The Most Dangerous Threat to Home Care Owners: Burnout (Jessica Nobles Pt. 2)

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Home Care Owner Burnout FAQ

What are the three types of burnout in home care?

1. Compassion Burnout: Common among caregivers, this stems from constantly giving care, finding solutions, and filling gaps, leading to exhaustion and emotional depletion.
2. Survival Burnout: Driven by the immense pressure to keep the business afloat, this manifests as physical and mental exhaustion, constant compromise, and a feeling of being overwhelmed.
3. Success Burnout: Paradoxical but prevalent, this arises even amidst achievement. It's easy to get caught in a cycle of pushing for more, leading to feelings of emptiness, disconnection, and a lack of joy despite accomplishments.

How can I differentiate between normal and unhealthy stress in home care?

• Normal stress is motivating, pushes you to improve, prioritize, innovate, and practice mindfulness. It's a natural part of growth and doesn't lead to constant emotional drain.
• Unhealthy stress, however, is persistent and overwhelming. It leaves you feeling drained, unable to cope, and often stems from factors like perfectionism, unrealistic expectations, lack of boundaries, and an unclear definition of success.

What are some signs that I might be experiencing burnout?

While the severity varies, common signs include:

• Feeling an unbearable weight or crippling anxiety
• Experiencing constant overwhelm, leading to irrational decision-making
• Feeling emotionally disconnected, empty, or unfulfilled despite achievements
• Becoming easily frustrated, quick to lash out, or experiencing mood swings
• Neglecting personal needs, including sleep, healthy eating, and social connections
• Feeling a loss of joy or passion for things you once enjoyed

What is the first step to overcoming burnout?

The most crucial step is acknowledging and admitting that you are burned out and that you want to change your situation. Denying or minimizing the problem will only exacerbate it. This acknowledgment is a powerful starting point for recovery.

What are some practical strategies for managing and recovering from burnout?

• Prioritize self-care: Start small with 2 minutes of gratitude, 3 minutes of deep breathing, and 5 minutes of physical activity daily. Find what works for you and gradually increase dedicated self-care time.
• Focus on your strengths: Delegate or eliminate tasks that drain you and don't align with your core strengths.
• Set boundaries and create structure: Establish clear work hours, limit distractions, and learn to say "no" to protect your time and energy.
• Accept support: Share your feelings with trusted individuals, seek professional guidance from a therapist or coach, and build a supportive network.
• Rediscover joy: Reconnect with hobbies and activities that bring you genuine happiness and fulfillment outside of work.

How can an accountability partner help with burnout recovery?

An accountability partner provides:

• Support and understanding: They offer a safe space to be vulnerable, share struggles, and celebrate successes.
• Motivation and encouragement: They help you stay committed to your goals and push you to grow.
• Objective perspective: They can identify blind spots, challenge negative thought patterns, and provide honest feedback.

How can I create a work environment that supports self-care and prevents burnout?

• Encourage open communication: Create a culture where employees feel comfortable discussing stress and seeking support.
• Promote work-life balance: Implement policies that encourage time off, flexible schedules, and boundaries between work and personal life.
• Lead by example: Prioritize your own self-care and well-being to demonstrate its importance to your team.

What does a recovering or recovered home care owner look like?

They are:

• Intentional with their time and energy: They have a clear definition of success and prioritize accordingly.
• Confident in delegating and asking for help: They trust their team and leverage their strengths.
• Committed to self-care and personal growth: They make time for activities that bring them joy and fulfillment.
• Present and engaged in all areas of their life: They show up as their best selves, both personally and professionally.

[ 00:00:07 ] Welcome to Home Care U, a podcast by Careswitch. I'm Miriam Allred, your host. It's great to be back with all of you again today. Today, I am back with Jessica Nobles, coming to us from Chattanooga, Tennessee. For those of you who don't know, Jessica is the former owner of Nobility Care Solutions. She's also the co-founder of Home Care Ops. She and her team manage the home care owners community on Facebook. I just checked - it's nearing 8,000 members. If you're not a part of that, get onto Facebook and join the Home Care Owners Community. Last week, Jessica also mentioned over the course of her time, she has served over 13,000 owners and operators via their community, their coaching groups, and events. So, she is an incredible leader and also an incredible person.

[ 00:00:54 ] And if you aren't connected with her on social media, Facebook or LinkedIn, make sure you click on the link in the description to get connected with her and join their Facebook community. Also, something Jessica mentioned last week was that they are planning a home care event for home care owners. It's coming up in September. Jess, before we jump into the session, tell people a little bit about that event and what they can expect, and why they should get registered. Yes. So, the home care event for home care owners is a three-day event. It's a virtual event, so it doesn't matter where in the world you are; you can attend. You can attend right there from your office to your home. It's the one event that every home care owner at every stage should attend.

[ 00:01:33 ] And here's the reason why: because as a home care owner for 17 years, I have struggled over half of those years just trying to survive with the hopes of thriving and one day feeling truly successful because I didn't have a structure, I didn't have a system, and I didn't have a true framework for success. And I don't use the framework as like a hoorah word, like you're going to get the blueprint to be a millionaire, but truly, the structures within your business, such as, how to structure your team, how to structure your scheduling, how to structure your profit. Um, and with these three days, it's three full days, you will actually, Oh, I have one right here. Like the operational success framework is what we call it. We walk you through it.

[ 00:02:14 ] So, you're going to get better understanding of who your right-fit client is, how to create your own profit structure. What service lines do you really need to map out and offer strategically? How to be a professional solution, how to effective a mark. How to effectively market, how to structure your team so that you can have a team-managed agency and you yourself get out of daily operations so that you can scale and grow onto bigger, innovative things. And in these three days, you will get so much clarity. And first off, we designed it based on what I wish I would have had. And then working with so many home care owners at so many different levels of their business, so many different struggles, we've then adapted it to what we feel like is needed right now.

