38. Feeling Overwhelmed? The Micro Resets That Can Change Everything with Daisy Auger-Dominguez

Welcome back to Who Made You the Boss? This week we are joined by the incredible Daisy Auger-Domínguez, a renowned author and leadership expert who's here to help us tackle burnout, rediscover professional passion, and protect our personal energy. Who is with me on needing that? She has decades of experience with companies like Google, Disney, Vice Media, and she specializes in fostering inclusive leadership, managing burnout, and building high-trust teams. You can learn even more from her books, most recently From Burnt Out to Lit Up, which we talk a lot about today. She's also sharing her transformative stories, including the power of her happy folder, and offering listeners actionable tips for creating nurturing workplaces, managing stress, and Leading with Empathy. This is a conversation packed with insights you won't want to miss. I'm really glad you're here. And hey, if you're enjoying the show, be sure to connect with us over on Substack for more behind-the-scenes stories and in-depth reflections. You can check that out at lindseyepperly.substack.com. Let's go. Awesome. Welcome, Daisy, to the Who Made You the Boss podcast. We're excited to have you today.

Oh, thank you for having me, Lindsay.

I'm so thrilled to talk about this topic, which is one that is so prevalent in the professional world.

And for our listeners who are constantly striving to achieve their passion and achieve their success without sacrificing who they are, you have written a book that helps us get to that place.

If, if we've gone too far, right, if we find ourselves in a, in a state of burnout, what do we do? How do we get back? How do we reignite that passion? And by the way, Season 4 of Who Made You the Boss is focused on passion. So this is the perfect conversation to have today.

Oh, I'm so glad to have it. And I think that intentionally pouring into ourselves and supporting one another is the most important thing we can do. But for some reason, we've bought into stories and narratives that we can sort of pour from empty cups and be OK. And no, we can't.

Yeah. And we are going to go there and get into that. Before we start talking about everything, I wanna talk about, you use a word in the book pretty prevalently, and that word is managers.

Yes.

And I, as an entrepreneur, even in the, you know, CEO seat that I had just stepped down from, I would hear the word manager and kind of cringe, right? I never considered myself a manager. Uh-huh. And so I want our listeners to know that you may use that word, and you, you disclose this in the book as well, interchangeably with leader. Can you tell us kind of more about what that word means to you and how it applies to our listeners?

Yeah. You know, it's, it's funny because the word manager has become kind of like a bad word and something that people don't wanna be. But it, it is fundamentally about leadership. It is, it is fundamentally about, right? We, we, we, we believe management to be about telling people what to do, right? Carrying out tasks and managing those through. I believe that management is about leading your people to the other side and helping them grow and contribute to their best ability, right? And, you know, and it is, it is about being in the trenches day in and day out, right? Oftentimes managers are caught, right, between their own bosses and their teams, and it can be hard. But if you're a leader, if you're an entrepreneur, if you are running anything from a one-person organization to thousands of people, You are managing processes. You are managing people. You're managing culture. And you're getting things done.

Right. And so there's a lot at stake if you burn out.

Oh, my God. Everything, actually. It's really challenging. It's a lot of pressure. But so much hinges on you, right? Because you set not only the workloads, which can be overwhelming, but you set the experience for people, right? You normalize— what behavior and habits and practices people should undertake, right? Everyone's looking at you. I remember for me, it was years into becoming a senior leader that I really fully understood the impact of my words and my actions, even though I still see myself as Daisy. Right. Like, I was like, I'm just— like, I'm just me. Like, why are you all paying attention to all the things I'm saying, right? Even though I have worked really hard to be a leader, even though I have worked very hard to achieve the success and roles that I've achieved, you still see yourself as the fallible human that you are. And you forget that every single word and action sends signals to those who are— who you're responsible for, right? Who are, you know, under your wing, if you will, who are part of your teams. And we often forget the tremendous impact that a good word may have versus a bad word, right? And sometimes we're just going through our days, severely underestimating the impact of our words, our actions, our engagement with others, because we're just living in our heads. And we have to step out of those spaces to recognize the tremendous impact and responsibility that we have.

