FRIED. The Burnout Podcast

Learn from Frenchie Ferenczi about the importance of setting clear expectations and boundaries in entrepreneurship to avoid burnout. She shares her journey from hospitality to business growth strategist, emphasizing prioritizing mental health and customer experience. Discover tips on balancing personal priorities, managing boundaries, and navigating emotions for success.

Entrepreneurs face burnout due to workload, time pressure, and role conflicts. Lack of community and positive feedback contribute to burnout risk. Strategies include outsourcing, tracking work hours, and seeking support. Self-belief and communal experiences are vital for overcoming loneliness in the entrepreneurial journey.

Dr. Kristin Neff shares insights on self-compassion, setting boundaries, and reclaiming worth to overcome burnout. She discusses the balance between tender and fierce self-compassion, societal influences on gender roles, and the importance of interconnectedness. The conversation explores anger, intrinsic self-worth, and the value of keeping an open heart amidst life's challenges.

Are you constantly changing yourself to try and adjust to other people’s values? When you sacrifice your core values for other people, this will often lead to burnout.  Recovering from burnout requires you to set limits for your life that will keep you safe and healthy. By pushing perfectionism just to make other people happy, you risk burning out. Focus on your own core beliefs and do what you need to do to support yourself instead of constantly focusing on others. You have intrinsic value and deserve a life where you are protected from burnout.  Tune into this week’s #straightfromcait episode for a wrap-up of Season 4. Learn to stop criticizing coping mechanisms that your body created to protect you, stop sacrificing your core values for others, and build healthy boundaries to keep yourself safe.  Quotes • “I am here to celebrate the best parts of you and remind you how great you are whether you’re freshly burnt out and it is your first time here or you’re long time recovered and you’re just here to keep up.” (2:01-2:12) • “There is a platinum rule when you are working with a FRIED. Burnout Coach: there will be no demonizing of your behaviors, coping mechanisms, or habits. Yes, even the shitty ones. There are usually reasons that you behave in one way or another and most of the time behaviors that you engage in at some point had a positive intention or effect, or they were created without attention and intention as a result of someone else’s behavior when you were a child. What we do focus on is the fact that some of these behaviors leave you vulnerable to burnout, especially if you’re in shitty or toxic environments, whether those be work or home.” (2:20-3:14)  • “Where do you want to apply your perfectionism and where can you let it go because it’s based on someone else’s standards or values that don’t match your own?” (5:14-5:22)  • “That’s how we #endburnoutculture. When we all return to our core values over and over and over again.” (5:53-6:01) • “You are not broken. You have power. You have power to utilize your gifts in a way that is supportive and useful for you and others. The parts of you that you judge have gold nuggets in them. Burnout recovery does not require that you fundamentally change who you are, but rather become more of who you are within limits that you set for yourself to keep you safe, healthy, and protected.” (6:56-7:23)  • “You have so much to offer simply by existing. You just might need to allow the rules of the game to shift a little instead of constantly trying to change yourself.” (8:12-8:24) Links  https://caitdonovan.com https://friedtheburnoutpodcast.com XOXO, C If you know that it’s time to actually DO something about the burnout cycle you’ve been in for too long - book your free consult today: bit.ly/callcait https://friedtheburnoutpodcast.com/quiz Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“My experience with burnout personally is that it can be much more of a spectrum. It’s not an on/off switch. It’s an unfolding relationship to our energy,” explains Lopa van der Mersch, Founder and CEO of Rasa, the adaptogenic coffee alternatives revolutionizing people’s relationship to their energy. Lopa’s burnout came during a tumultuous stretch of time where she experienced a series of traumatic events that caused intense dysregulation of her central nervous system.  In 2015, Lopa left a cult, fell out with her family, had a health crisis, lost a loved one and had a baby by emergency C-section. Her time in the cult left her with Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and that combined with everything else impacted her central nervous system. She learned about the importance of healing the polyvagal nerve as a part of her trauma recovery process. Through healing her relationship with her central nervous system, she also healed from burnout. She recommends exercises that help heal the vagus nerve and incorporating adaptogens into your diet to help build your body’s defenses against burnout.  