[ 00:02:58 ] And this, I think, is number four - this is the fourth one we've done. Every one of them has been different. They've been up-leveled. They've been adapted to where home care is right now and how we need to show up as home care owners. So, it's really the best event and the best ROI that you are going to personally gain. Um, when it comes to structuring your business and truly creating a framework that at the end of those three days, you go out and take action on it. Amazing. That is the home care event for home care owners. Coming up September 24th through 26th. And like Jess said, it is virtual. You don't have to travel; anyone can attend from around the world.

[ 00:03:36 ] I saw some comments on your recent posts: people in Canada, people in Australia, people in Europe. Like the neat thing about this is it's an international event. There's home care around the world. And, and even at Care Switch, we're getting more interest internationally about these resources that these U.S.-based companies are providing. So it's international. Anyone can attend. And I love how you just held up the resources. Jess and her team actually have a lot of resources. So if you have any questions, send out like workbooks, things to guide you throughout the event. And so if you get registered, look forward to that coming up mid-September. So right around the corner. Last week, Jess, we talked about structured scheduling. It was a spot-on session. I'm still like thinking about some of the things that you shared. I just published it.

[ 00:04:17 ] So for those of you who didn't join us live, it is now live wherever you get your podcasts. It was also episode 75, which is a big milestone for the show. Um, awesome that all of you are listening, subscribing and enjoying this show 75 episodes in and counting. So we're back for another really exciting topic today. Um, a couple maybe months ago, I reached out to you about being on the show and I asked you what you wanted to share, what you felt strongly about. And last week we covered structured scheduling today. We're going to talk about burnout. And to be totally honest, I was a little bit surprised that this was the second topic that you chose to cover on this show.

[ 00:04:52 ] And so you and I both are excited to get into this, um, because it's a topic that, that is near and dear to everyone. It is, you know, it was talked about pretty heavily from the employment side during the pandemic, but you and I talked about, you know, it wasn't really heavily talked about from the owner side, but it's something that everyone goes through and maybe it's too vulnerable or, or too much to talk about, but I want you to share pretty openly about your own experience, about experiences that you have heard and learned vicariously through other owners. So, um, last week we did a long introduction. You have an incredible story and incredible background you've accomplished so much. Instead of doing a, another kind of brief introduction today, I want to actually start with your own experience of burnout.

[ 00:05:37 ] When you were an owner, I want to kind of take a walk down memory lane and have you share a personal story or experience of experiencing and overcoming burnout yourself. So let's start there and then we'll get into it. Yeah. Well, I want to start by saying this is probably one of the most uncomfortable topics that I have ever shared. Like last week for those who tuned in and listened to the structured scheduling. I love that. That was in my zone of comfort, of genius, of comfort, of, um, have tested it and proven it over and over and over again. And now it's just right. It's easy. It's simple. When we talk about burnout, it's very vulnerable. It's very real. It's very raw. And it's something that can easily reoccur.

[ 00:06:23 ] So, and I, as I was thinking about burnout, and I've experienced it in multiple, multiple levels of my life. And first, starting out with just, just putting it in buckets, you know, you know, me, I like structure. I like, I like buckets. Um, I think there are three types of burnout that I've personally experienced, for those listening. You may come up with 10 different other types of burnout, but the first burnout I think is compassion burnout. And a lot of caregivers experience this, where you just get burned out of always being the one caring, always the one coming up with solutions, always jumping in, always filling the gaps. And then there's survival burnout, like. And in my home care business, that is where I found myself in survival burnout, where I got burnt out and I was physically exhausted, mentally exhausted.

[ 00:07:17 ] I was really in a constant state of compromise to where it felt like the only way that I could be - I don't even want to say certain, successful, but the only way that I could keep moving forward and progressing in my business was to feel this burden of overwhelm. Now, nobody starts a business to live a stress-free life. We know that stress is part of business. It's part of growth. Honestly, it's part of innovation and becoming a better person. But as I was in my home care business, um, why I said in like the, the title of this podcast is, 'The Most Dangerous Threat to Home Care Owners.' Like there's a lot of things that can threaten our business, but burnout is the most dangerous threat to a home care owner.

[ 00:08:08 ] And why it's the most dangerous threat to a home care owner is because whenever you get burnout and you begin feeling that weight, that depression, that disconnection, the constant anxiety, you begin questioning, 'Am I in the wrong place? Is this the wrong time? Are these the wrong people?' Then we begin to make irrational decisions. And I will never forget; it was one of those days where it was a Monday. We know aren't like the happy day at the beginning of the week. A Monday is a Monday, but it's been one of those weekends to where we had call-outs and I had to go back and cover shifts again because the call-out and the call-out team and the backup plan didn't quite fall into place. And I remember it was a Monday morning.

[ 00:08:58 ] And I had done an overnight shift on Sunday night. And so Monday morning, I had already had meetings scheduled and meetings with like a doctor at that to go and do a lunch and learn. And I got my stuff together. I got the meal that we're going to be serving these four doctors. And I'm, I'm beginning to tell them about how that we're different, like how we're different as a home care agency. And like, in the middle of this presentation talking about our services and what we do, I literally broke down and I told him, I said, I can give you a spiel and I can give you marketing. And I have stressed over the slogan that you see on these cards.

[ 00:09:46 ] But at the end of the day, my goal is to help families out there whose families are being ripped apart because they're caring for their loved ones and help caregivers who feel like they're not. And I told him, I said, I can give you a spiel and I can give you a spiel and I can give you a spiel and I can give you a spiel and I can give you a spiel. And we do all of the navigation. We do all the organization. We take on all the risk and that's what we do. And I realized in that moment, although yes, I did get all four doctors as referral partners and I was really, really real. I realized in that moment when the doctor, one of the doctors looked at me and he said, I love what you're doing. And he said, I want to get you a spiel.