Yeah. You know, it's, it's interesting hearing you say what it is that leaders often forget. And I, I think there's also a flip side to this coin too, where the people that we are leading sometimes forget we are just people as well. at how fallible we are and what that looks like.

I love that you say that because I spend a lot of time, obviously, talking to leaders. But for me, it's about helping everybody on both sides of the equation understand and build that shared understanding of what it looks like because I've been on both sides. I have sat in C-suite rooms making impossible and painful decisions. And I have been on the side of the leaders and on the side of the employees. I've seen the angst, the confusion, the pain that comes from both sides. And oftentimes, we forget about that in our decision-making and in our actions and in our language. And so I'm so glad that you say that, because I often want to remind us of the important part that we all play. We all have— a role to play in how we engage with others, whether we are the leader, the manager, the individual contributor, the board member, whoever, you know, whatever that looks like. We all, we all have an opportunity to connect and engage with each other in a way that really humanizes us. And that, that helps us feel— right, we talk about feeling seen and valued. I talk also a lot about being understood. Right. Because that's what we all That's really what we all seek, right? We all want to be understood. And sometimes being understood requires us to actually understand others.

So I'm really glad that you say that because one of the reasons I was excited to interview you is knowing your background. You have an extensive background in HR and in being a people officer and all the things that come with seeing both sides of that coin and being at the table and having to essentially steward that conversation between 2 parties. So I mean, do you think that is it? It's a matter of seeking first to understand, or, or are there other kind of tips and tricks when we are in either side of those seats that we should be thinking about when it comes to leading our employees and/or if we are an employee, understanding our leaders?

Yeah, I, I think that shared understanding is the, is the number one, um, part of the equation, right? You, you, and you, and you read and hear a lot about this in the, in advice columns and, you know, magazines and from HBR to business books of try to understand the other person before you're going to go tell your manager that you can't take on that project. Be, you know, apply some situational awareness, right? Is this the right time to talk to them, right? Are they struggling? Did they just come out of a bad meeting? Are they dealing with, you know, a recent crisis? Maybe this is not the right time to share that. The same goes for managers, right, who have such tremendous responsibility in creating what I call, you know, burnout-inducing work environments, right? The work environments that make us more prone to burnout, but also creating nurturing spaces where employees feel really seen and understood. And in order to do that, right, you know, you have to think about all of the different decisions that you make during the day and actions. And one of the key, one of the key actions that is written about tremendously, right, is how to provide constructive feedback to someone. And, you know, we tend to go into those conversations without really truly preparing and understanding the context, right? You know, before, I would often invite team members to give them some feedback. And I would write in my notes, hey, I noticed that this project didn't go off as, you know, as well as it could have. And I just want to, you know, I just, I just wanted to grab some time with you to understand what happened and how we can— how can we make it better, right? That's— I'm give— I'm fully prepared to give that person constructive feedback, but I'm not framing it as, I'm here to give you feedback about how terrible you are, right? I'm— because that's not how I would come into a meeting like that, terrified and defensive, right? Yeah. And triggered and leading into all my past traumas at work, right? I want to create a space that is truly about understanding and helping, because that's my job. That is my principal job. And we often forget that. And it is those moments of putting ourselves in the other person's shoe, right? Trying to create the right context. You can still be critical, right? You can still provide tough feedback and do it kindly and thoughtfully in a way that it will be absorbed versus in a way that it will be rejected. Right? I believe you can do that. And that That requires managers and leaders to think through that. So I do. And you'll see in Burnt Out to Lit Up, I provide a lot of scripts. And I provide scripts for the managers. And I provide scripts for the team members because we have to talk to each other and be intentional about that. And it is different how we talk to each other.

