Chronic overperformance is a cultural phenomenon where individuals push beyond sustainable limits, leading to burnout, because modern life demands constant mental activity and productivity without allowing for natural rest and renewal cycles. The solution lies in adopting regenerative performance, which follows a cycle of perform, rest, and renew, and requires reconnecting with one's natural rhythms, listening to bodily signals, and embracing honesty about personal limits rather than continuously pushing through fatigue.
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Why You Feel Exhausted All The Time (It’s Not What You Think) | Pippa GrangeAdded:
Why is it do you think that so many people are struggling with burnout?
>> I think this is an absolutely collective problem. So many people are struggling, but that's not a sort of a large number of individuals who've randomly got there. I think it's actually a cultural phenomena as well. And I think it's because we're overperforming in too many places and in too many ways in our lives. We are living in a way that no longer suits a human being. It's too fast. It's too revved. It requires too much mental activity from us at all times. We've forgotten how to rest and renew our energy to regenerate. And collectively that's leading us to a place where we're if not just strained where we're on the precipice of burnout and and crashing and burning. Yeah, that term overperformance >> is really the I guess the topic of the new book.
>> And as you just alluded to, this seems to be something that a lot of people struggle with these days that this this idea that they're they can't quite get their head above water, right? And you say this right at the start.
>> Are you addicted to pace and pressure?
Do you regularly close off your feelings and ignore your body so that you can get more done? And is the internal narrator to your daily life critical of anything that doesn't add to your progress and betterment?
>> That's a lot of people, isn't it?
>> That's a lot of people. Yeah. This is what that's what I'm saying. I think it's it's not just you. It's not just an individual phenomena for one person here. It's it's something that's really prevalent among everybody. Our pace is too high. Basically, I think we have a mismatch between the way we used to do it. Um where grit and discipline and uh performance methods used to fit the way that the world was and now we're in a new moment in the world where uh there's more strain collectively. There's geopolitical strain. There's wars, there's climate change, there's all sorts of things that are pressing down on us collectively. And I don't think we have worked out how to change our methods. And that's what the whole book Life Reclaimed is about is is how do we change our methods for this moment now so that we can regenerate our energy, regenerate our performances rather than feel like you either have to put tools down and quit or or just keep going until you crash. It's interesting you say there's a mismatch between >> the way things currently are and I guess who we are as humans. Yet you still throughout your book and your I would say beyond this book your the entirety of your work >> you still look to nature for solutions don't you?
>> Yeah. Well, we are nature, you know, it's it's um what one of the first things I talk about in the book in in the sort of, you know, how we learn who to be um is this idea that we uh have a view of ourselves as separate from everything out there. And when we can recognize that we are part of that web of life and it is the most extreme and incredible form of intelligence that will ever come our way to tap into that.
All the lessons are already there about how to excel, how to perform, how to stay whole. You know, ecology is whole.
Industry is not whole. It's compartments and efficiency and productivity and progress.
this idea that we're not separate from our surroundings.
I very much think like that.
There's many people these days who think like that. But for someone who's pushing back against that, Pipper, who's going, "What do you mean? Like, I'm an individual. I've got to earn my money and pay my mortgage and feed my family.
What is the relevance of this idea that we're not separate? How does that apply in that individual's life?
>> So, the way I'm talking about it in the book is um when we see ourselves as separate from all else, we also have this idea that we can override all of the signals from the natural world, all of the signals from our own natural landscape in our bodies, in our minds.
Our bodies constantly give us signals that maybe we're a little bit strained or on the edge, and we ignore them. We presume that our mind because we live largely from the neck up.
>> Our mind as the control center is going to be able to push through all obstacles because we will it rather than recognizing no you know when it comes to when it comes to performance we have to listen to the whole and that's what's happening out here what's happening in here inner and outer landscape matching.
And I don't think we've I think we've lost touch with how to do that, right?
So it's not about whether you just need to go into the forest and and you know find yourself again. It is genuinely how are you responding to all of the intelligence, all of the natural intelligence in your life, your you know in your body, in your world, in the environment and the culture around you.
Um or are you separate and just living up here in your head dictating terms and and pressing override all the time?
>> Yeah, as we have this conversation, spring has just sprung in the UK, right?
>> And I've had one of the best weekends of the year, frankly, and which we can maybe talk about a bit later, but one of the things I've been doing this weekend is read your book while sitting outside.
And it's interesting how a lot of the themes you talk about, they actually become really obvious at this time of year. This renewal, this regeneration, >> this idea that >> actually the garden was, you know, quite damp and soggy and there wasn't much color for the last few months.
>> Yeah. And suddenly in the last week, it's as if there's a different signal coming in from the universe around, right? The birds are tweeting and singing at 5:00 a.m. You're in bed. You can hear it outside.
>> So this idea that >> there is this natural process. You know, you've got this regenerative triangle, don't you? What is it? Performance.
>> Perform, rest, renew. Yeah.
>> Perform, rest, renew. I kind of feel nature sort of has that, doesn't it, within it?
>> Yeah, it it does. But, you know, if I take you back to that idea of like everything not having quite so much color in the in the winter and you know, I think we had like 45 days of rain straight or something this year is it's like you pretty indoors psychologically when that happens, not just physically, you know, but if you look to nature, it's it's resting. It looks like it's resting. the leaves are off the trees and you don't see as much animal life.
You don't hear those birds tweeting as much. Um, but it's it's doing something.
It's just different. It's diverse.
Right? One of the things with us and our human nature is that we expect the same homogeneous pattern of life from ourselves if we're not tuned in.
>> And that I think is one of the problems that leads us to overperforming. Right?
So nature's nature's not it might be at rest in some ways but it's not inactive through that whole time. It's purposeful rest you know and then it comes to renewal but you are tuned in enough to notice the difference in yourself and the difference in the world around you as it's starting to spring.
Just to finish off on this kind of idea that burnout is, you know, reaching epidemic proportions these days, which which really does say something about the state of society, right?
>> But when I think about why is it that so many of us are, let's say, overwork, >> right?
>> I think there's many reasons. Yes, there's cultural factors. There could be what our boss is expecting of us and they're sort of responding to what other bosses are doing or what their boss thinks they should be delivering for them. I also think about our individualistic culture that you know we've moved away many of us from tribe and community.
And so in the past we would have always known the value we offered to the people around us. It would have been quite obvious, you know, in the tribe, in the hunter gatherer tribe, you know, >> if you had hunted and brought home some meat, you know, you would have been celebrated, you know, you would, you know, people around you would celebrate you and you would know, yeah, I brought this home today or if you were digging the tubers up or you were guarding the the camp, whatever it might be, your value was obvious to you. And I wonder sometimes if some of this overperforming comes from the fact that we are living these separate lives now. So sometimes we don't know that we are being of value. So maybe the compensation for that >> is to go to the place where we do see our value being celebrated and maybe that's work.
>> Yeah, I totally agree with you. I think this happens outside of work as well like you know you could describe how this plays out in relationships or in parenting. Uh same thing that it's like how do you know when it's quite when you're quite there? you know, and I talk about those narratives that set us up for this kind of overperforming um and being sort of um the story of us needing to be special at all times is part of that, right? When you talk about the hunter gatherers, right, that that person would not have gone out and brought meat home every day.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. The tubers would have come only at certain times that people would have dug up and been celebrated. There was a a more natural rhythm to the things that we were doing. Now, we expect um that kind of performance constantly. We expect it to be special and we feel bad or guilty when we're not optimizing for performance at all times. Yeah. Right.
And that's for me part of what I think drains the energy out of people and leaves them sort of feeling like where's the finish line?
>> Yeah. This lack of rhythm >> or the decimation or the the erosion of rhythm from our lives, you see it everywhere. like you just mentioned, but it's also, you know, taking that analogy of the hunter gatherer, you know, the tubers or or hunting for meat.
We're even used to having the same foods now 52 weeks a year.
>> And of course, because of, you know, the modern food system and the food supply.
We can have bananas in December in the UK, >> right?