[ 00:10:28 ] And he said, if, if you will give yourself 10 minutes a day to love on yourself, the way you just loved on all the people that you just talked about, you will help yourself to help more people. And that is the first time in business that I really realized, oh my gosh, I am feeling burnout. I am feeling overwhelmed. I am feeling disconnected. And I would love to say that just realizing that was all I needed for me to shift my ways. But what I also realized that I began making decisions based off my burnout thermometer. And like rather than taking on new clients or taking on new partners or hiring an operations manager or hiring someone to help take the load off of me, I looked at it as a greater burden.

[ 00:11:26 ] And so I did things, harder and harder and harder and harder. Like I was someone would call for care and I wouldn't show up the way that I needed to. I wouldn't hire someone else to help me in the office because I'm like, oh my gosh, they just call so much more work. I'll have to train them for six weeks and they might not stay. And I found myself in the plate of stall. I found myself in the place of if someone would offer me like a two multiplier, one multiplier, if they would just offer me to pay off my, my debt, I am out of here. And that was my first time of truly seeing the negative effects that burnout had. And I had to begin working on it.

[ 00:12:09 ] And I would love to say that I never experienced burnout before, but I did say there's three types of burnout. Number one, I think we're all familiar with the compassion burnout. I mentioned number two, the survival burnout that I just told that story. I think in our business, we've probably all been there. If not prepare yourself, no, that it's not. It's coming and use this podcast session to equip yourself to overcome it, avoid it, or come back from it. But then there's success burnout. Like, and I think that is the most detrimental of all. Whenever you're trying to survive, burnout is one thing; you have to keep trucking, right? You can't quit else you die. You're working to survive, but whenever you have success burnout, you're working towards a lifestyle that you want.

[ 00:12:56 ] It's a whole lot easier to just wallow in the burnout. It's easier to wallow in the depression and the disconnection. And for anyone who has, if you're at 5 million, 10 million, you have a team that's doing a lot of things in your office. It's really easy to find yourself in that success burnout. And I think that's the one, and we'll talk about it a little bit more throughout the session, because it's the one that when it comes to actually taking new levels, and truly being scalable and seeing yourself in a different light, a different level, truly creating; we talk about time, money, freedom, and leaving a legacy. I think if you're in that part of your business, that success burnout is where you'll find yourself.

[ 00:13:46 ] If you're not really, truly intentional with what you do. Jess, that was so good. The story, the three levels of burnout, perfect place to start. The question I want to ask, is around identifying burnout. There's so much stress and chaos and challenges that are just inherent to home care. And some of that is normal. A lot of that is normal, but then there's this line that's tough to define to where the burnout starts to set in. So walk me through your take on that. How much of the stress, the chaos, the challenges is normal versus at what point does it start to get unhealthy? And how do you identify that unhealthy level? Yeah. Well, I, so I think there's two types of stress that we're going to mention today.

[ 00:14:40 ] There's probably like a gazillion types of stress, right? It's never-ending. Sometimes it feels like, but I think there's normal stress and then there is that unhealthy stress that you're talking about. And normal stress. Like I mentioned earlier, nobody wakes up one day and it's like, 'Oh, I want to go start my own business, especially a home care business' so that I'm never stressed out. And in my life, if you did like, you're going to have a very rude awakening one day, definitely get into home care owners community. You're going to need it. But I think with the normal stress, the normal stress, it motivates you when we're feeling stressed. It, it makes us want to say, 'Hey, how can I do this better?' Like, I know it's got to get done.

[ 00:15:19 ] How can I do it better? It helps us to prioritize our tasks and not try to do everything. It really helps us to innovate. It helps us to uplevel. Um, and it also helps you to manage, manage your own life, to be mindful, to take breaks. Um, really the, the normal stress, whenever we created like action leaders, our, our coaching program, um, it was to help people normal, normalize stress in a very healthy, balanced, structured way. So normal stress is something that if you didn't have any stress, you probably wouldn't be growing. And that you would, would stall out. But then there is unhealthy stress. And that's when it's, you have persistent overwhelming stress. It's that thing that emotionally drains you every day.

[ 00:16:12 ] You wake up drained, you wake up overwhelmed, unable to feel like you can truly cope with what's, what the day is bringing. And a lot of times that stems from self-inflicted, um, burnout. And they're like, 'there's when, when it comes to burnout, they're self-inflicted, afflicted.' There's like the nature of the business. And then there's the external factors. So especially if you're a perfectionist, um, that can lead to a lot of unhealthy stress. Um, having unrealistic expectations leads to really unhealthy stress. We talked about like right fit client last week when we were doing the structured scheduling, truly understanding who your right fit client is, um, understanding that you're not the right fit for everyone and everyone's not the right fit for you. That's team members, caregivers, and family members.

[ 00:17:08 ] Um, whenever you don't have non-negotiables in your life and non-negotiables in your business, and a clear framework for what success actually looks like to you and what is actually attainable. Um, it's really, really easy to get over into that unhealthy stress. You've already, I'm writing, I'm taking notes here. You've already like mentioned a lot of phrases and words that I would categorize as the signs of burnout, you know, unbearable weight, crippling anxiety, overwhelm, irrational decision-making, disconnected. I think a lot of those are the signs and it's just that severity level, you know, a little bit of stress, like you've said, helps with growth and innovation and managing your time in your business. But it's when those things are taken to an extreme or a severity that are, you know, crippling or debilitating is where, you know, that burnout starts to happen.

[ 00:18:08 ] Are there any other, you know, you've mentioned all these words and phrases, any other obvious signs of burnout that you would identify? Yeah. So there's different levels of burnout. And I think it comes with a different level of compassion, burnout versus survival, burnout versus success, burnout. But I know for me, now I was burnt out long before I realized I was burnt out. And long before I admitted that I was burned out. But I literally brought like my private journal today, because this is when I was in such a state of disconnection from the things that I always enjoyed. I had literally called my doctor and I never got to the doctor. I called my doctor and said, 'I think I'm experiencing depression.' And like, I went to the appointment.

