This episode is a recording of a virtual fireside chat from our first LATAM Summit in Bogota, Colombia in November.
Ever felt like you're burning the candle at both ends as an entrepreneur or leader?
Well, you're not alone. Join us as we sit down with Lauri-Ann Ainsworth, CEO of the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship, who's no stranger to the gnawing grind of burnout.
Drawing from her personal experience, Lauri-Ann decodes the often overlooked issue of chronic stress and burnout. She underscores the importance of prioritizing our mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing to sustain success - in a world where how you grow as a leader is as important as the performance of the business.
We get into the meat of the matter, discussing the three cardinal pillars of self-care - mind, body, and soul. We dissect how a deep understanding of our strengths can usher us from a state of burnout towards bliss. Lauri-Ann shares insightful thoughts on recognizing burnout signs and how to navigate life while juggling multiple roles.
As we delve deeper, we unravel the importance of service, self-awareness, and self-love in the context of business. How these elements can foster innovation and help you prioritize wellbeing. It's all about taking ownership of your happiness and remembering that self-love is a critical factor in this process.
If you missed our LATAM Summit or attended and want to hear this session again, tune in to this enlightening conversation that may very well change how you approach your entrepreneurial journey.
You can find out more about The Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship at https://bransoncentre.co/
Visit Lauri-Ann's site featuring her work on wellbeing, happiness and mindset at https://thisishappier.com/
Find our more about Wellbeing at Work's Global Summits, our Global Hub Community of C-Suite executives and our Bespoke division at wellbeingatwork.world
This episode is a recording of a virtual fireside chat from our first LATAM Summit in Bogota, Colombia in November.
Ever felt like you're burning the candle at both ends as an entrepreneur or leader?
Well, you're not alone. Join us as we sit down with Lauri-Ann Ainsworth, CEO of the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship, who's no stranger to the gnawing grind of burnout.
Drawing from her personal experience, Lauri-Ann decodes the often overlooked issue of chronic stress and burnout. She underscores the importance of prioritizing our mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing to sustain success - in a world where how you grow as a leader is as important as the performance of the business.
We get into the meat of the matter, discussing the three cardinal pillars of self-care - mind, body, and soul. We dissect how a deep understanding of our strengths can usher us from a state of burnout towards bliss. Lauri-Ann shares insightful thoughts on recognizing burnout signs and how to navigate life while juggling multiple roles.
As we delve deeper, we unravel the importance of service, self-awareness, and self-love in the context of business. How these elements can foster innovation and help you prioritize wellbeing. It's all about taking ownership of your happiness and remembering that self-love is a critical factor in this process.
If you missed our LATAM Summit or attended and want to hear this session again, tune in to this enlightening conversation that may very well change how you approach your entrepreneurial journey.
You can find out more about The Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship at https://bransoncentre.co/
Visit Lauri-Ann's site featuring her work on wellbeing, happiness and mindset at https://thisishappier.com/
Find our more about Wellbeing at Work's Global Summits, our Global Hub Community of C-Suite executives and our Bespoke division at wellbeingatwork.world
Start. Okay, so let's welcome you to our fireside chat now with with Loryanne Ainsworth, ceo of the Branson Center of Entrepreneurship. My name is John Brewer and I apologize. I'm actually with Wellbeing at Work world. I apologize if you hear any whistling in the background. It's quite windy. Where I am there's a snowstorm coming in, so I can assure you that a genuine fireside chat would be most most welcome for me right now. But if there's one thing that keeps you warm, even in the coldest weather, it's it's. It's good company and good conversation, which is what we're going to have now.
