164: Burnout Recovery with Kristin Morrison
Summary
Burnout and compassion fatigue are such a huge topic in the pet care industry, because we all struggle with it. Kristin Morrison joins the show to share her own struggles with burnout and what a road to recovery looks like. We discuss why it’s important to redefine what success looks like for you and why understanding our time commitments helps us set aside time for ourselves. We also discuss why it’s so hard to ‘rest’ as a business owner, and what it takes to replace negative mindsets with positive ones.
Topics on this episode:
Redefining success
Replacing negative mindset with positive
How do we ‘rest’?
What does successful burnout recovery look like?
Main takeaway: Start practicing rest and work through the normal uneasiness that we feel through that process.
About our guest:
Kristin Morrison started her pet sitting and dog walking company in 1995 and it grew to become one of the largest pet care companies in California. Kristin hired over 250 people in the course of running her business for 18 years and when she sold the business, she had 35 dog walkers and pet sitters and 4 managers on staff.
Kristin is the founder of Six-Figure Pet Sitting Academy™ and Six-Figure Pet Business Academy™ which provides coaching, webinars and business products to pet sitters, dog walkers, dog trainers, and pet groomers across the United States, Canada, the UK and Australia.
Kristin is also the host of the Prosperous Pet Business podcast which is found on iTunes and the Prosperous Pet Business website.
Kristin is the author of five books: Six-Figure Pet Sitting, 30 Days to Start and Grow Your Pet Sitting and Dog Walking Business, The Hiring Handbook for Pet Sitters and Dog Walkers, Prosperous Pet Business and Six-Figure Pet Business. Her books are available in paperback on Amazon. The eBooks and audiobooks are on her website at: www.SixFigurePetBusinessAcademy.com
Links:
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
burnout, business, life, rest, pandemic, business owners, busy, pet, important, feeling, money, people, productive, book, sudden, interviews, talking, create, uncomfortable, happened
SPEAKERS
Collin, Kristin
00:17
Hi, I'm Meghan. I'm Collin. And this is pet sitter confessional, and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter.
Collin 00:29
Hello, and welcome back to a Friday episode. Today, we are really excited to have Kristin Morrison back on the show to talk about a very, very relevant topic to us in the pet industry, burnout, but not just burnout, recovery from burnout. This is a new book that she's written on. And we're really excited to have her on talking about this topic. So let's get started. You bet.
Kristin 00:52
And by the way, I'm really happy to be on this podcast. It's a it's a great podcast, and I've been spreading the word and I just really appreciate what you're doing to educate pet sitters and dog walkers out there. So thanks, Colin. You're welcome. So I started my own pet sitting and dog walking business in 1995. And I made a lot of mistakes. When I started, I didn't have any kind of business, education, didn't know what I was doing. But I had a love for animals, which really got me through in the beginning. as it does for most business owners, when they start if they have passion, that can usually be enough for the first few weeks or months. But then, you know, learning about business skills is very important to kind of create momentum in the business and actually get clients and all of that. So I had to learn by myself. At that point, there wasn't,
01:51
you know,
Kristin 01:52
a lot of education out there. There was some education about business, obviously, but not about pet business. Because you know, pet sitters and dog walkers. It's a very different kind of business than, you know, say, window cleaners or you know somebody else. So I had to really learn how to how to run my business in a way that not only worked for my clients, but really worked for me. And anyway, so I had my business for 18 years and grew it from just a thought to a pretty large entity. I had 35 staff members when I sold it a few years ago, and through the course of my business have hired over 250 people to work for me. And so really, you know, like I sort of learned a lot through the process of just doing it. And what I like to do when I'm working with pet sitters and dog walkers is to really have them avoid some of the pain points that can be there when they're learning through, you know, learning from my own trial and error and my own mistakes. And I just really I love helping helping pet business owners. So anyway, I yeah, that's a little bit about me, I've written five books, this, this is my sixth book. And burnout is a very important topic in the pet business world. So I'm really excited that we're going to talk about it today because it affects almost every pet business owner out there.
Collin 03:30
Yeah, it really does. And it manifests in different ways in everybody's life and how it impacts us. And we're gonna dive into that. And this is a pretty personal book for you. And you write a lot from your own experiences and burnout, you've experienced burnout throughout a couple different stages of your career in your life as well.
