High Performers And Invisible Burnout

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Dear listeners, high performers are often the last people anyone worries about. They are delivering. They are consistent. They are the ones others lean on. And because they look fine, because they are producing, the internal cost of all that performance stays invisible. Until it doesn't. Burnout as high performing professionals isn't a failure of discipline. It's often the result of kind of you can say never having been taught the inner game, the self-awareness, the emotional intelligence, the honest reflection that makes sustained performance actually sustainable. That's exactly what we are talking about today.

Meet Stephen And The Inner Game

SPEAKER_00 0:59

So hey dear listeners, welcome back to another powerful episode of the Mind Healthy Life, where we get honest about what it actually takes to feel well and lead well, not just perform well. I'm your host, Avik, and I'm really glad that all of you are with us today, here. And my guest today works at the intersection of leadership and inner work, specifically the kind of self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and the reflective practice that separates leaders who sustain their performance from those who quietly burn out behind a polished exterior. So, please welcome my guest, Stephen McConaughey. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Thank you very much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

It's an honor to be here. Amazing. Amazing. So,

When Outer Success Hides Addiction

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Stephen, like before we get into the framework and the practice, I want to ask you something a bit personal. Like, was there a moment in your own leadership journey, like where the outer game and the inner game fail out of alignment? Like where it looked capable on the surface, but something underneath was not holding. So anything you can share?

SPEAKER_02 2:17

When I felt out of alignment, that's actually a very broad question. Most of my life. But yeah, there is many, many times in it's not just in leadership. It's in personal life. It's in everything that we do. It's a coping loop. So one instance was, in fact, when uh getting personal here is one instance was when I realized that I was on a journey of alcoholism. And there were moments throughout that journey where the self-awareness of this shouldn't be right, this isn't right, this isn't who I am. And once they finally come come you know came together, I was ready to start taking actions and sober myself up. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

I agree. I totally agree. Yeah, and I mean if I if I also ask you about it's a very, very, I'd say common thing, but somehow we miss also like the phrase in a game of leadership is doing something interesting, and it it's it's saying that what happens inside a leader matters as much as what they do, but most leadership development still focuses almost entirely on the strategy, execution, output. So, what is the core misconception about high performance that you believe is quietly costing leaders the most?

Leadership Vs Management And Influence

SPEAKER_02 5:01

Now we're getting to some juicy part there. I love this.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

Because I I want to start to say that there's a distinguishment. There's there's first and foremost management. Management is purely KPI, key performance indicator driven. It's numbers, it's goals, its achievements, and it's making sure that these standard operating procedures are followed. Leadership, and I'm gonna quote John Maxwell here. John Maxwell says leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less. And therefore, a good leader, external leader, influences the teams and the peers around them so that the KPIs, the management section, is managed. What you hit upon there is very crucial. Influence, which is leadership, nothing more, nothing less, by you know John Maxwell. Influence in and of itself is persuasion. Now, persuasion, I'm going to go into a little bit more of L. Michael Hall, which is an neurolinguistic programming founder, in fact. Influence is persuasion. Persuasion comes from how you speak to yourself and how you persuade yourself so that as your actions come, you're authentic in your nature. You're not putting on this persona, you're not gaming for validation, you're not trying to play these power plays, you're just wholly yourself. And in being yourself, you lead authentically as yourself. And so in my practice, I've made those distinguishments where externally we talk about leadership, and a lot of times we drive it to equal management, which is numbers-based. So if I were to try and go and pitch to a corporate to take on my services to change their culture or help them in some way with leadership, I would have to speak about the external. This culture will increase and improve your goals by 10%. That's what they're looking for. The truth is, if we get down to the internal portion of it, the persuasion of how we speak to ourselves, that impacts and then the individual's life compoundingly for the rest of their lives. There is just you begin to make the small daily choices that compound into your future as better life choices, better, you know, experiences. And then you're literally, unless you're really very buried in gratitude, you're literally unaware of all of the opportunities around you that those choices have presented to you. A long story there, but the the three definitions I would go with the internal definition of self-persuasion to build authentication, authenticity in external actions of leadership.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

So and and you know, like the emotional intelligence specifically, it it gets talked about a lot. But I wonder like if it's gets practiced much. Because I mean, what does this what does someone actually mean when they say a leader lacks emotional intelligence? So and what do you have to say on this?

