How to Deal with Physical, Mental, and Emotional Burnout
17 Mar 2021 · 11 min
In this episode of the Brendon Show, Brendon Burchard and guest Jamie Kern Lima discuss the pervasive problem of burnout and present a practical framework for preventing it. They introduce the concept of "feeling the day," urging listeners to set emotional goals alongside traditional performance goals. The conversation highlights how many high‑achievers push through their days without pausing for self‑awareness, leading to a loss of reverence, connection, and creative energy. Brendon explains that successful people prioritize depth in relationships, meaningful contribution, and emotional well‑being after achieving material goals. To combat burnout, they recommend frequent "pit stops"—short, intentional breaks every 50‑60 minutes to close the eyes, breathe, move, and reconnect with spirit or soul. They warn against superficial breaks like scrolling social media, which exacerbate visual and neurological fatigue. Citing the largest productivity study, they note that top performers take a break roughly every 52 minutes, which sustains focus and prevents afternoon crashes. The episode also includes a brief plug for Brendon’s HPX wellness supplement line, positioned as a tool for mental focus and energy. Throughout, the hosts emphasize mindfulness, gratitude, and self‑care as essential habits for high performance and lasting happiness.
Questions this episode answers
March 17, 2021.
HPX Optimized (from HPX Wellness).
They took a break on average every 52 minutes.
The last 72 hours (a 72-hour after-effect of movement, breathing, sleep, and eating).
Chapters
Hello, my friends. I'm Brendon Burchard, host of the Brendon show and founder of growthday.com and I'm honored to be your high performance coach today. I believe that every day we can be inspired. We can live with intention and purpose. We can bring the joy and honor the struggles of each day to push ourselves to grow, to serve, to be a role model, to lead extraordinary lives. I believe that every day is a great day to grow. That's why I started my company, growthday.com it's an online personal growth platform where you can get me and the world's best personal development teachers live coaching you every week, sharing our wisdom, keeping you motivated and accountable, encouraging you to find the aliveness and the connection and meaning of life that we're all after. If you're not a member yet, please go sign up@growthday.com and join our huge worldwide community of achievers. For less than a dollar a day, you get the world's best teachers live every week. And look, you've probably known for a long time that you needed some expert guidance and inspired community and life changing tools. So please, your breakthrough awaits you@growthday.com now let's get to today's episode. My friends, please listen closely. Maybe you take some notes so you remember these insights of personal growth and share this episode with three of your friends because we all have to share more positive messages in the world today. So share this with three friends just like you who are committed to their personal growth. And also be sure to tag me or DM me on Instagram. Rendon Burchard, join our million plus community there on Instagram so I can say hi, thanks again for listening. Now let's begin.
This has been so powerful when you've shared this on our morning show and I just want to share it with everyone here. A lot of people are showing up here going, okay, like it's been a hard 14 months and you know, struggling with self doubt, struggling all the things. And some people have goals that they're trying to figure out with their career and all the other stuff. But then there's also a thing called feelings. Goals. Yes, feelings, goals. Right. So many of you guys, this is gonna be new for a lot of people. This is newer for me in my own life, frankly. Right. Because you know, all my years of working as a Denny's waitress, trying to all the jobs and then all the years of rejection with my business when I finally got, you know, when we were finally getting momentum, I didn't Feel the day. I just drove as hard as I could and, and one of the things Brendan has shared so much about and I would love for you to share with everyone, live right now, is yeah, you can have goals in your fitness journey and in your career and all these things, but what about goals for your feelings, for how you feel and how you feel the day? Can you share?
Yes.
This is so powerful.