Kristin 03:51
I did yeah. I mean, I experienced it. In my own business. In my pet sitting business, when I started saying yes to everything. And saying no to myself, that was a real big indicator that burnout was on the horizon and eminent. And there were other ways that manifested too. And, you know, I've worked a lot with pet business owners who have gone through the pandemic. You know, everyone in their own way has been affected by that. And it's been very, very challenging for so many and some people have had, you know, Silver Linings. I know, I have had that as well. But, you know, that can create its own level of burnout. You know, when we suffer from emotional exhaustion, and fear, you know, like, having fear on a regular ongoing basis about financial insecurity or, you know, are we going to have a business when this is over, you know, what's that going to look like that can that can lead to burnout too. I think anything that happens over and over That is damaging to us in some way can lead to burnout, you know, whether that is emotionally spiritually, like you said, physically. So it's really important to to look at the areas where we're being pounded on, over and over and begin to look at how that can change how we can change how we can change the circumstances in our lives, if that's even possible.
Collin 05:25
And I know a lot of the work that we have to do on ourselves is mindset work. And a piece of that, too, is just definitionally, because you wrote about how you got to a point in your life where you realized that you weren't leading the life that you wanted to. And that was because your definition of success was different, and you wanted to change that. So it got me thinking about this relationship between how we define success in life. And the burnout that we experience, I'd love for you to piece that apart a little bit more. Yeah,
05:56
so
Kristin 05:56
you know, the common denominator for a lot of people, when they look at success, or the barometer of success is money, you know, in terms of financial success, or business success, and I, I like that just as much as you do, probably, and most people do, it's nice to feel like you've got your needs met, and then you've got some leftover or even a lot leftover, that's a great feeling. And that was, that's definitely a motivating factor for a lot of people when they get into businesses wanting to make a good, good amount of money. And that was, that was important to me, too. However, what I realized is, I wanted more than money, I actually wanted to create a life that had both time and money. And when I looked around at the business owners that I knew at the time, and I didn't know a lot of business owners, you know, and I knew a couple pet business owners and I knew some other kinds of service based and other business owners, and I didn't see any of them that had both time and money. They either had money, and not a lot of time, or they had a lot of time and not a lot of money. And some of them, you know, didn't have either, you know, they were working a lot, but they didn't have a lot of money. And that was kind of the worst case scenario. You know, when I looked at that, that's what I least wanted. But you know, it really what I realized is, you know, I could have all the money in the world, but if I don't have time, to spend the most valuable resource in ways that are important to me, I am I'm not prosperous, you know, I'm suffering in that instance. And, you know, there was a point where I was going to speak at a business group, and they had hired me to speak for their organization about business. And I had had my business at that point, my pet business for maybe five or six years, and I needed a new outfit for the speaking engagement, it was going to be a fairly large audience I wanted, you know, to really present myself in a professional way. And, you know, I was still walking dogs in my own company. So you know, my regular outfit was jeans, t shirt, no ponytail, baseball cap, you know. And I looked at my schedule, I couldn't find any time to even go shopping. Like, here, I had a lot of money. But I couldn't even figure out a moment when the stores were open. You know, when I could go shopping because my schedule was so jam packed with clients. And that was such a wake up call for me. I thought this is a problem. You know, if you know I could have all the money in the world but if I don't have time, is that success? And you know, I realized that isn't a successful life.
Collin 09:08
Many of us experience the feeling of being busy. But when you've trained start rephrasing this if I'm not busy I'm actually time poor, right I'm time constrained I know I don't have time. I don't have a budget in my time to spend the way I want to spend it which means that as you know, as you say, like this is not what I want. Actually, I would rather be living the life I want I want to go shopping and like that'd be good.