[ 00:18:59 ] She's like, 'You're the most bubbly, energetic person I know. How are you depressed?' And I'm like, 'I am, I am super depressed. Like everything is so heavy, and I don't feel joy anymore. I don't feel happiness. I have to choose to be happy. I don't always feel happy.' And she was like, well, get a therapist. And so I got like a therapist and like one call with him. And I'm like, oh my God, like, I don't need to like, I don't need to dig into trauma. I just need to figure out. Why I feel this way. And, um, I was doing all of this, like searching. And finally I was like, okay, I'm just going to get a supportive accountability partner.

[ 00:19:35 ] As someone who has the same level of success that I have, um, that has the same work and drive that I have. And we're just going to like power through this together. And so he said, he said, you know what? Why don't you do this? Why don't you write two pages a day for three days? Or right. Two pages, three days a week. So, I did that for like two or three days. And then on that third day, I sat down and I started it with today. I had a startling realization. I am experiencing burnout. I'm talking about 17 years in the business. And this is the first time I've ever, like, physically said I am truly burnt out to this degree.

[ 00:20:23 ] And, and, I even said here, stressed out, physically exhausted, constant negative state, feeling empty, unfulfilled, despite my personal achievements, quick to lash out, feeling frustrated. Like these, it's also clear to me now that I was feeling burnout, but I hadn't addressed it. I was trying to like fix all these individual symptoms, depression. I'm going to go to the doctor for depression. Like my mood. I'm going to go to a therapist. I was really busy or something, you know, everywhere, but I had the prisons made totally I was really just going to sit down and do nothing, accounting for my mood, like never. And I had their advice over and over. I got it. I went right through it. It was something I'd consistently done. So, I realized I couldn't do that anymore one night in the morning for 12 hours straight – at a winery. I got up at one point, at a particular time, because this actually happened during the height of my success. I had no financial worries.

[ 00:21:28 ] I had the best team I ever had, who was performing really great. I was working with the people that I wanted to work with and confidently saying no to the people that I didn't. My family was doing well. My marriage was doing well; yet, I felt internally like that. And I seriously thought there had to be like a secret pill or Xanax. I don't know. Somebody give me something like to fix this. But it was literally beginning to work through my own feelings and emotions that I realized: this is success burnout. Like, this isn't having anything that needed me to fight for it. Like, I want a lifestyle, right? And I want to make an impact, but this burnout depression are overshadowing what I want to do.

[ 00:22:18 ] And so that's what was the trigger signs for me. It wasn't the warning signs. It was like the result signs - you're in burnout. Like, this isn't about preventing burnout; this is about restoring yourself in a much more balanced way than just trying to overcome burnout. Hmm. Thank you so much for sharing. I think this will resonate with a lot of people. Like you're, you're explaining, this is so interesting. Oftentimes when you think of burnout, you're at your lowest low. There are these maybe outliers or things that you can't control and that's attributing to the burnout. But what you're saying is, is very different and probably relevant to a lot of people where you're at maybe your peak success or you're on your way to your peak success.

[ 00:23:07 ] And there's this different level of burnout. That's a result of all the hard work and all of the success. And, and you said it, you, you were going through burnout for a long time. You talked about 17 years in the business, you know, not to, to bag on other owners in this business. People have been in it for a couple of years. The pandemic obviously took a huge hit on everyone, but you know, you went years and years and then had this realization. And so I think part of why we want to talk about this topic is people experience it at year one, year five, year 15, year 50 – you know, there are businesses that have been around for so long and the owners, you know, are facing this at that point in time.

[ 00:23:49 ] And there's no right or wrong way. You can experience this at any point in time, but it's how you acknowledge it, how you recognize it, and then how you deal with it. I've heard a lot of several owners, operators that talk about like taking a hard look at themselves in the mirror. And I think your version of that was this journaling, which is: 'I have to really like dig deep and look within in order to recognize and acknowledge.' Is that the first step here? Is, is that hard look in the mirror? Is that acknowledgement? Would you say that that's the first step in overcoming the burnout is acknowledging it for yourself? Yeah, absolutely. And that's, that's one of the things that I had to sit down and do.

[ 00:24:32 ] And like, even in my journal, I first wrote how felt, and then I wrote: 'How did burnout happen?' I mean, this is already at the point where I have managing partners underneath me. I'm helping them to avoid burnout, right? I am coaching and, and inspiring and teaching people how to avoid burnout. And then I, here I am on a different level of burnout. Like I can teach people how to avoid survival burnout or letting their business overtake them and overrun them. But I think it's that emotional state of burnout. But just sitting down and I literally wrote down like 10 points of this is how I allowed, like didn't allow myself. It's just how I didn't prevent it. I didn't - my priority, my priorities were not in line.

[ 00:25:19 ] I thought that multitasking and creating more projects and meeting the needs of more people was more important than making sure that I myself was mentally, physically, emotionally, and even spiritually balanced and stable and healthy. And once I wrote down like, okay, this is, this is like the 10 things that I've been doing that has aided to this burnout. And then I literally wrote, okay, it's now clear how I got here because at first I was like, how in the world did I get here? And I was so ashamed of feeling that I had gotten burnout. I mean, I felt like, you know, I was the, the, the preacher who someone was like, this is how you sin. Like, it was like a really odd place to be.

[ 00:26:04 ] And I didn't know how I'd gotten here. Like, it was unbelievable that I had let myself get to the stage of burnout. And then I put, okay, it's now clear. I know how I got here. And then I literally wrote down like the 10, 10 steps. This is 10 steps of how I am going to recover from burnout. And the number one thing, like you just mentioned, I have to acknowledge and admit that I am burned out and that I do not like it. Like, because I think there was a point where I felt burnt out, but it was kind of like, just let the waves keep washing over me. Like, just keep me in kind of this like state of drowning, but not really drowning.

