July 8, 2025 • 20 mins
Burnout doesn’t care how talented or dedicated you are, and for many leaders, it creeps in quietly.
In this Leadership Unfiltered episode, I share the raw truth of leading while completely drained — emotionally, physically, and mentally. I reached a breaking point where I resigned without a safety net and cried myself to sleep under the weight of leading a team while trying to keep it together at home.
You’ll walk away with five powerful strategies to help you lead with clarity without sacrificing your well-being, including how to define your non-negotiables, adjust your priorities across life seasons, and build boundaries that protect both your peace and your team’s performance.
🎯 If you’re holding it together on the outside but falling apart on the inside — this is for you. This isn’t theory. It’s a roadmap built from burnout recovery, created to help you lead with intention even in high-pressure seasons.
💬 Text or email your questions for the upcoming Ask Me Anything (AMA) episode.
🔗 Ready to lead without burning out? Visit The Leadership Shift Coaching
Join me online at The Leadership Collab on July 24th at 6 PM ET for a candid conversation on how to delegate with more clarity and confidence.
We’re talking real strategies - not theory - for getting out of the day-to-day and empowering your team to step up.
👉🏾 Save your seat here: https://go.cignalpartners.com/collab
This event is free!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello and welcome to another episode of Leveraging
Operations and Leadership.
This is the podcast where wehelp leaders to build
high-performing teams bybridging the gap between
leadership development andoperational excellence.
This week, I'm excited tointroduce a new segment of the
(00:21):
podcast that I have recentlycreated, and this is the first
episode.
The segment is calledLeadership Unfiltered, and this
is where I am going to pull backthe curtains and share
unpolished, real, rawinformation about leading a team
(00:44):
and what that looks like, ormanagement in general.
So this is no filters, no fluff, just moments that most leaders
don't talk about, but most ofus experience and if you haven't
, you probably will this episodeI want to talk about leading
(01:06):
while on empty, so leading froma place of overwhelmed, stress
and burnout.
This is something that I haveexperienced more than once,
unfortunately.
So you know, I have figured outand I have learned some things
(01:26):
that work and don't work, andI'm definitely going to share
those with you within thisepisode.
But I want you to know, firstof all, if this is where you're
leading from, then number oneyou're not alone.
There's so many leaders thatare leading from a place of
overwhelm, and here's what Irealize is is that we don't have
(01:50):
to lead that way.
A lot of this comes from, youknow, a lot of outside pressures
or different beliefs that wehave, but what I've learned over
time is is that there's waysthat we could, we could lead
without it leading us directlyto burnout.
Now let me say this we all gothrough seasons in life, in
(02:12):
leadership, in our professionallife, right?
So there may be times whereyou're working and you're trying
to get that promotion and itmay look differently, you know,
than other times.
So I definitely want toacknowledge that.
But I want you to understandthat if you do not really look
(02:35):
and listen to your body and thewarning signs, you define
yourself in a really toughsituation, which is what
happened to me.
So I was working on this job.
I had got promoted up throughthe ranks and I thought it was
all great, they promoted us orthey promoted me.
I didn't have any formalizedtraining or anything like that.
(02:57):
I was just put in this role andI was expected to succeed and I
didn't know a lot, right.
So I was in my early 20s.
I worked the same way.
I worked to get the position ashard as I worked.
I continued to work that waywhen I was in this leadership
role and what ended up happeningis is that I got so stressed
(03:22):
and so burnt out.
I was in a place where everynight, I would literally come
home and cry myself to sleep.
That's how bad it was.
I had this job and in my head,all I was thinking about is that
I have to take care of myfamily.
You know, because, let's faceit, bills are real, like
(03:47):
responsibilities are real.
We have to acknowledge that.
So in my head I was like Ican't.
You know what I mean.
I never thought about whathappens if, god forbid,
something happens to me and Ican't continue to work.
I didn't think about that flipside.
I just thought about I neededto continue to work.
I didn't think about that flipside, I just thought about I
needed to continue to work, Ineeded to continue to show up.
I didn't think about the factthat when I was working all
(04:09):
those hours before I was hourlyand now on salary None of that
came into play.