Speaker 1:So very much pleased to have Loryanne with us. She's, as I said, she's the CEO of the Branson Center of Entrepreneurship as well as being a certified wellness practitioner. I'm sure we've had we've had a lot of conversations today about some of the things we're going to touch on issues around authenticity, well being, gym or generally. Burnout, I'm sure, has come up in some of the conversations you've had. So Loryanne is going to share some of her insights. It's an area she's practiced in for for a fairly long time and I'm sure you're going to be able to sort of learn some some new, new insights into the area. It's not like burnout is something that isn't. That isn't something that we all, I think, either experience or near experience in our work world. So welcome, loryanne, delighted to have you with us here today. Perhaps I could just start by asking you how you're doing.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you, john. Thank you for having me. Hola a todos, hello everyone. I'm so happy to be here. I am actually it's December, there's a lot happening and I am feeling the weight of everything, but right now I am managing it. So I would say I'm doing good spirits. But one of those moments I'm sure we're all feeling the crunch of the holidays, the end of the year, the work, the strategy meeting. So we have to be transparent here, right?
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. And actually you could tell us a little bit about your role of the Branson Centre and what exactly the Branson Centre does, just to set some some context for our conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. The Branson Centre was founded by Richard Branson himself, the ultimate entrepreneur. He founded the Branson Centre here in Jamaica in 2011. So we are 12 years old and we support business owners. We support entrepreneurs to help them to grow their businesses. So we literally work with multiple businesses small, medium sized entrepreneurs and we support them in three ways.
Speaker 2:So we give them training which helps them to become better CEOs, coos and CTOs of their businesses, helping them with everything from finance, hr, marketing, sales, you name it. We support them in those areas of training and we give them access to coaches, mentors and, finally, access to finance, because we all know that businesses need finance to survive. So we are business enablers, we support businesses to grow.
Speaker 1:But I imagine a lot of entrepreneurs probably don't give enough attention to their well-being as they should, so I can imagine your sort of experience as a wellness practitioner must also be pretty relevant to that work within the Centre.
Speaker 2:You know, absolutely. And here's the thing when I became the CEO of the Branson Center, the first thing I did was I sat down with some of our entrepreneurs and I asked them what's going on with you? And what came up was the wellbeing. It was the fact that there were resources for them with their businesses, helping them to understand how to work with teams and build teams, but there's no support for them as leaders, as individuals, for them to really have a space to say you know what? My mental and emotional or physical wellbeing is in a decline. And so when I had that conversation with them, having my own experience as an entrepreneur and having burnt out myself, I knew that there had to be a space for wellbeing and wellness within entrepreneurship. So definitely there's a space for it. These are human beings. People who are leaders are human beings and they need to look at both sides of the coin, not just the business, but also the wellbeing aspects.
Speaker 1:So, absolutely, so you touch there briefly on the fact that you yourself have experienced some burnouts during your career and again, I don't think that's unusual when you've got probably a fairly high pressure job, despite obviously being sort of at least you don't have the winter to cope with like I do, but so anyway. So how do you characterize burnouts, how do you define it and maybe some of those experiences that you had, what that was like for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so burnout. You know, when people hear burnout they think, okay, you're just stressed. But burnout is actually chronic stress and when you burn out it literally means you cannot do anything. You are unable to do what you used to do in the way you used to do it. So when people realize that they're in burnout, activities that they used to love to do they no longer have any impetus to do it anymore. They procrastinate a lot. For me, I literally could not do anything. There was one day when I was in my entrepreneurial journey starting out my own business, being a new parent, all the things and I literally could not get off of my coach. I was sitting there and I just couldn't do the work. I had no motivation and that's when I was spiraling down into what felt like depression for me and that was burnout. I literally didn't care about anything anymore. It's chronic stress.
Speaker 1:Because I think a lot of people mistake it as being tired or just a lack of energy, which clearly is a component of it, but there's clearly a large psychological element in play there that has a debilitating effect.
Speaker 2:All right, that's the right word debilitating. When we burn out, we're missing the signs, and chronic stress means the stress is there and you're ignoring it and it keeps building. So when we learn tools like what I learned to start combating those stress signals, the stress that's inevitable in our lives, then we don't allow that stress to become debilitating and reach to the point of burnout, which I think is so important for leaders, for team members, for anyone who lives in this world. We need to have these tools.