Emotional Intelligence Means Listening

SPEAKER_02 9:08

Ah a leader lacks emotional intelligence, and what this brings up into my mind is they aim to be heard, not to listen. So if, and this is just in one section of emotional intelligence, but it's a key indicator where empathy is not necessarily present for the team, for the community, for the peers. They want to be here, they want to speak and be heard, and people to listen to them. And if they have to stop and listen, it's not with an empathy, it's not for communication. And this this is a key indicator that the the emotional intelligence needs to be developed there, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Go ahead. And uh obviously I have to say that the I mean, so emotional intelligence is not about being warm or likable, but it's all about being accurate about yourself and responsive to what's actually happening around you. And when that's missing, the gap between how a leader things they they are showing up, and how they are actually landing can be enormous.

SPEAKER_02 10:26

So yeah, I mean exactly so I would I would agree with you, and I would say the word would be flexible or agile, but consistent. Agile, yeah. Because we don't really cannot predict what we're walking into. If you're walking out onto the shop floor of a manufacturing, you cannot, you know, you cannot necessarily predict how the situations are, what the team is or what an individual is like, but you're consistent with everybody and flexible enough to adapt your own skills to be consistent. So yeah, I love that description.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

Exactly, exactly. So yeah, I mean uh root causes in the deeper patterns, if we have to talk, like you have connected that self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and reflection together as a trio. And I think that's deliberate. So they are not just, I mean, they're not the same thing that but but uh they reinforce each together. So when you sit with a high performing professional who is kind of I suppose heading towards burnout or already in it, so what is the deeper pattern underneath? Like what has usually been absent or underbuilt for a long time before things started to crack?

Burnout Patterns Behind The Symptoms

SPEAKER_02 11:54

Ah well, um, each journey, especially in especially in the high performers, each journey is very, very personal for them. And the symptoms to the root cause come up in many different ways. I've had owners of companies where they cannot keep a stable personal life. They've built the company, their founder, and they've grown it as the founder into ownership of multi-million dollar company. However, their personal life, they've gone through multiple significant others. They're estranged from their children. And so really what it is is then they're they're thinking they're burnt out because of their personal life. And the conversation that I have, and you kind of touched on it. I love that that you touched on it, is that there's a deliberate system that we talk about and we test and we discuss some of it's emotional intelligence, others is their their strengths, if they're aware of their weaknesses, and many aren't aware of their weaknesses, or others have a bias, a belief that if they're weak in an area, they absolutely must practice that area until they're strong. And that's not true. That's what a team is for. They they must be aware of it, they must protect their weakness, they must be understanding it, maybe practice it, continue to grow on it. That's great. But a team member is there to be strong in that area that they're not strong in. So, yeah, the the symptoms show up very individual, like very unique to each individual. And you know, then what we do is we look at what those what the the root cause of what's caught what's happening. And like, for instance, in particular, there's you know, several clients that have had a very rough personal life, and it comes back down to they believe that success means financial success, and you have to sacrifice for something. And then the work that we do individually on that basis aims towards the understanding that they can take their success, their strengths within what they've done in building a business, begin to see the family unit as a very empathetic business, like you are feeling the emotions of the business, and you can have a success within all of your life. Then we start to build those foundations, those systems, and grow them from there.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

True, very, very true, yeah. And I mean, it's one of those practices that sounds obvious, but but it's genuinely rare among the people who might need

Ego And Resistance To Inner Work

SPEAKER_00 15:11

it most. So what gets in the way? Like, why do high performers specifically tend to kind of resist?