I remember the first time I said this to her, feel the day. And she's like, right. And we just, we had this huge great talk about. Because what happens is sometimes you're taking care of the kids, you're going through your life, you're doing the projects, you have the to do lists and you're just going, going, going. And you finish the day you didn't feel the day. There's no reverence for life. There's no love, there's no heart, there's no spirit, no flow, no connection, no creative pop. And it's not because it wasn't there. It was just. You just, you just like blew through the day. You bullied the hours, I call it. And there was no moment of a pit stop to give prayer or meditation or gratitude or a second to go, like, how am I feeling? Am I experiencing the energy that I want to experience in life? And that's again, we generate that. But feeling the day I found the most successful people in the world. I remember we drew this out. I went to Jamie's house almost two years ago, I think now, and we were talking about successful people and there's drawing this little triangle and what everybody wants after they've gotten everything, after you hit your goals, you made the money, you feel like your family needs. What you want is you want to feel the day more. You want greater depth in your relationships, like deeper relationships, deeper commitment, deeper meaning, right? We all want those things. And then we also want to know that we're leaving some kind of legacy or contribution, what I call meaningful pursuits. And I think feeling the day should be in your top one or two priorities every day. The whole mindfulness movement is really architected to do. I want to feel the day. I want to feel presence, right? I want to feel the energy, I want to feel the spirit. I want a self awareness or consciousness. It's a different feeling of the day versus just like powering through or caffeinating through it all and just blunting it out. We want you to have those sensations of beauty and honor and respect and depth every day. We want you to feel joy and reverence every day. She Knows I probably say reverence every morning show because I'm so happy. Who feels so happy to be alive? I'm so happy to be alive. I'm so happy to be with this woman. I'm so happy with this team and you all guys. It's amazing. It's a gift.
Yeah. You know, I love that so much. And even Ed Mylett was sharing a little bit about that idea of, you know, setting goals also for feeling the day and then also like, how do. What are feelings we want in our life? And I think you just named a big one too, which is presence. I think that it's been so easy, especially last 14 months, to like, disconnect and just try to numb out and try to surf Instagram or watch the news or all the things, right? And so many people are saying that's really taken a toll on them that they feel their own light dimming when they do that. And, you know, I started the morning off by talking about how that light is still inside of you. That light in every single one of us. Right. A lot of people nodding. It's still inside of you right now. And I think part of igniting it is learning to feel the day.
Hey, it's Brendon, and I want to jump in the middle of this episode here real quick and tell you about something I'm really excited about and something that answers a question that many of you have for me all the time, which is, Brendan, where do you get this crazy focus and energy in your life? And the truth is I've developed a supplement line that really helps me do that. And frankly, I needed to. I don't know about you, but sometimes when you're trying to achieve big things, a lot of stress comes along. And as you're trying to achieve bigger things, you need to be on your A game more often. You need to be mentally sharp. You need to be mentally prepared. You need to be mentally energized and productive. And not once in a while, but like every day, you have to be on and sometimes guzzling more coffee isn't going to do it. You have to use what we call nootropics, which are, you know, basically supplements that help optimize your brain. And yes, we have a product for exactly that. It's called HPX Optimized and it is our most popular product. And you can get it. It's back in stock@hpxwellness.com that's hpxwellness.com you'll find HPX Optimize for your mental focus and energy. There's you'll also find my favorite powdered energy drink that we created, this 100% organic and vegan. And you'll find my essentials, which is my daily multi that I take that covers my energy, that covers my longevity, that covers my immunity, that covers my brain and body health that I absolutely love. And you will feel the difference. Go to HPX wellness.com right now. HPX Wellness.
So what are, what are just a few just simple tips people can do who are like Brendan, how do I feel the day?
I feel nothing. Part of it is recognize your, your overall emotional feeling. Every day is usually a 72 hour after effect of how you moved, breathed, slept and ate in the last 72 hours. It really is like it's a cumulative effect especially of the last seven last 72 hours have a lot to do with your emotional world. So that's why having good habits on it consistent basis like you might, you might listen, if you want to have a cheat day, that's okay. But that's why they call it a cheat day. You eat bad for one day, but then like number two and number three, if you get back on the train, you start feeling good again, right? So it's okay to have one day off. But I think the most important thing for feeling of the day is you need to have pit stops throughout the day. You need to have moments that you purposely take every day throughout the day to reconnect with spirit, soul, energy or even just to breathe, mom, like just to take a beat, close your eyes. Like ideally, I'll stand. I do this every hour. Okay, I'll stand every hour. I stand up. You've been asking me to demonstrate.
Yes, demonstrate.