>> But you can't in nature. And so I guess if we were living more in harmony with our natural rhythms, not only would the way we feel change, you know, spring versus winter, but also what we eat and how we eat would also change, wouldn't it?
>> Yeah, absolutely. And I use this as a metaphor of not just our physiological um sense of self, but our psychological sense of self does better when it's not a monoculture. M so when it's a monoulture of food or a monoculture of activity um we we get dull you know our gut gets dull our uh sense of self gets dull and it's just exactly the same with our mood and our psychology it's kind of organic in the same way you know we need diverse inputs we need shifts changes different speeds more rhythm um more uh adaptability and I don't think we're very good at doing that just yet.
>> How might somebody know if they are an overperformer?
>> Well, some of the classic things people do when they're overperforming, um they generally mask what they're feeling. uh they find it hard to say out loud that they um maybe are under strain or feel too tired or feel that or might say keep saying yes when they actually mean categorically no and do it anyway. Bend themselves out of shape a bit. Um typically they're always in urgency. Um they uh are likely to be side thinking about have some other mental tabs open while they're doing something find it really hard to be present. They're likely to be psychologically scrolling, as I say. So, they're in a conversation, but looking around and thinking about who else is in the room that they need to uh have an outcome with in some way.
Um, they're never quite able to be fully present and spacious. Um, and we a lot of people are going to recognize that, right? And the problem isn't that we do it. The problem is that we do it chronically for way too much of the time. So, it's okay to do it now and again as long as it's balanced, >> right? It's a I think it's a very human thing to do that now and then. We all have periods of real stress and real strain. This isn't about being perfect.
It's about recognizing that we've kind of slipped into this as a chronic way of being and we don't sometimes now we we don't know how to not overperform. It's happening in so many places in our life.
It's seeped into places it doesn't belong. How might this be relevant for you at this current moment in time, Pepper? So, you've got this brand new book out, Life Reclaimed.
>> As part of launching a book, I guess you will probably do an element of publicity around it to let people know. So, interviews and podcasts, those kinds of things.
>> How does that or does it fit into your regenerative triangle?
>> Yeah, absolutely. I I keep that regenerative triangle. um right at the center of everything I do. For me though, at the moment, this is where my energy is in the book and this is the stuff I'm loving and I if I listen to my energy, if I really tune in, I'm like, "Yes, please for that." That's a yes feeling. Whereas when I have other requests for other things, maybe things that pull me back into a former version of myself that I think, "Oh, I could do that or that might be quite interesting," I have to really watch carefully for the no >> because actually my body might be saying, "Uh, I don't really want to, but I should or I could." And so, you know, I have to be quite specific about what I'm saying yes to. And that's about my own honesty with myself of like I don't really want to do it instead of I could do it, I ought to do it, you know, not not just saying yes because I can.
>> A big part of this book to me is about us getting to know ourselves better. M >> I mean in so many ways it's very hard to turn the ship around. Acknowledge that things aren't quite going the way you want them to go in your life if you don't know yourself if you don't create space in your life to think >> and that space is what is missing from so many people's lives. Mhm. And I I think you tell me uh what your experience is in relation to this, wrong, but um I think there is a lot of story out there about us needing to fix something when we feel offkilter, something has something's broken, something's wrong. What I'm encouraging people to do in this book is to give themsel permission to go back to reclaim what's already right. Sometimes we're just overrevving rather than broken.
>> Yeah, there's there's so much I want to talk to you about, Pippa. Just relating to what you just said there in chapter six which is called coming home. You wrote that the hardest part of shifting from overperformance to regenerative performance may well be giving yourself permission not to try and immediately diagnose, fix, and get back in the saddle.
>> I think that is so profound. this idea that you might recognize throughout this conversation that something's not quite right in your in your life. It may be that you're burnt out. It may be that you're unhappy or that things aren't quite right and you know you need to change something.
>> But what it doesn't need is people to listen to this or read your book and suddenly go right that ain't working.
I'm going to do this.
>> Yeah. we need to allow time to to sit with the I guess discomfort, the uncertainty that maybe you don't know what's next. You know what's not working, but you don't quite know the solution? And I thought that was really quite evocative and something that I think again the cultural narrative doesn't teach us. It's like, >> you know, as you just said, that's wrong. How do you fix it?
>> Yeah. Yeah. And straight into fix, too.
And it it's space. Time is probably the number one thing that helps us really get to the nub of what's up and what we need to do next. But it's not always space and time. Sometimes you really know. Sometimes it's just removing that um sense that you ought to stick at it, that you should just grit it out a bit longer. giving yourself permission, you know, to reclaiming your own permission to just notice and be honest about what you really feel. Um, and that's enough for you to make your next step. You know, it's not necessarily a new a new something or other, a new direction, a new practice, a new method. A lot of the time, it's dropping that and just saying, "What's here? What do I know about this?
you have dealt and and coached, you know, so many of the world's high performers, music, sport, business over many years.
Many people will know you as the psychologist for the England football team for a period of time. And I know you feel uncomfortable with some of the credit that's given to you, but you are widely regarded as someone who had a massively influential impact on changing the psyche and the mindset of the England football team.
So you you've dealt with a lot of people who have performed at a high level. In your last book, you had this most beautiful concept about winning deep versus winning shallow.
>> You know, how are you winning? Are you winning from a place of lack or from a place of fullness? I guess is another way of looking at it.
>> The topic of this new book, you know, find freedom from chronic overperformance.
Do you think it's more relevant to people at a certain stage in their life?
Like is this your classic midlife moment for people where you know they did things a certain way? They got the job that they thought they wanted to get.
They've, you know, maybe they follow their passion and they they they sort of they worked in that passion realize well maybe it isn't what I thought I wanted.
Is it the sort of thing that people tend to come to in their 40s and 50s or do you think it can also come at a different time in our lives? I definitely think it can come at a different time in our lives too. I I particularly worry about young people um and thinking about how they're, you know, from this this concept of schoolishness where right from being very young, you're taught that being exceptional, optimizing every moment, not wasting a second, needing to be ever more is critical in becoming in life, in sort of growing up and becoming successful in life. That's an enormous amount of pressure, >> you know, and I and I think it actually leads to a a great deal of loneliness in young people and older people.
>> But your point is still valid because by the time we get to midlife, there's a lot of weight that we're carrying. And what I think the particular um thing that happens at midlife is that we feel like, oh, we can't put all this down now. There's a lot of sunk cost in there. I talk about sunk cost mentality in the book of like we've gone too far to stop now and those old mentalities really can get in the way of us being honest because actually maybe it's burning you out killing you boring you causing you a lot of strain and suffering and it's and you know as I say in the book not all sunk cost is buried treasure you know sometimes we actually need to uh have another look at that and and sometimes we actually have the opportunity to do that. But we don't.
>> Often in my experience at least, it takes, you know, a real low point or a tragedy or an addiction that's gone out of control for people to actually confront this and go, actually, you know what?
>> My current way of doing things isn't working. I need to make a change.
>> I think sometimes without that, people stay stuck. They know something's not quite right, >> but they don't change. And I can tell you this from, you know, I recently had a conversation with James Hollis. I don't know if you know James or not.
>> Amazing.
>> I mean, just wonderful. This was my second chat with James and he talks about this idea at some point, you know, >> your soul will come calling. You know what what is your soul asking of you?
>> Yeah.
>> And you can ignore it.
>> Yeah.
>> Or if you really want to, I guess, live that life, >> find meaning, find purpose, you better start listening. And he he had to do that. He talks very openly about how in his 30s he he he had inverted commas depression, >> but that depression was a consequence of him not listening to this inner voice and he realized that the job he was in, >> whilst it looked great from the outside, >> it wasn't nourishing him.
>> Exactly. And in that first conversation I had with James, he also said to me that in his therapy room over the past 40 years, I think he said 70% of lawyers and doctors who came to see him said, "I never had any calling for this profession."
>> Right.
>> Right. So it's really interesting and and I've seen it in my profession that people feel stuck in their 40s. They probably shouldn't have been a doctor.
They probably, you know, they probably thought this is a good job, maybe parental pressure, whatever it might be, >> but they feel stuck.
