Erin Stafford burned out despite being high-achieving, then interviewed strongmen, doctors, Navy SEALs, and others to find what keeps high performers from crashing. She distilled their practices into five mindset shifts for sustaining peak performance.
Hello and welcome to the Type A Trap. I've always been somebody that's super motivated and driven and ambitious and somebody that thought that burnout was never going to happen to me. But then it did and I dug deep. I really started studying the subject and interviewed peak performers and high achievers from all different walks of life. People like the Guinness World Record holder for world's strongest man, leading doctors and lawyers, New York Times best selling authors, retired diplomats and Navy SEAL captains, and all sorts of other people really, to learn what it is that they do to stay at peak performance without burning out. I took all of their decades of experience and boiled it down into five key mindset shifts. And I cannot wait to share these mindset shifts with your audience.
I think just constantly reminding myself that I've already accomplished a lot and I'm really proud of what I've done and that's enough as it is, you know. And yes, there's all these goals I still want to do, but I don't have to do them all right now. You know, I have always been, you guys can see I have a lot of energy. This is how I always am. Much to my husband's dismay. I'm, I'm always like, come on, I'm this mover, I'm a shaker, I'm a doer. I always am like, go, go, go, achieve, achieve, achieve, accomplish, accomplish, accomplish. And like, I just completely burnt out. I found myself, you know, I have a team of about 50 people that work for me in the marketing communications team. I would be on conference calls, literally just zoning out, like scrolling Instagram on my phone, you know, or Amazon buying more crap that I didn't need. Emails would come in, I would just forward them on to somebody else on my team to deal with and like, just never think about it again, you know. So there was just all of these signs and things that were so unlike me that I realized like, I genuinely think I have a problem and like, I've never suffered from depression or anything like that. And all of a sudden I was just completely apathetic and didn't care about anything. And so, yeah, that was when I knew like something was up. And you know, I joke about it in my keynote where I say, you know, I thought burnout was something that happened to weak people and lazy people. Those people, you know, not high achievers like you and me. Like, I genuinely thought it was this sort of BS excuse that people who couldn't get their lives together.
What are some of the symptoms people might be experiencing? You Mentioned a few yourself. But what, what, what might other symptoms be for somebody who might be burnt out?
Yeah, I mean, I know there's a lot of people from Southern California on this call. I'm. I live in San Diego as well, but I'm from Orange county, you know, Unnecessary road rage. We are the, the king and queens of unnecessary road rage. Like, God forbid somebody doesn't go the second the light turns red, you know, and you're like, honking at them. Or somebody doesn't use their blanket, like, come on, buddy, what's going on? You know, like, complete unnecessary road rage, which is crazy. Or snapping at people. If you're in a relationship, like, or even with your close friends, you can find yourself just really quickly snapping at people and you're like, gosh, I don't normally do that. What's going on? Or, you know, drinking too much. I was definitely drinking way too much wine during this whole. I mean, one could argue I still drink too much wine, but, you know, but drinking way too much wine, zoning out, like I said, during conference calls, anxiety. I'm somebody that also has some autoimmune issues, and so I would have, like, eczema. I had perioral dermatitis, which is basically just like a rash on your face that nobody really knows why it comes and they can't really get rid of it. I was on antibiotics for ages. That didn't happen. You know, it could be depression. I was really close to losing my job because I was so just zoned out and out of touch with what was happening. But my boss actually called me up and was so pissed. He was like, do you want to resign? You know, as you mentioned in the intro there, I didn't want this to just be about my burnout experience because it can sometimes be like, okay, woe is me. Like, oh, you had a bad year, you burnt out. Like, so. So did everybody else. So I really wanted to dig a bit deeper because, you know, again, I'm not a doctor. You've got the medical background. I'm not a doctor. So I needed to. Something else to back up kind of what I was feeling and what I was, what I was talking about. So I interviewed, like you had said earlier, a ton of high achievers from all these different walks of life and really dug deeper into, first of all, how they've managed to stay at this level of peak performance and how they continue on the daily. Prevent to prevent and overcome burnout. Because, you know, like, your health, like diet, like exercise, it's something you have to work on every single day. It's not like you just burn out and get over it and then you're fine, you know, you're not going to burn out again. It's like exercise. You have to continue to make changes, make mindset shifts, make small 1 degree shifts in your day and in your behavior and in your actions that will continue to keep you on the right page when you're having those moments where you're feeling flustered or you're feeling burnt out, or you're just not quite feeling yourself. Like the simplest easy question to ask yourself is, what is better for my health right now? So I think especially as like high achievers, we are busy. A lot of us are busy. We have lots going on, we have big careers and big goals and side hustles and families and all of these different pieces of our lives. And so we can feel stretched in a million different directions. And if you guys are anything like me, you're trying to cram way too many things in way too short amount of a time. So. So when you're feeling those moments of being flustered or overwhelmed or just not feeling yourself and you're trying to have too many things going on, just stopping and asking, okay, what is better for my health right now? Like perfect example, you've got 20 minutes in between this call and the next thing you have to do and you're like, okay, well I'm hungry, I haven't eaten dinner yet, I desperately have to use the restroom. But oh my God, the dog needs to go out and the laundry needs to go in the dryer and you know, whatever. Like you have this laundry list of things and you're like, okay, well that's clearly not going to all fit in the next 20 minutes before I need to do my next thing. So just stop and say like, what is better for my health? My best medicine has just been really trying to the slow down, to speed up. One is the hardest one for me. So really trying to be okay with doing less and constantly reminding myself that I'm not a failure if I decide not to do something. You know, I think my sense of self confidence very much comes from doing and achieving and that's what makes me feel good about myself when I've accomplished something. And I think just constantly reminding myself that I've already accomplished a lot and I'm really proud of what I've done and that's enough as it is, you know. And yes, there's all these goals I still want to do, but I don't have to do them all right now.