Yeah, yeah. Well, and so much of it is shaped too by our preconceived notions or the stereotypes or what society has told us about who's sitting on the opposite side of the table. And I was really struck in— and reading Burnout to Lit Up in that you shared your story with what inspired you to write this. And listeners, kind of the long and short of that is, is Daisy had a situation where you were kind of at the heart of a very public smear campaign that from reading between the lines felt like it was because you were an executive. And the narrative was, you know, the executives are known to be X, Y, and Z, and they painted you in this light. And, and actually, when I read that, my business partner and I had recently gone through something where we felt like someone came into the conversation with the preconceived notion of, well, you were the man, right? Like, you were the capitalists here. You were the ones that are like— there was clearly a stereotype already involved before that conversation. And sometimes that can feel, especially as a leader, so isolating. And you have nowhere to take that conversation because if you are the person in, quote unquote, power, no one wants to hear you cry about being a— you know what I mean? So it's—

Well, don't whine. Don't whine. You make so much money. Just take it.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, no, but we actually care. We have a heart for this. We have a heart for the people and reading your words about, you know, I was in this position because I care about the people. I just— my heart went out to you for what you had to go through. And then I'm so appreciative that you're turning around and teaching us all from that experience.

Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, that was, that was one of, one of my lowest points professionally. And, and what I learned was precisely that, that we need to share our share our stories and be reminded of what's possible when we take care of ourselves and we take care of others and be reminded of our, again, our shared humanity, right? I remember in those moments, and I write about them in Burnt Out to Lit Up, I remember sometimes just wondering, like, don't they realize that, like, I'm a mother? And if my daughter were to read these comments, how awful it would be? Don't they realize I'm a daughter and I have a father who as he did, deeply cares about what happens to me, that I'm a wife, that I'm a sister, right? Like, don't people think about that when they just throw venom out at you? Yeah. And to be fair, I also know that when you're angry and frustrated and there's only one person in front of you, you're going to throw everything at them, right? So I know that too. And it is— and it was the— The moments of gaining clarity on, this is what I can control, right? This is what I can take care of because I am— my mind and my body are just locked in this exhausting, never-ending tug of war over things that I cannot control right now. Yeah. And what I could control was remembering who I was, remembering, right, the center of me. remembering that I am not that, right? That is not— that is not who I am. That was what would help me. But, but the truth is, like, you know, when you're in it, it hurts. It breaks— it breaks you into little pieces.

It does. Gosh, thank you for sharing that. It really does. What do you think we can do to, like, change these narratives, right? I mean, of course, we can do what is within our subset of control and turn it around whenever we're experiencing that. But like, overall, as a society, we've got these ideas about the workplace. Is there anything we can be doing to actually actively change those?

Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you say that. Because that's one of the practices that I share in Burnt Out to Lit Up. You know, I found that reframing these inner scripts is the first step towards normalizing the kind of work that we want to— that we want to do, right, and the kind of lives that we want to lead. And And it begins with really digging deep, right? Like conducting self-audits, I call them, like looking in the mirror and really asking yourself, right? This, like, does success require endless productivity? No, right? Is my vulnerability a weakness? No, right? Is me burning out a me problem or a societal problem? Yes. Right? It is, you know, it's asking myself those questions, but also, It's about thinking about how I define and measure my sense of worth and my sense of self, right? Because that, that's, that's where we get, we get stuck in what I call kind of these burnout cycles. And, and those, those narratives often make us feel— and those narratives come from past experiences, right? And from traumas that we carry. And these you know, doubts and fears that are— that end up becoming, you know, like, as, you know, as the popular saying goes, they end up occupying space in your head rent-free, right? And it's things like, if I make a mistake, I will lose everyone's respect.

Hmm.