Kristin 09:34
Yeah, yeah. And it's not like I'm a big shopper actually don't love shopping but you know, this is more than a want like, I need to get an outfit that I can wear or to speak in front of these these people and wow, where do I find time for that? And you know, I love that you brought up the word busy because I'm in America you are too and you know, for a lot of countries being busy is kind of an award No, oh, you're busy. That must mean you're successful. And you know that a lot of times what comes up is, when people say How you doing, a lot of people say, I'm so busy. And it's like the first thing out of their mouth. And instead of, Oh, this is what I'm up to, or this is how my family is like, Oh my gosh, I'm so busy. And for me, during the pandemic, that was one of the first things to go, like, I have a lot of passions in my life, I have a lot of things. I'm excited about a lot of projects, so I can get on that busy hamster wheel as well. And, and then all of a sudden, it's like, Whoa, where did my time go? You know, and then I'll find myself saying, I'm so busy to two people, just like, you know, I really encouraged again. So, you know, it's like, it's important for me to really look at that in my own life. And so I began, especially, like, I've gone through periods of time where I've really looked at not saying that, like, you know, giving myself this ultimatum of like, you are not allowed to say, You are so busy. And I talked about that in the book, you know, because I think it perpetuates it, you know, it's it becomes contagious, just like when you take out your phone, you know, your partner may take out their phone to it's kind of like, Oh, you're so busy. Well, let me tell you how busy I am, you know, becomes like this sort of match of like, Lenny, be you, you know, at buisiness or something, it's kind of crazy. So, when the pandemic happened, you know, I will I mentioned, I want to back up a little bit, because you had said, you know, there were a few times from reading my book, you you notice there were a few times when I had experienced burnout. And one of them was definitely you know, that moment where I realized, wow, I don't have time. And that's not okay. And I began to set up my life and my business in a way that gave me both time and money, through hiring managers through hiring really great staff members who could self manage. But it was deeper than that. It was really me looking at me, and like, what kind of life did I want to lead? How do I want to spend the most valuable resource that I have? Which is time? You know, what it? What does that look like? For me? What does my life look like when I'm spending that time in a way that really serves me and serves the people around me? So you know, that was one kind of wake up call around burnout for me that I was able to really rise up against, and I kind of thought I was done, that I had learned the lesson of burnout. And but then there was this experience that happened for me. And sometimes burnout, oftentimes, actually, burnout can happen because of a really happy circumstance, which is, you get busy, you know, there's that word again. But, you know, you get a lot of clients calling or something happens, that creates some stress, even if it's happy stress. So for me, what happened was, I had a reporter contact me, they somehow found out about me, this is about a year and a half ago, they had found out about me, and they called me and wanted to do an article, write an article on me. And so that happened, and I didn't really think much of it. But what happened was it went viral, and which was such a wonderful experience. You know, I've had my business for so many years, they were writing about six figure pet Business Academy and the books that I've written and all of that. And it was such a wonderful experience. I was so excited about it. But what happened was I was all of a sudden I was inundated by interviews. Yahoo Finance contacted me, the New York Post wrote something about me, you know, a lot of TV stations wanted me to fly out and be interviewed on their shows all really great things, right. I mean, it's kind of what most business owners dream about. It's like, and it happened to me, it was such a wonderful, wonderful experience. But you know, every thing that is light often has shadow, like a dark side, the dark underbelly, you know, and for this for me, it was all of a sudden, my time was being devoted to flying to these interviews to being interviewed on TV waking up super early because a lot of them are morning news shows and I'm not really a morning person. That was challenging. And you know, I'm not complaining as I'm saying this I'm just like telling your audience and telling you Colin you know what arose for me like the honest truth around that which is parts of it were really fun parts of it. We're really challenging, and my time was very limited. And also there was the thing of always being on, you know, like, I was on TV and often it was live TV and there's some stress with that, you know, it's like you're on.
15:15
Oh,
Kristin 15:18
okay. And I, you know, I actually don't mind that, you know, like, when we set up this podcast I said, I actually don't want any like questions I prefer to just dive in. You know, I kind of am like a polar bear interviewer I like or interviewee I like to just dive in and see what happens. But what happened for me with with all of those interviews is that I got really exhausted, I was not only you know, and then also my coaching, business grew by leaps and bounds, you know, my audience grew by leaps and bounds, just like everything exponentially grew, all good things. But what was suffering, like the underbelly of that was me not having time for myself, for my husband, or my family. So that was another level of burnout for me. So then the pandemic happened, like, probably few months after that. The pandemic happened, and, you know, all the interviews stopped. But he was really interested in interviewing me at that point, they were interested in talking about the pandemic, understandably. And, yeah. And so for about two months, just like everything shut down in my world, and it was shocking, to go from, you know, it's like we talked about going from zero to 60, it was like going from 60 to zero, you know, that's even an even harder transition, I think a lot of us are used to going from zero to 60. But to go from 60 to zero is like, Whoa, we don't know how to go that way, you know?