All I thought about was Ineeded to take care of my family
and this is how I was doing it.
So, literally, I would stressmyself out at work.
I would go pick up the kids.
I have two girls.
I would pick up the kids, youknow, go home and then start
that second part of my life.
(04:33):
And kids don't reallyunderstand, right.
All they know is mom has beengone all day.
I haven't seen her.
I need some me time.
Homework still got to get done.
They got to get their timewhere they're talking.
You still got to cook.
All the things have to get done.
And by the time I showered andgot ready for the next day, I
(04:54):
got into bed.
I was exhausted and the onlything I could do was cry Like I
was so stressed and miserable.
And this went on for weeks.
I kept, you know?
Praying like God, what do I do?
Like?
Because in my head I was like Icannot quit this job.
And one day I literally wentinto work and I got triggered.
(05:20):
Because you know, when you'restressed and overwhelmed now,
you're easily triggered, right?
So you know, when you'restressed and overwhelmed now,
you're easily triggered, right?
So you know.
We were called into a meetingand they were giving us
additional responsibilities.
Now, me and my team werealready working all of these
hours and they were giving usadditional responsibilities and
when I asked about staffing,they were saying that they
(05:41):
didn't have staffing at the timeand all of these things, and I
just immediately was triggered.
So I shut down in the meeting.
I had no more questions.
I went back to my desk, I typedup my resignation letter and
sent it off, literally like justsent it off.
I had no job, my financesweren't in a place where I could
(06:03):
just quit my job, so it wasn'tthat type of you know situation.
But I had allowed myself to getto that point where I could.
I was beyond capacity, it wasjust overflowing.
And then, you know, I gave twoweeks.
Two weeks went by.
They came back to me you wantto change it, you want more
money, you want more, you knowwhatever?
Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
(06:23):
Because for me all I wanted wasto be out.
And when I quit and I went homefor the next week and a half I
did nothing.
I would literally get up, takethe kids to school, come back,
get in the bed and then, rightbefore it was time for me to
(06:45):
pick them up, I would get dinnerstarted and then I would go
pick them up and then come homeand then we just started the
rest of the day.
But I was, I was miserable, Iwas stressed and I was depressed
.
I could see warning signs, Icould see things that maybe I
could have done differently, butI was, I was done.
I was, I was done.
(07:08):
And I remember when I, one day,I finally decided I'm going to
go to Bars and Nobles so it hadbeen a week and a half I was
like you know what I'm justgonna, I'm gonna get up, I want
to go to Bars and Nobles and goto Bars and Nobles, and On the
Scene it's this book by WayneDyer and the Power of Intention,
and I don't know.
(07:29):
It just spoke to me or whatever.
So I pick it up and I startedreading it and within the book,
he started talking about thesource, about being connected to
the source.
Now, for me, the source is God,we don't know what.
For me, the source is God.
So he talked about, you know,being connected directly to the
source.
And when you are directlyrelated to the source, it talked
(07:52):
about this flow.
You know that happens, that'sconsistent.
And so, you know, I startedreading a book and, probably
like two days later, someonethat I used to work with before,
a director that I used to workwith before, she was like hey,
girl, I heard you, you know youdon't have no job, what you
doing, and I was like nothing.
She was like nothing.
(08:12):
I was like, yeah, I'm doingnothing.
You know, I'm just At thisstage.
You know, we talked a littlebit.
I was like I'm just trying torecoup or whatever, and she
asked me if I was interested ina contract position.
I ended up taking it and theneventually, once the contract
ended, I, you know I stayed onat that organization.
But you know, I said all of thatto say this is, I allowed
(08:36):
myself to get to a state becauseI didn't recognize the signs.
I didn't know how to to combatsigns.
I didn't know how to combatthat.
I didn't know how to workthrough it.
You know what I mean.
I didn't know a lot of thethings that I know now.
So I want to share with you,because I know I'm not the only
one, and hopefully we can get tobefore you actually, you know,
(08:58):
resign or you know whatever,because it did put me in a place
of stress, but it was adifferent type of stress.