>> Yeah.
>> So, for that individual, cuz I bet you there's someone listening right now who's in that boat. How would you advise them to think about their situation when they feel they have no other option?
>> I talk about the sort of concept of psychological fire breaks that we need to put in along the way. So, I I love James Hollis's work and this idea of like we all we've all got an appointment with life and most of us never show up, right?
>> What I really want to do with this book is change people's method so that you don't actually get to that point where you are straining so much that you're on the cusp of a crash. Right? So, there's a a story in the book about um uh I call the guy Merlin in the book about a a surgeon who didn't have that feeling. He was never called to it or he thought he was called to it but when he got in there it just wasn't what he expected and then he went tech entrepreneur and just really still didn't find it. And then he was looking at himself saying there's something up with me because I've tried these two things and they're not it. So that's not how I was taught that life works. It's it's supposed to go in a more linear >> direction than that. I'm supposed to feel differently now. So in response to the question, one of the main things that we do is stop expecting yourself to follow somebody else's map and tune in to what's actually true and real for you.
>> Right? And that's where we broaden out the sense of sort of our own worth and our own choices. That's why I think young people really really matter here.
So, you know, maybe people don't have to get to their mid-4s to get to that point where they think, "Oh god, I I can't put it down now." You know, so it's if if they are wanting if they're feeling not quite right, they know they're not feeling quite right, either because they've got to the precipice of something being very wrong, like James Hollis with a depression, or they're in tune with themselves and they're listening. I'd rather it was the latter.
>> Yeah.
So, you're talking about a a cultural shift basically in how we think about our lives and work. And you know, I've got a 15-year-old and a 13-year-old. And I think about the narratives I picked up at a young age completely understandably from immigrant parents to the UK and how on one hand they helped me and on the other hand, you know, there was a hidden cost to me having my self worth tied up with my success.
And I'm really keen that my children don't develop those narratives.
>> So I guess my question to you would be how would you suggest we encourage our children to think to think differently about what their lives might be in the future?
>> Well, I think there's so much that can happen there um in the home and in the conversation between parent and child.
Even though this is a cultural phenomena, the change starts with us.
Yeah. that it's your inner landscape that you can actually edit, not and and the collective editing of that is what will change the culture. So when you have a conversation with your kid about their worth being much broader than the results, that's that's one step. When you uh when you teach them that time together is present time together as in you are both present for that time together rather than you take them somewhere, you're on your phone uh or doing something else and you know multitasking and they're they're at play, >> you know. Um how are you actually relating and engaging with each other?
Because when you do that, it's not just about you being a great parent. is what you're showing them is normal when you're with a person.
>> Um it's also encouraging them to that it's totally natural to have periods of big intensity and big challenge and goals that they're chasing and then periods of rest. the tri back to the triangle, the pyramid um of kind of you know uh there's renewal time and renewal time is play, laughter, things where you're not performing at all and you let go to it but they're creative and they renew your energy. Teach your kid that renewal is as important as couch time and rest, right? You pro they probably have a bedtime. They probably have um you're probably aware of them uh going too hard and them needing a break from that. But where is their play time?
Where is their renew time? Also, can you build that in? Because this isn't about your kid not being successful, right? If I ask you for both of your children, you want them to be successful. It's about a different method or a set of different methods to help them understand how to do that in a regenerative way that doesn't deplete them or extract all their joy.
>> Yeah. No, I love that.
So far, we've talked about why it is that so many people feel burnt out.
You've also kind of gone through a list of what are some of those things that people might identify in themselves, right, which might indicate that they're overperforming.
>> You've got it here in the book as well.
You you've mentioned self-sacrifice, masking, psychological scrolling, side thinking, having a fantasy finish line.
And I really love that one that you say in the book assuming that everything about their o over performance will change once they have moved the needle far enough through their own effort, attainment or behavior. I definitely know what that feels like from a former version of myself. I'm happy to say. Um so let's say someone so far has identified, pepper, that yeah, you know what, I may not be burnt out, but life isn't quite going the way I want it to.
some of those symptoms as it were that you've just mentioned.
I think I have some of them. If they're now thinking about what are the kinds of things they can do to start changing things, where would you have them start?
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>> The first thing I would have them do is press pause for a second. Okay? Right?
And that doesn't mean stop. I'm I'm I'm talking about literally for a few minutes and literally check in. There's a practice in the book that I talk about. Um the uh Japanese word for belly is har. The Japanese believe that that is the place in the body that makes meaning.
>> So they don't ask the head for they ask har um and that sort of practice of like hand on heart, hand on belly, what do I feel?
What do I need? and just like it is literally a minute. Yeah. And just coming back to yourself.
>> Um, another thing I would suggest, you know, this is one that um I would love you to try out at some point, but uh like asking your nervous system for a midday status report.
sort of when you get to midday every day just in the way that you have morning practices and we might not check in again until the end of the day but when you if you can actually just ask your nervous system for a status report around the middle of the day like how am I doing you know what's my physiology telling me right now am I how much of my time have I been up here rather than whole >> and I think that's really really valuable um another thing is uh to uh stop allowing your mind to override the signals that your body is offering you.
>> Yeah.
>> So, you know, when you feel a bit parched or a bit flagging, we push through until the next break on the mechanical clock on the wall, not listening to your own body clock of like, oh no, I'm done. Actually, I need a moment. You know, how many times have you been in a a meeting and there might be five, six other people the CO2 in the room's going up and you just push through until the scheduled break, but actually you're flagging.
>> Like, can we just get a little bit more in tune with those things? That's where to start because noticing is everything when it comes to this.
One of the things I've changed in my life over the past few years is my morning. So, I've always had morning practices. That's always been quite important to me.
>> But what I used to do because I had young children at the time, I would go to bed super early. I'd get up super early, have my time to myself, my morning practice, and then I would write >> for a couple of hours before my wife or my children got up.
And I wrote many books doing that. And there's nothing wrong with that. And I've realized I don't want to do that anymore.
>> Mhm.
>> And so I don't. Mhm.
>> I've and and I think this goes back to what I was sort of getting at before, which is to to really make these changes, you have to create space for solitude.
And the solitude helps you get even more solitude, >> right? But when you're stuck in this constantly doing, you don't even know what it feels like to stop. Mhm.
>> And I feel it it's to do with for me I think this really relates to the content in in your book Pepper is this idea of the nervous system. I want the first little period of my day to be running slowly.
>> Yeah.
>> And and I guess there's a wider point there for me. Pipe are some of these strategies that we use to get ahead and to be successful.
Can we argue that they actually can serve a role at certain times in our life? It's just that you don't want to be doing it forever.
>> That's exactly it, Ronan. They It's My proposition here isn't that it's just slow. My proposition is that, you know, we have these gears that we can move through and we need to be able to diversify our modes and speeds often.
And when we get stuck in fast or even stuck in slow, like when we resist intensity because we're just really attached to slow, that's the problem.
It's it's the adaptation that we're looking for. But you can't know what you what adaptation you need unless you actually tune in, you know, and you and you've got that little bit of psychological space. You have you are planful about the times that let you renew, let you rest, and let you perform. And when they're not there, you can go, "Ah, something's off here. What do I need?"
>> I like the way you talk about rest in the book and you share >> that in your own life, you say, "I have had to make rest a practice that is central in my life."
>> Yeah.
>> Not something I do after life happens that day.
>> I love that. Can you can you can you speak a bit more about that? I am an generally optimistic, excitable person and I can be like ideas are pinging all the time. I can get really fast quite mural in the way that I'm processing things and engaging things and I start things and you know sometimes if I don't actually check in that pace is a bit high you know if I don't do that then I'm I actually am depleted by the time I even think about rest. So I and after my own burnout that's particularly uh noticeable to me. So I actually have to design pause times. So like you I have a morning routine but I design pause times during the day like my midday status report you know to actually go okay how's it going? How am I doing? Just in the way that we would if we were thinking about how to help an elite athlete perform consistently. Where's the reflection point? we tend to do it at the book end of the day or the week or you know the season. Um and it's integrating it into the way into the way that we're doing the day.
So I actually have to put pause points in and check in and come back to my physical body for the intelligence I need.
One of the things I used to talk to patients a lot about is this thing that this idea about micro stress doses and and a micro stress dose is a little hit of stress that in isolation you can handle just fine. The problem is is when those micro stress doses or MSDs mount up one on top of the other and get you closer and closer to your threshold >> compound.
>> Exactly. And when you're close to your threshold, that's when the problems start to come in your life. That's when you snap at your partner or your children or you get irritated by an email from your colleague. It wasn't actually the thing that your partner said or the email your colleague sent to you. It was the fact that you were very very close to your stress threshold.
>> And when I hear you talk about these check-ins throughout the day, I I love them. And I love this idea because I think also what it does for people is as they're accumulating stress in their day, which is normal.
If you don't take that break at lunch and you work through, you just keep accumulating, you're getting closer and closer, but you take that 20 minute break and walk around the block without your phone, you've just lowered, you've got much more headroom between you and your threshold, >> right? So, it actually is a preventative step to stop things going wrong, but we don't do it. We think, "Oh, I I'll I'll chill out on Sunday."
>> Yeah.
>> And Monday to Friday is like I crack on from the minute I wake up to the minute I go to bed.
>> Yeah. That's it, isn't it?
>> That's it. That's exactly it. It's like um in the book when I'm talking about sort of, you know, burnout as a process rather than an event. Um, you know, I I use the metaphor of of wildfires and there's kind of like the understory fire, which is it's crackling and it's problematic, but it doesn't take the whole forest out or ground fires that are going to take quite a lot of the forest out, um, but you'll still probably have tall timber. Or you can have a crown fire which decimates everything. Now, when we don't take those pauses or have those practices or come back to ourselves or when we're dishonest with ourselves and we're masking, we are creating a fuel ladder.
>> You know, it's like old dead debris ready to go up in flames. It's it's tinder ready to set on fire so that when then there is more pressure than we can handle, woof. It's >> causes chaos.
>> It causes chaos. Yeah. It's um and it's built over time. Burnout isn't overnight. It doesn't happen overnight, right? So, all of those practices are actually removing the dead wood.
Removing the dead old dry stuff to just refresh and regenerate.
>> Regenerate means to start a new. And it happens within your life, not after it.
That's the whole point.
I imagine there are some people who are listening, Pepper, right now who are thinking, "Yeah, that that all makes sense." You know, I should have some solitude. I should regularly check in with myself throughout the day, not allow the the deadwood to start accumulating.
It all makes rational sense.
Why is it do you think there's so much resistance within people to actually do it? Sometimes I think these practices sound like they you need an hour, right?
Um like that idea of sort of the slow morning, you know, um if you've got three kids and you're trying to get them to school by 8:30, that's you know, slow morning might be a tough ask for you. So when it comes to the triangle, the um the renew part of that doesn't have to be equal time by any stretch. It's equal emphasis, >> right? So it might be, you know, what is it that are you going to put a tune on in the car on the way to school or the way back from school that's just going to lift for a second? It's like how are you acting in favor of yourself, in favor of your life in small short ways.
Sometimes it's a quick laugh. Sometimes it's a tiny moment of self-care. It might be literally a minute or two. It doesn't have to be a yoga class. It's, you know, how are you coming back to wholeness? coming back to feeling like you're caring for yourself for a second because the more we do that, the less we build up um debris that's going to set on fire.
>> You mentioned the parent there of young children who might be thinking, well, I don't have time for this, >> right?
>> And I recognize that that is the case for many people. And at the same time, I think sometimes we I think you write about this later on in the book about we've got more choice than we think in terms of how we design our lives.
>> That with a few little nudges and changes, you might be able to create some of that time. It could be that because you're knackered and stressed, there will be a temptation, and I've seen this with many patients over the years, to unwind in the evening with alcohol andor staying up late watching movies or Netflix. And so, you go into bed late, >> you're never going to get up early because you're already knackered and stressed out. So, the morning starts at full pelt.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. I get that and I ain't criticizing it at all. I'm saying and I'm saying this because I have helped people through this in the past.
>> There might be another way. It might be that you choose to drink less in the evening. Maybe don't stay up till midnight watching Netflix if you can >> and get up 5 minutes before your kids to go and sit downstairs with a cup of tea before >> they all come down saying, you know, what's for breakfast? You know, all this sort of stuff. Mhm.
>> Again, that may not work in every situation, but I just want to offer that it's it's very easy for us to tell ourselves stories that, oh, I can't change this because of >> Yeah, absolutely.
>> And it may be that case, but it may be that there is a little thing you could do that would make an impact because as you say, it's not about the big change.
Even 5 minutes of calm or renewal >> can be very powerful.
>> Yeah. And I talk about sort of the three levels, the cascading levels, you know, that I start the book with of the stories of how we learned who to be. You know, what we're just talking about there is behavior, right? And that's super critical. And that does not have to be huge. It's nudges. It's recognition. It's fire breaks, right?
>> But there's also the stories that sit behind that that we do need to stop and examine, right? The story that I've got to have more than I've got now. the story that I'm supposed to not waste any time. I've got to optimize every minute.
Even our leisure time, even our love lives have to be optimized. You know, it's this market mind that we're always running towards doing it better and betterment. Um, and then exceptionalism, you know, this it's like you're actually supposed to stand out when really what we want is to fit in. And it's, you know, these things as well as the idea of being separate. you know, all of that out there doesn't really matter. All I'm focused on is me. Not I'm not connected to the next person or to the web of life. And I can override my body if I want to. You know, when you get those things together and they they build those mentalities like I'll sleep when I'm dead or, you know, I won't I won't drop the ball and all of all of the mentalities that keep us gritting it out, revving harder and getting more and more dead wood.
>> Yeah. So then when the last little bit of compound strain comes, we're we're up in flames and it's really hard to come back from there. And anybody who's burnt out will know that that's we use the term lightly, but actually if you've had a proper burnout, you know that that's going to knock you for a good while physically and psychologically and spiritually. So it's, you know, it's I would like for people to avoid getting there if they can through recognizing the stories that they live in and the behavioral changes that are relatively simple and small >> that are fire breaks.
>> When you were talking there, Pipper, about separateness and this idea that we're not separate, >> for some reason Elliot Kipchigible came to mind. M >> I know you're a fan of Kit Chobi like I am >> and I I've been very fortunate to have two two-hour conversations with him on this podcast which I feel very lucky about.
The last time I spoke to Kip Chigi the day after the London Marathon where I think he came sixth or seventh and I thought this is really interesting.
Someone who was regarded as the greatest for a decade, first person to run under two hours.
I asked him something like, "What was it like for you yesterday to come sixth?"
And he just had this beautiful smile on his face. He was totally at ease with it. He was just he was so happy that the youngsters are now coming up and it's their time. It's not his time. He's had his time.
>> He seems to be a sportsman who is not overperforming in in in your language, >> right? He seems to know how to win deep >> and is happy whether he is winning gold medals or not because it's not about him. And then as you were talking there Pipper I really reflected on Kipchig and in our first conversation he he told me how running is a team sport for him.
>> Mhm.
>> It's not about him. He never ever trains by himself. In Kenya they always train together. and he goes, "Yeah, it's great cuz if it means if someone's not showing up, someone's on the phone and said, "Hey, are you okay? Why haven't you showing up to training today?"
>> Whereas here in the West, it's an individual sport for many people. It's like, I'm going to go for a run. I'm going to go for this time. Do you know what I mean? It feels it feels like he seems to be someone who understands that it's about we, not I.
>> I mean, what's your take on that?
>> There's a couple of things that come up for me uh thinking about Kip Chigi. The first is that I think as an athlete, he seems to me to be very whole, you know.
So, he's he's so much more than his results or his achievements. He seems to be really quite sort of um non-compartmentalized as a person. His there's, you know, if if you well, you know, from your couple of hours of conversation with him, there's so much more to him than his running, right? the things he's involved in and his contribution to the world. His relationship with the world and with people in in the world um feels very whole to me. You know, it's not the measure of him isn't his results alone even though he would be proud of that.
>> So that's the first thing. The second thing is you know and I talk about this in better reasons to perform in the book um which is >> um you know uh one of them is love and he definitely performs for the love of it. He performs for the fulfillment of it, for the creative endeavor of seeing what's possible.
>> Um, and for for other people, for each other, >> you know, and I I think now that's maybe why he his appeal has been so enduring, you know, because um you can see that he's he's in it for more than himself.
It's like kind of like the essence of competing, the essence of sort of what we the real origin of what it was to sort of, you know, be pushed to your very very max and your very very best because somebody else was running on your shoulder, you know, and he he recognizes that in a a profound way.
>> What do you think the true purpose of sport is?
>> That's a big question for me. I would say that the true purpose of sport is to seek more life. You know, sport is a place where we can go and see what's possible in ourselves, in each other.
Um, I hate to see it getting so narrowed to being about results and scoreboard winning.
>> For me, sport is where we go test our metal. It's where we go find out what happens when we're under pressure.
um what how good it feels when we help somebody else out in a team.
>> Um you know how we feel deep pride in having done something together or done something to represent you know and stand at our full height because we were able to and we challenged oursel in that moment. So I think sport is just a phenomenally important and integral part of the human condition and I I don't like seeing it narrowed into a product, an entertainment product. Um you know something that's just about winning. Um and you know it's just I just think it's important. I think it's more than that.
It's interesting that you say it's more than just results. And you're someone who worked in professional sports for many years.
>> And of course in professional sports, >> certain people and coaches and players are actually judged on results, aren't they? So how might someone find their way through that? If if sport is not about results, it's about us testing ourselves, seeing what we're capable of, how does that fit alongside the fact that it is a big business these days?
And if you are hired to be coach for a top Premier League football team, you're probably hired to either win the Premier League or get them in the Champions League. And if you ain't doing that, >> you're probably going to get fired.
>> It's problematic, isn't it?
>> It's an and, >> right? It's not it's not that um the ambition has to be taken out of it to be regenerative as in your performance or to find deeper meaning but the meaning the sense of your understanding of why your you know what your reason for performing at that level is what why you put so much in what the shape of your ambition is that has to run alongside the outcome that you need which is the result that you know the result on the scoreboard >> it's not an either or It's not a tradeoff. It's a, you know, that's a factor of resilience. If you're coaching a Premier League team, your resilience will come from knowing why you're doing it and and feeling the shape of those relationships around you. Um, as part of what it what allows you to regenerate week on week.
>> Yeah. No, I love that. going back to those chapters in the book where you've got an awareness that overperformance is happening and now it's about how do you sort of almost re-edit that story and you've got two chapters there. One is coming home and one is getting honest.
>> And I love every chapter in the book, Pepper, but those two in particular I thought would be quite fun to go into.
>> Coming home to yourself.
>> I think a lot of people will not have a clue what that actually means. So when you say coming home, what do you mean?
>> Can I ask you to share with me what you felt when you read that? because I think you have a particular way of describing it that is probably pretty useful here.
>> Okay. So, I've got a narrative in my head already going. Pipper thinks I'm going to say something. I don't know what she thinks I'm going to say. So, let me just acknowledge that that was there.
>> Okay. When I think of coming home, I just think of being present with myself, >> right? That feeling when all the external stories and conditioning and expectation stops and when I'm I'm literally with myself and I know exactly what I'm feeling.
So I said before to you that I had a phenomenal weekend. I was reading your book in the sun with a coffee, took my son to park run, played with the kids in the garden, played paddle at lunchtime, and one of my best mates from school who I haven't seen in ages came and joined us. Impromptu, he came around for lunch afterwards. No plan at all. We just laughed for 3 hours.
I would say this weekend in many ways was coming home.
>> I didn't feel I had to perform or be anyone else. I was just totally me and in in those morning moments of solitude, I felt I got a lot of insight into my life. So that's what I think currently when you ask me that question.
>> That's it's beautiful. That's it. It's like beyond labels, beyond tasks, beyond the to-do list. Um, you know, and I'm not talking about being on holiday for a couple of weeks. I'm talking about when you can just drop everything else and just like, yeah, just me, you know, just here. Um and and that is what coming home to yourself is. And there's like various elements and aspects of it, but essentially it is when you can put down the massive weight of your own expectations of what you're supposed to be doing and where you're supposed to be and how you're supposed to be and just actually be for a minute. And that you know it involves so much of that presence um not as a practice not as just a meditation or a um you know something that resets you. It's it's letting go. It's just allowing yourself to just be you without the judgment.
>> For someone who is stuck in do do the whole time, right? someone who may be currently suffering from burnout or close to burnout.
>> This idea of coming home to themselves could seem quite distant and unattainable.
>> Oh, for sure.
>> Like if you think about the nervous system, let let's let's think about it like a car, you know, with a five-speed gearbox. Let's say >> your nervous system has five gears. And let's say you're used to running your life at gear four and gear five.
Coming home is probably more a gear one, gear two. I I guess >> that's not easy if you're used to being at high speed all the time. Is it?
>> That's why coming home and honesty go together right in in this. But if you're if you're burnt out um or if you're on the precipice of burnout or even if you're just under a lot of strain right now, when you can ask what's here? How do I actually feel? you know, and and just let your mind, body, and life answer that for you. Um, rather than automatically rev into fifth gear.
That's that's coming home. That's being able to sort of say, "Ah, this is how it is right now." And then then think about what next. I guess one of the reasons being able to come home is so important.
It is something that I guess you talk about early on in the book. This idea that the big questions in life don't get answered intellectually, they get answered when you listen to your heart.
>> Yes. So opening your heart is a big part of coming home. Right. Because we're so oriented to living from the neck up in our in our brain, we don't listen to the heart. And the heart doesn't shout like the head does. You know, you have to be a bit quieter to hear it properly. It's more likely to whisper. Um and the gut, you need some space and some presence to actually pay attention to your intuition and your instinct in those ways that are coming from gut that are um giving you different pieces of information. So coming home is about wholeness. It's about Oh yeah. It's a feeling I get when I sit on my yoga mat at the start of a class because I know I'm going to have an hour of time that is just about integrating and unifying mind, body, spirit for me in in that moment. And it's like, oh yeah, this is me today. Wow, my shoulders are tight.
Or h head's very busy. Whatever it is, it's just like, drop it. Let's just drop it for a minute and just be here. And that's that is part of coming home. But it's definitely heartbased.
I love that idea of an open heart. It's something I think about so much.
When I think about how to exist in the world and what is I want, I honestly think I can boil most things down to can you live with an open heart?
Mhm.
>> And I can honestly say that and I'm sure this is the same for everyone if they actually pay attention.
When you live with an open heart, everything in your life gets better.
You know, I guess I I love winning deep, winning shallow, right? I guess winning deep, you could say, is winning with an open heart. And winning shallow is yeah you're still winning but you're you're winning with a closed heart. And to me an open heart means although very simply it means many things but but one of the things I try and do in life is to give without any expectation of return >> and it's something I think I got into maybe two or three years ago new year I was reflecting on you know wouldn't it be nice if you could just give and do things for others with no expectation of anything. If it something comes back, great. But you it doesn't matter if it doesn't. You still gave because otherwise you gave and there was a condition to you giving. You gave only because >> you were going to get something back.
>> And again, I'm not criticizing anyone who does that. I probably have done that for much of my life. But >> I think to live from an open heart and with an open heart, you do need to slow down and you do need to come home to yourself.
>> Yeah. you know, um, probably the best example of this sort of giving with no expectation of return that I've seen recently is in some of the work I've been doing over the last few years with my uh, business partners and friends at open house which is a cafe and supper club and yoga studio and it's sister project at 10 garden which is all about whole being in um, our little village in Hitch. So lots of people book on to the yoga or the pilateses or the the workshops and we have a music's medicine program etc. And we've been building community for the last couple of years.
It's beautiful. And at first it was we started with the intention of generosity. We started with this idea of like let's just give and see what happens as much as possible.
>> And it's been amazing to watch people come into that space and give >> themselves. So, as part of the classes schedule, there's a pay it forward group, >> right?
>> And the pay it forward group is for somebody who's booked a class, there's only 12 spots in a class, it's little.
Um, and if you can't go, you could cancel on the website and get a refund, or you can put it on the Pay It Forward and give it to somebody, gift it to somebody, >> right?
>> And the Pay It Forward channel is just this whole phenomena in generosity. And people now, I love seeing it now. People put other things that are nothing to do with open house on there, things that they want to give or offer to other people. Um, people have started interacting with care for each other. If somebody's sick and they have to pay forward their class place, >> it's just become this really beautiful little vignette of generosity.
Generosity breeds generosity.
>> Um, and it's not about how much money anybody has. It's the openheartedness with which people engage in that space because that's what they find there. Um, and it it sort of just pingpongs between people and it's suddenly it becomes then an openhearted place.
>> Goes back to something you said earlier on in the conversation that something I completely subscribed to as well is that the way we change society is by changing ourselves.
>> Right? So you start showing up with an open heart in your life that will ripple to the people around you >> and if enough people do that well that's how you change the world >> right back to the principles of ecology right everything runs on energy >> so the energy you give will be more often than not reflected back to you if you bring positive energy if you bring generosity it will be reflected people and maybe it'll only be reflected in people opening a bit. If you bring negativity or closed energy, then people might withdraw a little bit. These things compound.
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In that section on coming home, you also talk about returning to the basics.
>> Yeah.
>> What does that mean?
>> For me, the returning to the basics is about um you know, you spoke about it before. If you are in a physical fog because you haven't slept well, you haven't fueled your body in a way that offers genuine nutrition and pores enough to digest something. um if your stress levels are super high and you're not giving yourself any fire breaks, you know, it's it's that stuff as much as anything. And I add um space into that.
Psychological space I think is absolutely a basic. If you you know if you are on go mode the whole time and you don't allow some space just to let go for a second. The pause I spoke about earlier >> that's integral to being able to come home being able to be honest. So honesty takes a lot of energy. Coming home to yourself living with an open heart is a particular type of energy and you want to regenerate that. Right? So those basics are very fundamental in that um especially sleep >> for that person who feels that they're right in the thick of it and they can't slow down. They don't know how to slow down. They in fact they probably are at burnout so they don't even know that >> because you know real burnout is really really severe and it takes >> a year at least >> a long time to fully recover from doesn't it?
>> Yeah it does. But I guess it's a colloquial term now that that's used a lot of the time. I mean, do you do you have a definition for burnouts?
>> I I think it is a um very uncomfortable, involuntary process of transitioning away from what's not working for you anymore, >> right? And it's it's on multiple levels of physiology, you know, your bi biological responses and your psychological responses. Whole raft of symptoms. But it's super hard to it's problematic to define it in the literature. Um, and people sort of argue adnauseium about the official um, definition of it, but for me it's it's a transition away from what's not working.
And sometimes your your body and your mind just say, "Hey, we've been throwing up warning lights for months and months here. You're not listening. So, you're handing over the keys and we're crashing."
>> That's the key, isn't it? The body was always handing out warning lights.
>> Exactly. That >> it was always doing it. You may not have seen it. You may have been too busy to pay attention, >> but it did not happen overnight.
>> Exactly. Exactly. And that's why I talk about the core four principles of regenerative performance um of of sort of like coming to presence, diversifying your modes and speeds. Um being able to listen to the intelligence of the body and um recognizing your own wild clocks and rhythms, which we can talk about.
But that that listening to the intelligence of your own body is critical cuz it's throwing up signals all day. We just override it.
>> The chanc is quite an interesting one because when you say getting honest, you talk about not lying, but it it's not only not lying, which I found really interesting.
Right. So not lying is, you know, you don't tell a lie. You don't tell a white lie. You don't tell a straight out lie.
I want to ask you why you think that's important. But it was also about when we leave out important things, >> not hiding. Yeah.
>> Yeah. So, because that's not actually I guess it's not directly a lie, but I guess it's almost misleading because I guess when relevant if we don't bring something up, we may not be lying, but we're also withholding. Why is this so important?
>> Yeah. I'm I'm not talking about this here from an ethical or moral perspective. I'm talking about what it creates for you. the individual who is um letting out that little white light or emitting or withholding or masking or >> covering up something because for me what happens is a small ripple of inauthenticity in your energy. It it's part of the deadwood that builds up, right? Because you're not quite being true to yourself. And the example I would give you is let's say somebody calls you and says, "Hey, Ronan, um, can you come and do this thing for me next week?" And you kind of think, "Ah, that guy did something for me. Maybe I should help him out." But you don't really want to. And maybe you feel next week is a bit crammed already for you. you know, if you were um if we looked at it from the lying perspective, you would make an excuse and say, "No, sorry, I can't mate because, you know, I've got something else on at the same time." If you were um going to do it more honestly, you would be able to say, "I feel too cramp next week," or "Actually, I just don't feel a degree of motivation to do that right now. Perhaps I can help you out next time." Right? But as soon as we hear that, we go, "Oh my god, there would be so many consequences to me."
When you don't do that, the cost is yours. So, you've made the path easier to make an excuse for somebody else, but you've been inauthentic to yourself >> and you get further and further and further away from what's actually true for you. And, you know, the the question for me is like, why can't we actually say, "I'm too tired. I'm too strained.
you know, I feel a bit stressed or I'm that's not really where I'm at right now. You know, perhaps I can help you on the next project.
It's, you know, it's that is really hard to do in our culture. And the problem is we bend and then we bend ourselves out of shape because we're we don't want to have the friction or discomfort that goes with telling the truth. And then we as that sort of cascades then we start masking a little bit that like oh I'm I'm not going to share all this strain I'm feeling because you know this I've got really it's really normalized for me to not tell the truth about myself.
>> Yeah it's such a great point. It is so so common. I don't think it is in every culture. You know, I I remember from when I did a couple of ski seasons in Shamay, um, and in the certainly in the winter, maybe 30 40% of the population of Swedes.
>> And again, just my perception was that the Swedish culture is a lot more direct >> and actually when you're not used to that, it's uncomfortable. But that discomfort only is because you're not used to it. Yeah, >> direct.
There's a thing here about being polite, >> right? You say the right thing, >> but that does come at a huge cost cuz half the time no one actually knows what you really think >> exactly that, >> you know, and I I did spend much of my life being like that, but but I have really changed that over the last few years. I mean literally last week an example was someone contacted me to ask me to they you know they said wrong love your work I think you really like my new book I'd love you to read it and consider endorsing it and I'm sure it will be and is a wonderful book and I don't have time >> and so I just sent a really nice email I didn't even I didn't even wait 2 three days I said straight away I said hey thank you so much Unfortunately, I'm overcommitted at the moment. I can't remember what else I said, but I was I told the truth basically. I didn't give it any white lies. So, I'm sorry I'm able to help you. I hope the launch goes well or something like that. And I got a lovely reply. And I think what we don't realize sometimes is when you are honest, >> and there is a way to be honest and kind.
>> It doesn't have to be triggered. You can be totally honest and kind.
>> Yeah.
>> I think people like that. They respond to that. They're like, "Oh, I know where I stand now."
>> Yeah. Whereas the the older version of me would have tried to fudge it or kick it down the road for a few months and you know it's still lingering in your head going, "Oh, this problem is not going away. It's still going on because I didn't deal with it." And so I think a lot of the reasons some people can't be honest >> is because of a deep insecurity and it probably relates to some of the stuff in your former book. There's probably fear there, right? There's fear of I I need to be liked. So, if I say no, will they like me?
>> It's quite hard, isn't it? To be honest, >> it is quite hard to be honest. But it's it's the it's the sort of quick rip of a a band-aid of like there's going to be I'm going to feel a moment of friction for being straightforward and telling my truth or I'm going to kick it down the road for months and and continue to feel a bit uneasy. And that my point is that that costs you in authenticity and it costs you a little bit too much in um what you have to then carry as a mask.
And you know the freer that we get >> the better that it is. And the more able we are to regenerate energy that you have to carry that energy of of small dishonesties where you're not being fully you. And then you know people start loving the you that's fake or fake's a harsh word but that's not quite fully whole and true.
>> Yeah.
This is really what charisma is surely right a charismatic individual the people we feel drawn to.
I guess some of the time I imagine that is because they are fully authentic >> sometimes. But somebody just I just had a political figure pop into my mind that's very very charismatic.
>> So So maybe there's um Okay, what was it? Maybe there's >> deep charisma and shallow charisma, right? So may maybe the deep real charisma that's your next book >> when you really are being yourself and I think that is quite magnetic. Yeah.
>> But there can also be a performance of charisma. I guess >> there's a substance. There's a real substance to people who you feel are just comfortable enough in their own skin that they're straightforward.
>> Yeah.
>> And they say it as it is >> and they don't mind not being liked, which I think is another one.
>> Yeah. That's part of it. But as you quite rightly say, there's a respect that goes with people who are honest, right? So, you know, if you had actually said um or you or I or anybody actually said, "I feel a bit too tired to take on anything else at the minute." Right?
Suddenly the impression that we put out to the world of like a a resilient performer and you know all the rest it's like oh did I just edit that impression that I made on the world? Um but it's true and so it's substantial because it's true and you have that tiny moment of friction for for saying it.
>> I want to just go a bit deeper on what really is the cost to ourselves when we >> when we sort of lie or we have these white lies, right?
Because I imagine someone's thinking, look, you know, I don't know, my mate asked me to pick up their daughter from school today and drop them home on the way, but I don't want to do it because then I'm going to get stuck in traffic or, you know, this is literally coming off the top of my head, right? It's easier to tell a white lie.
>> Mhm.
>> Right. Because then there's no big issue. You just say, "Hey, listen. I'd love to have help, but you know, I've got to I'm taking Harry to football, right? For that skeptic who's saying, "Well, why does that actually matter?" Make the case to them that it does matter.
>> I think it comes down to the energy. So then next time you see your mate and they say, "Oh, how was Harris football?"
And you're like, "Uh, you know, you put yourself in a position to have to mask and perform o, you know, like you're overperforming by doing that." And and the e essential point is can you be faithful to yourself and say what's true for you in a way to your point before about saying it kindly or generously.
You know how else might you have framed that if you didn't want to get stuck in traffic and and pick up his kid like how let's just roll with it. Like how else could you have said it?
>> Well, I guess you could just tell the truth. say, um, I've got so much on at the moment and if I do that, I'm going to get stuck in traffic. I'll be home really late. And actually, I just don't have the bandwidth for that at the moment, I'm afraid.
>> And you could just literally take two/ird of that explanation off and leave the last bit. I don't have the bandwidth today, buddy.
>> That's it.
>> Yeah.
>> And that's true for you >> cuz you don't want to be overexplaining either, do you?
>> Because you dig yourself in a hole. And the po the point is it's like how do you have a tiny moment of friction but be true? He hears it. You said it. You both feel good about it. Right. And it's you know you haven't said I I don't like your kid. I don't care about you and so I'm not going to help. That's not the truth.
>> Yeah. What's really interesting is I if I think about that through the lens of burnout in in some ways you can think about burnout as a web of lies, right? I never thought about it like this, but it's almost as if >> the reason you're probably burning out is because you're constantly lying to yourself.
>> Yeah. It's un I I I describe it as being unfaithful to yourself. Maybe you're putting pe uh too much energy into people and things that actually no longer move you or um are not quite true for you. You know, but we we lose our sense of how to say it out loud and and stand in it. you know, >> and that's why the small ones are so toxic because you you do it once.
>> That's what I'm talking about with the ripple.
>> It just continues.
>> Yeah. So, it's a small cost, right? But the it's a is it a um withdrawal or is it a credit? When you say it honestly, um it's a credit. Um when you when you are slightly dishonest, small white lie, or you hide because it's not always something um that you lie about. is might be something that you just don't share. It's a withdrawal.
>> In that chapter on honesty, at the end, you got some lovely questions. You say, "Here are some reflection questions >> that can help you honor your own honesty." And they include, >> "Where did I say what I really meant this week? Where did I feel the tug to avoid honesty this week?" That's a good one, isn't it? You know, because you may not have done it, but you just you just felt that urge. Where did my nervous system feel calm and harmonized? And where did it feel out of sync this week?
>> Yeah.
>> Who did I feel most real with this week?
Where did I say yes when I really felt no?
>> Yeah.
>> I mean, that's a big one for for for most people, isn't it?
>> Yeah. Exactly. And also when uh some people say no when they really wanted to say yes, you know, imagine journaling those once a week, you know, those those questions just to sort of put yourself in touch with what honesty means for you.
>> Yeah. I don't think people sometimes realize just how powerful that is. I think sometimes there's a tendency to think you've got to overhaul everything.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> It's like if you >> every Sunday if you literally with a cup of tea or coffee spent 5 minutes answering those questions and you did that week on week, >> you would know yourself so much better and you would start to make different decisions.
>> Yeah.
>> Just from that self inquiry.
>> Yeah. Exactly. And and it's um I I really make the point strongly about uh not judging yourself. This is not a time to judge yourself. If you've been brave enough to do something like that, >> like it's not time for criticism. It's like, oh, there was one, >> there was one. Oh, yep. Didn't quite say what I meant there.
>> Cuz, you know, I firmly believe that awareness is maybe 80 85% of all change. I And it's my belief. Someone may have a different perspective.
And the reason I I believe that to be true a I've seen it in my own life. I've seen it in many patients. But once you know, let's take that question. Where did I say yes when I felt no? Right?
Let's say you're reflecting. You're like, let's say it was picking up Harry and taking him to football when you didn't want to. Right?
Once you know that and you've registered that in your consciousness on that Sunday when you next get asked to do the same thing, >> you now can't pretend to yourself that you didn't know. Do you know what I mean? You you there's there's now it's even more heightened in front of you that >> oh yeah, now you may do it again, but each time you do it and then you reflect on it, you're like you're bringing it up to the surface. you're taking it out of the shadows and bringing it into the light.
>> And it will lead to a change. It's just a matter of when. Once you start asking yourself those questions, >> and and alongside not criticizing yourself while you're being brave enough to do that, you also have to recognize that like if you just catch one winning, right? If you catch yourself doing it once, you don't have to wholesale change this all at once. Regenerative performance is about practices and methods that are um where you can change within your life rather than have to create something entirely different.
Right? So it's nudges and small behavioral shifts. And I really encourage people to think of it that way. Right? If you catch yourself with one where it might be, huh, I could have added a bit there that would have been even more honest. It's not a criticism or a shame. You know, there's no need for a dose of shame that goes with it or like something to fix. It's like, "Oh, there was one. Beautiful. Caught it.
Next time."
>> That idea that you can make changes within the context of your life, I think, is really powerful, Pipper, because as we both know, sometimes when people feel that they're struggling >> and that they're overly stressed and they've got too much to do, >> they feel that the answer is to escape.
>> Yeah, >> I need to quit my job. They might need to quit the job. Okay. But but they might I need to quit my job. I need to sell my house and move out to a village in the country and just paint all day.
>> Yeah, >> it's a form of escapism, right? That possibly doesn't get to the root of what's going on. Some people may want to do that, >> fine.
>> But I think one of the beautiful things about this new book of yours is that >> you help people make these regenerative changes within their life. They don't need to do all that big change if they don't want to.
>> Exactly that. Exactly that. Because a lot of people have got lots of things that they do like and it's what they plan to do, but it's just feeling overwhelming. They can't get their head above water, right? So, how do you change it so that you can properly evaluate before you have to feel like you've got to completely withdraw from it and tools down and escape or you keep going to the point of, you know, burning burning up and sort of burning out?
That's they they can't be the only two options.
>> Yeah. Let's finish off talking about these core four principles of regenerative performance because ultimately that is where you want us to get to away from over performance and all the way over to regenerative performance.
>> So the first one is coming to presence um which you know your podcast your work has talked about lots and lots and um we all know that it's really really important but it's hard to actually remember to do. So, you know, the the moment of pause, a girlfriend sent me a when I after I'd burnt out, a girlfriend sent me a a mug and it just says pause on the front of it. And that's a every time I go and make myself a drink during the day, I use that mug and it's like, oh yeah, that oh yeah, pause, right? You know, so it's like u give yourself behavioral prompts that allow yourself to just come to presence and pause for a second. Um, and that beautiful practice I spoke about before of hand on heart, hand on belly, what do I want? Mhm. Uh >> what do I feel? What do I need? Um and just allow yourself a moment to listen and listen wholly, not just what your head has to say. So coming to presence is is a really important first one. Um the second one is about diversifying your um modes of operation and your speed. So a lot of people are in stuck in one gear and that gear is usually pretty fast. they're doing a lot there.
Um it's always intense. There's a sense of constant scale and intensity that means that we're just hanging on for the weekend, right? Um in ecology and actually in real elite performance, especially in sport, you really have periods where it's intense, but also periods where it's slow. You have periods where it's um fast and shallow and periods where it's deep uh work that you're doing. You have periods of renewal, periods of performance, periods of rest, periods of performance. And so actually properly diversifying your modes of operation and your speed is really essential. I have a client who wrote a diversity matrix for her working month where she would uh she started with a week and she would she just had all the things that she might like to do across a month across a week um and um what pace and what mode she would be need to be in to do that. and she scheduled it.
>> And so she had to schedule it in her diary for the first little while until she got used to it. And it completely radically changed the way that she operates at work. And she felt like she had so much more mental bandwidth at the end of the week to be able to do that >> because she'd planned for the different speeds.
>> Yeah. Yeah. So sometimes she's in, you know, there was a lot of it where she was going to have to be responsive. So she didn't it wasn't like between 9 and 11 I will do deep work and between but it was across a week. So it was like I need at least 4 hours of deep time deep work time. I need at least um you know 6 hours of communication cuz she was working running a project team. So and some of the things that were in every day were how often she would go outside the office and get fresh air for example. And I guess it's going to be it's going to be different for everyone in whatever profession they're in. So it could be >> I don't know a teacher for example.
>> It could be that their holidays >> or the summer holidays >> or the Easter holidays or maybe the summer holidays after the exams maybe that's a time where they really try and switch off and go you know it's been a fast-paced year but now I'm going to >> rest and renew.
an accountant. Maybe December, January, February, March is the busy busy time of year because of end of year tax returns.
>> So maybe they plan in Okay, that's great. That's part of my job.
>> But maybe I I structure a big Easter break. Yeah.
>> Or April and May, I I must make sure that there's a slower pace to compensate. That's kind of what you're talking about, right?
>> And and that it's that sense of then feeling that you're across the whole thing. So for the accountant, maybe they're really trying to get that moment to design a system that's going to improve how much um rev they have to have for the rest of the year >> or they use the downtime to design the system, >> right?
>> So it might be a more creative type of work or it might be a more structural piece of work rather than just a transactional piece of work. It's like how do you diversify and plan for it and respect the plan that you make as much as possible whatever the work is. And then there are some things that always mean always need to be in the day especially the pauses and the get outside for a minute you know because they they deplete us enormously.
>> Uh principle three reconnect with your rhythms.
>> Yes rhythms and wild clocks. So um the wild clock idea is straight from ecology. Um there's a a guy called David Faria who who wrote this beautiful essay about how pollinators and flowers and other kinds of um ecological meetings that keep everything thriving and flourishing are not meeting anymore because of the change to the climate etc. So um he was talking about wild clocks in an ecological sense of things being mismatched and I think we've got the same um issue with the way that we see our lives and our stage. So in nature, no living being uh behaves the same way throughout their whole life cycle, but we expect the same from ourselves through our whole adult life cycle at least. We don't recognize the changes that happen in adulthood. We recognize them through childhood and adolescence. And you get to be a grown-up and it's the same then for the next 40 or 50 years, right? And of course it's not. So, you were talking before about feeling like maybe there's a change of foot for you or a a a an adaptation to a a new phase. That's exactly it. That's a that's a wild clock in some ways. Looking at why would and menopause is another example for women, right? Expecting the same from yourself in permenopause or menopause as you did previously and just gritting it out.
That's not it. That's not what nature does. It evolves to meet the time. It adapts to meet the time. And then of course there is um winter, dark nights, um dark mornings, summer, longer daylight. How do we adapt to those things? Or are we ultrarocessed and homogeneous and mono all year, >> right, with expecting the same thing?
And there's only a few um creatures in the world that actually have a menopause. You know, for example, tooththed whales also have a menopause.
Um, but once that whale has been through menopause, they have a different role in life, you know, because there's a a a recognition that something shifted. It doesn't mean you're not productive.
Doesn't mean you haven't got a a valuable role, but something has needs adaptation. How can we talk about that?
>> Yeah. So that's so wild clocks and rhythms you know and you know I ask people the question um are you do you have rhythm in your life or do you have pace you know and how do you know the difference because rhythm you know it's kind of like a performance rhythm like you come up to the crest of the circle and you come down the other side before you go again it's whole >> but it's not a straight line it's not a straight linear thing.
>> Yeah. And the fourth one is embodied intelligence.
>> So this is like can you reconnect your mind and your body? You know, we treat our body like it's an Uber for our head to just, you know, control center and we treat it like sometimes even like a burden. Something needs fixing or something's not right or we have to improve something. It's like the machine that carries the intelligence center around. But this incredible thing that is your body is alive with intelligence from your gut, from your heart, signaling to you all day what you really need and how you're really doing. And can you actually connect those things a little bit more and respect your whole intelligence rather than just your head intelligence because that is a massive massive piece of not getting to that burnout phase.
>> Yeah, I love that. such a clear way to think about the difference between overperformance and regenerative performance is something that's >> I guess very practical actually in terms of a map to help those of us who need to shift >> Yeah.
>> and make changes in our life to get there.
>> Yeah.
>> Looking back on your time working with the England football team, >> how do you think about it now?
I think that was an amazing little moment that uh encouraged me to really think about how these principles apply to people more broadly. You know, that's I my time at England was sort of the culmination of 25 years of working in elite sport which I thoroughly loved.
Um but it was time for me not to be on the bus anymore and in the organization in the thick of it in that way. I still coach people, still coach high performers from sport in that way. But it was an extraordinary moment and it has given me so much opportunity that I am very deeply grateful for that um is about me being able to have conversations like this to help more people.
>> Peppa, you know how much I love your work. I thought your first book, Fearless, was amazing. This book is just as good. I love the content in it. Life Reclaimed, Find Freedom from Chronic Overperformance. It's a wonderful book.
I'd highly recommend people check it out if they resonate with the ideas that we've spoken about today.
To finish off, Pipper, you you've shared loads of practical tips in this conversation today, and there's plenty more in the book.
If someone whilst listening to this conversation connected deeply with this idea that actually their life is slightly off track. It's not going the way in which they want it to go.
Perhaps they feel stuck or close to burnout, but until now they felt that there's no way out.
>> What would your final words be to that person?
I would suggest that firstly they start with a big dose of generosity and care for themselves and take a moment to look at whether they actually need a way out or they need to change within. And I would encourage them to be thinking about matching that inner landscape with the outer landscape and the world that they're in. Um, and finding more wholeness. That's the essence of it. And as you quite rightly say, the the book is full of it's a map really for how people might be able to do that. But first, slow down, pause, ask yourself, and respect the answer.
>> Piv, great advice. It's been such a pleasure talking to you today. The book is wonderful. Life Reclaimed. Thank you so much for coming back on the show.
>> Thank you for having me as always.
>> If you enjoyed that conversation, then I think you are really going to enjoy this one. If I were to choose to live my life over again, I wouldn't live it in this way. Yeah. I wish I hadn't worked so hard. When you're driven to work too hard, you actually ignore what matters.
And where does that come from? A gain that comes from jaw to term.
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