Taming the Burnout Monster: Leadership Strategies to Empower Managers with Jay Lambert

In our high-stakes business environment, a silent epidemic is sweeping through our workplaces. It's going largely unnoticed until it erupts into major, major crisis. Across all sectors, leaders are pushing themselves and their teams to the absolute brink, resulting in a pervasive wave of isolation, high stress, and of burnout. This is not only crippling productivity and stifling innovation. It's also leading to lack of employee satisfaction, and devastating labor turnover rates affecting every level within the organization. What's behind all this? Well, that's what we're talking about today on Experience Leadership.

Welcome to Experience Leadership, a podcast that challenges small business owners and entrepreneurs just like you to dare to be the exception. Join our host, customer experience expert Marc Haine, as he uncovers relevant and timely content to help you script and direct your business and teams to create jaw-dropping experiences your customers and staff deserve. Here is the host of Experience Leadership, author of Lights! Camera! Action!, customer experience expert Marc Haine. Welcome to this episode.

I am so glad that you're here. I am I'm your host, Customer and Employee Experience Strategist Marc Haine. And today, my guest is the Adversity Transformation Coach Jay Lambert. Today, we will be diving into the pervasive issue of burnout among leaders and their teams, exploring its deep-rooted causes and wide-reaching impacts on productivity and our overall organizational health. We will uncover how a compassionate, holistic approach to leadership can really transform this crisis into an opportunity for growth and resilience. So stay with us. You know, my daughter used to work for a trailer rental and repair agency. And after many months of high-stress interactions, her boss had to take stress leave. In the absence of having somebody who was a general manager, all the responsibilities fell onto my daughter's shoulders as well as the people in the shop. Accountabilities ran downhill and the stress that the manager was feeling was now pushed down onto staff who were ultimately not trained for these roles. They weren't trained to take on the role of the general manager. And it ultimately resulted in mass resignations. Today, 3 months later, they are still struggling. They have seen Most of their staff are gone. They are no longer servicing outside trailers. They're only servicing the trailers that they own. And their amount of productivity has dropped. And along with that, of course, their income. This is a perfect case study of the unrecognized epidemic of stress and burnout that is pervasive in today's workplace. And so, that brings me to our Question of the Day. Have you ever stopped to consider how the stress and fatigue you're feeling feeling might be echoing across your team and organization? Could this be the root cause of deeper issues impacting your operational success and the financial stability? I'd love for you to put down your comments. I'd love to turn this into a conversation. Why don't you go ahead and share this episode on your favorite social media platform? Put in your comments and remember to hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership because I really want to make you a part of this conversation. As I mentioned on the top of the show, my guest today is the Adversity Transformation Coach Jay Lambert. Jay has dedicated over 2 decades to pioneering transformative projects within healthcare organizations. He has deep roots in his Métis, Cree, and French-Canadian heritage. And Jay brings a unique holistic approach to coaching, merging the best of Indigenous and Western perspectives. He holds a Master of Science in Health Information Science and is an ICF Associate Certified Coach. Known for his compassionate leadership and trauma-informed approach, Jay has transformed the lives of countless individuals and teams, guiding them to turn their challenges into their greatest strengths. Jay, welcome to the show. It's so great to have you.

Thank you, Marc, for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Maybe you could start off by telling me a little bit about how you serve your clients.

Sure. So I offer a few different services. So one-on-one coaching is how I started part of my work. Those cases, I'm usually working about 6 sessions or so one-on-one, where I really let the clients determine what they want, what they need, and support them just by holding space for them and asking them questions to really help them build awareness. And through that awareness, moving to action.

And so, do I get a sense you also work with teams?

And yes, I do work with teams. So, it's a relatively new area I've been moving into. So, I've just started working with my first team and I am working towards my advanced credential from the ICF in team coaching.

Lovely!

Really driven by seeing the impact on individuals but then recognizing that they're still often in a team environment that is maybe not as supportive or collaborative as it could be. And so, seeing a real potential for further transformation working with collectives.

I love it. It's so needed now. And I think that today though, stress and burnout is so pervasive. Yet, I don't see that people actually can recognize it. They just figure this is just typically— this is just what happens. Can you describe the typical signs of burnout that you've observed and Either individuals or organizations?