Tune into today’s episode of FRIED. The Burnout Podcast for a conversation with Lopa van der Mersch about the impact of trauma on burnout. Learn about the vagus nerve and how you can heal trauma to your central nervous system and gain valuable insight into the world of adaptogens.  Quotes • “You’ve got the healing from the Complex PTSD and that is going on with the rest of the stuff that would burn you out anyway. And then you’re like, ‘How the fuck am I supposed to do all of this?’” (3:21-4:30)  • “If you were to ask me my one word to describe society, it would be ‘inhumane’, because it’s just too much.” (5:05-5:13)  • “PTSD is often from a singular event. You get in a car accident, it can be wars and things like that. It’s a more isolated event. Complex PTSD is the result of trauma that happens, it can be micro traumas, it can be a whole spectrum of traumas. It gets into the wiring of your nervous system because it happens over such a consistent period of time. It causes this overarching alertness in your nervous system. It’s kind of always bracing for when that thing is going to happen again.” (22:30-23:25)  • “For a while I was like, ‘Maybe this is who I am now. Maybe I’ve just changed and I kind of suck.’ Not being super gentle with myself in those particular moments.” (29:06-29:22) • “What we need to really look at in our lives is what are those systems we’re participating in and taking for granted. Take that bigger stock and say, ‘Why can’t I have the life I want? Why couldn’t I have the support that I need?’” (50:12-51:13) • “You just have to do the next easiest thing and then celebrate that. That dopamine response will start to encourage you to keep going on that upward spiral.” (54:50-55:02) Links https://wearerasa.com/ Use the following codes for 15%! • USA: FRIED15 • Canada: FRIED15RASA https://www.instagram.com/wearerasa/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/lopa-van-der-mersch/ XOXO, C If you know that it’s time to actually DO something about the burnout cycle you’ve been in for too long - book your free consult today: bit.ly/callcait Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“I had attached my entire self-worth basically to being successful in this job that I hated,” shares Sally Clarke, Burnout Coach and Author of Protect Your Spark: How to Prevent Burnout and Live Authentically. Sally worked for many years as a finance lawyer until burnout changed the trajectory of her career. She now works as a coach helping clients through their own burnouts.  Sally’s burnout came when she was working 60 to 70 hour weeks as a finance lawyer for a prestigious global law firm. She knew she was unhappy with her career, but chose to ignore her body’s signals for another 2 years before the burnout finally became too much. She left her job, started showing herself compassion and putting her needs first, and became a coach. Sally’s burnout led her on a journey of self-awareness and growth that she is now grateful for today.  Tune into today’s episode of FRIED. The Burnout Podcast for a conversation with Sally Clarke about the importance of self-compassion and listening to your body. Tune in for tips on how to protect yourself against burnout and live a more authentic life.    Quotes • “If we’re gonna prevent burnout as individuals…what we can do is empower ourselves right now, today. Part of that and sort of the first aspect is what I call self compassion and that’s really driven by really tapping into a sense of intrinsic worth in ourselves. Not all of us have grown up with that. Not all of us have had that reinforced from an early stage. So for a lot of us, including myself, that was something that I have had to actively work on and that’s happened since I burnt out.” (14:19-14:59) • “We, by the very fact of our existence and our breathing and being here, have value. I think that’s a really important thing particularly for women. This can be a really tough one in the corporate environment and as entrepreneurs.” (15:18-15:37)  • “Burnout is not your fault. Burnout is caused by chronic workplace stress according to the World Health Organization. Burnout is not your fault. The most important thing I think that people who are in burnout or close to it need to know is to take that layer of shame and guilt off of themselves by expecting that they could have somehow outsmarted burnout.” (38:23-38:28)  • “I think wherever you are in the spectrum of burnout right now, if you are feeling question marks around ‘maybe I am in burnout, maybe I’m on my way towards one.’ I implore you to reach out and talk to someone, whether that is a trusted friend, a professional, your doctor. Someone that you trust. I implore you to just talk to someone and investigate what’s going on. Because we can only change our circumstances and our situations once we acknowledge the reality of what’s happening. That can be really scary, which is why talking to someone can be helpful because that person can act as a guide and a support and we all need that. Honestly, burnt out or not, we need that.” (48:17-49:03)    Links http://www.salcla.com https://www.instagram.com/salcla/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sallyclarkeevolve/ http://www.evolvelifecoaching.com   XOXO, C If you know that it’s time to actually DO something about the burnout cycle you’ve been in for too long - book your free consult today: bit.ly/callcait Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Prioritize your sleep and life will be a lot, lot better,” emphasizes Riley Jarvis, Founder, and Owner of The Sleep Consultant. Riley created The Sleep Consultant after realizing how much of an impact sleep had on his burnout recovery process. Through his company, he helps CEOs, entrepreneurs, and other high achievers optimize their performance with individualized scientific lab testing.  Riley’s burnout came when he was in the early stages of his career and began experiencing severe fatigue. When doctors discovered that he had Crohn's disease, Riley sought out functional medicine practitioners and tried every supplement he could to get his health back on track. By changing his diet, his sleep habits, and incorporating supplements into his life, Riley was able to get his Crohn’s symptoms into remission and break out of his burnout.  Tune into today’s episode of FRIED. The Burnout Podcast for a conversation with Riley Jarvis about the importance that sleep has on every aspect of your health. Listen for tips to improve your relationship with sleep and start prioritizing your health.    Quotes • “What if we could hack the sleep that you are getting? So let’s say you only want to sleep 6 hours, where those deep sleep cycles are so rejuvenating that you just wake up with an abundance of energy, compared to if you slept 8 or 9 hours. Because it’s about quality, not quantity.” (10:58-11:14) • “I started getting this network of clients. I wasn’t even doing any advertising or anything. I had a book of probably 15-20 clients and I noticed that I was really onto something. I noticed in the whole sleep space, a lot of people focused on exercise and diet, but sleep was kind of that missing pillar that nobody talked about. Then the idea just came to me. I could turn this into something!” (26:20-26:53)  • “Your cortisol levels hit their peak after about 90 minutes and we don’t want to have our first cup of coffee when it’s already at its peak. We wanna wait about 90 minutes when it starts to crest and then we’ll bring in the coffee. But what a lot of people do is right after they wake up, they’re already dehydrated, they go straight to coffee, which is a diuretic, making them more dehydrated.” (27:55-28:19) • “What you really want to do is listen to your body. Find what your body’s natural rhythm is. If you can afford to do it, not having an alarm clock whatsoever and testing this for a few weeks and seeing what time does your body naturally get tired, without exposing your eyes to blue light. You can wear blue light-blocking glasses. Seeing what time does it actually wake you up in the morning. One thing that’s kind of scary, you’ll start waking up at the same time every morning. It's all self-experimentation at the end of the day. I would say listen to your gut and your intuition.” (32:01-32:43)  • “Prioritize your sleep and life will be a lot, lot better.” (39:28-39:33)    Links www.thesleepconsultant.com www.instagram.com/officialthesleepconsultant https://www.linkedin.com/in/rileyjarvis/ https://www.friedtheburnoutpodcast.com/post/catherine-peters    XOXO, C   If you know that it’s time to actually DO something about the burnout cycle you’ve been in for too long - book your free consult today: bit.ly/callcait Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“You can get to the top of a particular mountain and feel success-empty,” explains Shelley Paxton, speaker and author of Soulbattical: A Corporate Rebel’s Guide to Finding Your Best Life. Shelley worked for many years as a marketing executive including a glamorous career as the Chief Marketing Officer of Harley-Davidson. However, while she may have looked extremely successful from the outside, inside she was experiencing full-fledged burnout.  Five and a half years into her sexy motorcycle-riding, black-leather-wearing career, Shelley began to have a recurring nightmare that led her on a journey of meditation and soul-searching. After months of self-exploration, she realized that this dream was telling her that she was completely disconnected from her true self. She had aligned her idea of success with checking boxes on a list that didn’t actually make her feel fulfilled. By leaving her marketing career behind and learning how to slow down and be present, Shelley was able to discover real success and leave her burnout behind.  