This week’s Misfit Entrepreneur is Sharon Grossman. Sharon Grossman is a psychologist, success coach, and keynote speaker who’s an expert in Emotional Intelligence. She’s also the author of the best-selling book, the 7E Solution to Burnout and hosts the podcast, Decode Your Burnout.

She’s helped hundreds of high performing entrepreneurs learn to be more product and avoid or even recover from burnout. Through her simple and effective methodology she teaches how to have a competitive advantage that wins in business, minimizes stress, and helps you experience life on your terms because winning is non-negotiable.

Burnout and taking on too much affects most entrepreneurs at some point in their journey and I’ve been looking for an expert to come on and help us in learning to recognize it, better manage it, and if possible avoid while still making it happen for our businesses – so I was excited to get Sharon on.

www.DrSharonGrossman.com

Sharon is a clinically trained psychologist who practiced therapy for 20 years. She noticed a common theme with clients being highly stressed and started to do more research on burnout which is chronic stress. She listened to her clients with a different ear recognizing burnout. And in sharing this with them, it would create “aha moments” helping them to understand their challenges.

When we understand what we are experienced in life, it helps to diagnose it to help us solve challenges in front of us.

At the 6 min mark, Sharon tells a story about when she was grad student and hearing a speaker talking about solo practitioners burning out in the field. When she go into her own business, she remembered the talk and vowed not to be a statistic, so she set up her business around the life she wanted to have.

“You have to think about what you need in order to sustain yourself.” It is about mindset and believing it is important enough to make it happen when it comes to stopping burnout.

How does someone psychologically break out of their bad habits and “comfort” with the state of burnout that they live in?

• James Clear said, “We build habits to solve the repeated problems we have in life. And what do you think the odds are that the solutions we come up with are the optimal ones?” It’s unlikely.
• We get into patterns and so much of what we do in the world is on auto-pilot from our subconscious, but it comes back to our fundamental believes.
• These believes are shaped by our early life experiences and influences.
• If you find yourself in a loop or stuck, you really have to get under the hod, understanding what you believe and making meaningful changes to it to help yourself.
• You then have to start showing up and aligning with the identity you want to have. Even if it is just a little bit a day.
• You must state who you are. If you want to exercise more – you need to state that “I am a person who exercises for 30 mins daily.” And let’s say you have a day where you don’t want to do or you don’t have 30 mins – you still do 10 mins if that is all you have because “you are someone who exercises daily.”
• When you keep showing up day after day, you are reinforcing the identity.

At the 15 min market, Sharon and I have a discussion on our conditioning and subconscious.

• A lot of people like clarity and don’t know what they want.
• Many don’t know who they are.
• It starts with defining who you want to be and building the identity and habits that support that.

What should we know about burnout? What are the signs? 

• Burnout is chronic stress.
• The main thing is mental and emotional exhaustion.
• It is distinct from depression. When you are burned out, if you take time away from the source burning you out – you won’t be exhausted anymore. This versus being depressed is that when depressed, the change doesn’t make the difference.
• People who experience burnout not only feel it at work, but at home. It can compound between running a business, family, household, etc.
• Initially, you will notice exhaustion and less motivation. Productivity can then go down and then this can affect your confidence. It can be a snowball effect. 
• If it goes on long enough, the body can start to break down as well.
• You must listen to the signs when your body is talking to you.

3 Different Burnout Profiles. What are they? (Sharon give great detail, so it is good to listen)

• Burnout shows up for different reasons.
• The first type is the thinker. These are people who are very much in their heads and tend to overthink things. Their brain tends to worry.
• The second type are the feelers. These are people that tend to be people pleasers, have a hard time setting boundaries and even experience guilt because their underlying belief is that they need to serve other people and it is selfish to focus on themselves. They give away too much and then become resentful that they aren’t getting enough back in return.
• The third type are the do’ers. The type A, workaholic, super over-achievers. They don’t have much time for themselves and are very driven with a strong work ethic. They overload themselves both at work and at home.
• People can be more than one of these, or even all 3 in some instances.

Once we realize which of the types we are, what do we do about it?

• Once you understand your type, create customized solutions to help you.
• As an example, Thinkers might need to focus on letting go of the need to control and the fear of failure. They also need to increase their self-compassion and trust their instincts to make decisions.
• Self-compassion is where we are kind to ourselves instead of beating ourselves up. It is treating ourselves better…like we treat others.
• For all types, it is good to level set and ground themselves.
• Feelers have to be careful to create more boundaries and learn to shift their believe about their own importance. Additionally, learning to managing their emotions
• Do’ers equate their value with their productivity. They will work until they physically can’t because of burnout. They need to slow down, take time off, and tuning into themselves to understand when they are going too far.

In the end, you must change what you believe to truly make meaningful changes to help yourself. You wrote the 7-E Solution to Burnout. What are the 7 E’s?

• Emotional Intelligence. This is the most important one. You must take one step back and learn to manage your mind. There is a link between your thoughts and emotions.
• Empowerment. This is about your personal power and controlling your energy drains. It is becoming aware on what you need to empower yourself.
• Engagement. Engagement goes down when we are burned out. This can also create brain fog and less productivity. You get dis-engaged. People can also be burned out due to boredom and not being challenged.
• Self-Efficacy. Your belief in your ability to do your work. It’s how you respond the results you get. When you get results you want, it boosts self-efficacy, but if we get over-confident or don’t get the results we want or expect, it can build up and cause issue.
• Energy. Learning to recharge and removing the stress. Getting the mental obstacles to self-care out of the way. We know what to do and need to action doing it.
• Effort. This is about working smarter not harder and making the most of your efforts.
• Enlightenment. Lightening your load by looking at your mindset, getting our of your own way, and using practices to help you center your mind to be your best.

 

Best Quote: You must change what you believe to truly make meaningful changes to help yourself.

 

Misfit 3:

1. For thinkers. Trust yourself. Our minds can derail us.
2. For feelers. Self-care is not selfish. You must take care of yourself to be your best for those you want to serve.
3. Emotional intelligence is the #1 skill people must focus if they have negativity in their mind, stress, and burnout. Learn to navigate your thoughts and build better habits.

 

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