Speaker 1:Yes, well, I mean, when I think about burnout, I think about two tracks, as it were, and one is the context that we work in. That can be involved in the culture we work. It could involve a toxic boss or generally toxic environment. It could be a series of microaggressions, those kind of stressors in the workplace. I know we've had discussion here today about the aspects of how culture is linked to well-being. So what I'd like to focus on now is the other side of that, which is, I would say the two are equally important. So it's not that we're ignoring one, but I think when we're on, the focus is on that personal side of what resources you can draw on, how you can build resiliency, and I know that's a big part of your practice. So perhaps you could speak about the things that you do with your clients, with the members of the Branson Center, to sort of help either address burnout when it happens or prevent it from happening in the first place.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And I'm just going to weave in a little bit of my story here and then because that's a genesis, Please. So you know I come from the philosophy that well-being is an individual decision. Right, it comes back to the individual. So I know you're talking about both sides the company, the culture, etc. And I think that's absolutely important, especially as a CEO myself with a team making provisions and resources available for team members. But if a team member does not take responsibility for their own lives and wants to access these resources or utilize what is there for them, then it doesn't work.
Speaker 2:So for me, I advocate for people taking 100% responsibility for their own well-being and happiness, Because when we take that responsibility, it means that we care about ourselves enough to access these resources. No one you know. In Jamaica we like to say you can take the donkey to the water, but you can't make the donkey drink, right, so we can have all of those things. But why was so important for me was because when I went through my own burnout journey, I was an corporate, I was a corporate executive and I decided to jump into entrepreneurship. I realized how difficult it was and I told you I burnt out, etc. But it was a decision for me to want better for myself. But that started me on the path of well-being, and when I was doing that, I had to start with my mental, physical and spiritual well-being, and I call this my first pillar of the self-love mindset, which is something that I've coined. So I had to take care of myself. I had children to look after, I had a business to take care of, I had team members to pay, but it started with me and so I had to start looking at how could I stop my heart from racing, how could I start my mind, support my mental health, and I learned a number of tools. I mean I won't go through all of them, but I went through breathwork, meditation, yoga, Reiki. I did so much work just working on myself. I became a health coach for myself, I became a life coach for myself, and some of these tools I offer to my team members now because I advocate for our entrepreneurs and our team members to learn what works for them. These are what works for me, but you have to find what works for you.
Speaker 2:But what's most important is that you're looking at yourself, care, from the three perspectives of mind, body and soul. What do you need to support your mental health. What do you need for your body to nourish your body, whether it's movement, food. What food is right for your body? Listening to your body? From a mindset perspective, it was really important for me to look at what self-protecting patterns that I have. Some of us may have heard of these things they call themselves protecting patterns, limiting beliefs, savatoors so many things. You can go down to that rabbit hole and I studied them all because I wanted to somehow fix myself. It wasn't really fixing myself, it was making myself well again. So I advocate for that. I advocate for persons to try new things and I make this space available for my team members to try new things and see what can stick. So that's a self-care aspect of it. That's my first pillar.
Speaker 1:Okay, so pillar two. What's pillar two?
Speaker 2:My pillar two when I went through. So, after I realized I was in survival mode because I like to connect this when I went through this, I connected it to where I was in my life and I was in survival mode as an entrepreneur, as a mother, because I was failing in all areas of my life In my relationship, career and motherhood. I was in survival and I needed stability. So that's what self-care gave me. Self-care gave me stability so I could breathe again, but I was still feeling the stress. So I thought, well, what needs to shift?