And then, after reading thebook and getting the call, I was
like, oh, it kind of opened myeyes in a different way, but
we're going to talk about thatbecause that is an interesting
(09:20):
concept that I still believe into this day.
But so I want to share with youfive things that have helped me
and when I look back from thefirst time I experienced burnout
to the second time that Iexperienced burnout, when I put
those things together and thesecond time wasn't as extreme,
(09:42):
to be completely transparent, itjust wasn't.
I didn't get to the point whereI just turned in my resignation
and didn't have a job.
It wasn't like that.
So it was more control, becauseI put some things in place and
stuff like that.
But I want to share with youfive things that I want to
encourage you to do if you areleading from a place of empty or
you're feeling overwhelmed,stressed and burdened.
(10:04):
So these are some things thatwork for me.
The very first thing is giveyourself permission to pause.
Part of the thing that causedme stress and overwhelm is I was
in this state of always beingon, even when I went on vacation
, even when I took days off.
You know, I had a cell phone, Ihad a laptop.
I was still connected to thejob.
(10:24):
I gave myself no time to pause,even in the evenings, when I
was at home with the kids, I wasstill thinking about work.
So you definitely want to figureout how to give yourself
permission to pause and startwith.
You know, if it's hard for youto say I'm going to take a week
off and I'm not answering anyemails and all of that stuff
(10:45):
like that, if that is difficultfor you because it was for me in
the beginning I started doingshort breaks, so you know I take
half a day off, I'm notanswering the phone, I'm not
responding to any messages andduring that time for me it was a
time of reflection.
(11:05):
So I need to get to a placewhere I'm not thinking about the
job, I'm thinking about me andwhat it is that I want and need,
even if, like I said, it startswith being micropositive,
that's okay.
But you need to get to a pointwhere you have times where you
unplug and then eventually youcan start the place where you
can take like a week vacation orwhat have you, and listen, if
you say I'm going to give myselfthe afternoon off and you slip
(11:28):
and you pick up a phone orwhatever, give yourself grace,
because you're just startingthis process and not only do you
have to get accustomed to it,but the people have to get
accustomed to it, because youhave trained people that it is
okay to call you and text youand email you.
We have to think about that aswell.
(11:49):
So, number one, give yourselfpermission to pause.
The second one is understandingyour non-negotiables.
This comes back to what yourprinciples are, and I talk about
this a lot in my lead opsprogram.
This is the very first thingthat we do.
We need to understand what yourprinciples are, because your
principles is what guides you,and then your non-negotiables is
(12:14):
actually how you implement yourprinciples.
One of my principles is familyfirst.
Family is at the top of thelist for me, and it's a
non-negotiable, which means thatI need to dictate what that
looks like, and I didn't do agood job at that.
So when I was an hourlyemployee and here's where I want
(12:35):
to talk to you about seasonswhen I was an hourly employee
and I would get paid time and ahalf to show up all of those
hours, that was me taking careof my family, because
financially, we needed a placeto stay, we needed food to eat,
and this is what helped me doall of those things for my
(12:56):
family to keep us goingfinancially.
When I moved to a leadershiprole and now I am salary and I'm
still working all of thesehours what hit me was one day I
sat there and I calculated whatmy hourly rate.
So I calculated on average whatI was working every week, what
I was making, and I calculatedmy average rate and realized
(13:20):
really quickly that I made lessthan the people that reported to
me.
Really quick.
And this is real talk, right,we're unscripted.
This is, it is what it is, andI'm like so what, what are the
sacrifices for?
Before it was finances.
I needed to take care of myfamily.
Now, right now, what is it?
So, you know, I had to reversebecause I was in a different
(13:44):
season.
Things look a little different.
So for me, what I started to dois be more observant.
I'm like, how is everybody elsehandling this?
And what I noticed was peopleweren't working the hours that I
was working, and I'm talkingabout not just, you know, some
of the people that were on thesame level.
I'm talking about seniormanagement because at the time I
(14:05):
was a manager, so I'm talkingabout senior leadership and
executive management.