[ 00:26:45 ] You know, like, I guess that comes with the, the depression or just the almost despair that you feel when you get into burnout. And then on the second step, you have to commit, you have to commit to actively working toward improvement and restoration. And if you're not committed to it, you're going to feel even more burnout because now, you know, your burnout, you've acknowledged your burnout, you've acknowledged that you don't like it. But if you stay at that point, it will drag you down even further. So it's like, okay, I'm going to have to commit to actively working. I'm going to commit to changing. And the one thing that I started doing, and I think if anybody takes anything away from this session, because I know we're, we're talking through a lot in 10 minutes, give yourself 10 minutes a day.

[ 00:27:37 ] And you don't have to start at 10 minutes; start at two minutes, like literally small hinges swing big doors, um, and just begin compounding. And I think that's, I think that's, I think that's, I think that's, I think that's, the things that you can do to make yourself feel in a better state. And the first thing I started adding was two minutes of intense gratitude a day. And I felt silly; I felt crazy. I didn't want anybody to hear me or know I was doing it. Um, to the point that I would like tell Clint, 'I was like, you go ahead and go to the office.' And I would stay behind because I verbally was like, 'I am so thankful for,' I am grateful for you. And I was like, 'I am so grateful for you.' And I was like, I was moving my body. I was moving my voice.

[ 00:28:20 ] Um, my voice was literally projecting what I am thankful for and what I am grateful for. And I did that every day for two minutes for a week. And it began to change my state of mind, just two minutes. And I literally have like a little two-minute, um, like sand timer that I would use. And I got to begin thinking like, 'Oh my God, one thing, two minutes it's forever.' When you're doing that, like at one minute, I was like, 'okay, this, this could be over'. And then I'm like, 'Thank you for an extra minute,' like, but just projecting. And if you're spiritual, you can do it in a spiritual way. But if you're not, this is about being grateful and thankful, having gratitude for the things that are in your life.

[ 00:29:02 ] Um, like sometimes I was like, 'Thank you for helping me get that call out covered.' And I began to feel better. Now it didn't restore me automatically. And I began working with a coach. And if you know me and Clint, I'm a coach. I'm a coach. I'm a coach. I'm a coach. I'm a coach. We invest heavily in coaching. And oddly enough, um, I felt like the coaches leading up to this point almost added more to my stress because they were always like high performing, high performing. I knew how to perform. I needed to feel achievement within myself. And, um, Clint does high achieving coaching and he coaches other people and they were getting such success. So I said, Hey, I need you to do like six sessions with me. I want that level of achievement that they're getting.

[ 00:29:43 ] So that next I would thought he was going to give me something like life-changing or advise me to do something like changing. And he said, I want you to breathe three minutes of breathing and breathe in the positivity that you want to feel, breathe in the joy that you want to feel. You don't have to feel it, but just say, I breathe in gratitude. I breathe in patience. I breathe in. And then I breathe out negativity. I breathe out frustration and just three minutes of really deep intentional breathing. And I'm like the least woo woo. You will ever meet. So now we have five minutes, five minutes of truly not only changing our state of mind, but it began to change my physical being.

[ 00:30:29 ] And then the next week we added on five minutes of just activity, physical activity of moving your body. And so at 10 minutes, two minutes of gratitude, three minutes of deep breathing, or intentional deep breathing, and then five minutes of just physical activity. I began to feel myself shifting, and I began to feel myself wanting to overcome the burnout. Now, did those 10 minutes a day solve my burnout? No, there was more that had to happen, but it helped me to actually want to fight through the burnout that I was already experiencing. And it really began to change my life. It began to change the way that I showed up to my employees. It began to change the way that I showed up with my kids and my husband.

[ 00:31:16 ] And even, um, one of our action leaders, Kristen Beckholtz, she's actually been on the show before here. She sent me a text and she said, 'I don't know what you're doing, but like, you look so much lighter. Like, there's a light coming from you just within that process.' And so if right now, if you feel like that, you're on the verge of burnout or you're experiencing burnout, um, or you want to avoid burnout, adopting those 10 minutes of self-care, and I promise you, if you can answer a call for a client who has a complaint and that's going to take 20 minutes, or you can go to Starbucks and wait in there forever long lines to get a cup of coffee, you can prioritize yourself for 10 minutes.

[ 00:32:02 ] Because something that I have learned is whenever you prioritize your mental health and your physical health, and just the wellbeing of you internally, everybody benefits from it. I think the thing that I want to call out here is that self-care looks different for everyone. And I love how you've talked about this evolution, the two minutes of gratitude, the three minutes of deep breathing, exercise you layered on. Um, I've talked to a lot of owners and operators, and I have heard meditation come up time and time again; you know, maybe that seems a little hokey or too close to yoga, like what – take it, take it as you will. But I've heard a lot of owners that do some form of personal meditation that really helps them in their kind of deep, dark, hard, challenging days.

[ 00:32:49 ] And so the call out here is, is to find what works for you. That might be meditation. That might be exercise. That might be time out of the office. It might be family time, vacations, you know, hobbies. I love it when your community talks a lot about hobbies lately. Like, what are your hobbies outside of home care? I think a lot of owners jeopardize their hobbies because of just the intensity of the business and it takes over their life, but finding time do it to do things that you love and enjoy. Helps bring that clarity, helps bring that energy, helps bring that kind of light back into your eyes and into your life. And so, um, you know, what worked for Jess may not work for everybody else, but find what it is that works for you.

[ 00:33:29 ] And you keep using that phrase of 'small hinges, swing big doors.' Self-care does start really small. You know, when you hear 'two minutes a day' or 'five minutes a day,' that may not seem like enough time, but it really does. You may only have two minutes in a day to think about yourself and self-reflect, but start, start small. And then that can work up and, uh, can turn into, you know, a lot more time of self-care. So thank you. Thank you for sharing. I love that you've pulled out this journal and you're sharing these raw examples. Um, I am kind of curious if you're willing to kind of keep going down this list. You talked about this list of 10 things that you identified to, to resolve burnout.