Speaker 2:I needed to do more self-awareness, and this is something that I absolutely advocate for, for everybody, of course, and I do it for my team, first and foremost, what are your strengths and I don't say this in a oh, you know very, what are you good at? But truly, what are your innate strengths, what is your zone of genius, what is your personality? Because when you understand these things, then you'll understand what environment is right for you, you'll understand what work is right for you and you'll understand how to spend more of your time in your zone of genius, that place where work flows, there's more joy, there's more creativity and innovation.
Speaker 3:Many of us entrepreneurs, employees, leaders.
Speaker 2:We have burnout skills that we have learned over the years. Burnout skills are those skills that we're really, really good at and you think that's a strength, but when you stop and you look, these skills are actually burning you out. They're stressing you out. So I advocate for my second pillar of self-awareness through self-discovery you must spend time understanding what you like, what you don't like, what environment you write through you and your personality and moving towards spending more of your time in that zone. That's my second pillar.
Speaker 1:It seems to me, if you're in a state of burnout, that must seem like a long way away from the zone of genius.
Speaker 2:Yet is.
Speaker 2:Which is why you have to start with self-care. Because once you start with self-care where you get your mind, body and you have that soul connection, whatever it is for you, again you don't have to be religious, you don't have to be spiritual. We all have something that's bigger than us that we can connect to. And when we do that and we've taken care of our mind, body and soul, that's when we are stable and we can now think about moving into a place that I call security. Where you start to feel more secure, you start to do more work. That's in your zone of genius. I don't think it's a jump from survival straight into okay, I'm doing great, I don't know. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Was I sort of characterised this conversation as being from burnout to bliss?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I was torn between whether to say bliss or bloom. I thought, well, it will be fine. But it is about a more stepped journey than that. It's not like you kind of have a set of tools that you kind of apply and then you leap from that burnout state into that. And you mentioned there about being in a state of flow, that sense of joy that we all want to see in our work, and that's a big part of how we define well-being at work. It's not about just getting through the day, it's about actually finding that experience nourishing.
Speaker 2:Correct, and I think that's what's most important and that's why we find entrepreneurs or team members who start a role or start a business and they start with all this joy and excitement and that slowly dwindles because they're moving away from that zone of genius and moving away from that joy, that everyday joy, and we have a tendency to think okay, let me just get through the day as long as I can. If this happens, then I will feel good, and we start to have that belief system where happiness and joy is a destination versus the journey. And so, for me, I realized that it had to be the journey. But, as you rightfully said, john, it's not today we're burnt out and tomorrow we're blissful. It's, you know. I think that is very dangerous, yes, and I think it's important to learn the steps that are right for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I think also the other thing that struck me is, obviously you know your current work is in the context of entrepreneurs and their relationship with work and how that can lead to burnout. But you, when you talk about your own experience, you know you reference that experience of you as a mother right that burnout becomes a particular problem when we have multiple roles which might be at that sort of end of a demographic. Or, you know, I have a number of quite close friends who have spouses who've had quite traumatic health experiences and are now caregivers, or some people who are in sort of Gen X and Gen Y who are looking after parents. Like those competing roles can make you particularly, firstly, particularly susceptible to burnout and secondly, make it more of a challenge to get out of it, right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and we all have. We all play multiple roles. That's where dynamic human beings do all have multiple roles, and that's something that when I started in this role, I really wanted to remember and bring to the fore. I'm not just talking to a business leader, I'm not just talking to team members of the business leader. I'm talking to a human being who is a mother, a father, a friend, you know, a son, a daughter.
Speaker 2:There are so many roles that we play in our lives and we tend to compartmentalize them, and there was this idea before, you know, work-life balance, and for me it is work-life integration, because our lives don't stop when we reach to the office or when we're behind our computers. I mean, even right now, you know, two minutes before getting on this call, I was doing logistics of picking up my kids, dropping them to that rehearsal, dropping them to that, and I am keenly aware that my role here is important, what I have to integrate my life. I've done so many interviews of my kids popping up behind the scenes and I know some people may not be okay with it, but I'm okay with it because that's how I get to integrate my life and make it work.
Speaker 1:So I think it's important for us to remember Okay, so we can do one of two things now. Right, we can either continue with the discussion and talk about the third pillar, or you and I can have an argument about work-life balance and work-life integration. I think probably, from the audience's point of view, it's probably better to move on to your. I have a bit of a thing about work-life integration but, that's okay. So let's hear pillar three.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely so, peter. 3 is all about service for me, and it's one leads into the other. So when we understand what our strengths are, where our zone of genius is, we can now use that to be of service to others by creating value. And we're creating value not just for others. We're creating value for ourselves, and this is the essence of any organization or any entrepreneur. We're creating value in this world right through our businesses. The only way that we can create value is by understanding what value we have to offer, when we are able to tap into that zone of genius, those strengths, that place where we're offering the best of ourselves. We can now offer this as a team member in the right role in an organization and feel empowered to utilize those skills and those strengths.
Speaker 2:If you're an entrepreneur or you can create a business around something that matters to you, this is such an important piece of it for me in terms of service, when we move from that place of security, when we're now we're able to breathe because we have that self-care tools to understand how to manage stress better, and we are in a place of security because we're using our strengths to do work that feels good. Now we want to do work that feels meaningful, and we want to create that value, and this is where we start moving into a life of significance. When you're living a life of significance, it's when you are doing work that matters to you and is of service to others, and that feels very good. It feels amazing to do that. And so my third pillar really supports, as I said, entrepreneurs and businesses and even myself.
Speaker 2:So in my role here as CEO of the Branson Center, I went through every single team member, looking at their zone of genius, looking at their skills, looking at what matters, and I created a team around me of persons who had strengths that I don't have. So I can stay in my zone of genius and I talk about this. In this role, I want to be that person that integrates well-being and business, especially in the entrepreneurship world. So I get to talk about these things every day. I get to stay in my zone of genius, I get to create for the Branson Center, I get to envision and get to have great conversations with people around projects that matter to me, that matter to Richard, matter to the center, and my team members get to stay in their zone of genius as much as possible and we are being a service because we're doing things that matter to us, using our strengths.
Speaker 1:It was interesting. I mean again to sort of go back to that, your sort of your tribe, as it were, of entrepreneurs that you serve. I think there is part of that role that is the serving of the people in the organization and that involves nurturing their well-being, preventing them from burnout, addressing that, if it appears. So that's like a really strong part of this right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and when you're in leadership roles and I'm sure many in the audience are in leadership roles what I'm saying is so important for you too, because when you look after yourself, you're bringing the best of yourself to be of service to those that you are serving.
Speaker 2:Your team members, your staff, your organization. So when you can put yourself in a place that you are in your zone of genius and you are doing work that matters to you, then you can serve from a truly, truly high perspective and that is the best for myself. I get to sit back and look at the organization and say, how can I support this team member and that team member and discern whether or not they are moving towards stress and burnout. Are they in the right role? Are they in the right place? What's happening to them? But I wouldn't have that space to think or to do if I didn't put some of these other parameters in place.
Speaker 1:One of the things that strikes me I know there was a conversation earlier today about that would have included some discussion of notion of belonging, which I think is when we talk about well-being at work, one of the issues that comes up. A lot is around connection and the sense of belonging and linking it to diversity, and those things are all critically important. But a couple of things I think get maybe left out in that conversation that I think you've touched on there. One is that notion of purpose, that to belong to something it's not just about the thing that we're kind of good trums with people, it's sense of being part of something bigger that is driven by a sense of purpose. And the other thing is that sense of service, that sense that if you belong to something, you serve it in some way. Am I stretching things a bit there? Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Absolutely no. I think you're hitting the needle on the head. That's exactly it. When you're of service, you are doing something bigger than yourself, and this is something I think it's very important for everyone to understand that sometimes we think that we have to be altruistic and we just have to be of service to others, but there's also the aspect of being of service to yourself, because, as I said, we create value both ways. Business 101 is an exchange of value. If you have something that's valuable, I will exchange money for that value. It's the same thing that we're doing, regardless of whether there's something tangible or intangible. And so when we can understand that, where it goes both ways, the feeling that one gets when they're taking and they're unable to give, it's not one that feels good. That's a law of reciprocity. People use it all the time Someone gives you something or someone does a favor for you, you feel the need to give back, because it's a two-way street, and that's what service is about. It's about getting value and giving value.
Speaker 1:And I think the other thing this speaks to is and again, something that was spoken about earlier today and again I'm sure being with Branson and the whole entrepreneur thing, this would be familiar territory to you Is that, in that need for innovation, the way in which that sense of well-being feeds into creativity and innovation, yeah, absolutely, and you know what it does too.
Speaker 2:When you especially for pillar two, when people are self-aware and they understand where they're coming from, you can appreciate what others are coming from. So when you talk about innovation, there is a lot more collaboration, there's a lot more understanding, there's less competing, but really and truly listening to ideas, building on ideas, and that is a magic, I think, of being self-aware. When you understand you have something to offer and others do too and you're okay with what you have to offer, you're going to get innovation. You're going to get so much more out of that collaboration than you ever could with individuals who are insecure or who are competing and who want to have a one-out. Innovation absolutely comes out of self-awareness.
Speaker 1:So I mentioned earlier that burnout to the zone of genius was a long journey. It seems like we've almost up to 30 minutes. We've traveled a long way from burnout to where we are now, which is kind of neat. And there was one little question I wanted to sneak in because you mentioned love around work. I know some cultures and organizations where, if you mentioned the word love, people will run for the door mostly men, I run for the door. People will mention love. I mean, is that really part of business and well-being?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. For me, I call this the self-love mindset, so my three colours are self-care, self-awareness and service. And this is a self-love mindset because we start from within. When you love yourself, you prioritize your mental, physical, emotional, spiritual well-being so you can be of service to others. When we feel bad, when we're depressed, when we are burning out, that's something that we feel from within. No one else can see it, no one else can feel it. That's an emotion, that's a feeling that comes from within. So the opposite must be true.
Speaker 2:And when you do love yourself, it's not a matter of I love myself exactly the way I am, but I love myself enough to know that I'm worthy of getting help if I need it. So it's being able to love yourself enough to know that it's everything that is genius, everything that's going to be of service to others, starts within first. So if you are coming from a place of I don't like what I can offer, I don't love myself, then there's no way that you can be of service to anyone in the world. You're giving from something negative. So love, absolutely, especially self-love, is so important to start the conversation, I think, in business, and that's the idea of taking 100% responsibility for your own happiness and well-being, you have to love yourself, to take responsibility. You have to, and so it absolutely plays a role in business.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, I think we're probably out of time. This sounds, seems to me. I had a couple of other questions planned, but we'll have to put them to one side. It sounds like a good time to end, so I'd like to thank you for really inviting us into your zone of genius for 30 minutes. That was fun. I hope the audience found it as valuable as I did, and I had a couple of questions about dealing with altitude sickness. I thought you'd find useful, chris, but we stuck to burnout and not having any jokes about my altitude sickness, no, no.
Speaker 3:So I'm going to ask the audience. I'm going to say a huge thank you to Royanne and John. I'm going to ask the audience to see if they can make as much noise and appreciation of that session, and you can then hopefully hear it. So can we have a bug or so? Thank you.
Speaker 1:Can't hear a thing. Is there anybody? Is there anybody there, Chris?
Speaker 2:They're alone, aren't you?
Speaker 1:You're alone in some in some basement somewhere, pretending to be falling.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. Ok, thank you so much, Chris.
Speaker 1:Always good to have a great flight back to the UK and I'm sure we'll talk soon. And thank you, Loria.
Speaker 2:Bye, bye.