16:59
Wow,
Kristin 16:59
what do we do here, you know, by not doing anything, and so, but I was so exhausted, I mean, I just literally slept, you know, four hours each day just to kind of recover from the jetlag. And, you know, all the times I'd been on, and I found it such an opportunity, you know, to really come back to me and recharge, that it totally inspired me to write this book, because I realized, my work was not done when it came to burnout. Like, you know, even with this really happy experience, I was suffering from burnout, a second time around a different way. But it was the same thing, same exhaustion,
Collin 17:49
that manifests itself in a lot of different ways. You know, as you're describing this, these things that are happening to you, right, all of a sudden, you don't have control over that time. And it kind of is like we all want that post that we put on Instagram to get a lot of comments, well, then all of a sudden, you have to interact with those comments, and then all of a sudden, you've got a file, right? And then you got to do this. And then you get contacted by people. And then you've got all these requests. And all of a sudden these things that you want that we're good start coming back and you realize, okay, it's still good. But maybe I wasn't as prepared for this as I was, maybe there was some things that I could have put in place, or maybe I could have handled this a little bit differently. And then if you if you don't address it, then you go down that road to burnout. But it's, you know, one of the things that I like about how what you wrote here is that it's not just flipping a switch to start that recovery, right? You can't just go Okay, well, I'm not burned out anymore. Okay, let's move on. There's, there's, it'd be nice. But there's some, there's some groundwork that we've got to put in and start doing before we can even start addressing some of these problems.
Kristin 18:59
Exactly. It's true. And, you know, I want to just circle back a little bit to the experience of what you were saying in terms of, you know, all of a sudden things being really busy. And, you know, the going viral, basically what you were talking about. So, what I experienced in my pet business, when I experienced burnout was similar, there was a similar vein, a similar thread between what happened then and also what happened when, you know, I started getting a lot of interview requests and all of that, which is I had this thing of, I want to make hay while the sun shines. This may not happen again, you know, which is what a lot of business owners experience when they get really busy. And so they don't think about, you know, how can I live today in a way that's going to benefit me? It becomes not at all about them anymore. And it becomes all about the clients or the business. Or for me the publicity, you know, in the second instance of my burnout journey, and I think had I been able to do it differently, I would have really looked at that. And I would have said no to some interviews, you know, even though they were really juicy, you know, it's like, wow, ABC wants me, you know, but I'm exhausted, it, you know, is it going to benefit me, it's going to bring on more business, you know, by being on which I did. And then I'm going to be, you know, even more tired. And so it comes down to, I think, really comes down to a lot of things, but one of the things that comes down to a lot is valuing ourselves, you know, valuing our most precious resource of time, and how we spend it, how we give it away, you know, what we do with our lives on a daily basis. And so that was really where I kind of woke up during the pandemic and realized, you know, I've been giving myself away in a lot of ways that some that served me, and I was really glad I did, and others, it was just too much, you know, flying from place to place a few days in a row isn't the way I want to spend my life. And, you know, I value my life more than I value, you know, a post going viral or an interview going viral, you know, and so I think we can get swept up in that. It's like, you know, they're all these Instagram influencers, and blah, blah, blah, but it's like, are they really satisfied with their lives and the businesses they're creating? You know, only they will know, but, you know, I can probably bet good money, that they're not, if it's all for social media, you know, that's, that's kind of a sham life there. And, you know, whose life are you living?
Collin 22:13
Well, once you said there was, you have to value yourself enough, right? You have to be able to look in the mirror and go, I value that person in the mirror enough to, to not do these things. And that that is you talking about uncomfortable things to do. To sit down and go right to go? Do I value me? Do I love me? What what I say no to? Because I want more of me? Like those? Yeah, those that do that, and sometimes in the hard part about that, too, is yes, it's uncomfortable, but to like that takes, there's time involved in that. And, and to just boldface, rip it off, and ask that just blatantly? Do I love me enough to say no to these things?
Kristin 23:05
Yes. And you know, that self reflection is very powerful. And, you know, I love that you brought up kind of looking in the mirror, I think doing that literally can be quite powerful. You know, we're, you know, we often look in the mirror when we're brushing our teeth, or, you know, combing our hair or whatever, but perhaps not really looking at us, or looking at our hair or you know, something, a feature of our face, but to really look in our own eyes and say, in the mirror, you know, that can be a very powerful experience. Like, am I happy with the life that I'm creating? And if the answer's no, what needs to happen? What needs to shift, and I can tell you, it won't happen right away, I'm sorry to say, you know, I wish I could say, you know, when I had these awarenesses that it happened instantaneously, it didn't, you know, I find that recovery from burnout, any kind of burnout, life burnout, business burnout, it's a it's a process. It's kind of like, you know, the correction that pilots do when they're flying, you know, they have to slowly kind of correct or when you're in a ship, you know, it takes a while to turn a big ship around. It just takes a while because that ship is big, you know, and our way of running our business or living our life is big, right? You know, it's kind of entrenched or entrained. And so to create tangible solid movement takes time, and a lot of consciousness really, you know, on a day to day basis, and so I think starting with the looking in The mirror and really looking in your eyes and saying, am I living the life I want to live? Is this the kind of business I want to run? You know what needs to change? How can I begin to change
25:11
it
Collin 25:13
and start looking at some of those maybe negative beliefs that you hold about business or about life or about time or about money. And then and then, because it's not, it's not just about identifying those negative aspects to like, we have to replace them with something otherwise, that forward momentum like you don't, you don't have got to start replacing it with these positive things. Yeah, making that change.