Tune into today’s episode of FRIED. The Burnout Podcast for a conversation with Shelley Paxton about the meaning of success, asking for help, and connecting with your soul. Hear tips from Shelley on how to slow down and make time for yourself, so you can move from success-empty to success-FULL.   Quotes • “In my quest to be this badass, trying to be all things to all people, all my boundaries fell. I was bending over backwards and people-pleasing, and I realized this has been a pattern in my life.” (05:08-05:21) • “Ultimately this thing called ‘success’ was somebody else’s definition of it. I was ticking all the boxes of traditional success when the majority of those – money and titles and accolades and material things – wasn’t feeding me inside and wasn’t truly connecting with me. You can get to the top of a particular mountain and feel success-empty.” (06:57-07:57) • “You’re not alone. We’re in this together. More of us feel this way than I ever knew five years ago when I walked away from Harley. I truly thought I was alone.” (10:54-11:05) • “If I continue living as I am now, for the next three, five, ten years or more, am I moving toward who I want to become or further away?” (18:15-18:28) • “If you feel like this when you’re 50, you’re gonna have a short, miserable life. You’re gonna be one of those people who slugs it through until retirement and dies on the day after she retires. Or you’re not gonna make it that far. Is this the life you really want to be living? Do you want to feel this way? What I’ve realized is that success is a feeling. It’s not a checklist.” (18:41-19:14) • “What if the most iconic brand I could ever represent is Shelley Paxton?” (19:42-19:48) • “The value of being present is noticing, getting curious. You see the little signs that the universe has been giving you along the way. It sounds cheesy and maybe it is cheesy, but I’ve come to love it…When I’m fully present, I am noticing what’s being given to me at every moment and I am fully connected to myself and the people that I’m with.” (27:15-27:52) • “Boundaries over busyness. Boundaries over burnout…resentment is really a sign of a violated boundary.” (38:39-38:50) • “Success feels like I go to bed tired with a smile on my face. I go to bed tired with the knowledge that I don’t feel empty, I feel full. I feel tired because I left it all on the field today. I showed up for this conversation, for my people, and for myself. That feels so incredible.” (42:16-42:44)   Links https://soulbbatical.com/  https://www.instagram.com/soulbbatical/  https://www.linkedin.com/in/shelley-paxton-759163/    XOXO, C If you know that it’s time to actually DO something about the burnout cycle you’ve been in for too long - book your free consult today: bit.ly/callcait Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are you spiritually bypassing your own emotions? It’s one thing when other people force toxic positivity on us, but another thing entirely when we do it to ourselves. Trying to only focus on your own mindset and ignoring the external negative factors impacting you is a form of false positivity.  Burnout requires more than just a change in mindset. Instead, you also need to be honest with yourself about what external factors need to change in order to reduce your stress. You can’t “gratitude” your way out of burnout while doing nothing to change the situation that is causing the burnout in the first place.  Tune into this week’s #straightfromcait episode for a conversation about the negative effects of our own attempts to positive think our way out of burnout. Learn how to begin being more honest with yourself about your needs and take one small step toward changing some of the external factors contributing to your burnout.    Quotes • “When you’re using spiritual ideas or positive thinking to avoid facing your shit, emotional or otherwise, you’re not in the long run doing yourself any favors.” (02:31-02:42)  • “We all know that when other people spread this sort of false positivity or spiritual bypassing on us, it can be really hurtful. For instance, when you’re told that your loved one is ‘in a better place’ just after they’ve died, it is another person’s way of spiritually bypassing your emotions. They are spiritually bypassing your emotions because your emotions are making them uncomfortable…Here’s the kicker. As much as we are bothered by people doing this to us, we do it to ourselves.” (02:56-03:47) • “So often in the burnout world, people tell me that they just need to change their mindsets and then their jobs won’t be so bad. Meanwhile they’re being exploited, bullied, and emotionally abused. Thinking that you can only work on the internal stuff and avoid working on the external stuff is spiritually bypassing at its