If I do not overwork, people will not consider me worthy of this role, right? Those were stories. And I think women, people of color, immigrants, right? Like, all of these identities that I have, we carry those with us. us, and we carry them from job to job, right? We carry them from relationship to relationship, and they show up as these harsh critics, um, that just feed off of our ingrained fears. And, and then they show up sometimes in the worst parts of ourselves, right? So if someone gives me feedback in a meeting, they may mean it constructively, but I may be assuming they are thinking that I am the worst person in the world. And I may just react so negatively that I will fail to listen to what the feedback is. Sometimes, by the way, that feedback does come from a bad place. Right? We— you know, like, all of that is true. But it is important to ask ourselves, what's really true here? Right? Am I responding to a situation? Am I responding to a comment? Or am I responding to my internal fears and my nagging doubts? Right? Like, what is truly happening? And in my effort to unlearn this, I learned that there are different ways of reframing your scripts, right? So you can say things like, yeah, I goofed up, but that does not automatically require really harsh criticism, right? So, you know, the impact there was not what was, you know, what this situation merited. Or I can say, you know what? That colleague let me down today. But that doesn't mean that they lack respect for me. They may be having a bad day, right? They may be struggling with something I do not know. Maybe I want to spend some time thinking about that versus going into a big, deep, dark hole and thinking I am the least respected person in the world. Another piece for a lot— that happens a lot for women and people of color in the workplace Sometimes we feel overlooked, right? And when we feel that we're overlooked, right, we think like that has to escalate into like a full-blown confrontation or resentment. I was like, no, sometimes you were overlooked because someone missed it. And you know how you can fix it? By giving them a different data point, right? By going, hey, I'm here. All right. And sometimes it is the accumulation of these moments, obviously, that lead to the that deep resentment and frustration. But it is also recognizing that there's— that can be true. And also, this can be true, right? And trying to pause and think, what is really happening here? And how do I reframe what is happening versus an attack on me, right? And we go into our fight, flight, or freeze mode, right? And like, our bodies literally feel like it's like, like, you know, like a bear is coming at you when it's kind of like, no, actually, that person's having a bad day. And if I let that take over me, I'm going to lose my energy, lose my sense of self, and lose, like, my patience over nothing.

It's so interesting that you take it to this place too, because I think so much of the common rhetoric around burnout is simply we've been overworking ourselves, or we've been hyperfocused on productivity, or yes, our cup is empty, but it's because we've just been pouring, pouring, pouring, whereas you take it all the way to, well, let's start with these deep internal things. One of the reasons I created Who Made You the Boss was because I dealt with a lot of imposter syndrome. And I thought, am I the only one that looks in the mirror every morning and is like, who gave me the leadership role? Oh, yeah, it was me. And now I have to live up to that. But I love that you take it there because I really do think that is a basis of burnout that we often overlook.

Absolutely. And by the way, I love the title of this podcast. And when I first heard it, It reminded me of something that I often say to managers and leaders when I'm coaching or delivering keynotes. That's actually one of the questions that I ask. I was like, do you ever feel like your team is looking at you and going like, who made you the boss of me? Yes.

OK.

I wonder if you hear that.

I have used it for 2 years.

Yes. I love that you're calling that out because it's true. And it has to begin with self. It has to begin with us. Yes, burnout is caused due to overwork and overstress. And this constant yearn for productivity that gets us into— actually, I just heard this phrase the other day, productivity debt, right? It's this sense that if you don't do a certain amount of work, you don't deserve to be here. And you do, you do, you do. But you're never doing enough, right? Yeah. You're never the boss you think people deserve to have. And sometimes we just have to pause and recognize— I was like, I have limitations just like everybody else. I am being the, you know, I am showing up as the best version of myself. Yeah. Right? That's the, that's the number one responsibility that we have to ourselves and to everyone. And then that helps us make better decisions about workloads, make better decisions about talent, you know, talent hires and promotions, like, make better decisions all the time. And we tend to go into solving for all of the other operational stuff before we actually solve for what is it that helps us do the operational stuff better.

Yes. Yeah, the self-worth piece of our work life is so critical and so pushed to the wayside by common society and common culture. Um, I want to spend a minute because the focus of this season is on passion. And I think what oftentimes happens is we're passionate about something, we get into it, we get into the career, we start moving forward, and suddenly we burn out and we go, wait a minute, how did I burnout over this thing that I loved. And I'm so curious, because I think you give us a nice framework and a nice hope that we can reignite that, right? That it doesn't have to be, well, that was my passion, and I just have to find something else because I burned out. So talk a little bit about that. If you've got that little light inside of you, that passion that you once had, you like, if one of our listeners is like, I recognize that, I know that is there deep somewhere, but man, is it buried under the mounds of work and self-doubt and issues that I have? You know, like, how do we How do we get that passion back? And of course, readers should listen, you should read, listeners should read the book because you've got that entire layout. But I just want to give kind of a 30,000-foot view of that.

Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, I talk about it from fueling your light, right? Getting lit up, you know, refinding the joy of, you know, what brought you to this job in the first place, or this, you know, to creating this company in the first place. And we Forget about that because we get caught up in this endless loop of overperforming, overworking, overdoing, and not really taking care of ourselves. So in the book, I talk about how demanding leadership is. But I also remind folks, it doesn't have to be this hard, right? You can't pour from an empty cup. And I talk about practices in the work, like what are the micro reset— I've been using that frame recently— like micro reset practices that can help us. And what I mean by micro reset practices are small, intentional actions that can reenergize and focus us, right? Yeah. And we hear a lot about boundaries, right? There's so many memes about them. And, and I talk about them in the book because we don't only have to set them, but we also have to respect them, right? We have to protect our time and our energy. I recently read this quote by Prentice Hempel. And it says that boundaries are the way we teach people how to be in relationship with us. And, you know, and I think boundaries have, have gotten this bad rep for like, the thing that Gen Zers ask for, so they don't work. All of these silly things that I was like, no, I actually think of them as kind of your personal VIP ropes, right? They are, they are what allow you to tell the world that you matter and that they matter as well. And when we do that, we allow ourselves to refocus and reenergize and remind ourselves why I'm the boss, right? Why am I here, right? What do I want to do? You know, I think that we need to also spend more time anchoring ourselves. And I talk a lot about these micropractices throughout the book, small rituals that can work for you. And I share tons of them in the book because, quite frankly, I learned— and I've had folks push me on this. I'm like, I've learned that I'm not good at meditation, right? I've had people go like, Daisy, like, don't say that. You're great. I was like, eh. No, like, I know me. Like, I have too many monkeys in my head. I am the—

I feel you on this one, Daisy. I will give you no pushback.

Yes. I'm

like, sometimes you just gotta jam.

Yeah, like, one of the reasons why we do what we do is because we're constantly going, right?

Like, you bring me to a sound bath ceremony, and I'm like, what am I doing here?

Just like, I'm like, am I the only one opening my eye and like checking out? Right? That doesn't work for me, but it works wonders for others. Like, for example, my husband has been doing meditation for some time, and he can spend like hours like that. And that is his happy place. I like breathwork. Breathwork works for me. That because it allows me to create a finite time, I use my phone, I time it, right. And, and it helps regulate my nervous system, because that's what I need. I need to calm down, see what's happening and anchor myself in what energizes me. So it's either a breathing exercise, a walk, People consider gratitude practices a great way to anchor yourself. Sometimes we— sometimes just writing 3 things that we're grateful for reminds us of the abundance that we have in our lives. Because how often do we feel like life sucks, right? I have nothing. I have done nothing. What does that look like? And I'll tell you, this is something that I'm deeply, deeply grateful for. And I talk about it in the book as your happy folder. I have a happy folder. And it is where I put the messages and gifts and stories that people send to me that remind me of the impact that I had on their lives. And I've had 2 of them in the last 2 days that have just were beautiful. One was from a young woman, my first job running diversity and inclusion at Moody's Investor Service about 2 decades ago. I wrote recently a post on LinkedIn about how that was how I started my career and it shifted my life's purpose. And this woman wrote to me on a little message on LinkedIn and saying, Daisy, I'm a member of the inclusion team at Moody's, and I want you to know that the impact of your work continues. And we still talk about it. Aw. And the first resource that I was given when I was onboarding here was your book, Inclusion Revolution. It just— I mean, I cried when I read that note. I was like, wow. Like, this was 2 decades ago. Like, what I did is actually outliving me, which is what I'm hoping for. And on those days that I feel like nothing I can do is right, you better believe I'm going to go to that note and remind myself Yes. I, you know, that I have done something and I have delivered impact. And that's how I remind myself of my passion. That's how I remind myself of my purpose. So those are a few examples of ways— there's tons more in the book— that we can reconnect to that Japanese concept of your ikigai, right? Your reason for being. Wow. And when we do that, inevitably, our spirits lighten, right? Our light shines brighter. It's like— and, you know, and we show up for ourselves and for others in a, in a lighter and better way. And sometimes we just need those, those reminders that are always there, but that somehow we're really good at pushing away and just looking at all the negative.

Yeah. No, true. And, well, and I really enjoy the way you phrased that of delivering impact because I think, you know, as listeners who have high-stakes careers and a lot of entrepreneurs, it, it, it's so easy just to kinda keep moving forward and forget what we've already done and what we've already built. You just pointed to something you built 2 decades ago. And getting to see that now foster and grow, it's rare that we're going to stand still enough in that same place to actually see the fruit of it. We're probably going to be moving on to the next project and the next assignment and the next whatever. So it's really special to look— give yourself that opportunity to look back and see where have I already made an impact so that I know I am going in the right direction. None of this— if you feel burnt out, I don't think it's ever okay to think, well, this was all for naught. There's always a reason behind it. Yeah.

Which— and we're so good at digging into that part, right? Yeah. What— does what I do even matter? That's a question that I would ask myself often, especially in the stories that I share in the book, in those moments of deep crisis. Sometimes I would just come home— not sometimes. Most of the times, I would come home crying and tired and exhausted. And my husband would ask me, how was your day? And I'd just look at him. I'm like, I don't know if what I'm doing matters. Right? Like, I'm just— And looking back now, it mattered, right? It didn't— there were certainly the grumpy people who it wasn't going to matter for at all. But it mattered for a certain segment of people for whom it needed to matter, right? Yeah. And so that's what I did. I just received a note from a former team member yesterday. And he just got his first chief people officer role in a company in Europe. And I was one of his references. And he wrote to me yesterday. And he said, Daisy, I want you to know that you were in my head. And I'm so glad you were in my head. And I was like, what the heck? I'm reading the note. I was like, what is this about? Because it's a WhatsApp group. It's a WhatsApp message because he's, he's in Europe. And then it said, yesterday, I had to give constructive feedback to one of my team members. And I went back to that day that you gave me that really tough feedback and the way that you delivered it and the way that you helped me and you've helped me become a better manager. Again, another moment of crying, but another moment of joy. And Of thinking I was doing something right. Even though I felt like— I was like, I was doing something right, and it is impacting others. Oh, I can't tell you. I was actually having a really bad day yesterday, and that just turned me around.

I love that. I love that. You know, I lately am pursuing writing. And there's a beautiful quote about you have to do this because someone out there has a wound in the exact shape of your words.

And I think— Oh, love that.

Right? So I wish I could take some credit. I can't. It's just such a beautiful quote. And I think that applies to exactly what you were saying. You know, what you are doing matters to someone who needs to hear that, who needs to receive that. That is your impact. And you might not ever get to see it or know it, but you have to keep showing up.

And if you're burned out, you can't. And so the work that you have put into the world now, Daisy, is a beautiful reminder of that.

And I'm really excited as we kind of wrap up and conclude this conversation for our listeners to go and read that, to enjoy If they are in a position where they're going, does it even matter? You know, hopefully this resonates with at least one person that feels that and they know it does. And here's how to get it back to mattering to you again. That's the bigger question is, is it mattering to me anymore? Um, I always like to end the podcast talking of gratitude with a practice that my family does around the dinner table every night. We ask each other, what made you smile today?

And so I would love to ask you that question as we conclude.

Oh my goodness. Um, Well, my daughter has been sick for the past week, and today was the first day she was able to go to school. And I could see her energy and her face with such brightness. And that just made me smile because my baby is healthy and she is off to be with her friends.

Good. I love it. Well, I am so happy for you and for your family. And I really, really appreciate this conversation today. And I know our listeners do as well.

Thank you, Daisy. Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it. I appreciate you.

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