Kristin 25:38
It's true. It's interesting, I was coaching somebody yesterday, who is in the midst of selling her business, she's had her business for 10 years, and she has a buyer. And so you know, she's working with me to kind of just figure out all the nuts and bolts around the selling process of her business. And, and, you know, she brought up at the very end of our call, like, wow, I realize I'm gonna have a lot of time, and I said you are, do you know, like, where that's gonna go. Because if you don't know where you want to put it, something else is going to fill it up. And maybe you'll like what fills it up, but maybe you won't know. So it's important for us to get a lot of clarity around, you know, where we want to put our time and energy. Because if we don't, something else is going to fill it up. So going back to mindset, you know, one of the beliefs that I had, I had a lot of beliefs about money and time, actually, that I had to work through, and, you know, write about that in this book. But one of my beliefs that was really entrenched, was making money as hard. And I think I might have even talked about that call in, and in the last podcast episode we did, I can't remember if we did or not. But anyway, just briefly, you know, I watched my dad making money growing up, you know, often our beliefs are a result of what we see, in childhood, you know, we see our role models or parents living their life in a certain way. And then we start to model that just either unconsciously or consciously. And, you know, my dad really had a kind of a challenging time with money, he was able to make money, and he didn't have any debt or any things, there were a lot of admirable qualities to, you know, his relationship with money. But he also worked very hard, a lot of the time, and the only time I saw him, rest was really when he would just pass out in utter exhaustion, you know, take a nap during the day, and just be exhausted. And then he would get up and start working on the house or working on his job, or whatever he did. And so that's, you know, I took that on. And it wasn't until I began looking at Wow, I'm, you know, I'm working really hard. Yes, I'm making money, but making money as hard. You know, this is not the kind of life I want to live, you know, again, it comes down to that question, and what belief might be at the root of how we're living our lives, you know, and so I had to look at my belief of making money as hard and how that influenced my behavior in my business, like I would say yes to clients, even when I didn't want want to do whatever they wanted me to do. You know, it's very common theme.
28:40
That when you get that client request, you go, I'm sorry, you want me to do what?
Kristin 28:45
Exactly one of those Yeah. But it doesn't mean that, you know, we always have to, like, go our own way. And you know, that we have to say no to clients constantly. I'm not saying that, you know, I think sometimes we do need to say yes to things even if we don't want to do them, you know, that's just life and it's sometimes business. But if that's our primary mode of operating in our business is saying yes, when we want to say no, that's a problem. And if we're doing that, in our business, we're probably doing that in our life, too. Because how we run our business is how we live our life, and vice versa. So when I'm working with my coaching clients, and they begin to make big changes in their business and the way they run their business, they'll be so surprised and say in the next coaching call, or in a few coaching calls after that, my life is different now, like I didn't just help my business, I helped my life and I'm like, aha, because it's all intertwined, right? The way we do one thing is the way we do everything. And so it's a gift. It's a gift to your life. It's a gift to your business, when you start making changes in one you No area or another, because it does impact everything. And, you know, the belief work is incredibly powerful. And I talk a lot about that in the book about how I really worked with my negative beliefs in a way that really turned them around and made them my friends rather than big negative blocks. Because, and they, they were catalysts for me Really?
Collin 30:31
Well, it is a balance between knowing when to say no, because it's not something you truly want to be doing. And saying no, because of some other reasons you may be too, you know, you may be fully booked, you may be doing all this stuff, because as you know, business owners, like, as you mentioned, like you don't want to miss out on these opportunities, and just be saying no, outright, right? Sometimes you do have to go through that process. But part of laying this groundwork, part of this introspection, part of this getting to know ourselves and love ourselves more is understanding our motivations behind why we're answering why we're the way we're answering it, when we can get to when we can get to that point, then we are starting to gain more control over, as you've mentioned here, not just our business, but our personal life, too. Because we're understanding our motive. We're understanding what's driving us because I think many times we look up and all of a sudden, it's like, How in the world did I get here, because we're just operating, we're just, we're just going through the motions, we're just doing it. And to start piecing this out a little bit more and understanding more about ourselves. That's giving us more control that's giving us more tools to start living that life that we actually want.
Kristin 31:45
Exactly. And you know, for the listeners who are you know, really looking at Oh my God, I'm not living the life I want to live and with that can come this depression or anxiety or whatever the feelings are, that may arise around that that are challenging feelings. But I want to I want to actually speak to those listeners right now you who are feeling that and who are feeling Oh my God, I'm not living the life I want to live, I don't have the business I want to run my you know, I am burned out, I'm burned out my life and my business, I want to speak to you and say, You know what, this is an opportunity. Like, if you don't know you can't change. So awareness is really a very positive step in the right direction and is the crucial first step. Like if you if you don't know that you're suffering, you can't change it. You know, and even if you don't know you're suffering, you know, you may be going through life kind of lethargic or an energized that's your version of suffering, but you're not tapped into knowing that you're, you're suffering. So I think, you know, yes, it can be really uncomfortable to realize wow, this isn't the business I want to run. This isn't the life I want to be living. You know, that's when the coin drops and change can happen. So you know, congratulations is what I want to say to those of you that may be feeling that you know you you're in the right place and and that will serve you that awareness will be your very first step to creating the life you want to live and the business you want to run.
Collin 33:37
And you know this this discussion is a lot about balance in our lives and I know that kind of can be a trigger word for many because they'll go Oh, well you're just talking about work life balance, that's all you're talking about. And but but but this is this is a lot more holistic approach to this because it's it's trying to bring not just whatever work is and whatever life is imbalance is trying to bring you into balance in all of your the aspects that make you up.
Kristin 34:10
And you know what works for your family or works for your friends may not be what works for you. And the way you live you know your life or run your business may not work for others but it works for you like for me. One of the one of the realities I had that kind of came crashing down one day when I was in my shed This is a bunch of years ago I was I went into my shed to get something out of the shed that was sort of like a storage locker for me. And I went in and I saw
34:47
the backpack that
Kristin 34:49
I had traveled all over Europe. Wearing that contained, like everything I had when I was traveling through Europe many many years ago. I just felt this wave of sadness, like, you know, wow, I haven't done anything really adventurous in a long time. And, and what I realized is, what came on the heels of that is my business is so big. At that point, I think I had 20, staff members and couple managers. And I realized, you know, my business is so big, I think it's too big for me to travel. Like, there's always an excuse, right? That's on the heels of the dream
35:33
of like, Oh,
Kristin 35:34
I want to do this, you know, or feeling sad about something is actually clue that it's an unmet unmet need, often, right? So sadness can be a great thing, right? Even though it's uncomfortable, jealousy can be a similar thing, while I'm feeling jealous of this person. That's an unmet need. Like I'm wanting what they have. So seeing the backpack was the unmet need of adventure of travel for long periods of time. And so what's spiraled out of that backpack experience of seeing it feeling the sadness, feeling the doubt that I could ever do that while I had my pet business, and then having this, like, lightbulb go off of what if I just asked my managers if they'd be willing to manage while I travel for a few months? And I did that, and I was really scared. Because I thought if they say, No, I don't know how I'm going to pull this off. You know, they didn't say no, they said yes, which was absolutely wonderful. And I would have pulled it off in some way. Cuz I had to at that point, like, I realized, this is part of my destiny, you know, it's, it's who I am. And I need to, I need to do this for myself. And so I was able to set up my business in a way that, you know, allowed me to travel for many months at a time, and make money while I was traveling. And it was one of the best things I ever did. And I came back and I did it again, a few months later, you know, I wasn't done yet. I wasn't fully baked cake. I needed, I still needed to be out there in the world, you know, there's still a part of me that wants to do that now. But of course, the pandemic makes a little tricky. But, uh, you know, it's funny, going back to what you were saying how, you know, our lives may look different from what other people's lives may look or businesses, you know, that isn't up some people's dream, to travel around the world with a backpack. But there are some people that it is their dream, and I didn't know any pet business owners who had ever stepped away from their business for months at a time and then came back to them. So I didn't have a role model to guide me. I had to become my own role model, you know, of like, I've never known anybody that did this with a really big business, but I'm going to, I'm going to do it. And, you know, I'm going to set it up so that it works out. Well, hopefully, no guarantees. It did work. Well, spoiler alert. And I made a lot of money while I was traveling to which was quite something. It was, it was a wonderful, wonderful experience. And, you know, if I had waited for somebody to find somebody who had done it before me, I would have waited, I'd still be waiting, right? You know, I still don't really know anybody that's done that for months at a time and has come back, you know, and been able to run their business in a powerful way. So anyway, it's important to listen to those dreams and visions, even if we don't see anybody else living in that particular
38:57
way.
Collin 38:58
Well, part of the problem of finding rest, and I know rest can mean many different things. It Yes, it means getting a good night's sleep. That's very important. It can mean you know, taking this time off, or just at least to slowing down. But I know, for a lot of us, we're so stressed out about not having enough time. And that we when we take time off, right? What do we start doing, we start stressing out about all the things that we're going to have to do when we get back and start stressing out about being away from the business and and what whether it's going to still be there when we get back in. But we need to do that so we can start filling some of these unmet needs. How would you address that to somebody who's sitting there fearful of taking that time away? How do we make sure that our rest and our time away and is as productive as it can be in this recovery from burnout?
Kristin 39:54
Yeah, and I think the word productive and rest I don't know that they really go together? Because we often think of productivity is, you know, getting things done. And rest is actually the opposite of that. And you know what I want to say, first, it's such a great question. By the way, I'm really glad that you're bringing this up. Rest is often very uncomfortable. So if you are, have been very busy, and you think you're going to be super comfy resting, and just relaxing, you know, after many months, or even years of productivity, and doing doing doing, you're going to be in for a rude awakening. Because often what comes up when we've been very busy, and we then give ourselves the gift of rest is that we feel guilt, guilt over resting, and you know, our mind kind of races like, Oh, my God, I should have done this, or this, or I'm gonna do this, we kind of have to let that spin out, you know, that's part of the process, when we're not in the habit of giving ourselves rest. And the more you do it, it's like, rest is sort of like working a muscle. In a way, it's like working the rest muscle, which is, then you become entrained, to being able to relax when you're giving yourself the gift of rest. But if you're not used to it, you're going to have a lot of discomfort come up. And what happens when that discomfort comes up for a lot of people, when they give them finally give themselves some rest is they think this isn't what I need. And then they go back to work. Because it's more comfortable working, they're more comfortable working than they are resting. But what I want to say to those of you that no, you need some rest, and you give yourself that and then you start experiencing guilt or, you know, like, you know, discomfort around not doing anything productive, that's totally normal. let yourself feel it, you know, let yourself go through the full range of this is uncomfortable, I'm feeling guilty, I'm feeling even anxious. You know, sometimes when we're so busy too, what can come up as we push feelings away, things that actually we needed to deal with, but didn't have the bandwidth in that moment in time. And so we push things down, we push things down, we push things down, and then we give ourselves rest and they come up like Pandora's box. Because finally we're giving them space and time. And then but that what happens is we go oh my god that's coming up, I'm out of here. Forget wraps, you know, that sucks. I'm not, you know, there is nothing redeeming about rest, you know, is what you might think. Because you know, you've got the guilt, the anxiety, you've got these feelings coming up, but it's such a normal experience, like I experienced it when I'm in a big, you know, work Bush, and then I give myself rest all those come up, my coaching clients, it happens, you know, it's just normal. And, you know, but what can really help kind of create a bridge between the productivity, and the periods of rest is really beginning to implement things on a daily basis, even in the midst of being highly productive. You know, like, journal writing in the morning, that's one of my practices, I've also started going on a walk, like every morning, you know, unless it's totally raining here, then I can't you know, but then I'll go at night, like in the early evening, while it's still light. And so, you know, whatever you can do to begin meditating, you know, meditating can be one thing.
43:59
whatever you
Kristin 44:00
can do to begin and for me, walking is rest, like, you know, working out is not rest for me. But walking is a form is a form of meditation for me. So that's why I bring that up. But yeah, I think really being able to begin to have those doses of rest, kind of, you know, in within each day in some way, shape or form that will begin to create the bridge to actually feeling rested and restful. And it'll also help you you know, process these feelings like you won't be going from 60 to zero. When you go from, you know, being ultra productive to resting right. That's anytime we do that it's bound to bring up some things
Collin 44:51
when I think that's you know, that that idea of productive rest is what that is talking about. of it's you're you're processing things right like when we sleep Our brain actively doing things for, for memory for cognition for well being. And we can do some of these active things and rest that aren't work related, but they are working on on us. And that that process of going from 60 to zero, I'm sure many of us have been on a roller coaster that suddenly stopped. Or if you are into caving, and you go spelunking, and you go all the way to the back cavern, and all of a sudden, you just stop moving, and you hear that silence around you. And all of a sudden, it's like, I have like that. experiencing that silence it, it shakes you, right? Whenever you're whenever the world always stops. And it takes you a few minutes to figure out, what do I do? It's kind of like when you're getting a photo, like, what do I do with my hands? It's like, what do I do with my life, it's so quite
45:51
varied.
Collin 45:52
But part of that is recognizing that when you do stop, right is knowing Okay, that those feelings will happen, and I'm prepared for them. And whether it's journaling or walking or, you know, if you're going on a bike ride, however, you're going to do that, that becomes part of how you process that and you build those into those small routines. So that you're managing that and bring that balance back into your life.
46:14
Exactly.
Collin 46:15
You know, we we started off this by talking about how we are redefining success. And so I want to ask you, for you, and maybe just give it some general guidance for listeners, what does a successful recovery from burnout look like?
Kristin 46:33
I mean, I think it looks very different for each person. Because, you know, the ramifications of burnout can often be very different for each person, but I can tell you, for me what recovery from burnout looks like. So I'll start with what I was just talking about, which is implementing, you know, ways of inner and outer nurturing into my daily schedule, you know, I'm consistently doing that on a daily basis, that becomes what is most important, you know, everything else kind of falls away from that, you know, yes, it's important to do the business things. But, you know, my day is a win, if I go on a walk, if I write in my journal, you know, because I've taken care of myself. And what happens is, when we begin to take care of ourselves on a regular, ongoing basis, is that our ability to be able to handle stress, you know, stress occurs in business, in life, because of this pandemic, because of just limiting. But, you know, when we are nurturing ourselves on a daily basis, we can begin to have more bandwidth to be able to withstand that stress, the challenges, you know, we can also come at those problems that arise with more clarity and focus. Because there's a groundedness, that happens, you know, when we've taken care of ourselves, there's the whole thing about the oxygen mask on yourself first, instead of thinking about that, thinking about, like, what can I do on a daily basis, that will help me really feel good about my life, the life I'm living, and will help nourish and nurture me, you know, and if it's even one daily practice, and it doesn't have to be this big thing, like, you know, I think with business owners, they do tend to be very productive people by nature, there's a reason that, you know, they're drawn to being a business owner, you know, you have to be able to wear lots of hats and do lots of different things in one given day, right. So there's, there's a certain personality type that's drawn to the softened overachievers over workers. But you can use that, you know, desire to be productive or to overwork, like, turn that focus onto yourself, you know, that same drive to become successful financially, you know, turn that focus on, on that drive on yourself of like, how can I give myself exactly what I need today, and that becoming the primary focus and then everything else will just sort of work its way around. I'm not at all saying, Oh, just do what you love and everything will fall into place. I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is, you know, when you're writing your to do list, start with what you're going to give to yourself that day, doesn't mean you're going to give yourself that like right after you finish your to do list but at some point During the day, that's going to become a priority for you. And it's going to be as important as scheduling a client, when you schedule clients. It's set in stone unless the client cancels, right. So you need to be as important as your clients in your calendar. And, you know, schedule yourself into your calendar. It's so simple, right? But you know how many people actually do it. So that's a good start.
Collin 50:34
Kristin, I really thank you for coming on the show today and for reminding us that we are enough that were worth fighting for and for giving us hope that there is a road out of this. Your book is how to recover from pet business burnout, reclaim your personal life, combat compassion, fatigue, and create work life balance while running your pet sitting, dog walking, dog training or Pet Grooming business? Where can people find that? Where can people get in touch with you?
Kristin 51:00
Yeah, so that book is on Amazon, it's also on my site. I have a pre order special on the E book for $5 off, and I can give you a link, if you want to post that call. And I'll be happy to give that to you. And but the paperback and the Kindle versions are on Amazon,
Collin 51:20
just so you know. Perfect. That's wonderful. Kristen, thank you so much for coming on today. I really, really appreciate this conversation. It's so needed now more than ever, and hopefully that this will be a year of were able to focus on us and give us the time that we need to do this kind of work.
Kristin 51:37
Thank you, Colin.
Collin 51:38
This is a topic we talk a lot about on this show. And that's because it is so important. Every single day we see posts, we get messages, we see people struggling with burnout, with compassion, fatigue, not knowing what to do, how to correct it or the steps that they need to take to implement it into their life. So I really appreciate the Kristen's written on this and that she came on the show, to share about some of her own struggles with burnout, what that road to recovery looks like, and small simple practices that we can all put into our daily lives. There'll be links in the show notes and on our website at petsitter confessional comm forward slash episodes slash 164 where you can go check out that book and see if it's something that would help you. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for all that you guys do for the show for your support and for sharing and for showing up week after week. We hope you have an absolutely wonderful weekend. And we'll be back again on Monday.
