like I was working full time on my business. I was, I had matched my corporate salary. Are you serious? Like I had done so well, but I couldn't see it.
[00:27:06] Protecting and Directing Your Energy
In addition to creating your energy, how can you protect your energy? So many of us are over committing. How can you under commit? I want you to under commit. This is your new KPI. I want you to Google the wheel of life and just come up with one of them. I don't care which one it is, but you'll see it's a wheel of life and it's got all of the different areas of life.
It's got a romance, family, career, wealth, like whatever. I want you to ask yourself at each and every area of life. How could you temporarily under commit in this area? Have you put standards in place for the most overachieving version of you that isn't also trying to start a business? The version of you who's not yet running the six figure coaching practice.
Are there any rules that you've made for yourself in these areas that could temporarily be broken? For example, I have to spend every Sunday with my sister. Bobby's gonna be so sad if I stop hand making his little custom panda bear sushi rolls every day for lunch. Are you overachieving and overextending yourself in different areas?
And I'm not saying to cut everything. Of course not. Keep the things that are essential to filling your cup, but your sister who loves you very much will completely understand if you say, Hey, our Sunday hang sessions, can we please do monthly while I'm doing this thing. It's going to be worth it and roll them in the vision, right?
Or ask for help. Say no to more things. Look at your month ahead. Look at your social commitments. Is there anything that you've said yes to that you could already change to a no? I want to encourage you if it's not a hell yes, if you're not fizzing with excitement over it, see what that looks like for you.
What could you already say no to and continue saying no to more often and how could you identify one chunk of time that you carve out for you and you communicate and it's incredibly important. It's so important that it's like a health appointment or it's your best friends birthday lunch and you protect that time with the same energy.
As you would doing something important for someone you love. What do you need to put in place? So that becomes a non negotiable. Who can you ask for support? Who can you ask to hold you accountable? How can you hold yourself accountable and commit to your future? How can you make sure that your present day isn't stealing from your future?
And then when it comes to where you direct your energy. Are you spending your time and energy on the things that are actually making moves in your business? These are my CEO priorities, right? First, like I serve myself. This is a money making task. I have to make sure that I have slept well. I've had my time with loved ones.
I've been able to go to poll. You know what I mean? It's about having your, having the ways that you serve yourself, carve in time for the things that are important to you, carve and buffer time in your day. Okay. Don't work past a certain time, whatever it is, but you serve yourself. Okay. That is because if there's no, you, there's no business in terms of how I structure my time and where my energy goes and my focus goes, I serve my clients.
I serve my community and I sell my office. Okay. So my clients are my calls, my community, my voice notes. My community is my public facing community. So that's content creation, DMS, emails, looking after people who are following along freebie creation, I do stories and I sell my offers. I'm creating and I'm designing and I am speaking about, I'm teasing.
I'm showing the behind the scenes of I am selling my office. I'm sharing wins. I'm sharing social proof. I'm selling my office. Are you laser focused on the things that you do every day that are making a difference? Or are you overanalyzing your color scheme yet again in Canva? And then when it comes to how you work, are you trying to multitask this thing that's not even possible for human beings really?
Or are you doing deep work sessions, right? Distraction free, time blocked, chunks of time with one singular focus. Deep work sessions and sprints have saved me. Like I can log in the morning and say, Hey, cool. On Wednesdays and Fridays, I do one hour of a sprint in my empire era community. And I, for that particular one, set myself up for success.
I've got my water. I've got my headphones on. Cause I like to listen to music while I'm doing that. That's like dopamine stacking, and I go hard and I have an hour and I don't let anything or anyone distract me from that. And I get it done and it feels good and it's fun and it's energizing. Okay.
So how can you make sure that you're working and in a focused way in a way that you allow your brain the time it needs to enter into flow state and to have the kick and the high of being able to say tick done the reward, right? Because every decision you make takes energy. Every time you change tasks takes energy.
So focus and establish rituals and write down step by step procedures for everything that you do in your business. So you never have to think, you never have to decide, you just follow the systems and these frameworks over and over again, ditch the distractions, focus mode, airplane mode by your friends.
And just like real life sprinters, integrate downtime, integrate buffer time between my sprints. I have buffer because that's realistic. And if I have nothing to do in that buffer time, which is rare, but if I do, I decide how I spend that. I'm like, cool. Social media break. I'm just going to scroll. That's important too.