Yeah, it's very typical. In fact, a lot of people that burn out are often the A+ players, the driven ones who have had abundances of energy and capacity. They just don't see it happening to themselves is often what happens. And then just suddenly, all of a sudden, they find themselves not functioning. It's usually what happens is It kind of builds and builds and builds, and then something snaps. And then next thing you know, they're taking time off from work. Sometimes they're in the hospital. But the early warning signs usually are irritability and lack of capacity to manage emotions as well as previously had. Fatigue is a big one. For me personally, it was a loss of capacity intellectually.

Mm-hmm.

My— a lot of my early work was— I was— I started off in policy analysis and such, so reading and comprehension were, were a big thing. And I found myself slowly— well, I didn't, I didn't notice, but it was like it was getting harder and harder to read. It was getting harder and harder to comprehend. And at my worst, it was like reading a paragraph was like reading hieroglyphics. It was just— it got that bad for me. But yeah, it, it, it impacts kind of all aspects. But fatigue and irritability, I think, are 2 of the early canaries in the coal mine.

So, what do you think are the core factors that contribute to high levels of burnout among managers and their teams? What do you think are some of the core challenges?

Workload, particularly coming from a healthcare perspective. Workload, number one. We have, especially coming, well, Even before COVID but especially through what we experienced with COVID extra numbers of people being sick, and just there's more work than we have people to do it. And I think that's probably the case in a lot of other fields as well. And then capacity to manage the stress that comes with that would be the 2 that I would say are the biggest ones.

It's interesting because I just came back from doing a presentation to the Alberta government through their frontline staff who are responsible for handling all the telephone calls in transactions where there's high stress, high emotions, and that sort of thing. And so it was— my presentation was all about dealing with difficult people, but at the same token, not only serving the customer, but serving yourself and finding ways to do that. When we're not able to manage this, the consequences of the high stress and burnout. What are the consequences if we just leave all this unchecked?

Well, the consequences are, as you said in your opening, is high turnover. People leave. I think it's getting to be a crisis in the Canadian healthcare system, particularly with nurses leaving the field entirely. So, not just taking a leave of absence to rest and recover, but actually leaving entirely. That's— there's a cost in like trying to fill, refill the roles, the onboarding costs, all of those things. But even if they don't actually leave, they're not functioning at the level that they could, should be. And on many levels. So, as I shared, like from a cognitive capacity, are they making the best decision? Again, I'll stick with the healthcare examples, but are they making the best decision? That's usually when mistakes happen with medications and stuff is people are are missing things or they're continuing to work without being able to fully take in everything and process everything appropriately. And that can have dire consequences. But then there's the fatigue. There's— and I would say again, not just healthcare, but irritability is a negative impact on your patients that you're working with. And if you're in business, that's a negative impact on your potential customers.

Mm-hmm.

Like, if you're irritable, well, then it extends to your family. It extends to your friends. It just, it can spiral from there.

And you've got then a nice little percolation of a toxic workplace because it will, the irritability, the not being able to focus on what you're doing, your job performance and so on is going to spread towards everybody else. And it's interesting that we see, and I'm using my daughter as an example, the level of stress that was created because the manager went on stress leave and then the director left. And all of a sudden, all these things came percolating to the surface. All these things about what's wrong with the business. And everybody became severely dissatisfied because everything— I think it's funny. I reflect on that and I think about Stephen Covey's The Trust Bank Account, right? And it's just like in an instant, as these people left, the trust in the organization as a whole just kept on dropping and dropping and dropping to the point where they were severely withdrawn. And people are like, I don't have to take it here. I don't have to do this work here. There are plenty of people who will hire me for my skills today.

Exactly. Yeah, I've yet to read that book, but I'm very aware of it, and I have read some summaries on it. And that, yeah, the speed of trust is an essential piece, and an essential piece of resilience and compassion is relationships.

So I'd like to dig a little bit deeper into why these things are happening and maybe even some actionable strategies that we could use to better manage burnout. And we'll get to that right after this. When the spotlight shines on your business, are customers applauding or yawning? In other words, how is your business performing? Make your business a star with a new book, Lights!

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today at your favorite online retailer or directly at marchaine.com. Welcome back! I am speaking with the Adversity Transformation Coach, Jay Lambert. I guess before we can talk about steps to manage stress and burnout, we have to learn how to recognize it. Now, can you tell us a little bit about how do we shift our mindset from This is just a stressful job. It's normal. Everybody who's in this industry is stressed out just because that's the way it is versus this is a work environment. We need to instigate change. There are solutions to it. How do we figure that out?

