Burnout isn’t always obvious. Sometimes it hides behind achievement, ambition, and control, until the person holding it all together starts to fall apart. In this episode of “Poder aprender,” certified hypnotherapist and executive coach Garrett Wood reveals what happens when success stops feeling sustainable, and why pushing harder is often the very thing that breaks us.

We begin by exploring the silent nature of burnout among high performers. Garrett explains how urgency can become addictive, the thrill of deadlines, the pride of being the go-to person, and how that same pattern quietly drains energy over time. What happens when you hit the gas and there’s nothing left to push with?

From there, we uncover the deeper psychology behind burnout. Garrett shares how subconscious beliefs like “I’m not enough” or “I have to prove my worth” can drive achievement until performance no longer masks the pain. He explains how these invisible scripts shape behavior, and how awareness can begin to rewrite them.

We also address the connections between leadership and identity. Garrett discusses why passionate people are the most at risk, how attachment styles show up at work, and why even great leaders can feel trapped between being too distant or too controlling. The tension between passion and sustainability runs deeper than most realize.

Finally, Garrett introduces a surprising first step to recovery. One that doesn’t require a massive life overhaul or a 5 a.m. routine. Instead, it’s about finding small, restorative moments that rebuild your system from the inside out. If you’ve ever wondered how to keep your edge without losing yourself, this episode might just change how you define performance forever.

These are the topics of episode #104:

• The Hidden Face of Burnout
• Subconscious Beliefs and Inner Programming
• Passion, Identity, and the Cost of Overachievement
• Boundaries, Leadership, and Sustainable Performance

¡Sigan aprendiendo y acuérdense de practicar bien!

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Sitio web: https://poderaprender.com

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YouTube: https://youtube.com/@poder-aprender

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Sitio personal: https://walterfreiberg.com

Today's guest is Garrett Wood, the founder of Gnosis Therapy, where high achieving

professionals transform burnout into lasting, well-being driven success.

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Garrett is a certified clinical hypnotherapist and a national board certified coach who

plans neuroscience, subconscious programming and executive strategy to help leaders break

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free from high functioning exhaustion.

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Whether you've been pushing through stress with grit and willpower,

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or you're noticing success no longer feels sustainable, Garrett offers a new path,

performance that includes your wellbeing, not one that sacrifices it.

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In this conversation, we are diving deeper into the deeper forces that drive burnout, how

your subconscious patterns shape your results, and what it really takes to build a

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thriving life and career without crashing.

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Welcome to "Poder aprender," Garrett.

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Thanks for having me, Walter.

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I'm so excited to be here having this conversation with you.

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uh

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Yeah.

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Garrett, you mentioned that high performers sometimes they are masking burnout.

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What are the cues that you're taking?

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How do you help them recognize what's possible for them?

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Yeah, I think it's really interesting that most people who are burning out don't actually

recognize that they're burning out because they're so used to being able to kind of push.

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In fact, most of the people that I work with, they're like the go-to people in their

organization when like something needs to get done, they know who to turn to and it's them

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and they raise their hands.

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Sometimes they don't even have to be asked, they volunteer.

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They kind of have historically been...

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been proud of that ability and that skill.

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It's helped them really early in their career, whether that was in their academic career,

when they first started out their firm, they became the one that was the go-to person.

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And so they're excited sometimes to actually use that urgency to push, because it's like

thrilling almost.

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Is it going to get done?

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Is it not going to get done?

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And some of that really drives them.

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And the hard part is, is when they've been doing that for so long and so routine, that if

they don't have that urgency,

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It's hard to get out of bed in the morning.

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And so sometimes the more professional they become, the further along in their career, the

more success they have.

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They miss some of the intensity of that urgency.

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And so maybe they actually scale back a little bit.

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They wait a little longer.

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They don't give it quite all of their attention at first until that urgency, the clock

starts ticking and then they get excited again.

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Adam Grant over at Wharton, he talks a lot about health.

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He calls it pre-procrastination.

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Where you're like procrastinating before you're doing the thing, where you're thinking

about it, ignoring it, and then when it comes time, you go for it.

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But what ends up being the first sign for the people that I work with is they're doing

that, and then in push comes the shove, it's time to go, and all of a sudden for the first

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time in a long time, there's nothing to push with.

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They go to hit that button, they go to do the late night, and they find that they can't.

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And at worst, they're like, oh, maybe I need a vacation, a couple days off.

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Maybe I need to get some better sleep and not fight with my partner.

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Maybe we need to make up over here.

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I'll get a good meal.

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I'll get some, long weekend and it'll be okay.

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And then the next time it happens again.

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And now they're kind of starting to experience a little existential dread because who they

thought they were, who they've been proud of being seems like something's different now.

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And so that's when they kind of start, you know, typing and googling and searching for

things, what's going on, what's happening.

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But it ends up becoming like an existential issue for them because their identity is so

tied to being that go-to person and being able to thrive in that chaos or that intensity

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of that urgency.

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So it's a big deal.

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There's a lot of embarrassment and shame around not longer being able to be that person.

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And so usually think that's actually what gets in most people's way from reaching out for

help and like saying, hey, I need help because they're having to say, hey, I'm not who I

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thought I was.

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And that's like kind of a really...

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big emotional challenge and hurdle to kind of try to get through to be able to get the

help in the first place.

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Right, it's very deep and it sounds like almost like they are losing part of themselves

because they are losing part of their identity in that process.

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Yeah, yep, the part of the identity that they appreciate about themselves, sometimes the

most.

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It'd be one thing if they're I'm not that person anymore.

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I played sports in high school, I'm not even an athlete anymore.

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But this is the thing that I'm good at and they're losing that part.

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And that's actually pretty intimidating and scary for them.

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That's the only thing I don't want to lose.

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Yeah, if I don't have that, who am I?

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Uh-oh.

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And then the hard part is too, they've built their career off of being that person.

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They don't have another model of performance where they can continue to thrive or excel

without that.

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And so that makes it even more challenging because they've built this entire persona, not

just personal identity, but the lifestyle around it.

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So their income, the car they drive, it all requires that type of performance.

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And if they don't have the ability to push hard and they don't know how to do it without

that push without their job, it's a really tough situation to find yourself in.

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And Garrett, you talk a lot about subconscious dynamics and how this burnout is often

driven by hidden dynamics.

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And in you're experience, what's one belief or one pattern you tend to uncover in your

clients that really surprised them?

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So there's, if anybody's ever gone to therapy and they've ever done EMDR therapy, there's

usually a sheet that a therapist will pull out and on one side there'll be negative core

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beliefs and on the other side there'll be positive core beliefs.

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And they'll kind of take you through a process where they'll have you read through the

negative beliefs and anyone that kind of registers where you're like, I don't like saying

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those words out loud, that feels too true.

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But some of those beliefs are, don't matter, I'm not enough, I'm not lovable, I don't

deserve.

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And they're like these beliefs that when we say them out loud, they don't feel.

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When we say them, when we hear the words, but they feel true somewhere in our system.

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And they've been there for long time.

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People probably, unless they've read through those lists, aren't aware that they, part of

them believes that.

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And so a lot of their actions are trying to prove that incorrect.

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They're like, no, no, no, that belief's not true.

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Look at all these other things I can do.

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And so often those are the beliefs that I see that show up for people.

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Let me dig a little bit below the surface and a little bit deeper and a little bit deeper.

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The reason why they've been so successful is because they've been able to take those

actions, striving to move away from that belief, to prove to themselves on some level or

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some part of themselves that they are lovable, that they are worthy, that they are more

than enough, that they do matter.

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But they've done that through their ability to perform.

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And so if we take that ability to perform away, some of those other beliefs start rising

higher up to the surface because there's no evidence to prove them incorrect.

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That also adds to that existential kind of struggle that people begin to go through.

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It's like they've been trying to cover something that's not working and

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Yeah, there's

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coping strategies, and it's not solving the underlying issue.

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Yeah, as long as you're able to perform it does.

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It puts that issue to bed.

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There's like an argument and you're like, it's like a case in court, right?

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It's like, hey, we were accusing you of this.

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And you're like, no, look at my defense.

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This is how I accomplished so much today, this week, this month.

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I learned two new languages.

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Of course I'm whatever it may be.

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But then without that ability, yeah, exactly.

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And so just delays the case.

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Yeah, exactly.

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I don't want to deal with that.

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I don't want to acknowledge that part of me believes that.

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It sounds like there's part of where reasoning or logic or thinking through these topics

it has...

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reaches a limit and

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it's like the dynamic or the way that many professionals have and the way they operate.

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Like they think they can get their way out of burnout when this is happening.

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Especially for people who are leaders, how can they learn to lead from a deeper place,

using other resources and...

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I think a way of thinking about the big idea of burnout is burnout is the result of doing

really good work for a really long time without the necessary resources around you.

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It's being resilient in the face of struggles and those resources are definitely in the

workplace that they don't have access to either the pace or the support.

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Maybe the organization fired five people.

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They may have promoted you,

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but they didn't promote two or three other people.

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So now you're doing the job of three people and that definitely is not something to

overlook, right?

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Burnout is not a personal issue, it's just systemic one.

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But the hard part is that organization can fire you and hire someone else and they can

continue to do that.

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And a lot of places do because they don't understand those resources that people need to

stay present in their job.

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And the hard part for them is often it's the

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best performers at work that are the ones that are secretly hiding their burnout until

it's much too late and all of a sudden they're no longer performing and the wellness

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programs that they do have opportunities for are too little, too late for those people.

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And so you're mentioning these resources.

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Another frame of burnout would be not enough well-being in their life.

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And so well-being out in Wharton again, but not the business school.

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In the psychology department, they talk about

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Well-being is the science of well-being.

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So positive emotion, engagement at work, relationships, meaning, achievement.

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But then they also talk about having economic stability, mindset, and then the right

environment as well.

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And so some people think of environment as having leaders you can look up to, having

people you can trust, having psychological safety.

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But

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a lot of people are accused of being bad bosses and they're like, maybe sink or swim or

worse yet, you were a micromanager.

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And it's really challenging because you can have the same behavior as a leader, do the

same exact thing with every single person in front of you.

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And one person may be accusing, accusing you of being a bad boss for letting them out

there all on their own.

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And another person you're treating the exact same way will accuse you of being a

micromanager.

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And you're like, I can't win.

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And I need these people to do their work.

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And I can't do it for them.

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I'm going to try to do my best.

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And that emotional label will burn a lot of leaders out because they're not able to

navigate that scenario well.

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Because most people haven't had a good model of what a great leader is.

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They've been lucky to find one that incidentally matches them as they've come up.

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But that too comes from experiences that they had when they were younger, mostly about

their attachment style.

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So if we have a really avoidant attachment style, we're to be like, hey, leave me alone.

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I want to do this on my own.

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And so if any leader pays attention to you, you're going to feel like they're smothering

you.

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And some people might be a little bit more anxious in their attachment style.

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And if they're not giving you high fives and like check it in with you twice a day, it's

going to feel like they're making you sink or swim no matter what.

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And so as a leader, knowing what your team needs from you and being adaptable to be able

to match that really does serve as that relational piece and wellbeing.

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And it goes both ways.

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If you're an employee and your leader doesn't match you, you're gonna feel that and that's

gonna create some stress.

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It's gonna challenge that relationship.

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But if as a leader, your team doesn't reflect that back to you, you're doing the best you

can and you don't feel that connection, that also is a lack of relationship.

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And so it drains their wellbeing.

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So, and when we put a time clock on that and we need results going at the same time, we're

not gonna get enough sleep, we're not eating well enough, it...

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It does seem like it's a slow train wreck happening is how I feel often when I'm watching

this collision taking place like five miles an hour, just like it's gonna happen.

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It's inevitable.

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Yeah.

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Yep.

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Yep.

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And it's a miracle to me that more people aren't experiencing this more frequently.

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It's like a recipe that it's like, this is going to happen.

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It's just a matter of time.

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And it's gonna happen to the best and brightest that usually at any large organization.

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The people that really do care are gonna be the ones that experience it first.

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So that's really challenging for organizations.

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I appreciate what you say about wellness and how broad that can be.

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And there are many elements there.

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And I know that people are now are paying more attention to their, their physical health,

like the fitness or how they, what they're eating and they are practicing meditation and

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they have mindfulness practices and things like that.

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And I know that the type of work you do it's different.

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And that you, part of what you do is connected to hypnotherapy.

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And I'm curious about that.

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How do you use hypnotherapy to, when you are working with people who are, have very

ambitious goals and they are very into personal development and looking for long-term

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change.

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Yeah, hypnotherapy is an interesting topic.

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I discovered it by accident ah when I was burned out.

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I was actually, I was working in an organization where they did a sleep study.

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And at the end of the sleep study, it was with executives in corporate environments.

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And they found that the executives that were working out got better fitness goals,

achieved them and better bottom line goals according to the metrics of the study, which I

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can't remember right now.

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I should look at that.

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The ones that had better sleep had better results over a 90 day period and they had twice

as much results over a 12 month period.

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So sleep is clearly a cornerstone of performance both in the gym and at work.

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And without that, you're not a great person.

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We're not robots, even robots need like a reboot period, right?

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They need downtime.

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You know, they tell you to turn your Mac off and your phone off every so often.

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If it's running crappy, we need that every day, every 24 hour period.

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So at the time I was experiencing a lot of burnout.

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I'd just lost a colleague who had lost their position and they took their own life

tragically because they had been burned out for so long that they didn't feel like there

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was much of their life left.

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And at that time I was like, okay, I'm experiencing burnout.

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That is one of the end roads.

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I can't afford to leave this position.

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I can't afford to take a sabbatical.

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What can I do?

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I knew sleep was important after seeing that study.

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And so I found this idea of non-sleep deep rest.

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And there's some studies around that where that is really protective for cognitive health,

but also physical wellbeing.

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And the easiest way to get into that state seemed to be through hypnosis.

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And hypnosis has been around for a very, very long time.

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Some interesting claims have been made about it.

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A lot of people think it's like mind control or that they can make you cluck like a

chicken.

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They think of stage shows that they've seen.

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And I do think that there's a little element there that people aren't aware of that just

like in any magic show or entertainment purpose, there's a trick.

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And the trick in stage hypnosis is there are people that walk in and out of hypnosis

throughout their day normally.

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That's a normal state for us to do.

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When we're laughing and crying at a movie, that's a state of hypnosis.

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If we're drifting off to sleep and we kind of daydream a little bit, but we're able to

still think about our day, that's a state of hypnosis.

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If we're driving home and we arrive and our mind was wandering and we didn't know how we

got there, if we're washing the dishes and our mind wanders to an image from earlier in

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the day or from a few years ago even, and we're like really back in that moment, that's a

state of hypnosis too.

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So when people go to these hypnosis shows, the stage hypnosis, the magic hypnosis, they're

in and out of that state.

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And so the hypnotherapist up there, the stage hypnosis is asking for volunteers.

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So they're outgoing, driven

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people, they don't mind being on stage in front of a crowded room of people.

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And he's not actually commanding them to do anything.

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He's asking for willing participants that are already in a state of hypnosis.

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And then he's just giving them suggestions that they're willing to follow because of the

type of person they are.

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So there's no mind control or power that people typically think of when they think of

hypnosis as like an inner person practitioner.

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So I like to think of it as all hypnosis is self hypnosis.

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The difference between mindfulness or meditation and hypnosis is one is active.

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You're actively trying to stay in that state.

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And the other one is passive.

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Hypnotherapy, you are relaxing into that state and choosing to allow yourself to relax

deeper and deeper into that kind of lack of tension.

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And when we're there, our brain shifts from different types of oscillation, different

types of like brain wave states, but it also shifts from different types of thinking.

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So it used to be thought that like when I recalled something, I was taking a snapshot out

of like a Rolodex and looking at that snapshot and be like, this is the memory.

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This is from when I was six.

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Look at this memory.

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Okay, cool.

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And then I would put it back.

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And every time I would recall it, I was picking up that first snapshot.

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But what's actually happening with memory is I take the first one and I recall it.

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Whatever experience I'm having now as I look at that image changes that image.

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It updates it.

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And then I put it back.

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It's completely new and different.

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And so what's really interesting is that thing that's happening is taking place in the

default mode network.

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So it's like who I am, how I feel about the world, how I feel about myself, values and

ideas and beliefs about everything around me.

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That's where that kind of gets updated at.

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And when we're in that state of hypnosis, that's where most of our brain is centered and

focused on.

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That's where the attention is going.

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And so if we can go back and recall some of those like

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explicit memories in that state and we can change the state we're in when we're feeling

them.

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It's like watching a scary movie but changing the soundtrack.

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It's like watching a scary movie and changing the lighting in the scene.

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It'd be like watching a scary movie and you could jump in with the main character and

instead of saying, don't answer the door, you could literally be like, hey you're not

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going to answer that door, you're going to follow me, come along for the ride.

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And the experience goes back into that system and when they come back into a normal state

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that logic, reason, and willpower is different.

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They have more choices.

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That old belief is still there, that old pattern is still available, but now it's not the

only one.

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There's actually a new opportunity.

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That's fascinating.

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And I love what you're saying that there's things that we can change in our past from the

present.

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And that is going to give us more choices and more opportunities right now.

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It's not that what happened is set in stone as we can go back and we can revisit those

memories or those experiences and we can add new meaning to that or we can shape them in

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different forms.

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Yeah.

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And we do that all the time anyway.

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One of my favorite stories, that's a cute one, right?

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Is I have a really good friend and he's got kids of his own now.

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But when he was young, he loved his dad.

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His dad had curly hair, he had straight hair.

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His dad wanted him to eat his crusts of his pizza.

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So his dad told him, hey, if you eat your pizza crusts, it'll make your hair curly.

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And he was like five or six at the time.

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He believed his dad because his dad could do no wrong in his eyes at that age.

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And he spent his whole life.

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It wasn't until he was in his late thirties,

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kids of his own, kids eating pizza, and he's like, hey, eat your crusts.

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It'll make your hair curly.

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And he said it out loud to his own son.

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And in that moment, he knew it didn't sound right.

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It's not logical.

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It's a silly belief to have, but in his heart of hearts, in his body, he believed it

still.

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And so it wasn't until he heard it out loud that that belief got recalled from way back

then, pulled into the present moment, and then was analyzed.

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And now he updated his belief and put it back and he's like, yeah, pizza does not make

your hair curly.

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But something as innocent as that is something kind of believed halfheartedly, part of

him.

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But there's a lot of beliefs that we've made at a really young age that were important for

us then, but aren't serving us now.

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And they show up until we have that chance to do that work.

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I wonder about like the, the place of language in this creation of memories or when these

experiences happen, are some of them are prior to language,

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or after language or what's the role of language in the creation of these important

memories and how you, when you work as a hypnotherapist.

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So I don't speak many languages, but I have been told by people that speak different

languages that it gives them a larger vocabulary to be able to describe different

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experiences.

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And in fact, in some languages, it's really challenging to describe an emotional

experience versus in other languages, it's much easier to access a way to describe it and

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convey that to someone else where they can also nod and say yes, right?

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And there's some studies out there that when we talk about our emotional state,

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and we expand our emotional palette that way, we're able to not just have like sadness and

anger, we're able to have sorrow and frustration or irritation.

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And it's really important to be able to do that because it makes it easier to manage and

not get overwhelmed by.

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And any good sommelier would tell you that like, the more you know about wine, the more

you compare it, the more you can enrich your experience of wine because you would know

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what to drink it with, when and how.

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I think of emotions that same way.

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And I imagine that speaking languages, if you have multiple ones, you have an opportunity

to be really good at that.

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But all of those languages and those tools are there to help us communicate and describe

to ourselves and others the experience we're having.

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And that experience does not need words to be had.

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They're just a tool that we're trying to like a paintbrush.

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And some are better tools for the job.

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And some people are better painters at the job too.

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But that experience happens pre-language,

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for sure.

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And most of those beliefs are more like implicit assumptions, general understandings,

feelings, associations.

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They're not necessarily like this happened and then this happened and then this happened.

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It's not even procedural where it's like I get on a bike and I know how to ride it.

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It's even deeper than that.

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It's just a reaction or a response.

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And if we take it down to the very basis of it, it would be yes or no.

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Mm.

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Yeah, that's, that has been my experience interacting with people who learn multiple

languages and with polyglots, that there seems to be like more, they have access to more

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nuance and more shades and more possibilities when talking about communication or even

making sense of our world and of our reality.

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And sometimes it feels also like

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I think one in my personal experience, learning another other languages, not only is a

very fulfilling experience to, we can get access to more people, we can make friendships

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with people in other parts of the world, or we can consume more content.

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And it's also like the lens of that culture and how they process reality.

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And it gives you more information.

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It gives you more options.

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And eventually you start doing that unconsciously maybe even like, I will choose to see

this as a person speaking this language or coming from this culture.

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That's something that we might be able to evoke.

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The idea that each language has its own inherited beliefs, the development of that

language, I think is fascinating and I believe to be true, even with my very limited

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language that I have access to.

322

But I do think that the idea of a culture of being embedded in the way we near the world

or like represented internally and the words we have access to, yeah, and the more access

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we have that...

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the more nuance, the more shading we can kind of add into like the more detail in our

worldview.

325

And I do think there's probably a couple different worldviews out there that are reflected

really well in the languages and the more they've been insulated against exposure to other

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ones, I'm sure the more you're able to kind of see the difference between those two

languages.

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Yeah.

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And something that I see also in language learners and there's people who are very

passionate about that and they are all about learning languages and they can't stop adding

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more languages.

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That makes me think also of professionals who really love their job and they're very

passionate about what they do.

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And people like that still burn out.

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What can you say about this difference or this tension between passion and sustainability?

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Yeah, it's actually the most passionate people that are the most susceptible to burnout.

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So we often think that like having passion for something is going to protect you.

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And I will say there are a lot of people that if they're bored at work, they're just

they're not going to do the job.

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They're going to leave because it's not stimulating enough for them.

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But they're not going to complain about burnout.

338

They're going to go find another position until they are stimulated enough to be able to

engage naturally in that environment.

339

But the more they engage, the more they kind of like begin to obsess about it.

340

That's where there's a couple studies out there where they talk about obsessive passion,

where that puts you over the top.

341

And I do think that there's a lot of dangers in over-identifying with anything.

342

So if I'm a soccer fan or a football fan, and this is my team, but then all of a sudden my

three favorite players on that team that I followed their entire career before they were

343

on that team, and now they go to another team, uh-oh, am I still...?

344

All the jerseys in my closet are for that team, but none of my players are on the team.

345

Now I'm identifying with that team still, and how easy is it for me to make that

transition?

346

Can I set it down and pick up five new teams and root for all of them?

347

Or am I still stuck rooting for a team that I actually don't care about anymore?

348

And am I doing that to the point where I hate other people from other teams and fans?

349

You know, in the 80s and 90s, there's a big, you know, in Europe,

350

a big kind of like soccer hooligan, where there's some like real violence being

perpetrated against other people that are other fans, and fans short for fanatic, and

351

anytime we get fanatical about something, we're over identifying with it.

352

It's that obsessive passion, and we're putting ourselves in harm's way, we're not being

adaptable, our cognitive flexibility goes down, our ability to expand our horizon shrinks

353

to like a pinhole, and it's either right or wrong, and there's nothing else, and that's a

really dangerous position to be in.

354

And so if you start believing you have a monopoly on truth, belonging or whatever that is,

that's, I think, dangerous for most people.

355

I don't think most leaders are fanatical about their company that they work for.

356

They might pretend to be, right, that they drink the Kool-Aid so they can get the

promotion, but internally, they are identified with something that's giving them value

357

that they're able to express there.

358

And if the company turns less or dissolves or their position gets eliminated and they

don't feel they have another way,

359

that they developed to express that, that is dangerous.

360

That would be like being an athlete where your whole identity is being a football or a

soccer player.

361

And now you can't anymore because of an injury.

362

And now it's gone.

363

I have a buddy who played in college and that's how he was able to pay for university.

364

And he got injured and I don't think he's ever fully recovered who he was because I've

seen him now for 20 plus years before, 10 years before and 20 after and who he was in that

365

moment versus who he is

366

even now is a very different person.

367

And so it's dangerous.

368

That passion is protective and then also not.

369

Yeah, just like being courageous is good.

370

You got to feel fear and then act anyway.

371

But being belligerent where you're just like, I'm going to jump off this building.

372

doesn't matter.

373

I'm not afraid of anything.

374

That is also dangerous.

375

So it's trying to find that like mean between that with passion.

376

I don't know about polyglots being so excited about learning all the different languages.

377

If there's a danger there for them, I'd have to ask.

378

I don't really know.

379

And I've met people in, in polyglot gatherings who have curiosity for learning more than

20 languages.

380

That's not me.

381

And what I see is that, yeah, that can be, maybe the can be, could be potentially an issue

when they want to get deeper into one of these languages and is that they can't help it,

382

but they want to branch out and keep adding more and more.

383

And there's something that's

384

being satisfied in that, this thirst of curiosity.

385

And I want to learn about all these cultures because each one of them has something

fascinating to offer.

386

And that might potentially be challenging in terms of getting deeper into one of those.

387

And that's when it might be unsustainable for them, maybe.

388

ah

389

Yeah, depending on what the type of game they're playing, right?

390

Because maybe they are...

391

And I've met people like that who are perfectly fine with being like barely conversational

in many languages versus being able to go very deep in just a few languages.

392

Usually it tends to be a choice.

393

Yeah, so like, what is that saying?

394

in terms of depth and width, was that with inches?

395

Yeah, that is.

396

So yeah, there's an idiom that's the jack of all trades, master of none, where it's that

idea.

397

Yeah.

398

Or like an inch deep and a mile wide versus yeah.

399

Yeah.

400

tends to be hard to be like uh a mile wide and mile deep with languages like speaking 30

languages very, very...

401

very advanced level and keeping maintaining all those at the same time.

402

Yeah, there's a book called Range by David Epstein where he argues for not a mile deep.

403

He argues for not necessarily an inch, right?

404

But the mile wide, but, cause he says that that person that skips over the top.

405

can be more generative in the ideas.

406

And so they can take skills from each one and apply them in ways that someone who's really

deep in the weeds wouldn't be able to.

407

And I do think that's a really interesting argument and a nice like moral defense for

people that don't have just one passion.

408

They have many passions.

409

But for your example, I think it'd be really fascinating if someone knew 30 different

languages,

410

if they picked like the archetypical book from that culture or that language and then read

it in all of its interpretations and all the different languages, because I would love to

411

know what gets emphasized more, what values get emphasized more in one language versus

another when you read those translations.

412

To me, that would be fascinating.

413

And I would have to talk to someone that knows 30 languages for to be able to glean that

out.

414

Yeah, I think that that's a great idea.

415

And I know one person who learned many languages and who had that, who ran an experiment.

416

He had the book, he wrote a book and he also tried to translate it in as many languages as

possible.

417

And I don't know much more about that, but I know that there's people who are very

passionate about languages and they go into those experiments.

418

And speaking about learning and working and living our lives and boundaries and setting

guilt-free boundaries.

419

Yeah.

420

In your opinion, what's a learning curve to be expected from people who want to go to

create boundaries that actually work for them.

421

So boundaries are really interesting.

422

I will say that they're embodied ones in social situations that you're in.

423

So wherever that's a social situation.

424

And then that's culturally embedded as well.

425

So we have to be conscious of that.

426

And then it's interpersonal as well.

427

We might have different boundaries with different people.

428

And then it's also within ourselves.

429

And so those are a lot of things that all need to work together for someone to feel

430

comfortable and aligned.

431

And there are a lot of individuals where the culture they grew up in, they might not feel

aligned with, with their own personal boundaries, with the interpersonal boundaries that

432

are expected of that culture.

433

And so they might be better fit in another part of the world, uh in a different part of

their own culture.

434

And so I think that's really interesting.

435

And you see that a lot at work when you're merging a lot of different people, especially

here in the States, you get a lot of different cultures.

436

We're a nation of people

437

of all different cultures and we're all there coming together in a workplace and it's

really challenging to try to make it one monoculture and I've seen organizations try to do

438

that.

439

The bigger they get the more they try to impose that and it doesn't really feel authentic

so they end up having no culture which is also detrimental because it makes it really

440

boring to be at work so then it's up to the individuals themselves to try to decide what

actually works for themselves for the culture they want to create.

441

And so when you're...

442

building boundaries, you have to decide, okay, is this a boundary that I'm gonna hold with

my family?

443

That's aligned with our entire cultural value, or is this something I'm gonna try to do

for myself?

444

How can I maintain those, even if they're in conflict with each other?

445

And that is often a conversation people have to have, that it is a conversation with a

professional, because it takes a lot of working through, is this me, is this them, is this

446

the culture?

447

And what's healthy, what's harmful,

448

what's helpful.

449

Because a lot of different places have a lot of different ideas about what are those three

things.

450

There's nothing set in stone.

451

It has to a little bit ambiguous for it to be effective.

452

If it was all one way or all the other way, it wouldn't be a conversation.

453

And it wouldn't cause any stress or harm for anybody.

454

There might be listeners listening right now who might see themselves and being like, I'm

at the edge of burnout.

455

I'm just about to get into this place and I don't want to.

456

What's one powerful first step they can take to interrupt that pattern and start creating

something healthy or something better for them?

457

Yeah, so if people are in full burnout, like they are at the, they tick all the boxes,

like if we gave them a screener and they went through it all, we need to look for

458

something, the easiest thing, the most relaxing thing.

459

We need to able to give you more calm in your nervous system so you can actually relax and

turn off for a little bit.

460

And so it's actually doing less, but a lot of people don't enjoy doing less.

461

So we have to find the thing that doing more of builds more resilience than it does

takeaway.

462

m

463

So a lot of people enjoy endurance sports and they go out there and they run 20 miles.

464

And they're like, yeah, that really feels good.

465

But then at work they're stressed out and then they don't get some good sleep.

466

And then that run actually no longer restores them like it used to.

467

It becomes a drain on them.

468

And so that is, that's not going to work.

469

But if the running is the only thing they have access to to get them to feel better, it's

dangerous.

470

Oftentimes people use substances to do that.

471

So they'll have an extra glass of wine or two or three because it calms our nervous system

down.

472

So they are getting a little bit of release, but then you're not able to good deep sleep.

473

So then your sleep gets worse.

474

So once again, it takes out more from your system than it puts in.

475

There's an author, "How Emotions Are Made," Lisa Barrett Fieldman.

476

She's a neuroscientist.

477

uh She did a tour, I saw her here in Irvine, which was great, but she has this concept

where your brain is a predictive machine.

478

And essentially it's predicting what tomorrow's gonna look like and then preparing your

body to be ready for that.

479

And based upon your past behaviors, it assumes it knows what you're gonna do.

480

It starts running a bunch of different programs to get ready for the next day.

481

ah And so she likes to think of every action and behavior that we take is either a deposit

or a withdrawal from that system.

482

And so to your question if someone has a lot of withdrawals and they're in the red we have

to figure out the quickest easiest way that costs them the least amount of effort energy

483

attention and executive function to get the biggest deposit they can and we need to make

as many of those as we can as quick as we can.

484

And so it's actually looking for moments of joy, reassurance, pleasure

485

that don't cost us something.

486

So a lot of people think it's gonna be sleep, food, nutrition, movement, but it could be a

hug, it could be hanging out with your dog, it could be a joyful moment with your kids.

487

It can just be anything that's part of that wellbeing model that gives you something you

have already and doing more of that.

488

Because if we have to start a whole brand new practice, we have to wake up at 5 a.m.

489

and start journaling and then meditating to try to get out of burnout, that might work for

somebody if they already have a really developed journaling process.

490

They already wake up at 5 or 4:30, so waking up at 5 is a sleeping in for them.

491

Or if they're already really skilled at mindfulness.

492

Those are great assets for them to lean into.

493

But if that would be a new practice for you and you're already in burnout, that wouldn't

be where we'd want to start.

494

We'd want to be starting with what's already working.

495

Those elements of well-being that you already have, we need to do more of them, whatever

they are.

496

It does not matter.

497

Great.

498

That's such great advice.

499

And I really appreciate your relaxing presence here today, Garrett.

500

That was, I have to say that you have a very calming and relaxing presence.

501

And I know that this can be super helpful in supporting somebody who is burning out or who

is really anxious.

502

I can see how that can be a wonderful asset for you and the people you serve.

503

I appreciate that.

504

I feel like I'm talking your ear off here.

505

I'm on my fourth cup of coffee, so.

506

You don't look like that.

507

Yeah, you don't look like that at all.

508

And how can people learn more about you...?

509

And is there anything you'd like to share with my audience here?

510

Yeah, so if they want, they can go to LinkedIn, Gnosis Therapy, G-N-O-S-I-S Therapy.

511

That's also my Instagram handle, but that's also my website.

512

And if they really want, there's a survey, kind of a self assessment that they can take.

513

And it really is kind of a uh quick, easy, few questions to answer to kind of...

514

one, see...

515

Where am I overall in my life?

516

Am I burned out or am I not?

517

Or am I doing pretty well?

518

Kind of low, medium, high.

519

And then it'll actually go into what is specifically driving their burnout?

520

What are they really low on that will help boost them?

521

What are they really high on that they could use more of?

522

And then it'll actually even talk about a little bit of those strategies based upon where

they are currently.

523

So it's really hard to give blanket advice for people about like, how do you treat

burnout?

524

If you do, you just sound like a really boring blog post that anybody could write.

525

Cause it's about that person and what's going on with them and how are they showing up and

where they come from and all those limiting beliefs.

526

So the easiest thing I can think of is if you take that survey, you'll be like, okay, am I

burned out?

527

How burned out am I?

528

What are my strengths...

529

that are like resources that I can lean into to alleviate some of my symptoms and the

intensity and what are some things that are really low on that when I am feeling better,

530

maybe I can go and look into that'll create more resilience for me in the future.

531

Great!

532

And where can people take this survey?

533

Yeah, so it's linked on my Instagram, it's linked on my LinkedIn, and it's a pop-up on the

website.

534

So if they go to any of those places, they'll see it.

535

Perfect, wonderful.

536

Thank you so much, Garrett.

537

It was great having you here today.

538

Thanks for having me, Walter.

539

It was a blast to be able to talk about some of this with your audience.