And what I will say is that with the very linguistic brain of human beings. Be aware of the excuses you're telling yourself and the language you're using. Now this could be a whole episode, but simple shifts, like instead of saying, I have to do this instead saying, I get to do this. Okay. So I have to work on my side hustle while all the family are watching TV right now.
What if you were telling yourself more, so how amazing that I live in this day and age where I get to work on something really impactful and important. And I get to do it cozy at home, family are happy watching TV, and I'm here right now and I'm getting to work on. This dream all of these things can help your approach to work another thing That's really important is knowing your own energy systems.
When do you thrive? What time of the day? Do you work best and for some people they may have peaks in mornings and afternoons For some people it might be much later or much earlier and you can Design your work around that. Okay. So you can do the transactional or administrative tasks that you dread in low energy moments because you're low energy tasks anyway, and they don't take a lot of, cognitive horsepower.
So you can just get them done and get them out of the way. Whereas you want those big. Big energy peaks to be in flow and working on massive, decisions, content, strategy, things like that. Okay. So what time of the day do you work best? And what are you going to fill that time with when it comes to like, when would be best for you to be doing deep work or analytical work or creative work or communicating with people or making decisions or simple admin?
And then of course, if you're doing all of this in the context of a nine to five job, I said it before and I'll say it again, don't let your present day steal from your future. Don't let this corporation who has hired you on an employment contract, it is simply a services agreement to steal from your ability to produce something that is so Purposeful and meaningful in the world and will pay you far more than they ever could.
And as much as you have your hangups about having to do a really good job and having to overwork and having to over deliver and having to exceed their expectations, just to give you a little bit of tough love, you're going to need to learn how to accept that for maybe the next six months while you're side hustling, you're giving it 80%.
You're getting your job done. There are no issues. There's a sense of integrity and quality there, but you are certainly not going above and beyond. You are certainly not overextending yourself. If you've made the decision that this job is not your forever, it's not your future, you have to step back.
Not the whole way, but slightly. I'm sure if you're listening to me right now, you're one of those people who have been told your whole life that your 80 percent is everyone else's 100 percent anyway. So why don't you try it out just for a wee while. No working through lunch. You could spend 30 minutes every day on your business at lunchtime.
Okay. It's about doing the minimum really well, but doing the minimum.
[00:36:45] Building an Aligned Business Model
And then of course, I couldn't close out this episode without reminding us all that the main thing you can do to protect your energy is really the sense of focus on making sure that you are building an aligned business model that you can leverage.
You're not. Chasing shiny objects and doing unnecessary work and adding, five different freebies or three different courses or anything like that, you are sticking to a simple, powerful business model with one message, one ideal client, one social media platform, and one offer. And you can absolutely leverage that time and energy investment.
To multiple six figures and beyond stop telling yourself that if you had five more freebies, you do better stop telling yourself that if you posted 20 more memes on your social media feed this month, that it would be worth it for your business. Become highly selective of where you spend your time and energy and make sure that your business model can become incredibly scalable and leveraged and profitable in its simplicity.
[00:38:04] Conclusion and Call to Action
So with all that said and done, I would love to have your feedback on the relationship you have with time with energy and where you're at right now. We can carry on the conversation over on the DMs at badass empires underscore and. Again, dismantle your belief system around what good looks like you're not doing business wrong if you work 40 hours a week and someone else works 20 hours a week, there will be compromises, sacrifices, pros and cons, completely different value systems and completely different dreams.
What we're talking about here is with the time and the energy that you have, making sure that you are so aligned and acting in accordance with what you know is going to get you what you want. Big, bold, badass future of yours. So go get it badass. I appreciate you spending time and energy with me here today, and I will see you in the very next episode.
If you haven't already, please do rate the podcast. It helps get this podcast out to many more badasses just like you and otherwise looking forward to hearing from you. Over on Instagram. See you next time. A shit ton of income, crazy impact, a business that you adore. Just by listening to this episode, you will one step closer to your very own badass empire.
Now I wanna hear from you, tag me in your stories or send me a DM over on Instagram so I can learn what resonated with you most. Owen, if you are the kind of badass who is willing to help us out big time and take a few minutes to rate and review this. Make sure you send us a screenshot of that review at helloatbadassempires.
com so I can send you a juicy freebie to say thank you. Until next time, keep showing up for your future and we'll keep smashing goals in the next episode.