[ 00:34:06 ] I think we're on maybe three or four. Can we just kind of drive down those? I'm curious what else it was that you identified that helped you overcome burnout? Yeah, absolutely. And like, this was my list. I was like, 'I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this.' It may be different for other people, but first, someone's just acknowledging that I am burned out and I do not like it. And step two is actually committing to doing the work and staying committed. That's the hard part. And then the step three is to focus on your strengths. I had to focus on my strengths, and then step away from responsibilities that could be delegated to other people or eliminated and really actually do that.

[ 00:34:42 ] There were a lot of things that I wasn't delegating because I felt like I'm really good at this, but it wasn't really my strength. And I loved whenever I did, I did delegate it and they actually did it better than I would have. So, and then step four is prioritizing self-care, self-love, and self-forgiveness because as entrepreneurs, especially as visionaries, we're critical, we're constructed like, and we're most critical on ourselves. So, we have to practice self-forgiveness. And then, step five is to prioritize my health. My entire career, long before I started my business at the age of 18, I sacrificed my health, broke down my body, didn't eat healthy. So, for me, it was: I am going to prioritize my health physically, emotionally, and mentally. So, I set the goals on what do I mean by physically?

[ 00:35:36 ] This is what I mean by exercise. And I didn't put on there that I was going to go to the gym for two hours every day. I know that wasn't me. Maybe one day I'm going to start. I'm going to start with this first. And then, I started to prioritize my health. And then, I started to like rest. For me, no phones between 11 PM and 6 AM because I would find myself scrolling or like looking on LinkedIn or Facebook or the community. And then, mentally, like mentally, those two minutes of gratitude. If you're not practicing gratitude every day, you've got to start that because if you're not practicing gratitude within your own life, more than likely, it's not going to trickle over to your employees or your clients. And then Step six is to prioritize your health.

[ 00:36:17 ] Step seven is to accept support and strength from others. And this was the hardest for me. Like, I got down to my very, very, very, very lowest before I was like, 'I need to tell my husband how I feel here.' And I need to be really transparent with my team about how I feel. And I need to get a supportive accountability partner that isn't using me kind of like as their crutch or coach, but us being mutually real with each other. Then step seven is setting boundaries and creating structure. And I had done that in my business, but I'd done that in some ways at the compromise of my personal life. So I had to go in and readjust that.

[ 00:37:01 ] And I had to be protective of my time and energy, which is like why I was doing a lot of like conferences and webinars and trainings and sessions and like community activities. I was doing all those things that were all good – like it made me look good, feel good, do good. But internally, I had to start protecting more of that time. And then step eight was: I had to rediscover joy. What do I actually enjoy doing that is not within my professional identity? Because as owners, we have this professional identity, but we also have a very raw personal identity that a lot of times we keep bottled up. Like, what does Jessica like to do without the business? And what makes me happy? What makes me feel good? What makes me alive?

[ 00:37:48 ] And so I really am still exploring and discovering what that is. And then step nine was just to reevaluate and realign my goals and my targets based off the nine steps of the eight steps of clarity that I've gained over this journey. And then step 10 is just to focus on the small wins. I'm like all the small wins and celebrate them, actually celebrating them. Because if you're not doing it, you're not doing it. You're not doing it. You're not doing it. You're not doing it. You're not doing it. You're not doing it. You're not doing it. You're not doing it. You're like me as an entrepreneur. You're like, we crossed another million. Great. We can do 2 million next year. Like, it's always like a win just leads to a bigger responsibility and a bigger expectation. And I stopped doing that. Sure.

[ 00:38:32 ] I want to continue to grow and progress and beat my own records, right? Be my own best competition. But I'm making sure that I'm focusing on the small wins every day. And that has truly helped me not only I, you know, they, they say that once you're an alcoholic, you know, you're always a recovering alcoholic. I think once you've experienced burnout, you're always a recovering burnout. But I do feel like not only does it keep me in the state of recovery, but it keeps me really present in life right now. It keeps me present in the priorities that I need to have as Jessica and not the priorities that I feel. I should have as CEO, president, founder, owner, influencer. Jess, this is so good. Thank you for sharing that list of 10.

[ 00:39:27 ] Again, I'm not sharing it so that people can copy and paste this in their own personal diary, but just shedding light on examples of what this process can look like for you as an owner, and take what you're learning from this episode and create your own. I think everyone, you know, that's experiencing whatever phase of burnout you're in to write, you know, have this self-realization and to write, you know, write out kind of your own action plan to overcome burnout. You've mentioned a couple of times an accountability partner. I guess I want to ask: are there any other specific resources or tools that you recommend to manage stress or manage the burnout? And can you speak maybe more specifically to an accountability partner, what that looked like for you and what that kind of relationship could be for other people going through burnout?

[ 00:40:10 ] Yeah. So I think for me, and I'm trying to hold up, you know, accountability partner multiple times in multiple ways. And the first few times I wasn't willing to be real. Like I kind of went in with like, 'this is my success.' And I, you know, I, I, I come with all of this experience and I didn't really want to be real with like, 'this is what I'm struggling with.' This is what I feel. And I think it goes to having an accountability partner where you are at your, at your level of where you are in your business. And someone who is kind of, they don't have to be like my accountability partner isn't even in my industry.

[ 00:40:47 ] Someone who understands the struggles of being an entrepreneur, the struggles of being a business owner, the struggles of needing to work on life development and not just business development, and take a very balanced approach to what does success look like in our life personally, in our business professionally. And then break it down to: if this is what success truly looks like, what are my targets for the next six months? And how do we help each other get there? And so with my accountability partner, I literally reached out and it was actually a group of high, you know, high-achieving entrepreneurs. And I was like, 'this is what I want'. I want someone who will hold me accountable, hold my feet to the fire, and also be real and raw and transparent and compassionate in a way.