SPEAKER_02 15:21

Ah, wow. Why do we all resist? Then why do we? Yeah, it really is the more the more we each and every single one of us resists is because of our ego. If I were to ask somebody, who are you? They start with, I am such and such. For me, I am a coach, I am a mentor. Everything after I am is past the state of being, if that makes sense. So it's egotistical. And the more you build a foundation of high performance, the more you earn, you learn, there's the word, more you learn to take risks in a very specific way with your strengths, which then on top of it, the larger your ego needs to be managed and is. Some people do this very, very well in keeping themselves humble.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:29

And others, they they have this sense of ego, whether they treat others without empathy or not, is not not the question here, but their mind, they are all of this. I am a CEO, a president, a founder, I am the breadwinner, I am the and all of those categories and titles stack up. That really creates a resistance to seeing that we as human beings with ego, we refuse to see that we're burning ourselves out.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Maybe a senior leader, maybe someone running their own business, or maybe someone who has been going hard for years and is starting to feel something they cannot quite name. So, what is the first honest in a game practice you would recommend? Like not a productivity tool, but something like what do I say? Like not a morning routine checklist, also, but something that genuinely builds self-awareness.

Curiosity As A Daily Practice

SPEAKER_02 17:52

The answer is simpler than many realize, and that is be curious about yourself.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 18:01

And when I'm when I say that, I mean listen to what you're saying externally. If you're having a conversation, listen to what you are saying. And then curiosity, you know, be curious as to where that came from. And, you know, I'll I'll say an extreme instance in my personal life, or not in my in my professional life, there was a point in time where I was seeking validation. I needed somebody to say one way or another, whether it be body language or something that I was worth something. And one moment of small curiosity was that I had told a little white lie.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

And the situation, the truth wasn't far from what I had said. My white lie sounded better. And I I in my mind said, Well, why? If the truth is just a little bit worse, why did I go with speaking without thinking this part untruth? And the realization was that I was seeking validation. I wanted the approval of this person at the time who was the owner of the business. I wanted their approval. Yeah. And once I realized that self-awareness, I then had to obviously stop the conversation and say, wait, this is not true. This is the truth. It's not far from the truth, but it sounded a little bit better. And so really the the curiosity is catching yourself in those small moments where you know that something is important to you, like truth, but you're feared away from it. And being curious as to why that is, if family's important to you, but you haven't you you have an estranged relationship with your children, why look at those and be curious. And that would be the first indicator and start first way to build self-awareness.

Connect With Stephen And Closing

SPEAKER_00 20:30

And before we move, I want to ask you if someone was to connect with you, what would be the great medium to connect?

SPEAKER_02 20:38

If someone was to connect with me, go to my website. My website's mindsetgrowth.com, and that's spelt with M Y, where you own your own mindset. So my n d s-tgrowth.com. And you can reach out to me there, you can email me, you can you know check out what the blog says, all of that. If that's you know, if that's not in the lit scope, also look out, look up for me LinkedIn. I'm Stephen McConnell on LinkedIn, and you can message me there.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Amazing. So, dear listeners, what I'll do is I'll put all the links and the details into the show notes for your easy reference so that you can easily reach out and connect with Stephen. And uh, dear listeners, like before we go, I have to say this. Like, from this conversation, I'm really taking away with something great. It's like uh sustainable high performance is not a strategy, it is a relationship with yourself that uh you either tend or you pay for the later, right? So that is my takeaway. I would definitely love to listen from you, VD listeners, like what you are taking away from this conversation. Please do write us, share in the comment. It'd really be great to know. And also, like that's a wrap for today's episode of Healthy Mind, Healthy Life. And if something Stephen said today landed for you, if it named something you have been feeling but haven't had words for, then trust that it's a signal worth following. And Stephen's details will be in the show notes, as I mentioned. So if you know a leader who is running on MP and might need to hear this conversation, pass it on. With this hope, this is your host, Ravik. And the inner book is not a detour from high performance, it is the foundation of it. So take care of yourselves. See you next time. Thank you so much.