I think the first step, as with anything, is awareness. So, awareness of self is probably number one because if you want to— I like the saying, if you want to see the change, be the Mm-hmm. It just kind of more generalizing, really being clear on what your values are, what your strengths, your weaknesses are, and then working from there. So if your strengths— like, so for example, I did a lot of work in project management, did some assessments. I scored really low on detail. And realizing it's like, okay, and it's like, okay, yeah, that makes sense because I don't thrive in that area. I can do it perfectly well. But it's not my strength. And so it takes up more of my energy. And so maybe I need to be looking at something that plays more to my strengths and work in that area because I'm all for working on your weaknesses, but that does take up more energy. And in a workplace environment, it's often actually— it's beneficial to be playing to your strengths and then hopefully finding a teammate that can shore up those areas that are your weaknesses.

Mm-hmm. I know that in past episodes— by the way, this is episode 200. I don't know if we've mentioned that, but this is episode 200. So this is like a real hallmark for us, a real milestone. But in our previous episode, probably somewhere around the 100 mark, I had an expert come in talking about exhaustion and the way our bodies kind of manipulate and kind of manifest and use sleep to recharge ourselves and how some people are really good first thing during the day. Other people are really good after lunch. Should this be some semblance of awareness that we need to adapt as leaders that we might have people who are better not only at the detail stuff, or the planning stuff, or the stuff that really can move the business forward. But should we be concerned about where people are kind of psychologically and through the physicality of their presence?

I would say 100%, yes. So, I wasn't really sure if I was a morning person or an evening person. A lot of my, especially my early 20s and such, were spent in the food and beverage industry. So, you work till 2:00 AM and such. But I've over the years really realized I'm actually a morning person and my brain kind of shuts down at about 3:00 PM.

Mm-hmm.

So, I get the bulk of my work done. So, I've been fortunate the employers I have had have been flexible with that. I'll start at 7:00, 7:30 and then wrap up 3:00, 3:30. So I get my hours in, and they're my more productive hours. If I was forced to, say, work the 9 to 5, which goes a couple hours over, you'd probably be losing a fair amount of productivity with me in that my brain— I'd be sitting in front of my computer, maybe moving stuff, moving the mouse around. But what would I actually be accomplishing would be another good question.

Yeah.

And so to understand that in the confines of being a leader, being able to understand that you do have different people with different needs, Again, I've been heavily kind of falling onto the idea that today, managers need to be more like coaches than managers. We need to understand the individuals on our team rather than treating everybody like one size fits all.

Oh, absolutely, yes. I had one particular— I'm an ambivert. I probably lean heavier, leaning towards an extrovert. But I had an extreme introvert on my team in a previous team, and that was That made for a lot of learning for me because it was completely foreign to me. But at the same time, they were spectacular at their work. And so it was really— I felt it was my responsibility to figure out how best to support them. Took a while, but I'm very proud of the work we managed to accomplish together.

Yeah. You mentioned in your notes that you sent me this idea about 2 eyes seeing. Obviously, before we can solve the problem, we need to see the problem. Could you define what two-eye seeing is?

It's a term that's used more commonly in First Nations Indigenous realms where we hold on to our traditional ancestral wisdom as well as incorporating the more— the Western scientific notions, the best practices, what have you, really kind of looking at it from that holistic perspective, not dismissing one or the other as better, but really Trying to make the best of both worlds, use the best of both tools.

When you kind of put that lens on, do you see that there are conflicts between the Indigenous lens that you're talking about, that it seems to be a lot more holistic and a lot more grounded, I think, in nature and spirituality, and then have that going against kind of business practices and how to make a profit and how to minimize expenses?

For sure. I honestly don't believe it should be, but I see it all the time. And if we kind of look from a purely scientific, like a very scientific lens, like the gold standard is RCTs, randomized controlled trials. Sorry, it took me a second to process that. But again, it's very focused, very specific, and it is actually quite a valuable approach. However, it does ignore a lot of potentially confounding factors. So, to really get the value out of an RCT is, okay, you get that piece of information, but then what's the question that comes up from that that we now need to go test with another RCT, then another test, and then kind of continuing to get that broader picture? However, in the Western sciences, often I've seen anyways is we find the answer maybe we like or that resonates and then we just kind of sit with that.

Yeah.

We don't actually go, okay, well, what are the things that we haven't considered here that are part of that bigger picture? And so that's where I would say the Indigenous holistic, everything's connected lens. So as a person, like, it kind of actually bugs me that the World Health Organization, their definition of burnout is specific to work.

Mm-hmm.

I know for a fact my burnout was very much also impacted by what was going on at home. There was a lot of stuff going on at home that was on top of that. So for me, it was a bigger picture than just what was happening at work.

So what you're telling me is that as much as the businesses want you to leave your personal problems at the door, as human beings, maybe we're not capable of doing that to any great degree?

I would say yes. And there's some aspect I do agree with that. It's like, okay, well, don't just start bringing all your problems to work. But at the same time, as a manager, I need to acknowledge that you're a whole person and you have a life outside of work. And that life, if you're going through a divorce or there's a sick child at home or something, those things are going to impact the work. And as a manager, I can either support that, I can either find a way to support you in however I'm able to, or I can try to whip— crack the whip harder, see how that works.

Yeah.

I don't think My experience is it usually doesn't.

Exactly. So, aside from putting kind of looking at this holistic side and to kind of tame it into our business environments, to me, that's like putting a different lens on it. Just like with my book I wrote, what happens if we put a lens of live theater onto our business? How would we do things differently? If we take this kind of more grounded, holistic, earthier kind of natural lens to put it onto our businesses, what kind of innovation do you think that would create for organizations?

Innovation, I think it would really support, again, just looking at the problem differently, as you just said, especially if you've been in the same job or you've been doing things in a way— there's a reason why people say, well, we've only been doing it this way and it works. Well, is it really working? Like, is the information that you're collecting actually supporting— like, is it a— a lot of the work I've seen reporting, it reports on activities, not outcomes. So, yes, you made so many phone sales calls, but how many— so, that one's pretty easy. It's like, okay. But in things like healthcare, yes, you treated so many patients, but are they improving? What are their outcomes, their health outcomes further down the line? And from a healthcare perspective, just imagine the shift if we moved from— and there's people like Dr. Peter Attia who are trying to push this shift, but what would happen if our healthcare system wasn't based on just treating sickness but actually moving upstream and keeping people well so that they're not coming into the healthcare system?

Right.

That would be transformational. And there's attempts, but it's a really big beast that That is challenging to move. And a lot of it is because there are a number of people that just aren't ready, willing to really see that shift or even accept that there's a whole lot of people that need to be involved in the shift.

Yes. And using now putting that lens onto the businesses, that can be said for all the different crises that we face each and every day. We could apply that lens to labor turnovers, to the high level of disengagement in organizations, to the toxicity within workplaces and so on. Instead of kind of identifying each individual crisis and saying, okay, let's put a band-aid on this, can we do something that's going to create a more holistic view or holistic approach to our culture so we solve the culture problem first before we start playing with all the symptoms? Is that fair?

Oh yes! As a team coach, that's really what I'm trying to get at the heart of. I might not be necessarily using those terms.

Yep.

How are we working together? How, as we mentioned earlier, how are we ensuring that we're building and maintaining trust and setting that really strong foundation? So to bring in the Indigenous perspective, community was number one. That was how you survived, was your role in— was being a part of a community. And you had a role from childhood that included responsibilities. And so you were learning from the aunties and the uncles, and you were— but you were working and you were participating, and everybody had roles and responsibilities. And it was that cohesiveness and collectiveness that really helped survive, helped communities survive millennia in North America since time immemorial is what is usually said.

It's interesting that you said that because as you were saying that, I got goosebumps because I had just mentioned to somebody on their podcast that we have to stop thinking about our businesses and our teams like we're a family. I mean, that is probably the number one thing I hear from people. Oh, things are great. We're just like a family here. And it's like, but you're not. You're not a family. But what you are is a community. And so, when you said this about the community, the goosebumps just started coming up. It's like, yes, we're onto something. If we could stop thinking about our teams and our companies and so on as family. Because I mean, let's face it, you're never gonna fire your mom from being your mom or your father from being your father or your sister from being a sister. Okay, maybe you would. But Really, we wouldn't. So if we change that lens about this idea of, you know, we're all family to we are all part of a community, doesn't that just shift the whole mindset?

I would hope so.

Yeah.

Again, it's a nudge. Again, going back, it was a survival mechanism, but it was also a way of thriving.

Yes. So if this is resonating for the audience, how could they get a hold of you if they want to connect with you and if they want to pick your brain and figure out how you can help them?

Sure. Well, I have a website. It's fairly simple. It's my name, jaylambert.ca. And so, it's easy to find there. I'm also most active on LinkedIn. You can find me there, Jay Lambert. I can't remember my LinkedIn URL offhand. But if you look, search up Jay Lambert.

It's in the show notes.

Oh, perfect.

Yeah, we put it in the show notes.

Less so, but I'm also on Facebook and Instagram and Occasionally TikTok. But I've been mostly active on LinkedIn.

So, aside from the different lens that we just talked about, are there any other strategies or guidance principles that you would suggest if leaders wanted to get started with this?

Strategies like for building resilience?

Yes, for recognizing and building resilience and overcoming burnout.

The first thing, notice. Become aware what's going on for yourself. What's actually going on? I'm a big fan of 360s in the workplace. They can be pretty pricey, but you can do them. I created one for myself and I did it on Google Forms. I got about 30 different— in my previous work, got about 30 responses. And it was, in some ways, was very eye-opening because areas that I thought I was actually pretty strong in, other people didn't agree with me.

Hmm.

And that's important feedback. So even if I'm, I'm making an effort and attempting, somebody's interpreting the way I'm doing things in the opposite of what I actually am. That's data that I can now use to explore further, get curious what's going on there. I did it anonymously, so I wasn't able to like chase down the person and, and, and do that, but I was able to accept and acknowledge that, okay, not everybody sees me the way I feel I am being— I'm presenting.

Yeah.

And so these are areas for growth. And so that's, that's number one. And then, and then extending that to your team and the teams that you're working with. So building the relationships professionally, is it a community way, so that there's the trust, there's the collaboration? And then hopefully then that culture is expanding into the other teams, like, because most teams don't They don't operate in a vacuum. They have to work with other teams. And so, again, building the relationships with those other teams. I've had a background where I'm just— I've been the bull in the china shop, and I've gone after the other teams for the ridiculousness that they were doing and stuff, and rarely successful. When I would approach it as, okay, I'm going to build a relationship here and see how we can work together, and because they have their mandates, they have their requirements. I have my mandates and my requirements. But yet, we still have to work together. When I approach it as a relationship, it's amazing what we can get done all of a sudden. Whereas, if you just kind of go after somebody, they put up their dukes and it's a fight.

Yes.

You mentioned this thing about recognizing and watching and being present in the workplace. Are there any early warning signs before people become aggressive, before people start quitting and become super disengaged? Are there any other signs that maybe leaders should be watching out for? that we might be leaning towards a more high-stress, burnout-laden culture?

I think willingness to engage. So I said irritability, but even before that, while some people will get more irritable, some people will shut down. Noticing, like, if you actually spend the time to get to notice, to know your team and your peers and your colleagues, hopefully you'll notice a shift in their demeanor, their attitude. I still remember quite vividly. It was after the fact, but I was— I've been in a fairly stressful, somewhat toxic environment and had a really strong group of colleagues and friends that we were supporting each other. And then some— I can't remember exactly, but somewhere in there I was diagnosed with depression. And as soon as I shared that, it was like, oh, okay, I thought you were different. But they didn't, because it was like, you're not who— because they knew something had changed, something had shifted.

Yeah.

They couldn't put a finger on exactly when it was, but there was a shift in me and there was a shift in how I showed up at work and they noticed it. I, for whatever reason, either didn't feel comfortable or wasn't sure, didn't trust that they noticed it. So I'm not holding them accountable for any of that, but it just— but they did notice is more my point. And so if you're paying attention, Getting curious. You notice something, ask. Ask what's going on. Like, I've seen a shift. Is everything okay? I think that's part of that compassionate leadership approach is checking in with your team when you do see a shift that something's not going right. Or everything seems right but their performance is like, oh, it's like, okay, this is not your best work. Like, what's going on?

Gotcha, gotcha. You know, I'd like to delve a little bit deeper into the role that the team can play in defining the kind of culture that we want in order to overcome this idea of high stress and burnout. And we'll get to that right after this.

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As you can probably figure out, Jay and I are passionate about serving business owners and your teams wholeheartedly. Like our whole means to be on this planet is to help you. So, if you are planning a management retreat, if you're planning a convention or a conference and you would like some help, you'd like to explore maybe how we can work with you, Please check and connect with us. Our contact details are in the show notes. We'd be more than happy to help with whatever you need. Jay, how important is it to co-create solutions? Once you realize what the problem is, how important is it to co-create the solutions with one's teams? And what would that look like?

I can't even put a number on it. It's like it's 100% co-creation. I'll just— nobody likes being done to.

Yes.

My experience. And we also don't, as leaders, managers, as a coach, I don't know the intimate details of absolutely everything about your personality, your skills, and everything, and which challenges you have. So really getting into that space of co-creating, sharing my knowledge and skills, and coming from a coaching perspective really Diving in and pulling out the feedback is how you're going to get the best solution. And I've seen that a lot where we don't co-create things. We try to create solutions for somebody and they never work because there's always something that we missed. Like, there's something about their environment, there's something about their personality that we just kind of glaze over. And I'm thinking— I'm speaking very specifically about individuals at the moment, but again, even as teams. It's like, where are— like, do we understand the strengths of our teams? Is there something missing?

And if we—

especially as our teams grow and our organizations grow, it gets harder and harder to see all those aspects. So, the need to really rely on our on-the-ground folks, the folks that are in the different areas, whether it be finance, marketing, and our pharma— healthcare, it's pharmacists and nurses and surgeons. Like, everybody has to work together and has this perspective. That the others don't but could be absolutely critical if you miss.

Yes, I see both sides, right? I see that we are in organizations right now where we are top-down. And so, the boss is up there saying, okay, we're gonna fix this. And they get together with all the executive managers and say, what incentive program can we do? Or what reward system can we do to change all this? And it's all based on assumptions. It's based on assumptions like, The young generation don't want to work. The older generations are getting fed up with the younger generation. And there are so many different assumptions that we're using. But it's not until we actually sit down with people and actually talk to people can we make those changes.

Well, and you said, yeah, you jumped on assumptions. And yeah, that's the saying, they make an ass of you and me. But one of the best lessons I had from a mentor in project management was like in project management, you're supposed to list out your assumptions. In your project charter. And I was taught, well, you take it a step further. It's like you list those assumptions and then you fact-check them. And when you move forward on that project, they are no longer assumptions. They are like, do you know these for a fact?

Yes.

Like, do we have the budget? Do we have this or that or the other? Is a pretty key piece that, again, that— and I've seen projects fail on it because an assumption was made. We made that assumption, but we didn't check it. And then we get along and all of a sudden, oh, that was a pretty important piece that's not actually there.

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah.

I can see that all the time. In fact, even as entrepreneurs, we make assumptions all the time by, you know, what is it that we think our customers are dealing with and what problems do they want solved and all that. But it's not until we actually talk to them that we actually figure it out.

And yeah, and to go back to something, because often what drives these top-down decisions is Yes. It's the cost to do that engagement, the cost to spend the time figuring things out. But my question always back is, what's the cost if this fails because you didn't do your due diligence? It's amazing how many people will still push back and go ahead anyways, but almost guaranteed the results are not there because again, of the missed assumptions The lack of engagement. So there's resistance all over the place, and, and on and on and on.

And there's, there's plenty, there's plenty of proof that as human beings, we get tied down to our belief systems and what we think is a good idea. And we will hang our hat on these things, and we will take it up the hill to make sure we wage war behind it. And when somebody tries to show us that, oh, maybe we might be mistaken or there might be some correction needed. A lot of people will hang really, really tough. It takes a lot of humility to turn around and say, okay, maybe I don't have all the answers.

And I think that's a sign of a really good leader is being able to take the risk of making maybe a courage of maybe taking a difficult decision. But then also accepting ownership of that. Leaders who can do that seem to be few and far between. But the people that they have working with them are just 100% And we're not talking about taking ownership when things go well.

We're talking also about taking ownership when things go horribly, horribly wrong.

Absolutely, yes. Even more so actually. When things go well, good leaders actually making sure they're passing on praise to their teams. Yeah.

For anybody who's tuning into this who says, yeah, I think we need to do some work. We need to identify the high-stress areas, the areas where burnout seems to be more prevalent. We have to fix this. Are there any cautionaries or pitfalls that we should be addressing or being aware of before we do any kind of change?