So I noticed that the ones thathad younger kids, they had no
problems cutting out early,leaving at a decent time, not
working late every day, andthings like that.
Or the ones that did work late,they were males and they had a
(14:25):
wife at home that was takingcare of the kids.
Or they had grown kids thatweren't in the home, so they
were off to college or you know,living their life, but they
didn't have to tend to youngerkids.
They were at a different stagein their life which allowed them
to pour into the organizationin that way.
In terms of time, I was not, wewere equal, we weren't the same.
(14:48):
And I came to the conclusionwas that I had to have some
non-negotiables.
So what I did was I set someparameters in place.
Both of my kids were active insports.
I was like evening game and itis home, I'm going.
So I started to carve out somethings where I said, no, this is
(15:10):
a non-negotiable, I have to beout of here by whatever time
five o'clock 530, because I havea commitment and it started
with like that.
But you have to know what yourprinciples are that guide you,
and then establish what thosenon-negotiables are.
And over time, even though myprinciples haven't changed right
, my non-negotiables havechanged because the kids are not
(15:32):
kids anymore, they're adults.
So that's number two.
First thing is permission topause.
Second thing is non-negotiables.
The second thing is prioritieswhat is important to you, what's
a priority for you?
And I'm talking about in yourprofessional life as well as in
your personal life.
You have to understand whatyour priorities are.
(15:53):
Is it important to you to climbthe corporate ladder?
Is that something that is apriority to you or not?
Is it a priority for you to goback to school?
Like?
You have to really think aboutwhat those things are, because
what we're doing is we arebuilding your leadership
foundation.
So here is where I am right now.
(16:15):
So you need to assess what yourpriorities are.
There was a time in my careerwhere I decided that I wanted to
go back and get my degree right, because I didn't get my degree
right out of high school.
I got married, had kids and youknow, and I went back to school
later on in life.
So there was a time, rightright after when I quit, I did
(16:36):
the contracting and then theyhad a position.
They had two positions.
One was a management position,one was a a position.
They had two positions.
One was a management position,one was a coordinator position.
I took the coordinator positionbecause at that time I wanted
to go back to school.
The salary was almost the sameas what I was making as a
manager.
So I was like, yeah, no, I'mgoing to.
(16:58):
I'm going to take this becauseit's going to allow me the
flexibility where I know I'mgoing to be out of here.
You have to decide what yourpriorities are.
What are your boundaries?
When I talk about taking thephone home and the laptop home,
we have to establish boundariesand we teach people how to treat
us.
If every time somebody sends anemail, I'm on there and I'm
(17:20):
responding, now I'm trainingthem that I'm always on.
Think about what that lookslike and what those boundaries
are going to be, and startestablishing them and having
conversations.
This is not a negative thing.
This is something that's goodfor everybody, because when you
establish those boundaries andyou communicate them, everybody
we are in alignment.
(17:41):
We already know.
You know you send me an emailseven o'clock at night.
You're not going to get aresponse back to the next day,
and one of the things that Iwould do is, even if I was
online, I would set the responseto go out to the next morning,
because if they see a responsecoming through in the evening,
I'm just undone everything.
Establish what your boundariesare going to be when you're on
(18:04):
vacation.
You should be able to be onvacation If you have a team.
This is a part of building thathigh-performing team that I talk
about in Lead Ops.
Or, if you want to doindividual coaching, the
leadership shift, because thisis shifting your mindset, where
I don't have to do all of thethings, I have a team.
So number four is boundaries.
(18:26):
The fifth thing is delegation.
Since we're already talkingabout a team, the fifth thing is
delegation.
If you have a team, you need tobe able to delegate to that team
.
This may mean that if you feelthat if you don't have complete
trust in your team when it comesto certain things, that's where
you start.
How do I start building thattrust in my team, where I can
(18:50):
delegate things to them and Ican feel good about it?
We're helping them to eitherdevelop their skills, making
sure that they're capable,making sure that you communicate
, you know expectations and allof that stuff that we talk about
in lead ops training.
So those are my five thingsthat I want to share with you.
The number one is permission topause.
(19:11):
The second one isnon-negotiables, which are based
off your principles.
Number three is priorities,four is boundaries and number
five is delegation.
Okay, so these are the thingsthat I would start implementing
if you are feeling empty,overwhelmed and stressed.
(19:32):
I want to thank you so much forlistening and if this podcast
has helped you in any way, hasresonated with you, I would love
it if you could give me afive-star review and leave me a
note.
I would love it if you couldgive me a five-star review and
leave me a note.
Also, I'm going to be doing aAsk Me Anything segment, so you
can text me your questions oryou can email me any questions
(19:53):
that you want answered on thatepisode of the podcast.
Thank you so much again forlistening and keep leading
forward.
Hello and welcome to another episode of Leveraging
Operations and Leadership.
This is the podcast where wehelp leaders to build
high-performing teams bybridging the gap between
leadership development andoperational excellence.
This week, I'm excited tointroduce a new segment of the
(00:21):
podcast that I have recentlycreated, and this is the first
episode.
The segment is calledLeadership Unfiltered, and this
is where I am going to pull backthe curtains and share
unpolished, real, rawinformation about leading a team
(00:44):
and what that looks like, ormanagement in general.
So this is no filters, no fluff, just moments that most leaders
don't talk about, but most ofus experience and if you haven't
, you probably will this episodeI want to talk about leading
(01:06):
while on empty, so leading froma place of overwhelmed, stress
and burnout.
This is something that I haveexperienced more than once,
unfortunately.
So you know, I have figured outand I have learned some things
(01:26):
that work and don't work, andI'm definitely going to share
those with you within thisepisode.
But I want you to know, firstof all, if this is where you're
leading from, then number oneyou're not alone.
There's so many leaders thatare leading from a place of
overwhelm, and here's what Irealize is is that we don't have
(01:50):
to lead that way.
A lot of this comes from, youknow, a lot of outside pressures
or different beliefs that wehave, but what I've learned over
time is is that there's waysthat we could, we could lead
without it leading us directlyto burnout.
Now let me say this we all gothrough seasons in life, in
(02:12):
leadership, in our professionallife, right?
So there may be times whereyou're working and you're trying
to get that promotion and itmay look differently, you know,
than other times.
So I definitely want toacknowledge that.
But I want you to understandthat if you do not really look
(02:35):
and listen to your body and thewarning signs, you define
yourself in a really toughsituation, which is what
happened to me.
So I was working on this job.
I had got promoted up throughthe ranks and I thought it was
all great, they promoted us orthey promoted me.
I didn't have any formalizedtraining or anything like that.
(02:57):
I was just put in this role andI was expected to succeed and I
didn't know a lot, right.
So I was in my early 20s.
I worked the same way.
I worked to get the position ashard as I worked.
I continued to work that waywhen I was in this leadership
role and what ended up happeningis is that I got so stressed
(03:22):
and so burnt out.
I was in a place where everynight, I would literally come
home and cry myself to sleep.
That's how bad it was.
I had this job and in my head,all I was thinking about is that
I have to take care of myfamily.
You know, because, let's faceit, bills are real, like
(03:47):
responsibilities are real.
We have to acknowledge that.
So in my head I was like Ican't.
You know what I mean.
I never thought about whathappens if, god forbid,
something happens to me and Ican't continue to work.
I didn't think about that flipside.
I just thought about I neededto continue to work.
I didn't think about that flipside, I just thought about I
needed to continue to work, Ineeded to continue to show up.
I didn't think about the factthat when I was working all
(04:09):
those hours before I was hourlyand now on salary None of that
came into play.
All I thought about was Ineeded to take care of my family
and this is how I was doing it.
So, literally, I would stressmyself out at work.
I would go pick up the kids.
I have two girls.
I would pick up the kids, youknow, go home and then start
that second part of my life.
(04:33):
And kids don't reallyunderstand, right.
All they know is mom has beengone all day.
I haven't seen her.
I need some me time.
Homework still got to get done.
They got to get their timewhere they're talking.
You still got to cook.
All the things have to get done.
And by the time I showered andgot ready for the next day, I
(04:54):
got into bed.
