Recognizing Stress and Redefining Normal in High-Pressure Businesses

What You Will Hear:

10:25 Pushing ahead after setbacks rather than pausing to reflect can be an early indicator of unaddressed stress and potential burnout.

• High-performing individuals often seek comfort in staying busy after challenging situations.
• The instinct to move forward may prevent full emotional processing and healing.
• Recognizing this pattern is key to preventing further stress accumulation.

18:30 Emotional breakdowns often arrive unexpectedly, acting as powerful signals that one’s coping reserves are depleted

• The sudden loss of composure can come with both relief at dropping the facade and fear of losing control.
• Reaching a breaking point often means previous coping strategies are no longer sustainable.
• Such moments highlight the limits of endurance and the necessity for real change.

25:40 Embedding resilience and realistic optimism in company culture starts with leaders modeling these traits and repeating them until they take hold across the team.

• Leadership bears responsibility for instilling balanced optimism and pragmatism within the organization.
• These values require ongoing communication and consistent demonstration to become ingrained.
• Creating a resilient culture demands repetition and clear modeling from the top.

31:05 A personal crisis forces individuals to step back from their roles, marking the beginning of a difficult but necessary path to recovery.

• Stepping away due to a crisis involves acknowledging personal limits and seeking help.
• Recovery after such a moment is gradual and requires rebuilding physical and mental health.
• Accepting vulnerability is an important step toward authentic leadership and future sustainability.

40:00 Even after taking a break, returning to work too soon can reveal persistent burnout symptoms and an inability to resume former responsibilities.

• Anxiety and cognitive difficulties may linger long after initial recovery attempts.
• Well-meaning efforts to return can be undermined by the body and mind’s continued distress.
• Honest self-assessment and patience are required to fully recover and eventually re-engage.

47:00 Cameo: Steve Brown, AI Futurist’s shares the era of having all the answers is over.

• What happens when a CEO’s self-worth becomes an internal trap: Operational drag takes over, and the whole company stalls.
• From Vision to Execution: Why CEOs Must Rethink Success in the Age of AI

49:25 Despite good intentions, many organizations reward only results, failing to account for the importance of wellness and the journey toward success.

• There is a gap between stated wellness initiatives and how companies actually measure and reward performance.
• True regenerative cultures require alignment between values and incentives.
• Integrating well-being into reward systems and daily operations is essential for sustainable success.

54:55 It is BOLD to admit that you’re not fine when you’re leading a highly leveraged fast growth.

Resources

• Connect with Julien Godbarge
• The Knowledge – Doing Gap
• Crash and [Burn] LEARN: 10 Blind Spots that Lead to Burnout (A Business Fable)

Transcript

Julien Godbarge 00:00
Or like, how often do you tell yourself, I’m fine, but are you? And if you have to tell yourself you’re fine, that may be the symptom right there, the kind of the sign that maybe you’re not.

Announcer 00:17
This is the Bold Business Podcast, created for companies running real revenue. Your host is strategic growth advisor Jess Dewell. Here, we drop the I’m fine mask. Here, we face today’s market demands together. Here, we build business instinct. Because the action we take today creates our company’s future relevance and the room for our teams to grow. Now, grab your tea or coffee and get ready to build your business instinct.

Jess Dewell 00:55
Burnout is a hard thing to talk about. and we are talking about it today and we’re talking about the realsy reels, the stuff we don’t talk about and then it shows up and then we have to deal. So those of you who have been there, listen, add your voice to the conversation. Those of you who are in it, claim it, accept it and take the right next steps. Those of you who haven’t acknowledged any sort of burnout yet, we have three clues that you might be on that path. Oh, by the way, there’s a fourth one later in the show. And then we also have something about results, right? We’re told to deliver results at a certain time, yet maybe the results we deliver are actually the right results, even though they might be different from what was expected. And the third thing is our end of career, our exit of our company may actually really be a moving target and less certain than we’d like it to be. So we can be ready for that. Julien Godbarge and I talk about that. We talk about all of those things and he wrote Crash, Burn, Learn. And in this book, he’s talking about burnout today and what can you do about it? And he’s speaking from his own experience and boy, can I relate? I mean, he was sharing that at the height of his career, he crashed. He shared how he crashed. And let’s just be real. There are some uncomfortable truths around that. So leading mid-market companies, big processes, startup to establish, to being able to raise money and do mergers and acquisitions for all of the shareholders and stakeholders in the organization, caught up with him. And he’s talking about that with us today. And he talks about why it’s bold to admit you’re not fine. And so let’s get to that conversation right now. Right before the show began recording, we were talking about new processes, new habits that we’re doing for ourselves and how they make us feel. And so that’s, I think maybe we could start right in there. In your experience, if you haven’t taken time to learn something or do something new for yourself, and you haven’t taken the time to be tired or challenged by a new routine or an approach or an activity. What does that actually do to us as humans?