I will stand up. I will close my eyes. Because a lot of your fatigue is visual fatigue and that visual fatigue is causing a lot of neurological fatigue. So closing your eyes, especially because we're all these devices, close your eyes. I stand, I bounce in place, I swing my arms, I take 10 deep breaths like this, 10 deep breaths like that every hour. And it re energizes my body and my brain and it's a little pit stop. And now my mental focus is back. When I open my eyes, I go, what's my intention for this next hour? And that little pit stop makes me go longer. Just like a race car, it can go around the whole race, but it doesn't. It takes the pit stops to tune it up so it can go longer and faster and win the race. It. You need little more pit stops to tune your mind up. Amp up your emotions, reconnect with the heart or the spirit or the soul. And if you are just grinding all day, that is not. There's no pit stops. That's the equation for burnout.
Yeah. Well, so many people feeling burnt out, right? People that aren't leaving their home because of the pandemic, but just so burnt out and so overwhelmed. And one thing you shared that I want to make sure everyone caught is the idea of visual fatigue. Because that was a huge aha moment that I had with you on the morning show just in the past few weeks. I thought you guys, we implemented this at IT Cosmetics. We grew to over a thousand employees and we would start ending meetings like five minutes before the hour instead of just back to back to back meetings. Right? Because the idea that you can get up and just walk around and move your body, but one of the things you brought up is I learned I was doing them wrong because I was like walking and moving, but still engaged. I would take meetings in the hallway, walking, or I would check my emails, email on that five minute break. Right. And can you just quickly share the idea that when you do take a pit stop, when you do take that five minutes. Right. And this is hard for a lot of people, but the idea is when you take that five minutes, the other 55. Right. Or you take the 10 minutes, the other 50 are so much more alive.
Yes.
They're so much more alive. So people that say, oh, I can't afford to do that. No, no, no, you're so much more alive than those other 50. But I was doing it wrong because I wasn't actually resting my mind. And you talk about the power of visual fatigue. If you take a break and you're scrolling Instagram or emails, that's not a break.
That's exhaustion. Right. Scrolling is just exhausting your brain even more and more and more and more. It's engaging it, but it's exhausting it more and more and more. And so it's like this. You cannot possibly hope the burnout will end if you don't more consistently recharge. But we grew up on a century old model that, oh, we'll get to recharge when we retire. We'll get to recharge, you know, two weeks out of the year when we have vacation. It's why people are miserable. Because the burnout is real. Because they don't recharge. One day I'll recharge. The spa day. Or, you know, a year from now. No, no. The world's largest study of productivity that's ever been done. Found out the most productive people in the world who also reported high levels of happiness. They took a break on average every 52 minutes. Largest study ever done. Every 52 minutes they took a break. Did they need a break? No. They're recharging. If you're crashing at 2 and 3 o' clock in the afternoon every day, it's time to take a hint. You need to recharge at like 10:30, 11:30 or 1:30 to prevent the crash that happens two or three. The crashes happen because the recharges are not happening and so the burnout will always be there. And I always say make sure you don't blame the burnout on anybody. Please don't blame your burnout on your kids. That's not fair to them. Don't blame your burnout on the team. Blame the burnout on either ambition that is unmet with planning or just not taking care of and prioritizing your self care or your well being. You know, take care of you so you have the energy to serve at your highest levels. I think that is something we can all align with. Okay, my friend, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Brendon Show. Tell some people about this episode. It's on each of us to spread positivity and empowerment during these times of chaos and negativity, right? So I'm asking you to be the dealer of hope and personal growth and education in your tribe. So take a screenshot right now and share the screenshot and this link to this episode with three of your friends today. Post it on social media. Use the hashtag growthday. That's Growthday because that's the name of my company and we're always giving away prizes to our community. If you'd like to help me personally, then please rate and review the podcasts on Apple Podcasts. Give us some stars. Cheer us on. Leave a review. Because believe it or not, that stuff actually really does help and I read all of them. So my last thought for today, please remember you are stronger than you think and the future holds good things for you. Tomorrow can be an inspired day. Every new morning is a second chance. Every day is a great day to grow. We're thankful to have you here in the growth Day community. So be sure to go deeper with us@growthday.com. It.