I was exhausted and the onlything I could do was cry Like I
was so stressed and miserable.
And this went on for weeks.
I kept, you know?
Praying like God, what do I do?
Like?
Because in my head I was like Icannot quit this job.
And one day I literally wentinto work and I got triggered.
(05:20):
Because you know, when you'restressed and overwhelmed now,
you're easily triggered, right?
So you know, when you'restressed and overwhelmed now,
you're easily triggered, right?
So you know.
We were called into a meetingand they were giving us
additional responsibilities.
Now, me and my team werealready working all of these
hours and they were giving usadditional responsibilities and
when I asked about staffing,they were saying that they
(05:41):
didn't have staffing at the timeand all of these things, and I
just immediately was triggered.
So I shut down in the meeting.
I had no more questions.
I went back to my desk, I typedup my resignation letter and
sent it off, literally like justsent it off.
I had no job, my financesweren't in a place where I could
(06:03):
just quit my job, so it wasn'tthat type of you know situation.
But I had allowed myself to getto that point where I could.
I was beyond capacity, it wasjust overflowing.
And then, you know, I gave twoweeks.
Two weeks went by.
They came back to me you wantto change it, you want more
money, you want more, you knowwhatever?
Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
(06:23):
Because for me all I wanted wasto be out.
And when I quit and I went homefor the next week and a half I
did nothing.
I would literally get up, takethe kids to school, come back,
get in the bed and then, rightbefore it was time for me to
(06:45):
pick them up, I would get dinnerstarted and then I would go
pick them up and then come homeand then we just started the
rest of the day.
But I was, I was miserable, Iwas stressed and I was depressed
.
I could see warning signs, Icould see things that maybe I
could have done differently, butI was, I was done.
I was, I was done.
(07:08):
And I remember when I, one day,I finally decided I'm going to
go to Bars and Nobles so it hadbeen a week and a half I was
like you know what I'm justgonna, I'm gonna get up, I want
to go to Bars and Nobles and goto Bars and Nobles, and On the
Scene it's this book by WayneDyer and the Power of Intention,
and I don't know.
(07:29):
It just spoke to me or whatever.
So I pick it up and I startedreading it and within the book,
he started talking about thesource, about being connected to
the source.
Now, for me, the source is God,we don't know what.
For me, the source is God.
So he talked about, you know,being connected directly to the
source.
And when you are directlyrelated to the source, it talked
(07:52):
about this flow.
You know that happens, that'sconsistent.
And so, you know, I startedreading a book and, probably
like two days later, someonethat I used to work with before,
a director that I used to workwith before, she was like hey,
girl, I heard you, you know youdon't have no job, what you
doing, and I was like nothing.
She was like nothing.
(08:12):
I was like, yeah, I'm doingnothing.
You know, I'm just At thisstage.
You know, we talked a littlebit.
I was like I'm just trying torecoup or whatever, and she
asked me if I was interested ina contract position.
I ended up taking it and theneventually, once the contract
ended, I, you know I stayed onat that organization.
But you know, I said all of thatto say this is, I allowed
(08:36):
myself to get to a state becauseI didn't recognize the signs.
I didn't know how to to combatsigns.
I didn't know how to combatthat.
I didn't know how to workthrough it.
You know what I mean.
I didn't know a lot of thethings that I know now.
So I want to share with you,because I know I'm not the only
one, and hopefully we can get tobefore you actually, you know,
(08:58):
resign or you know whatever,because it did put me in a place
of stress, but it was adifferent type of stress.
And then, after reading thebook and getting the call, I was
like, oh, it kind of opened myeyes in a different way, but
we're going to talk about thatbecause that is an interesting
(09:20):
concept that I still believe into this day.
But so I want to share with youfive things that have helped me
and when I look back from thefirst time I experienced burnout
to the second time that Iexperienced burnout, when I put
those things together and thesecond time wasn't as extreme,
(09:42):
to be completely transparent, itjust wasn't.
I didn't get to the point whereI just turned in my resignation
and didn't have a job.
It wasn't like that.
So it was more control, becauseI put some things in place and
stuff like that.