finest. Thinking that you can gratitude your way out of burnout in a job that is killing you is false positivity. Thinking that you can just really focus on the good parts of your relationship with a narcissist isn’t actually going to make that relationship any better or safer for you.” (03:56-04:35)  • “Burnout recovery requires a level of honesty that a lot of us avoid and will also likely require as many external changes as internal shifts…truth, honesty, candor, frankness. These will help you build a life where positivity is more natural, is actually a part of things in your life without you having to force it, to search for it constantly, and to fake it when you don’t feel like it because somebody else says that you’re supposed to.” (05:59-06:48)   Links  https://facebook.com/groups/friedtheburnoutpodcast   XOXO, C   If you know that it’s time to actually DO something about the burnout cycle you’ve been in for too long - book your free consult today: bit.ly/callcait   Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Part of love and care is knowing when you need to bring in help. Even if you’re not providing the direct care, by getting appropriate care, adequate care, supervised care, you are providing care,” emphasizes Michelle Melendez, a licensed clinical social worker with over 20 years of experience. Michelle’s caregiving journey began 13 years ago when her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. At her private practice, she now specializes in supporting clients as they work through burnout and caregiver stress to discover true self-care. In the midst of caring for her mother, Michelle began forgetting to take care of herself. This experience taught her that seeking out help is not a sign of failure, but rather a crucial component of caring for the ones you love. While caregivers often feel a sense of guilt when they delegate some of their responsibilities, failing to do so leaves the door wide open for burnout. By carving out time for self-care and realizing she didn’t have to do everything alone, Michelle was able to break out of her burnout and become an even better caregiver to her mother.  Tune into today’s episode of FRIED. The Burnout Podcast for a conversation with Michelle Melendez about self-care, guilt and caregiving. Hear tips that Michelle has learned through caring for her mother and how she was able to overcome her burnout.    Quotes • “This is a personal decision that you have to make. It’s not about what other people tell you to do, because you’re the one who has to live with this. This is not easy. It’s going to change your life… in every way. You don’t have to do this… You may not be the best candidate for the job, even if you have a good relationship. You don’t have to provide the care. Part of caregiving isn’t always providing the care directly…also care is, I can’t do those things but I’m going to help you get services or someone who can help you.” (11:47-12:37)  • “The idea of ‘well no one could do it as good as me.’..If you keep holding onto that idea that only you could do it right, nobody else can, then that’s just going to lead to your demise.” (25:53-26:15) • “Part of love and care is knowing when you need to bring in help. Even if you’re not providing the direct care, by getting appropriate care, adequate care, supervised care, you are providing care. Many people think, ‘If I’m not completely immersed in it 24/7 then I’m not being a good caregiver.’ No. That’s not even a realistic expectation.” (27:00-27:30) • “I’ve been saying goodbye for 13 years. Mom is here, but not really? So dealing with that is such a complicated experience and one in which again, it’s only over time that you can kind of adapt to it. I think for me, one of the hardest things…my mom was not only my mother, she was also like my best friend…When Alzheimer’s came, I lost all these roles in my mother. I lost mom, I lost my good friend, I lost a mentor…I got to a place in my experience and said to myself, ‘Michelle you didn’t lose your relationship with your mom. It’s just redefined now. It’s different.’ We still have that relationship, but it’s just different now… In terms of grieving that, there is no formula…It hurts…For me accepting that sure, things have changed. But it’s just different now. She still is my mom. She still is my best friend. She still is that person in my life that I look up to the most.” (34:07-36:29) • “Self-care is a safety measure because it gives you the tolerance to deal with those difficult moments.” (44:24-44:35)   Links Michelle's Email: selfcaresolutionsnow@gmail.com  Alzheimer's Association: https://www.alz.org/  National Alliance for Caregiving: https://www.caregiving.org/   XOXO, C If you know that it’s time to actually DO something about the burnout cycle you’ve been in for too long - book your free consult today: bit.ly/callcait Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices