REALTORS® often operate with a high-performance mindset, much like professional athletes. It’s a powerful tool in business, but it can also be a slippery slope to burnout. Psychotherapist Jhanelle Peters, former mental health clinician for the Toronto Raptors, joins REAL TIME to explore the pressures of entrepreneurial careers like real estate. Listen in to learn about the gradual building of burnout and how to spot it early, the importance of reframing “work-life balance,” how integrating joy and recovery into your daily routine fuels both your career and your well-being.
Transcript
Jhanelle Peters: Before you say yes to anything, make sure you are not saying no to yourself. I’ll say it again. Before you say yes to anything, make sure you are not saying no to yourself.
Shaun Majumder: Okay, so here’s the thing. You know, for the amount of time I’ve been doing this amazing podcast, the one thing that I’ve always felt kindred with is the kind of work that all of you do, and how it aligns with a lot of what I do as a creative person. But I’m self-employed. I’m always out there trying to generate leads. I’m always out there trying to boost the brand, try to keep the promo going. Trying to book jobs. Trying to close deals. I mean, it is a never-ending process of keeping things going. I mean, it’s really, really intense. And, you know, I would ask all of you, when was the last time you took a break? What was the last time you felt like, “Okay, I’m super relaxed”.
It’s very difficult. But, you know, it’s so important to explore ideas about how we can find a balance, right? And not just work-life balance. We hear about that a lot, we’re going to talk a bit about that today on the podcast. But, not allowing all of this pressure to affect our mental health, which in the end becomes a detriment to the work you’re all trying to do. And that’s why I’m so excited today to talk to Jhanelle Peters, Registered Psychotherapist. I’m not going to lie, this one is as much for me as it is for you. But, she’s amazing and we’re so excited to have her on REAL TIME. She’s the Clinical Director of Jhanelle Peters Psychotherapy, and she was also the mental health clinician for the championship-winning Toronto Raptors.
So, I’m going to try to convince her to become a mental health clinician for the Toronto Maple Leafs. We’ll see, I know that’s not going to hit well with everybody out there watching, but either way, we’ll see if we can get her to help them out. You’re going to love this conversation. Let’s get into it with Jhanelle Peters, Registered Psychotherapist, to talk about how to avoid burnout.
Shaun: Jhanelle, this is so good. I love that you’re here today on REAL TIME. I am so excited. Your energy, it feels right today, it feels positive, it feels great. Where are you located right now as we speak?
Jhanelle: Right now, I am in Florida. We’re in Miami.
Shaun: Nice. And how is it? Like, we’re in – you know, as we record this, we’re in the middle of summer, must be very hot.
Jhanelle: Oh, it’s still summer. It is all forces of summer still be beaming down at you, 34 degrees of it, okay.
Shaun: Right, right. That is hot. That is very hot.
Jhanelle: How about you?
Shaun: I’m in Nova Scotia, where it has been blazing hot with no rain all summer long. And, so I’m feeling good, like we’re coming up to a shoulder season now, It’s going to be nice. But, you know, it’s pretty easy to feel happy and joy when the sun is out. I’m just seeing now, you know, having just moved my entire family from sunny California, where literally every day, a little tiny robot comes out of the lab and flicks to switch and the exact same weather happens every single day.
Jhanelle: I’m glad I’m not the only one that thought that when I was there. Like, it’s “Do I need to check the weather anymore? No. It’s VR. It’s all VR. It’s not real.”
Shaun: And so we’re getting into some dark times, like a winter in Nova Scotia is going to be a challenge of mental health, which is something you specialize in.
Shaun: Tell me a bit about yourself. Jhanelle Peters. Who are you? What do you do?
Jhanelle: I am a Registered Psychotherapist. What does that mean? It means I’m somebody that you can sit and talk to, to uncover things, to understand things, and to feel better about life altogether. And I’ve been really lucky to take all of those things and work with various high performing individuals, including my role and title as the Mental Health Commissioner for the Toronto Raptors, which was a great experience.
But now I get to spread that energy and work to everywhere else, as I have a practice in Toronto, called Jhanelle Peters Psychotherapy.
Shaun: Jhanelle Peters Psychotherapy. That sounds amazing. And so anybody can go. I mean, obviously.
Jhanelle: Yeah, anybody.
Shaun: Right, right. You’re probably super busy.
Jhanelle: So, I mean, you know, I’m busy, but I’ll make room for anybody that you send a referral for, Shaun, if they say that you referred them, I’ll make room.
Shaun: Well, look, I know today we’re supposed to be talking about only real estate and all that, but I’m going to be one of your clients. So we’re going to start because I’m very high performing as well. Sorry. I don’t know, I started laughing when I said that.
But either way, I am, very, you know, I’m an independent person. I am constantly on the move, I am hustling all the time, I am self-employed, I am always looking for new opportunities, I’m trying to do the work in the background to prepare myself. I’m aware that my industry is filled with all these different kinds of arms that I need to develop skills in, in order to excel.
But I also have a family. I have my personal life. You know, so a lot of it can be consuming. And so, by saying all this stuff, I think that a lot of REALTORS®, a lot of real estate agents out there have a very similar kind of approach to how they’re trying to, you know, they’re not like on a team like the Raptors, where I’ve been hired to play for the Raptors. And, you know, I’m just going to play my position, but we’re all going to work together as a team. Being a self-employed, entrepreneurial actor-comedian, it’s very similar to the REALTOR® world. So, you know, I’ve felt burnt out in my life. You know, that’s something that you probably specialize in. What do I need to know?
Jhanelle: Well, you need to know that you check, check, check, check, check almost every box, what a high performing person experiences, and why burnout might surface for them. And I think a lot of people are probably like, “Okay, Shaun, like, I get you, I do that and I do this, and I do that”. Like, they’re counting all the things that you said. And they’re like, “Well, how do I know that I’m burnt out, right?”
Like, I think that’s the question that most people would say because they’re like, “Well, I’m used to doing a lot of things. That’s just part of what my job looks like, and it’s my personality to do”. Exactly, right. Yeah, I always want to be the best at things, and I’m used to stretching my arm 75 different positions. But, does it hurt? Are you tired of doing it? Do you wish you didn’t have to do it all the time? And these are some of the questions you might start thinking about when it comes to burnout. Because really, what that is, it’s a prolonged amount of stress on your body that almost feels like it has nowhere to go. And so a lot of people hold it and go, “I just gotta do what I gotta do”. That’s just what this looks like.
Shaun: Yeah. Head down. Keep going. Don’t let the feeling of shut down get in the way of moving forward. Like, I feel like there’s a bit of that that happens, especially when you’re under the gun, right? There’s so much stress and so much, so much expectation. Self-expectation.
Jhanelle: Yeah.
Shaun: You know, what do you see across the board when you’re thinking about high performance athletes, entrepreneurs, C-suite executives? And now we’re talking about REALTORS®? Is there a commonality? Is there just a human thing that happens or are they specific to each?
Jhanelle: No. You are so right when you say, is there a common thread for sure. I think these are the types of individuals who feel like in order for me to get to the highest peak in my career, or in order for me to get to the end point and be celebrated beyond measure, I don’t get a break.
I’m not allowed to stop because the minute I stop, somebody else can come in. The minute I stop, you know, there’s not enough gas in the tank. What if somebody blows past me? What if I don’t do as well as I’m supposed to if I take a break? And I think a lot of people have that in common.
But, one of the things that I’ve learned in working with athletes that I think everybody can take from is, they don’t do anything by themselves. And so, yes, they may work individually to work on their bodies and things of that nature. But they have a nutritionist, they have a dietician, they have somebody that focuses on their body. They have somebody that focuses on their mental state.
And I say this to not say, spend all your money on all those things, but who do you have reminding you about, like the basics, like you were talking about, like resting and eating properly and taking that time out so that you can get to the end and not feel burnt out. Like who is helping you? What is helping you?
Shaun: Right. Like I have a whole team around me when like for my slow pitch, beer league, like I have a stylist, I have a nutritionist to basically gets me beer and pretzels. And I have a person who comes and just tells me how awesome I am all the time. But you know, that only cost me, like, 60 bucks.
Jhanelle: Yeah, but we got to the university for your dietitian, and you got, you know, Planet Fitness. You got- I call it the number 11. Your two legs?
Shaun: Right.
Jhanelle: Take them outside and go walking, right? Like, that’s your fitness piece. So yeah, there’s so many things that you can do to kind of help yourself. Not to feel that burnout feeling that we’ll probably dive deeper into.
Shaun: Right, right. So when it comes to burnout, what exactly is burnout? Because I think that’s a big thing. You hear it all the time. People throw it around as a term. You know, it’s like, “Oh, dude, I’m so I feel so burnt out or I’m totally burnt”. But what exactly– is there an actual medical term?
Jhanelle: There’s a definition, but it’s actually.. So, let me just give you the best way to describe it. The best way to describe burnout is, I like to say it’s what happens when you avoid being human for too long.
Shaun: What do you mean?
Jhanelle: So, like, think about it. All the things that you just said, you’re like, well, I have to like, you know, if I’m in real estate, I’m making sure that I’m helping people’s closings. I have to make sure that I market myself. I have to make sure that I’m taking the time to gather a clientele, do all these things, call, go make visits, do open houses. I have all of these expectations on myself, and I can’t stop because if I stop, something’s going to fall apart. I’m not going to get the deal closed. So you burn yourself at this pace that is really, really fast. And it’s almost like leaving a computer on. Right? And so you’re like, “I can’t shut it off. It’s got to keep going”. But you ever see how your computer pops up and goes like, “Hey, time for a software update. Time to shut me down. I need you to restart me in order for it to work”. And as human beings, I know I do it, I go, we’ll do it later. I have stuff to do and we kind of exit out like “Install tonight, install later”, and sometimes we never get it done. And so I say burnout is what happens when you avoid being human for too long because you are not a robot. You are not a computer. You need to restart, reboot. You need to rest and fuel yourself with a lot of things that I’m going to share with you, because you are a human being that needs rest. You don’t earn rest, you deserve it. In order to keep going. So burnout is what happens when you avoid being human for too long, because even your laptop has to shut down.
Shaun: Right. Exactly. And then that’s just in the workspace. I mean- when you were talking about it, “I need to keep going, I need to keep going or someone else is going to come in and, you know, get that opportunity”… But you also have a family. You also have a partner. You also have to maintain, you know, you hear this term work-life balance a lot.
And I remember, you know, someone saying that to me. It’s like, you know, I’m trying to maintain my work life balance. Is that an achievable goal or is that something that, you know, gets thrown around too much? Like, what’s your take on, how do people find balance?
Jhanelle: Well, the thing is, I like to shift that a little bit because I feel like trying to find balance, like to think of, like almost like a seesaw, teeter-totter is what it’s called- when the kids kind of sit on the one and you’re like, balance this out, right? Or a scale. We don’t have the same amount of hours to sleep, to move our body, to eat, to spend time with family, or to work. We don’t have eight hours to give to all of those. It’s not physically possible and time doesn’t allow for it.
So balance, when we think of the equilibrium of things, doesn’t really sound like it’s going to work. But what I like to say is: integration. How about we try a work-life integration, which means that you’re taking things that you know that you will need in order for you to get to the end and not feel burnt out and feed them into your day, feed them into your week, feed them into your month.
Shaun: So give me some examples.
Jhanelle: So like for me, I find that one of the things that bring me a little bit of joy is in the morning I will make a parfait, and I’m really extra with it. So I found the nicest mug little bowl thing to put it in, I get like the nice granola that I want, and I actually go over the top and I’ll put, like, little edible flowers and stuff on top of it. And someone’s like, “Well, why do you do all of that”? And I said, “Well, because this gives me a moment for my shelf, because I know if I don’t do it, I’ll tell you a person that will go through the day and I’ll be like, wait a minute, did I eat? Did I have lunch? I completely forgot about that”. But if I give myself this moment to be like, I’m integrating at least my health and my nutrition into my day right here for five minutes. That’s way better than me not giving myself anything and then being like, oh wait, I got to go balance it out. I didn’t eat four meals, right?
I’m going to integrate at least something to say, “Hey, check that off for myself. At least that was in there for out throughout the day”. So work-life integration means putting certain things in these different areas that are really essential for us as human beings, which are wellness, are, to your ears, a wellness, which are nutrition, movement.
Mindfulness, like any type of mindfulness that you can think of for yourself, whether that’s just sitting down for a moment to breathe, connection, all of those things, integrate them into your day, and that’s better than trying to find overall balance.
Shaun: Yeah, mindfulness. We’ve been seeing that a lot lately as well. You know there’s mindfulness. But to somebody who’s like, you know, an electrician from Saskatchewan who, you know – and no no slamming on electricians – but I’m just seeing it as somebody who’s like, “Mindfulness, What the heck is mindfulness?” But mindfulness is not something that is so far out there. It’s just even, you know, taking a moment to just be quiet, to calm, to not have the insane chaos be-
Jhanelle: Can I tell you something, Shaun? It’s not even just being quiet. Because I think some people think that’s the only way to feel mindful or relaxed is like, oh, it just must mean I have to, lsit in this position and pose and, like, crawl my feet into this weird form that I can’t get out of.
No, mindfulness can mean sitting in the car. How many of you just kind of sit in the car and make sure that you turn on the music that you like as you’re driving, right? How many times have you just listened to a song and you can still find your way home without any type of directions, because you’re just kind of- as much as you like to say, your mind’s at a relaxed state. You know the directions to get home while you’re singing the song. That’s mindfulness, right? Curating your favourite playlist, reading a book, talking to a certain person can also make you feel at a relaxed way to feel like you’re being in a mindfulness state. So there’s so many ways to uncover that, that you can connect with.
Shaun: And I think movement is a big one, obviously. And I think, though some people take movement, as you know, when we talk about fitness and exercise, there’s extreme, but there’s also been these studies recently where it’s like “Throughout your day, if you do nothing else other than, for example, do ten squats standing where you are, when you have a moment, do ten and then be done”.
That goes so far. Even going, just walking, it has such a positive impact on the brain.
Jhanelle: Yeah. Especially if you’re going to add the elements of nature to it and you walk outside, it makes you- So that is like mindfulness times physical activity. You’re multiplying them, you’re putting them together, and you’re giving your body and your mind something tenfold that can really help relieve burnout. Right?
Shaun: Right. And obviously nutrition, nutrition has a huge impact on how we feel.
Jhanelle: Correct. It does. So the good and the bad if we-
Shaun: Yeah, exactly. So what you’re saying, if I’m hearing you correctly, what you’re saying is, you know, the expectation of having work-life perfectly balanced is an unrealistic kind of expectation.
Jhanelle: Yeah. I think you can allow yourself to integrate the things that make you feel great. Let’s do it this way, Shaun.
Shaun: Yeah?
Jhanelle: When’s the last time you went on vacation?
Shaun: Oh, goodness, vacation. It was probably last year. What you call an actual vacation.
Jhanelle: Yeah. Okay. What makes something an actual vacation? Like, what do you enjoy the most about it? What do you get to do on vacation that you don’t do anywhere else?
Shaun: Well, get a hotel. You know, stay in a stay in someone else’s building with nice, freshly made beds. That’s fine to order. Pick up a phone and have someone just say, “Bring me my food”, and then someone brings me their food, and then I sign, so, you know, so they get that-
Yeah. See new things. I have that excuse of newness, which is like, it’s a bit exploratory. Some of those things. Yeah.
Jhanelle: Okay. So, let me tell you what I would tell you if you were a client. So, you know, you’re going on vacation and you just mentioned nicely fresh linens.
Shaun: Right.
Jhanelle: A meal that you didn’t have to prepare and being able to see new things, those are the things that make you feel almost like recharged while you’re on vacation that you enjoy.
So, you know, you leave vacation, you come back home, you’re like, “Oh, great. There goes all of the things. This doesn’t feel as relaxing anymore. I’m back into my setting”, right?
Shaun: Yeah.
Jhanelle: So integration would be like, well, we can’t. We all know we can’t live a balanced lifestyle of vacation and work, right? Can’t be like, “All right, worked for three days, vacation for three days”, right?
Can’t do that. We’ve got to integrate what felt good on vacation into our everyday life so we don’t feel burnt out. You can’t keep waiting for the holidays to be like, oh, recharge and then burnout actually. So. Right. Bring in. Do I need to put like some? Do I need to make sure that I have nice linens? Right?
Do I need to launder my linens a bit more? So I feel that feeling when they get made up on the bed. Do I need to say like, “Hey, I can’t cook every single day because that drains me and has me feeling burnt out with my workload”. Of all the things that you mentioned, the beginning, maybe Fridays is a day that I order in and that makes me feel better.
Maybe it’s making sure that I take a different walk on a path, or go see a different show or different side of town because I need to explore something visually and get stimulated that way. That’s what integration looks like in order for you not to feel burnt out.
Shaun: And it doesn’t take a lot. It really doesn’t. It sounds like doing those little things can go a long way and releasing the stress, you know, finding that balance and even even when you talk about the work life thing, family life meets work life, I think doing those things with your partner, for example, in a small little bite-sized way, as a plus every because we put so much pressure on ourselves, especially when we are ramped up and I’ve got this project that I’m focused on or I’m close to closing this sale is like, you know, that becomes the all and everything for that period of time.
And I feel like it’s okay to want to finish that. And follow through on that. But yeah, but, you know, that’s when you need to find somehow like, how can you do that and still feel joyful after it’s all said and done?
Jhanelle: Well, you make a really good point. It’s recognizing the season that you’re in. If your season as the head down season for you in real estate and it’s like, well, you know, I am going to have long nights, I am going to have tons of emails to answer, which means I might have to offload some things off of my plate so that I don’t feel exhausted doing what I know I need to do. So does that look like like I said, you know, ordering in certain meals, having some of them prepped if you have the ability and the privilege to do so, right? Leaning on the people that are within your community and your home and your family to be like, “it’s busy season, you know what that means? This person takes on this, this person takes on this so that everybody can still feel like they’re not falling apart”. Right? We’re integrating what we need in order to get that thing done for that season. You’re right. You don’t have to do everything on your own by yourself. And that’s why I say tap back to that athlete mindset. There’s somebody to help do things for that athlete to perform amazingly well.
Why? They’re not the only person on that court. There’s a bunch of people around them that are supporting them to play at their best. Who are you? Allow them to support you to play at your best so that you’re not burnt out?
Shaun: Yeah, I mean, that’s that’s, you know, I would say that that comparison is really hard for people who have no one. You know, there’s a lot of people out there that really are just on their own. They feel like they’re on their own. What do you say to those people who really, when it comes to finding a just a self balance? It’s not even like a work life balance. But when you don’t have that support, you know, what are some things to do other than some of that integration stuff?
Because we can wake up in the morning and feel cranky, and then it’s hard to get out of that headspace.
Jhanelle: I think, allow yourself to have different, different modes. And so, like, if I wake up and I may be at, let’s say I’m not at a 10, I’m at a six, right? I’m not expecting what I do at a six to be as equal to what I do as a 10.
So what does six look like for me? Yeah, sometimes you have to sit in that space to be like, a six means answering the urgent emails, making sure I get something to eat so I don’t feel groggy and down and, you know, going up for a walk. That’s what six looks like. That’s all I can manage at this point, but maybe I’m at a 10. I can work the extra hours, I can have just maybe some coffee for the day because that’s okay because I feel good, and, you know, that’s all right on that mode. But I think sometimes you have to gauge where you’re at and work within that capacity versus thinking every day move at the pace of a 10 when you’re maybe sitting at a two, that’s what causes you to feel exhausted.
So having that system built in for yourself to really acknowledge where you’re at, if you work within the level of the six, you might wake up and feel at an eight because you haven’t exhausted yourself to a point that’s like, not even realistic, right?
Shaun: Yeah. I find when things are the most stressful for me, when I’m feeling a little spun, it’s because I don’t have control sometimes of my circumstances, you know, how do how much does that play into the mind of somebody, like a REALTOR® when that when things are spiralling- you know, there’s market conditions.
How do you deal with that when you know you don’t have control? Is it about gaining control, about controlling, or is it just about learning to manage?
Jhanelle: You know, you’ve definitely heard it before. It’s the thing where you’re going to hear control what you can, but you’re like, how? How do I do that when I feel like all these other things are part of what allows my life to sustain itself?
So how do I deal with that? Well, you deal with the fact that, okay, what is it that I still can do within this season that might help me, you know, market myself to another set of potential clients? What can I do that’s going to allow me to feel like, okay, how do I save at least something out of here?
What you’re going to really focus on is when you talk about what you can control, how are those elements that are actually on your plate going to help you get to the finish line? So what we often do is we look at all the other things, we’re like, “Oh, but that was on the plan for the finish line. And that was like-”
If you keep looking at things that don’t actually exist that are not within your realm, I want you to realize you’re not moving. You can’t move the things that are not within your control, so you literally end up in a stagnant spot, and that’s what feels like you’re behind. And that’s why you feel like you’re not getting anywhere.
But if you look at the stuff that are on your plate that are in your control, as small as they might be, they might only be two things. I promise you, those two things can give you at least a step or two, versus the six things over here that aren’t going anywhere.
Shaun: Yeah, that is so helpful. That’s so helpful. Staying focused on the little things that you can control and do what you can. Now, you keep mentioning seasons. Tell me what you mean by seasons because I know what seasons are now, especially having moved to Nova Scotia. And there’s a season comment that I’m not going to be so excited about. But, go ahead. Tell me about the seasons. Are you talking about, what do you mean by that?
Jhanelle: I think it’s important for us to realize that not every season is going to be as bright and blooming and bushy as summer, you know what I mean? Like we’re thinking here. Let’s use a plant analogy. You have the season where you’re planting. You’re actually like tending the ground and you’re putting the seeds in and there’s nothing much there but work.
Right? It’s like, okay, what do I have to get, what’s the soil look like? How I put it, that’s the season that usually is pretty heavy lifting. It’s going to come with a lot of thinking and processing, a lot of work, and you know that it’s going to be busy. So planting season is usually the busy season. If you acknowledge that you have a busy season, this is why I say this to high performing people. I’m not telling you not to work, right? I’m not saying “Avoid burnout by not working”. Recognize what your seasons look like. So the planting season heavy lifting, then you have maybe you’re you’re tending season. You’re making sure you water things, you take care of it and it’s a little bit lighter, but you’re putting in the work to watch and see what happens.
Well, when the growth season comes around, that’s the season where I almost feel like you get to look at what you’ve blossomed or what’s bloomed and you get to relax a little bit, right? Because you’re like, “All of my hard work has paid off”, but I also need to know that growth season doesn’t last forever. We all know plants fade and they die.
And they go into a rest period until they could go back through and start going through the tending and get in bloom. What don’t do as human beings as we see the growth and we’re like, “Oh, look at that. I’m doing well. I got to keep going. I got to go at the same speed. Don’t rest.” But you need the rest period. Because what happens is when a plant sits and it rests, it actually recharges underneath, underneath the ground. It’s getting roots, it’s holding onto the soil. It’s picking up nutrients. That rest season is essential for it to go through that cycle all over again. I always ask people, “When is the last time that you stopped after your growth, after you looked forward to getting to that point and embracing it? When have you stopped to embrace it? Rest so that you can keep going again?” Most people don’t do that. They burn themselves out and then there’s nothing left, right?
Shaun: And in real estate, there’s obviously different seasons. I think. I mean, you know, there’s talk of the winter season, dead of winter. Not a lot of people are out there hustling and buying houses.
So what would you say to agents who may be going, “Well, what should I be doing in that downtime to, you know, what season would that be and what you know, how can I manage-”
Jhanelle: What does that look like, building up your clientele, maybe posting a few things and informing people of what’s happening on the market? Maybe you don’t need to be as on and out there, so you could take a little bit more of that vacation, spend more time with the people or things or places that make you feel like you’re kind of getting back to your roots, planting that soil again so that when it is time to tend and do the work and be busy again, you’re solid, right? Like, that’s what that looks like. And so I think it’s really important for you to recognize when you have that downtime. How can I use it to my advantage? Because when busy season comes, you don’t take a break. For me as a therapist, busy season’s fall. It’s after everybody’s gone playing outside, done all the things that they have to do.
So in summer, I’m taking my break because come fal,l I need to be recharged and ready. So that’s where I’m reminding you of how great, you know, the seasons are changing. And when the leaves are falling, that’s a new time for you to recognize what you can fall into and start new patterns. That’s how I start prepping my clients and my clients to be like, “I’m here when the season starts”.
You would do the same thing in real estate. How do you prep them during your down season for when things are going to pick up?
Shaun: So when we talk about burnout, you know, I feel like there’s always this impression, and I think I’ve felt that before where it feels like it comes out of nowhere. But it’s not an overnight thing. It’s not a blink, and all of a sudden I’m burnt out. Like, what are- how can people recognize when it’s happening well in advance so they never let it to get to that point?
Jhanelle: So what a lot of people don’t know, Shaun, is that there are several stages of burnout. You’re right. It doesn’t just happen, right? And so the first stage is what’s called subtle dissatisfaction. And in that stage it’s where you’re sitting there and you’re like, you know, “This is just my busy season. This is what it’s supposed to look like”. And everybody goes through this in real estate. So you know what’s popping up. So you might feel it, maybe in your gut you might feel the tension in your shoulders. You might feel it. Maybe you’re getting headaches. Your body usually gives you a sign and some type of signal that something is not balanced. And one of our areas of wellness, something’s off. Then it goes to, what’s called subconscious disregard. And so this is where you go, “You know what, that stomachache is getting a little tight”, right?
And it’s like, “Okay, I think I’m just exhausted. I think I just need to take a break. I just need to maybe sleep a little bit more. I’ll be fine”.
Does it change anything? And then all of a sudden, the headache starts turning into almost like a migraine-type thing. And this is where you start moving into another section that’s called subconscious numbing, right?
Shaun: Self conscious numbing.
Jhanelle: So what you start to do is, “You know what? I’m just going to go watch a little bit of my favourite TV show on Netflix with a glass of wine, some popcorn, that will take away this headache”. But it pops up again the next day. Right. And so this is where your body starts yelling at you a little bit louder. And it’s like, “Shaun, do you not hear me? Like, I gave you a pimple over here. I gave you some GI issues, a full-blown migraine, and you’re still going”. And then it goes into the last stage, which I think is what everybody thinks burnout is right away, which is the full blown trauma aspect of it. But, the numbing and the full blown trauma almost happen at the same time, where your body goes, “You’re not listening to me, I’m going to have to shut you down”. And that’s where you get sick. That’s where you get fully exhausted. And it’s almost like you have no control over what your body has been warning you to do. So those are the different stages of burnout, and I feel like it’s so important to know, because you might be burnt out at the very first one.
That still counts as burnout.
Shaun: Yeah. Subtle dissatisfaction. I totally can relate to that. Where it just is, there’s just a feeling. It’s subtly dissatisfying. It’s so true. It’s like exactly this. So you recognize that. But when you recognize that, it’s not like you’re going to just pull up and stop. But what is the key? Like, should there be action taken at these points, or is it just okay to recognize it?
Jhanelle: Recognizing it as the first part, you’re right.
Shaun: Right.
Jhanelle: But the action piece cannot be missed. And you nailed that part. So when you recognize that it’s happening, you need to ask yourself, “Well, what do I what am I noticing? What is happening?” And I will say, go back to those areas of wellness that we talked about. Am I missing something? And when it comes to my nutrition, am I missing something and movement? Am I missing something? Is it social connection? Am I missing something in that area of mindfulness? What might be missing or off balance for me that it’s causing me to feel what I am feeling?
And right there, the first step I always tell people, finding the source. You might have to go through a few things and find what is the source, and then identify what is an immediate change that I can do. Even if it’s the smallest thing, to start removing some of that. So the one change that I know when I was going through this, because I’ve been through this process before, even though I know better, and I realize what happened to me is the feeling of urgency like that always- and I’m pretty sure in real estate people would feel that too, right? Like, you open your email and it’s like, “Oh my goodness, I have to respond to this right away”. And that feeling and sense of urgency, that’s how I started my day all the time. So imagine my cortisol levels every day opening my phone to like, crisis mode, right?
Shaun: Right.
Jhanelle: I think it’s important for you to find the source. That was my source. I started myself startled and alert, so I had to change it. And that was me taking my phone and plugging it in somewhere else. That’s what I mean, like an immediate change. And even if for five minutes in my day I got up, I could stare out the window, just lay in my bed for a second before I walked to the bathroom and grab my phone. I gave myself some type of integration, some type of calmer state to start my day, before I got started.
Shaun: Now, you had mentioned those four phases that can happen over a relatively long period of time to get to burn out. But what are some tangible signs that someone might be experiencing? Like what are some- give me your top three to five signs that you’re starting to go down the burnout road.
Jhanelle: Okay, the first one is low energy. And I don’t mean the kind, Shaun, that you’re just like, “Oh, I’m just tired”. Like, I met you slept eight hours and you are still exhausted. Like, that type of low energy is a real prominent sign of burnout because it’s more than just the physical aspect. That’s a lot of maybe either emotional burnout or cognitive burnout. Like that mental space. You’re not resetting in one of those areas, and your whole body is trying to tell you that. So that’s the first one.
Shaun: Yeah.
Jhanelle: I think the other one would be some type of mental distance. So it just feels like everything that, you know, you’re good at doing, you know, that you can do this effortlessly.
It doesn’t really take a lot, you just don’t want to do it. You don’t want to be around people. You don’t want to actually do your work. It’s just like, I can almost do just the bare minimum. And it goes to the third one. You have reduced efficiency. So it’s almost like, “I could do the bare minimum just to get by to collect the paycheck.
I really notice that I don’t love this whole aspect of life right now, and I don’t know why”. And a lot of it has no reasoning behind it. It feels like it has no reasoning behind it. So those would be the three that I’d say are the key ones.
Shaun: Yeah. You know, joy and joy is sometimes like, how would you define joy? How would you define joy?
Jhanelle: I think it’s that feeling that has you full for an extended period of time. It’s like a sense of happiness, and it’s more than a sense of happiness. I think it’s a sense of joy. Right? It’s a feeling that has you full longer than just, like, a chocolate bar or a bag of chips, like, I think, you know what I mean?
Like, that can make me happy. I had Starbucks this morning that made me happy. But joy is what you feel like. For example, for myself, I celebrated my daughter’s first birthday the other day. That is a feeling that I’m still kind of on a high from. Right? Like that is joyful for me, because what I did to create that and have those, those months with this little angel, right? So to me, joy is an extended feeling. Think of your Starbucks long lasting, if that’s the best way of explaining it.
Shaun: Yeah. So joy versus numbing like that. You know, because some people will say, like, “ I am so happy, I am so happy”. But are you? Like, you know what?
Jhanelle: The thing is, it’s like hard. It is hard. It’s hard as adults to actually find joy. And I’ll tell you, I think it’s so hard and why burnout sits longer for us than I think it should is because as adults, we go back to all the things that we have to fit on our plate. And remember, when you’re a kid, how joy is just almost innate.
Like, you look at a little kid and they’re just laughing at nothing, almost, right?
Shaun: Like either joy, it’s either joy is the default or it’s deathly afraid, like it’s that pure fear of everything is going to like, you know, a butterfly that was a little not-so-nice looking landed. And you’re, now you’re going to die first and then, but otherwise two seconds later, it’s pure joy. That’s what I want to have. I want it all the time.
Jhanelle: We all want it all the time. But I think the thing is, we have to remind ourselves that it’s built into us. So, like, nobody teaches a kid how to feel joy, they laugh at a cardboard box. Nobody tells a kid how to do that. But what happens is adults as we go, there’s no time to find joy and play with boxes. “I gotta book clients. I gotta market myself. I got to, you know, I got to close these deals. I got to have the open houses.” So you remove everything else and you like, “I only have room on my plate for work. I only have room on my plac e for maintenance”. And we don’t make space for joy as adults. And so I think what’s really essential is go back to find what makes you happy, what allows a feeling to last a little bit longer. And it might be very different than it used to as a kid, but go back and start from what you enjoyed as a child. I tried the swing the other day. I used to love swings.
I realized, no, it I don’t like them anymore. It’s too high. It’s a little bit scary, but I really did like looking at the view. Right. And so I was yeah, I think maybe if I go sit at a higher peak and just enjoy something stationary, that might feel good for me. So take the time to explore as adults, because we don’t do it enough. We only worry about the work. And in order for you to keep going, you need those moments of joy and rest to revive yourself. Like, truthfully, your body physiologically needs it.
Shaun: So. So when you say rest, because rest is one that I think that if you’re a high performing individual and you know you got to get stuff done, you know, some people almost wear it as a badge of honour. They’re like, “I don’t need to rest. I’m go, go, go. I’m full pedal to the metal”. But can that be counterintuitive as well? Like, tell me of the importance of rest. Is rest important? Do we need to rest?
Jhanelle: You literally spoke like a true high performing individual right there because you’re like, “I mean, if I slow down, that’s not productive. Why would you want me to do something like that? My drive and who I am is to keep going”.
Let me tell you what happens if you do not rest. So if you do not stop, what you stop your brain from doing is you stop it from going into what’s called default mode. And in default mode, your brain actually does so much more things, and it is so productive because it actually takes the time to download everything that you’ve kind of captured for the day. It takes attempts to store information, it makes connections. It helps build creativity. It creates neural pathways for you. You might have absorbed something new, and during default mode when you’re actually resting, your brain goes, “Oh, that’s connected to this. You know what, Shaun? That might actually go really good with this. So don’t forget to put that to that”.
That’s what you’re allowing it to do. You’re allowing it to release toxins. You’re allowing it to bring a new fluid. If you don’t give your brain that time to rest, it can’t do any of those things. And so when we say we feel mentally fatigued or fogged, it’s because there’s a buildup of toxins. There’s no space to download, there’s no space for connection, there’s no space for creativity because you didn’t allow your brain to go into default mode.
Another piece to add to that is, you know how they talk about if you were to look – at I’m going use a baby again because I have one around me all the time – you ever look at a baby when their eyes are almost open and you can see it like when they’re sleeping and it’s like, tink, tink, tink, tink, tink, tink. And it’s going into their sleeping and it’s darting all over the place?
Shaun: Yeah.
Jhanelle: So we know that as REM sleep, that’s probably a really good indicator that somebody is in their deepest form of sleep. But REM sleep only counts for like 17% of your sleep as a person. And what it does during that time, why you’re seeing it go like that, it’s that download that I was talking about, it’s that default mode. When you’re in that deep state of rest, it almost goes 10 times faster in making the connections, making the download, sparking the creativity. All of that is what your brain is doing. Releasing the toxins. So rest is essential. We all have the rings, the phones, the apps, but the watches, if you read it, it will tell you, “Hey, you didn’t get any REM sleep today or you didn’t do this much”.
You can feel fully rested physically, but is your mind going to have the same type of cognitive space, an ability that it’s supposed to have if you don’t do that?
Shaun: Right.
Jhanelle: You can’t focus properly without it.
Shaun: No, no. And I think that’s the thing, you know, but I also don’t think you want it to come to a time where you know, you’re doing something, whether it’s physical or you know, you have a full like break and you’re like, “Okay, I think, I think I need to rest”.
It’s like, no, you don’t want to get to that breaking point. You want to recognize it and space out the rest. And then each time you get up to go, it’s almost like if we go back to the basketball analogy, it’s like, you know, you’re rotating in and out of the game. You sit, you sit for a few minutes, then you get back on. If you just went from the beginning of the game all the way to the end, and didn’t take any rest, you would become so terrible. And you are, you know, you know. Nobody can go that long without going, “Reset. Reset”.
Jhanelle: And that’s why it’s built into sports. That’s why there’s half time. That’s why there’s breaks. That’s why there’s whistles. It’s there because it’s intentionally meant to rest. How many times have you watched a game where somebody intentionally fouls? Or does something so they can get a timeout or request a timeout so we can rest? We’re tired and we know that we need to recharge. So if the highest of high performing people that we admire understand the value of breaks in order for them to keep going so they don’t feel burnt out, why do we feel like we’re going to get any further without them?
Shaun: Yeah. What are the top three to five excuses that high performing people use to not rest?
Jhanelle: Oh, time is definitely the first one, right? Like, “I don’t have time to rest. There’s no way I can fit that in”. And I was like, “I bet you can”. The same way we’re going to sit there and say, “Well, I don’t have time to go to the bathroom right now”, we only can hold the pee for so long. You’re eventually gonna have to go, right?
Shaun: Yeah.
Jhanelle: Because it is literally a builtin mechanism that your body needs to release that. The same way your body needs to rest, it needs to pause, it needs to sleep. And we know what happens if you hold your pee for too long, right? I promise you, you will find out what happens if you don’t rest in sleep, if you haven’t found out already.
Shaun: Yeah, yeah. So time is what time is number one. Okay.
Jhanelle: The second one is, “Well, if I rest, who’s going to do it? There’s nobody else to do it but me. Like I have to do this” right? And I always say to these individuals as well, “If you don’t stop your body will force you to stop. And then who is going to do it?”
Shaun: Yeah. So would you say that’s a delegation issue from a team perspective? But like delegating to others to say, “Hey, listen, I need to rest. You can take it. You know, it’s not going to kill me to have someone else do X, Y and Z task”.
Jhanelle: Yeah, it could be delegation. It could be just reminding yourself you need that break in order for you to keep going. When you think about being in real estate, we think of almost the fact that you wear many hats, right?
Even if you’re part of a brokerage, you’re kind of wearing multiple hats. And what you do, you’re almost like, you’re the media person. You’re the person that stands with the client. So, like, you’re doing all of these things if you don’t take the time to rest and have that break, well, who’s going to show up to do all the things that you’re saying that you have to balance the many hats that you have to wear?
It’s almost a necessity, right? And then I would say the last one is the guilt that comes from it. A lot of people feel like, “Well, if I take a step back, I’m going to feel really guilty about this. And I’m supposed to be able to do all these things. That’s what this job comes with”.
And I was like, “Yeah, but when you keep going, doesn’t that make you feel anxious? Doesn’t that make you feel stressed?” All of these are signs of burnout. Things that come with that fatigue, frustration, low moods. Are all of those things going to help you book the clients? Are all those things and help you show up online properly? Are those things going to help you curate the perfect open house? No. Right? So stop feeling guilty for taking what is a necessity. Go ahead and do that so that you can keep showing up the way that you want to show up for other people.
Shaun: It’s so funny because it is. It’s counterintuitive, like you want so badly to plow ahead, to keep going. But that’s only going to hurt you if you don’t have the discipline to take a moment and rest. I love that. It’s so important. Now, talking about-
Jhanelle: I was going to ask you a question. Can I ask you a question?
Shaun: Of course, of course, I’m here. You’re my therapist. Ask away.
Jhanelle: Okay, well, you mentioned to me that you’re, like, sitting in this entrepreneurial space that a lot of these real estate agents are, like, “I can resonate with this”.
Shaun:Yes.
Jhanelle: I want to ask you how, like, what percentage of entrepreneurs do you think experienced burnout? Like, what do you think that number is?
Shaun: 100. I’m gonna say, I say 100%.
Jhanelle: Okay.
Shaun: If you’re a pure entrepreneur, I would say 100% experienced it at some point in time because everybody is all they feel like, “It’s all on my shoulders, I’ve got it going because nobody else-” You can delegate, and if you don’t have a good team around you, you know, until you learn to have a good team. Then at some point in your time in your life, I would bet that, entrepreneurs have felt burnout.
Jhanelle: Okay, I’m going to give you a little wow factor then, because studies actually show that it’s only 20%. And let me tell you why.
Shaun: But it’s 100% of those 20%.
Jhanelle: There you go. But let me tell you why that number came in. And I found it so interesting, because they said that people in the entrepreneurial space, they understand that feeling that creep up to burnout more than anybody else, and they understand it because they wear so many hats and they go, “Oh, snap, I can’t let myself get to that full blown trauma that Jhanelle was talking about or that anxious feeling, because if I do that, this whole business is shut down. I am the business”. And so because of that, they actually crawl back out at a faster pace. They don’t let it go all the way to that point. They have a little bit more.
Shaun: Yes, yes.
Jhanelle: And so it’s not somebody going, “Well, you need to do this for me”. It’s like, “Well, I need to do this for me, and how would I be able to do that?” They get to create their networks a bit more. So you get to pick who are the people that you want in a reflection of your space. What does that look like? And their drive is more self-induced. It’s a self-driven aspiration versus maybe working for someone else.
So they say that these are some of the factors as to why entrepreneurs only experience 20% of burnout, but it’s still a big number. I’m not going to shy away from it, because if we talk about 160,000 real estate agents, that’s 40,000 people that might be listening to this, that are experiencing that. That’s a lot, right?
Shaun: You know, I wonder how much of it is personality as well. You know, we’ve met a lot of amazing people on this podcast. And I remember learning about one agent who was really in their own little bubble for many years. They, you know, they jumped into real estate later in life. They were very shy. They were very withdrawn. And then, you know, they were very nervous about jumping into real estate.
And then when they jumped into real estate, they realized like, “Oh, no, this is unlocking certain things in my personality, and I’m going to open up a little more and become engaged more with the community”. Put that kind of like, wind in their sails. But then when they start having to deal with social media, they realize, “Uh-oh, that’s not my jam, and I don’t know how I’m going to manage it. And they started getting down on themselves because they’re seeing all these other people who are hustling and, you know, “Sale, sale, sale, oh, look at me, I’m awesome. Bah bah bah bah bah”. How would you advise somebody, about, you know, managing the social media world because it’s so important in real estate these days, but it also can have a very toxic effect on the human brain.
Jhanelle: It is such a fun place and scary place to be in at the same time, social media, and I think the reason for that, what you’re explaining is the fact that I always want to remind people everybody’s life can look amazing if we only take 30 seconds of it. Right, like, that’s what you have to remember. We don’t post our most vulnerable and challenging moments online. You’re posting the best of the best. You’re posting the biggest sale. The nice car, that’s what they’re putting on there. Right. So it’s almost to remind you what social media is capturing. I think once you go back to that foundation, you’ll be like, “Okay, yeah, if I picked all my best things to post, my page would look pretty cool, right?”
And then the other part of that, too, is to remind yourself the comparison piece is not going to get you where you need to go if you keep staring in somebody else’s lane, I promise you you’re going to miss what’s meant for you in yours. And so it’s really important that if you’re going to be online, if you’re going to have to try to find that confidence to show up in that space, put people on your feeds and in your algorithm that are supportive into what you want to have for inspiration, and not something that’s going to make you feel like defeat and very negative in your feelings. So create your social media to what works for you, right?
Shaun: Right. And that’s going to go a long way in fueling inspiration for yourself as well.
Jhanelle: Yeah, 100%.
Shaun: Yeah. Because I mean, because social media and the internet in general is not a bad thing. It’s just I think we as human beings, regardless of social media, or not, like in high school in the 60s and 70s, it was still the same thing. Your social media was literally in the cafeteria, and so-and-so is now dating so-and-so, and you thought you were dating so-and-so. They were going to come to prom with you. And they’re not now because they’re dating- But I’m like, “I’m a bad person”, but really, I’m not just they weren’t right for me so, it is really a mental thing where it’s like learning to manage all of that input, to choose the positive. So it just speak to me a bit about that because that is a thing I keep hearing a lot about online is this idea of, you know, choosing, you know, having a positive mindset.
Jhanelle: Yeah. You know, there are people who are really good at sitting in that positive space. And I think we need those individuals around us that could just always be like, “You know, don’t forget to look at it from this narrative” or, “This is how I see life”. I know I’m inspired. People who can sit in the positive space all the time. Right? Like, I think that’s such a skill to unlock. But I’m also very realistic in the fact that not everybody can sit there. So if the negative side is over here. The positive side is over here. Not everybody can just go, “Sure, I’m going to look at this from a positive mindset”. It’s okay. Right? What some people might want to sit in is more of the neutral space to be like, “You know what? Being online is hard. I’ve never done this before. Showing up as this real estate agent that knows how to do all of these things. I’m a bit new to this, so maybe I need to give myself some time and grace in order to get more familiar with it, so I feel like maybe some of the people that I’m admiring online”. To me, that’s more of a neutral space than somebody going to positive. Like, “I’m going to be amazing at this and this is going to be great, and I know I can do it”.
Shaun: Yeah, yeah, I’m reading that book. The, what was it? The laws of attraction, The Secret. After that, everybody jumped on board The Secret and it was like, “Now, if you just close your eyes and see $1 million, it’s going to happen”. And now everybody’s talking about manifesting. And I think that’s a really good thing, too. But. But I always have a problem with that because it’s such it’s setting yourself up. Maybe I’m wrong, but it feels like if you manifest just by thinking of something, and it doesn’t happen, then are you left feeling less then and, you know, a bit resentful towards the world versus, again, doing the things you can control by putting the energy in and then celebrating the small wins, the small victories, really celebrating the little victories as opposed to saying, “I want to manifest X, Y and Z”? But I guess if you can’t see it, don’t really know if it’s going to happen. It’s a challenging one. I’m on the fence about-
Jhanelle: It is a challenging one. But you know what’s cool about manifesting? Like, you’re right. Like, yeah, you can put stuff in there and start taking your psyche and your subconscious to a place to be like, “Hey, let’s keep thinking about this, so it sits at the forefront”. What most people don’t do is keep flipping the book of manifestation and realize that there’s a chapter in there that’s about action.
Shaun: Action.
Jhanelle: You can manifest everything you want, but if you don’t do some type of action, that million dollars is not dropping from the sky, Shaun. As much as I wish it could, I’ve checked it’s not falling down right.
Shaun: It’s not happening now.
Jhanelle: I’ve gonna have to add some action behind it.
Shaun: So yeah, I think it’s action, you know, but I and I also, you know, there was another doctor I saw who was talking about how you wake up in the morning and you start the day by literally saying the words, “Today is going to be a great day”.
I know this is like it’s not it’s not making a claim like, you know, you’re not going to have some bumps in the road on the day. But if you start the day by saying, “Today is going to be a great day”, your brain doesn’t realize that there’s a whole world out there in that moment. It just goes, “Oh, okay, it’s going to be a great day because you said it out loud”.
So therefore I’m going to start going down that, you know, “Today is a great day” pathway. And you know that-
Jhanelle: And it’s going to think of things that are a great day.
Shaun: That’s right. The brain is the original algorithm. The OG algorithm. Like the more you give it, the more it’s going to feed you things that, you know, both the positive and the negative, right?
Jhanelle: Yeah. It’s true. Whatever you put at the forefront of it. So what you try to focus, you ever want to go in the market to, like, buy a new car and you start thinking of the car and you realize you start seeing that car everywhere? It’s not that there’s more of that car that’s popped up all of a sudden, right? It’s that you’ve told your brain, focus on this car because I like it, I want to know the specs I want to see. And so now your brain starts focusing on that. So what you put at the forefront is what your brain is going to do. So when we’re talking about burnout and we’re kind of sitting in that space, allow yourself to put at the forefront some of the things that I’ve talked about, like the integration, making sure I sit with those areas of wellness.
If you prioritize those things at the forefront, your brain is going to start remembering them and be like, we kind of need to do this for us to feel a bit better, right?
Shaun: You know, we’ve been talking a lot about individuals. You have a good history with teams. And so when I think about, you know, if I’m in a brokerage and I’m the leader and I start seeing people around me probably who are, you know, perhaps experiencing burnout, but they don’t know it, what are some things that you would tell leaders, how to identify it in others, and then what to do about it?
Jhanelle: The biggest thing to tell leaders is most high performing people that we’re talking to in this space are not going to tell you that they’re burnt out because they probably don’t recognize it. So what you can do is ask people what is on their plate that they might need to take off in order to feel lighter.
What can I actually help you with? And saying it from that mindset versus like, “Is this too much for you? Is that too hard for you to do?” because a high performing person is gonna be like-
Shaun: “No, it’s not. I can do it. There’s no way I can do it.”
Jhanelle: “I can do whatever I want, right? You can do it.”
Shaun: “Too much for me… too much.”
Jhanelle: So if you frame things in that sense, it allows them to be like, “Actually, can we look at this plate? Because it is kind of heavy because I’m holding up with two feet, seven arms and my head.”
Shaun: Yeah. Yeah.
Jhanelle: Right. “So what can I put down?” I would say that and then also mimic what you want other people to experience. Are you creating space for people to rest? Are you allowing for actual breaks in their environment for them to take those pauses that they that they deserve and that they need?
Shaun: Yeah, great. That’s good. And do you feel that like team leaders? Well, let me ask you this. What makes a great leader?
Jhanelle: What makes a great leader? That is a great question. I would say somebody who is open to active listening. I think a lot of leaders think that it’s like just downloading all the time, but you can’t be a great leader if you don’t know what everybody else underneath you needs, because that’s what you’re supposed to kind of take and flip back downwards. And so I would say active listening makes a great leader and somebody who is actually sitting with a lot more empathy than, I think, the average person. I think you have to be willing to stand in people’s shoes. You have to be willing not to silver line people’s situations and really understand them so that you can support them and so that your team can feel supported and your organization feels supported. That’s what it really is about, because those two things mean that you pay attention to the individual, and not just the person wearing the badge or the jersey holding a position.
Shaun: Right. So we’ve covered a lot of ground. We’ve talked a lot about, you know, managing, giving yourselves tools to manage burnout. What would you say would be the most important insights to kind of share with everybody about, you know, managing their own self-care? What would be the most important pieces you would say to them in terms of avoiding burnout?
Jhanelle: Okay. And for talking to high performers, right? Because I think that’s who’s in the space. I would say, let me give you a little tip. My tip would be before you say yes to anything, make sure you are not saying no to yourself.
Shaun: Ah.
Jhanelle: I’ll say it again. Before you say yes to anything, make sure you are not saying no to yourself.
Because I think we always do is we go, “Yes, yes, yes. Give me all the things I could do. I’m amazing”. And then I say no to the break that I wanted. This time I spent my family, that vacation I had planned. And then I get resentful and I go through the stages of burnout that we’re talking about. So, that pause to see if you’re saying no to yourself first might be really helpful. Use that as your tip. If you don’t listen to anything else, use that.
Shaun: Ah, mic drop. I love that, Jhanelle. Jhanelle Peters, Registered Psychotherapist, awesome person, positive.
Jhanelle: Thanks.
Shaun: I love it. This has been so good and I am so thankful to have spent this time with you. And I know I’m going to take this way, and I’m going to go right now, and I’m going to bathe in yogurt and eat a parfait out of a bathtub.
Jhanelle: Are you going to put some flowers on top of it, Shaun?
Shaun: Yeah, I’m going to, but I gotta figure out a way to get, like, to be in the yogurt and then get out of the yogurt to find the like, if I reach out of the tub and reach for flowers and yogurt is going to get on the floor, my dogs may eat it. And it probably-
Jhanelle: It sounds like you’re about to make everybody happy.
Shaun: I got to rethink this human parfait thing, but I’ll get to it. But either way, I’m going to go work on this right now. Jhanelle Peters, thank you so much for spending time with me. REAL TIME. Good luck with everything in Miami and with your practice.
Jhanelle: Appreciate it.
Shaun: Are you currently with specific teams that we can-
Jhanelle: Not at the moment, I was doing the mat leave thing, so we’ll see. We’ll see.
Shaun: Yeah. You got a baby. Congratulations.
Jhanelle: Thank you, thank you. No, thank you for having me. Thank you for such an amazing conversation. And honestly, your vulnerability too, to make sure that we all understood what we’re feeling. So I appreciate it. Right?
Shaun: Right. Well, thank you so much and good luck with everything. And what is your baby’s name?
Jhanelle: Navy, the colour.
Shaun: Happy birthday, belated Navy. That’s amazing. What was her birthday? When was her birthday?
Jhanelle: August 24th.
Shaun: Shut up. That’s Mattis’s, my daughter’s. Shut your mouth. Shut it! Oh my gosh. Hold on. I got to show you. This was the other day, but she turned six. August 24th. Oh, yeah. There it is. Look at that cake. There it is. You see it?
Jhanelle: Oh. That’s nice. Did you bake it? It’s like, you know-
Shaun: I didn’t do that. I would make a Betty Crocker three-tiered chocolate boom brick. I would do a chocolate brick.
Jhanelle: I love it, I love it.
Shaun: Oh, happy birthday, Navy. That’s so cool. Well, thank you so much. We’ll see you again.
Jhanelle: Talk to you later. Bye.
Shaun: Thank you, Jhanelle. What a great conversation. Man. You know, like I said off the top, a lot of this was for me as much as it is for you. Because, you know, avoiding burnout is something that I think we all need to strive for, not just professionally, but also personally. Because if we can learn the tools and apply some of the tools that Jhanelle shared with us today, it’s only going to make us better, both professionally and personally. We’re going to be available for the ones that we love and for our own selves as well.
So thank you, Jhanelle for sharing these amazing insights and how we can identify, prevent, and treat professional burnout without compromising success. If you liked today’s episode, I know you did,it was a really good one, make sure you give us a like and a rating on your favourite podcast platform. This episode is brought to you by Canadian Real Estate Association, CREA, and production courtesy of Alphabet® Creative.
I really hope you had a good one. Thanks for joining us today on REAL TIME. I’m Shaun Majumder, and we’ll see you next time on REAL TIME®.