[ 00:41:41 ] You're better than this kind of way. You've got this kind of way. And it's been really helpful. Um, for on the days when I'm like, 'I don't feel like this.' And then your accountability partner is out there like slaying, you're like, 'Well, I'm not going to go to her next meeting and not have achieved something.' And so it gives, you know, it gives me that extra momentum. And especially if you're competitive, um, it gives you someone that you can be real with, but also be competitive. And then when you don't, I think it's just as successful to have not accomplished something. And say, and this is the reason why, and then talk through that. You can identify so many gaps in your thoughts or your systems, or just the processes that you're doing in daily life.

[ 00:42:30 ] And so, when you go to home care owners community, if you're, if you want an accountability partner, go there and be like, 'Hey, does anyone at this revenue level or this many years of business or struggling with this particular thing, want an accountability partner?' I know in action leaders, um, that's our, in our internal coaching program, we have, um, peer-to-peer brainstorming where our home care owners get together every single month. And then they come together several times a year in person at our exclusive summit. It's just brainstorming and helping each other to set goals and see how each other can support each other and hitting those goals. And I do think that community is incredibly important to success. It helps us when we're feeling isolated, yeah.

[ 00:43:19 ] One of the points you mentioned out of the 10 was accepting help and support from others, and why that's so challenging. I don't know, you know, when you're successful, it's, you know, you're, you're supporting and helping so many other people, but to accept the help and support is really challenging. And so I think the accountability partners help with that. Are there other people or things that, that helped you specifically? I know you mentioned like opening up to your spouse was really challenging. Probably opening up to the team. Was there ever a point in time where you had to almost acknowledge your burnout publicly to your team, or what, what, what part did they maybe play in this - your office team or your managing partners?

[ 00:44:00 ] So, I did talk with the team and I actually talked with them from the standpoint of, I want to have a really real conversation with you. And I want to start by apologizing. I realized that I am operating from a state of burnout. And I'm sure that me being in this state has caused probably additional stress. And it may even make you also feel like that you're getting burned out. And while I'm working on myself, I also want you to know, and I want us to have a real conversation: one, how can I ensure that we have the support and resources that we need internally so that I'm not burning you out or you're not being burned out? And then also there's things that I've been holding on to tightly.

[ 00:44:50 ] And I need to trust you with it. You're more than capable. I know that you are. And for the things that you're like, I'm, I'm not sure about that, but I'm willing to learn. I'm going to begin really entrusting some of the tasks that I've been doing, which honestly, you guys are probably going to take and run with it even better. But I want to ensure that I don't burn you out in that process; just having a real conversation, I think, brought us closer together as a team. I think we function better as a team. Um, they also know that they can come to me and say, 'Hey, um, I. The amount of tasks and projects that we have right now, um, I want to be able to focus on that for the next three weeks without any, any interruption and us be able to be able to fully communicate.

[ 00:45:36 ] Okay. Thank you for, for letting me know. Is there anything within this project that you yourself can outsource? Is there something that we need to eliminate? Um, do we need to make sure that we're not putting too many commitments on the calendar? Like we were able to have a much more open, transparent communication and outline some really good expectations, not only me of them, but of them to me. Yeah. Imagine. Yeah. I love the concept of you opening up as an owner to your employees about burnout, allowing them to open the door back to you to express their own burnout. But if you have, if you are, or you know, we'll become an owner that's suffering long-term from burnout yourself and not acknowledging it, you know, your team isn't going to open up and share and acknowledge their own burnout.

[ 00:46:23 ] So, it's a two-way street here of acknowledging it yourself so that they're comfortable and confident to open up and share back with you. Um, were there any maybe changes that I made as an office to encourage self-care or, you know, promote like work-life balance because I acknowledge this and had this own like realization myself. And then I opened up to my team. Did that, that translate into any sort of like exercises or policies that promoted more self-care? Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things that we've always, like, we've practiced as a company for many years is something that I designed years ago called 'Win the Day.' And every single day, we start out with a 'Win the Day' and we take about five to 10 minutes, and we start with, you know, our commitments for the week are listed at the top.

[ 00:47:10 ] And then it's like, this is the must-do items of today. This is the busy items. Like they should get done. But if they don't, it's not the end of the world. We'll do it, you know, tomorrow. Um, and then you list your meetings, and then we added a self-care, like self-care family focus every single day. And like, and we tell them, make sure that you're doing your self-care. If it's been three days and your must-dos are getting done and your busy work's barely getting done, and you're three days in and you haven't done self-care or you haven't done a family focus or whatever drives you. For me, it was a self-care mixed with family focus. And then we added a family focus. Then like, let's talk about this. We make sure that you're getting self-care in as well.

[ 00:47:54 ] And I think just having that, a daily reminder of this is a box that needs to be checked. If you have employees, more than likely, most of them love check boxes are when the day it's check boxes. Right. And you go through and you look and see what's done and what isn't done, and to see self-care and family focus every day. And at the beginning of the morning, I mean, like sometimes self-care for us as a team is like, one of them, he wants to take, you know, his, his son out to a certain type of restaurant on a certain day of the week. And then one of the other women, she wants to take, she's got a small child. She wants to take her to like this child play meeting.

[ 00:48:32 ] And it's right in the middle of the day, on the same day every week. And so rather than us being like, 'Well, that's between your nine-to-five', then we say, 'Okay, what do we need to do to ensure that those two simple things are going to work?' And then we say, 'Okay, what do we need to do to ensure that out of 40 hours, right? Those two hours, you can be free to go and be a part of this mom's group.' And it's asking them, 'What are those things?' How can we work with that? And then not being upset when a call-out comes in on Tuesday morning and you want her to stay in like cover a shift or take care of an issue. No, you know, you have to be okay, we've got this covered. Don't worry about it. If it, if it's still here when you're doing it, you're going to be able to do it.

[ 00:49:16 ] You can help us, but for now, we've got it and make sure that you're prioritizing the priorities of your team as much as you would want them to prioritize the priorities of the business, right? Yeah. So simple practices like that, encouraging daily self-care, weekly self-care goes such a long way. I'm thinking how I want to wrap up this episode, Jess, you've shared so much and you've been so raw. And I think everyone can take something away from this. I think everyone can take away from this episode. I think the AHA moment for me here has just been the owners that are in this success burnout. You know, you and I both have worked with a lot of really high-performing business owners in home care.

[ 00:49:58 ] And I think there's a lot of success burnout, which is very different than the survival bone burnout or the compassionate burnout that we talk about. I think there's a lot of people that are working towards that lifestyle that they want and experiencing this. It's very different, you know, level of burnout. You use the word 'like' ashamed, that, you know, people that are really successful and have maybe achieved what they wanted to achieve. There's this different level of, of burnout. That is so interesting. I think the place that I want to end is this question of what does a recovering or recovered owner look like, you know, whether that's you or, think also in context of all of the people you've coached and action leaders and all these people you've served, you have helped people through burnout and you have helped people come out the other side.

[ 00:50:40 ] What does that look like? What can people aspire to? Or what's that advice for people that come out the other side? What does that look like? Yeah. And I will say, it doesn't matter if you're in survival burnout and you're in the beginning stages of your business, or if you are, you've achieved success and have success burnout. Really, the steps are the same. It's just, you may be taking them on a different level. But for a burn, like an owner who is on the other side of burnout, the one thing that they are is a whole lot more intentional with their time. They understand the value of time. They understand the value of truly being clear on what does success look like to them.

[ 00:51:20 ] Um, for a long time, I thought success, um, was measured in money or it was measured in the amount of hours I'm not in the office. Um, but then I realized that isn't really what success was to me. Um, success was much more like having time with my kids and my house being organized a certain way and me not worrying about certain little things. Like as long as money was in the bank, I didn’t have to check the bank account. I didn’t have to check the bank account. I didn’t have to check the bank account. I didn’t every day or every week, right? That success looked different for me. So first get really clear on what does success look like for you? What does being successful mean? Success is not an end-of-life journey. It is the being of what you are right now.

[ 00:51:57 ] Like, what does being successful look like to you right now in this moment? And what do you want success to look like for you? And once you get clear on that, you can begin to set some non-negotiables in your life. Um, and that will help you. It will help you to protect your time. It will help you to protect your energy. It will help you to actually make the impact that you want to make. And for me, I had to get really clear on that because I used to like, want to be in all of it. Like the Alzheimer's association, the community down the road, the senior center over here, the home care group over here, because I wanted to make impact, but I hadn't gotten clear on where am I really going to dive in and really create this, this impact that drives me, that makes me want to get up, get in every day and say, 'I work hard because I love what I do.'

[ 00:52:50 ] Like, there's no such thing as 'if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life,' which is not true. Um, to me, I have found it to be not true. Um, but when you love what you do, you want to work harder, but you, you hear the term 'smarter.' I think it's about being more intentional, more intentional with your time, more intentional with your non-negotiables, and more intentional with your team. I used to send my team circles. I was in a constant state of busy business overwhelm. And I began to see that I – I quit giving them a thousand little, you know, not a thousand, but all those little projects. It's like, this would be a good idea. And then it's like, Oh my God, they're overwhelmed again.

[ 00:53:30 ] And this isn't going the way I want, but I think it's about truly being intentional and, as Clint calls it, a high achiever. And if you're a high performer right now, high performance does lead to burnout and overwhelm. But when you can be a high achiever and you feel in achievement and every aspect of your life, not just your business. I think that's when truly the home care owners and the entrepreneurs that have experienced burnout, I feel like they come back 10 times more stronger because they take such an intentional and impactful approach to just living life, not just doing business. Hmm. Jess, you're so amazing. I, I had high expectations for this session and I think you've overdone it here. I think this was so, so, so good.

[ 00:54:21 ] And thank you again. I just want to keep saying thank you for being willing to be vulnerable and raw and pull out your diary and share all these vulnerable experiences. Again, I think this is so relevant to every owner at every stage of the business. And I already foresee this being an episode that people are going to listen and re-listen and re-listen because I, I too have just like extracting all these like personal ahas throughout this session. So thank you for being prepared and for sharing so much. Um, just in closing here, you've, we've mentioned the Home Care Owners community on Facebook, join that group. It's very active, very engaged, another great place to find an accountability partner, to share experiences with people that are going through exactly what you're going through.

[ 00:55:02 ] Again, the Home Care event for Home Care owners is coming up mid-September. I'd said it last week. Jessica is like Facebook queen here. She's very active. They're also active on LinkedIn, but I recommend connecting with you personally because you too, even in your personal life, share a lot on Facebook and social media. That's just good, feel-good content, but also promoting, you know, best practices for people, business owners, entrepreneurs, home care owners. Um, just thank you so much for all that you do for the industry, for your own community. I look forward to rubbing shoulders with you at some of the events this fall. And just want to thank you for giving us two hours on the show. It's been fantastic. Yeah. Well, thank you.

[ 00:55:40 ] It has been a pleasure, and thank you for allowing me to get real. And, um, and just share – because that's definitely the impact that I want to make is I want to help home care owners to avoid some of the mistakes that I have. Um, they can go make their own, but if I can help them avoid the ones that I've made, then truly find that place of success, that isn't a place of compromise for them as a home care owner. And as an individual, um, that's truly what drives me right now. I look forward to everyone listening to this and finding their own path through burnout. Jess has, has shared a lot of good examples, a lot of tips and tricks, but go out there and find your own path and find what works for you and find your, you know, two minutes, five minutes, 10 minutes – that formula is for you personally. Jess, we'll end here. Thank you so much for being here. We'll look forward to another great session of home care you next week. Um, and I hope everyone has a good rest of their day and a good rest of their week. Take care.