But I want to share with youfive things that I want to
encourage you to do if you areleading from a place of empty or
you're feeling overwhelmed,stressed and burdened.
(10:04):
So these are some things thatwork for me.
The very first thing is giveyourself permission to pause.
Part of the thing that causedme stress and overwhelm is I was
in this state of always beingon, even when I went on vacation
, even when I took days off.
You know, I had a cell phone, Ihad a laptop.
I was still connected to thejob.
(10:24):
I gave myself no time to pause,even in the evenings, when I
was at home with the kids, I wasstill thinking about work.
So you definitely want to figureout how to give yourself
permission to pause and startwith.
You know, if it's hard for youto say I'm going to take a week
off and I'm not answering anyemails and all of that stuff
(10:45):
like that, if that is difficultfor you because it was for me in
the beginning I started doingshort breaks, so you know I take
half a day off, I'm notanswering the phone, I'm not
responding to any messages andduring that time for me it was a
time of reflection.
(11:05):
So I need to get to a placewhere I'm not thinking about the
job, I'm thinking about me andwhat it is that I want and need,
even if, like I said, it startswith being micropositive,
that's okay.
But you need to get to a pointwhere you have times where you
unplug and then eventually youcan start the place where you
can take like a week vacation orwhat have you, and listen, if
you say I'm going to give myselfthe afternoon off and you slip
(11:28):
and you pick up a phone orwhatever, give yourself grace,
because you're just startingthis process and not only do you
have to get accustomed to it,but the people have to get
accustomed to it, because youhave trained people that it is
okay to call you and text youand email you.
We have to think about that aswell.
(11:49):
So, number one, give yourselfpermission to pause.
The second one is understandingyour non-negotiables.
This comes back to what yourprinciples are, and I talk about
this a lot in my lead opsprogram.
This is the very first thingthat we do.
We need to understand what yourprinciples are, because your
principles is what guides you,and then your non-negotiables is
(12:14):
actually how you implement yourprinciples.
One of my principles is familyfirst.
Family is at the top of thelist for me, and it's a
non-negotiable, which means thatI need to dictate what that
looks like, and I didn't do agood job at that.
So when I was an hourlyemployee and here's where I want
(12:35):
to talk to you about seasonswhen I was an hourly employee
and I would get paid time and ahalf to show up all of those
hours, that was me taking careof my family, because
financially, we needed a placeto stay, we needed food to eat,
and this is what helped me doall of those things for my
(12:56):
family to keep us goingfinancially.
When I moved to a leadershiprole and now I am salary and I'm
still working all of thesehours what hit me was one day I
sat there and I calculated whatmy hourly rate.
So I calculated on average whatI was working every week, what
I was making, and I calculatedmy average rate and realized
(13:20):
really quickly that I made lessthan the people that reported to
me.
Really quick.
And this is real talk, right,we're unscripted.
This is, it is what it is, andI'm like so what, what are the
sacrifices for?
Before it was finances.
I needed to take care of myfamily.
Now, right now, what is it?
So, you know, I had to reversebecause I was in a different
(13:44):
season.
Things look a little different.
So for me, what I started to dois be more observant.
I'm like, how is everybody elsehandling this?
And what I noticed was peopleweren't working the hours that I
was working, and I'm talkingabout not just, you know, some
of the people that were on thesame level.
I'm talking about seniormanagement because at the time I
(14:05):
was a manager, so I'm talkingabout senior leadership and
executive management.
So I noticed that the ones thathad younger kids, they had no
problems cutting out early,leaving at a decent time, not
working late every day, andthings like that.
Or the ones that did work late,they were males and they had a
(14:25):
wife at home that was takingcare of the kids.
Or they had grown kids thatweren't in the home, so they
were off to college or you know,living their life, but they
didn't have to tend to youngerkids.
They were at a different stagein their life which allowed them
to pour into the organizationin that way.
In terms of time, I was not, wewere equal, we weren't the same.
(14:48):
And I came to the conclusionwas that I had to have some
non-negotiables.
So what I did was I set someparameters in place.
Both of my kids were active insports.
I was like evening game and itis home, I'm going.
So I started to carve out somethings where I said, no, this is
(15:10):
a non-negotiable, I have to beout of here by whatever time
five o'clock 530, because I havea commitment and it started
with like that.
But you have to know what yourprinciples are that guide you,
and then establish what thosenon-negotiables are.
And over time, even though myprinciples haven't changed right
, my non-negotiables havechanged because the kids are not
(15:32):
kids anymore, they're adults.
So that's number two.
First thing is permission topause.
Second thing is non-negotiables.
The second thing is prioritieswhat is important to you, what's
a priority for you?
And I'm talking about in yourprofessional life as well as in
your personal life.
You have to understand whatyour priorities are.
(15:53):
Is it important to you to climbthe corporate ladder?
Is that something that is apriority to you or not?
Is it a priority for you to goback to school?
Like?
You have to really think aboutwhat those things are, because
what we're doing is we arebuilding your leadership
foundation.
So here is where I am right now.
(16:15):
So you need to assess what yourpriorities are.
There was a time in my careerwhere I decided that I wanted to
go back and get my degree right, because I didn't get my degree
right out of high school.
I got married, had kids and youknow, and I went back to school
later on in life.
So there was a time, rightright after when I quit, I did
(16:36):
the contracting and then theyhad a position.
They had two positions.
One was a management position,one was a a position.
They had two positions.
One was a management position,one was a coordinator position.
I took the coordinator positionbecause at that time I wanted
to go back to school.
The salary was almost the sameas what I was making as a
manager.
So I was like, yeah, no, I'mgoing to.
(16:58):
I'm going to take this becauseit's going to allow me the
flexibility where I know I'mgoing to be out of here.
You have to decide what yourpriorities are.
What are your boundaries?
When I talk about taking thephone home and the laptop home,
we have to establish boundariesand we teach people how to treat
us.
If every time somebody sends anemail, I'm on there and I'm
(17:20):
responding, now I'm trainingthem that I'm always on.
Think about what that lookslike and what those boundaries
are going to be, and startestablishing them and having
conversations.
This is not a negative thing.
This is something that's goodfor everybody, because when you
establish those boundaries andyou communicate them, everybody
we are in alignment.
(17:41):
We already know.
You know you send me an emailseven o'clock at night.
You're not going to get aresponse back to the next day,
and one of the things that Iwould do is, even if I was
online, I would set the responseto go out to the next morning,
because if they see a responsecoming through in the evening,
I'm just undone everything.
Establish what your boundariesare going to be when you're on
(18:04):
vacation.
You should be able to be onvacation If you have a team.
This is a part of building thathigh-performing team that I talk
about in Lead Ops.
Or, if you want to doindividual coaching, the
leadership shift, because thisis shifting your mindset, where
I don't have to do all of thethings, I have a team.
So number four is boundaries.
(18:26):
The fifth thing is delegation.
Since we're already talkingabout a team, the fifth thing is
delegation.
If you have a team, you need tobe able to delegate to that team
.
This may mean that if you feelthat if you don't have complete
trust in your team when it comesto certain things, that's where
you start.
How do I start building thattrust in my team, where I can
(18:50):
delegate things to them and Ican feel good about it?
We're helping them to eitherdevelop their skills, making
sure that they're capable,making sure that you communicate
, you know expectations and allof that stuff that we talk about
in lead ops training.
So those are my five thingsthat I want to share with you.
The number one is permission topause.
(19:11):
The second one isnon-negotiables, which are based
off your principles.
Number three is priorities,four is boundaries and number
five is delegation.
Okay, so these are the thingsthat I would start implementing
if you are feeling empty,overwhelmed and stressed.
(19:32):
I want to thank you so much forlistening and if this podcast
has helped you in any way, hasresonated with you, I would love
it if you could give me afive-star review and leave me a
note.
I would love it if you couldgive me a five-star review and
leave me a note.
Also, I'm going to be doing aAsk Me Anything segment, so you
can text me your questions oryou can email me any questions
(19:53):
that you want answered on thatepisode of the podcast.
Thank you so much again forlistening and keep leading
forward.
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