The first is, well, again, we talked about it a bit, but yeah, it's just checking with yourself first. Where are you at? What's going on with you? With burnout, making sure that you're not trying to do it all alone. Making sure that you've got not just your team support, but Your family support, professional support, can't highlight that enough. So counseling, my case, psychiatrists, doctors. I've been fortunate. I've actually come off my medications for depression and anxiety over the last 6 months. And that's been a process, but I've done it in a way with clinical supervision that I'm feeling very confident that I will not have to go back there. Whereas, if you just kind of dump off, then you could be setting yourself up on a yo-yo. Yeah.

And so, any other cautionaries about— because essentially, what we are talking about is we're talking about shifting our corporate cultures, right?

Yeah, I think not thinking that you— recognizing that you don't always have all the answers.

Right.

Again, so having that humility piece. The humility piece. Having compassion. Making sure you take, like, you're taking care of yourself.

Yeah.

Like, so my, my previous employer, the First Nations Health Authority, I really like, they have, uh, they have a, like, a mantra mandate. It's like, it starts with me. So, so everything that we're doing is, is if I, I, I want to be affecting all these changes in all these areas, but that starts with me. Pitfalls are, it's all somebody else's. It's all, it's all somebody else. I can't do this until this situation gets dealt with. So, like, for example, like, even, even the fact that it is stressful, there's certain, certain environments that are always stressful. And so shifting your mindset, it's like, okay, is this stress negative or is this stress positive? Can I make this a positive stress?

Mm-hmm.

If you're an athlete, it's all about balancing that stress for, for growth and performance. The stress is actually a positive. And there's, there's research, there's, I don't know, Andrew Huberman, a famous podcaster right now, he did one— he did an episode on that. And again, proof that they're— that shifting your mindset even just around stress.

Mm-hmm.

So we do talk like, obviously there's managing stress and okay, let's breathe and journal and all those things, but then not just trying to avoid negative stress, but actually review— reviewing the stress and going, okay, how can I look at this as a positive? How can I see this as It's moving out of my comfort zone into a learning and growth zone that is actually going to make things better for me in possibly the short term, definitely the long term. Right.

This has been brilliant. Could you remind everybody, Jay, how they can get a hold of you one more time?

Sure. I have a website, jaylambert.ca, all one word. And then, I'm also on LinkedIn. And from both of those locations, you can book a 50-minute discovery call with me. For either for yourself as a leader, if you're interested in having me work with you and your team. I'm in the process also of doing some group coaching programs. So, group coaching, not necessarily for teams, but people who have similar backgrounds and such, specifically around avoiding or getting away from burnout, avoiding burnout, and making adversity your superpower. So, that's one of the cool things about going through a lot of crap is that you learn a lot. And then, you also have that experience and you become an expert in the field because you've been through it. And so, take advantage of those adversities is something that I'm really pushing for.

Love that. I am a big fan that we are the sum of our experiences and who we are today could not have happened without everything that came before. Jay, as we wrap up, do you have any last thoughts? Anything that we haven't talked about that you think is important to mention?

Just the importance of wellness, I think, is— I just want to reiterate that. If you're not well, you can't take— and I mean that from a mental perspective, a physical perspective, an emotional perspective. But if you can't do that, if you're not well, it's that much harder. Maybe you are helping others in your work and at home, but it's that much harder to do it. When you're well, it's just, it's a huge shift. So for me, I went from completely Burnt out, adrenal fatigue, sleeping all the time, very irritable, brain not functioning. And fortunately, I've been fortunate to work with a, with a coach myself who helped me get through that. My energy's way up, but the probably the most impactful thing is my family tells me they like me better. That's always the positive.

It's always the positive. Jay, thank you again. I really appreciate you being here. to share your knowledge, your passion, and of course, your expertise. It's been brilliant. Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

If you have any questions about today's episode, or you would like a complimentary 30-minute brainstorming session with you and your team, feel free to book yourself on my online calendar. The link is down below. It's the one that's marked meetwith.marchaine.com. As always, I am at your service. And if you haven't done so yet, Why don't you make sure you subscribe to this feed and follow me on social media? I post a lot of great information. Sometimes it's my own stuff, but sometimes I am pulling from these podcasts into some really great learning outcomes. So, I hope you can celebrate those learning outcomes for yourself. Again, thank you so much for joining me today. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you dare Thank you for joining us this week on Experience Leadership.

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