Julien Godbarge 03:22
That’s great because I think part of the answer has to do with that concept that you start growing right outside your comfort zone, right? That’s why new training routines, new challenges are so important, you said, because the challenge your status quo, that challenge your baseline. They get either your mental state or your physical state needs that extra stretch, that extra challenge to really get you growing. And therefore, just like you mentioned, that creates a lot of fatigue or potentially a lot of extra stress, but not necessarily the bad kind of stress. It’s more the, you know, gets you off balance and gets you to question and reach. And that’s how you grow.

Jess Dewell 04:15
I firmly agree with that. And we could read one book and we could implement one thing. Yet, if we don’t recognize the challenges that are going to come after and we ignore them, we really haven’t done the implementation of the one thing. it’s not a task to complete and then it goes it’s a something to do and then what are the i call them ripples because i don’t like consequences or repercussions in this case because they’re really not it’s just we’ve put a stake in the ground and that’s going to cause some reverberation that’s going to cause something to come back to us is that also your experience.

Julien Godbarge 04:56
Absolutely and I love that choice of word ripples because it makes me think of some kind of zen Buddhism type of situation and mindset that your mind should be like water. There may be a stone thrown in that pond and it creates ripples. It’s not a matter of fighting them or judging them. It’s a matter of assessing, understanding what they mean and let your mind or the water go back to its current state when it’s ready. Ripples are a great metaphor for this kind of thing. You have to make changes, assess the implication, stay vigilant and realize that life, whether it’s on the personal front or at work, it has to be very iterative. You implement a change, you assess the consequences, you analyze, you have your lessons learned and you do it again.

Jess Dewell 05:52
There’s some action. I do it in this order. I take action, then I collect the information and then I do the reflection and then I act. I know other people like to do it in a different order. And I think it doesn’t really matter. It matters that we have something. And the thing that stuck out to me as you were talking was the reflection piece. Because if we’re not, we can’t find patterns that exist not only in ourselves and our mindsets, but in the space around us, our immediate team and our immediate peers in our company, as well as the entire company.

Julien Godbarge 06:25
Agreed. Yes, absolutely agreed. And I think one of the pitfalls that people suffer from when they don’t take the time to reflect is that they are seeking speed. They are seeking forward momentum. And they maybe have not embraced the concept yet that to accelerate, you often need to slow down. You need to slow down to assess, to take inventory, to digest, to process lessons learned. Some of these things you cannot do while in motion at high speeds. You have to create the right space to slow down and to do those activities that allow you to build the right map for the next sprint. And so those cycles of slowing down before you accelerate again are really crucial on several levels. One, on your effectiveness, because then you’re going fast in the right direction. Because it doesn’t help you to go fast if you’re going in the wrong direction. You’re going to get to the wrong place faster. That’s not helpful. But then also how you protect yourself from that ever increasing baseline of stress. And, you know, that’s one of the blind spots that I describe in my model, the 10 blind spots that lead to burnout, is this concept that when you suffer from a traumatic event, a stressing thing in your life, work on the work front or on the personal front, it doesn’t matter. Your body physiologically processes stress by receiving a jolt of stress hormone, the cortisol, right, which is going to get your blood sugar to spike. So you’re in fight or flight mode, you’re ready to fight. And then once the stressor is over, if everything goes well, then your hormones level go back to normal and the stressing effect is over. That’s how our metabolism has worked for 10 plus thousand years. And it served us extremely well when the stressors were short-lived. Think about our ancestors that maybe see a saber-toothed tiger in the edge of the forest. Quick stress, they escape or they don’t. If they don’t, they’re lunch. If they escape, fine. Now everything’s fine. They can return to normal. Nowadays, the stressors we suffer from, whether they happen at home with our children, our spouses, our friends, or at work, our colleagues, in the boardrooms, with our bankers, our attorneys, those stressors rarely get resolved very fast. And therefore, if we don’t give ourselves the space and the time to process and to really resolve and complete that stress cycle. What ends up happening is that our baseline of stress goes up, meaning you start nice and calm. A stressing factor happens. Your stress goes up to eight. And then as you mostly resolve it, instead of coming back to zero, you come back to a one. Next thing this happens, you end up coming back down to a two. And you do this for 10, 20, 30, 40 years, your rest baseline might be at a seven or eight, and you are just one big stressor away from getting to ignition point where burnout is waiting in the shadows, and now it’s crippling you down.

Jess Dewell 10:09
Is there a phrase that shows up that somebody might want to self-assess or see in somebody that they care about at work or in another part of their lives? Is there a phrase that is a clue that they are no longer at zero, but they’re at one, two, three, four after they hit that highest peak of stress?

Julien Godbarge 10:29
I think the closest thing to that that I can recommend people being on the lookout for is the pattern recognition that after something painful happens, you tend to seek consolation in forward momentum instead of giving yourself the time and space you need to fully digest what just happened. It can be tough to slow down. It can be painful to digest and really take inventory of what indeed did happen. And for a lot of executives, especially the kind of hyper-achiever type A, very action-oriented, it’s a lot more tempting to say, all right, guys, it’s okay. We’re going to make it up next quarter. Or this one didn’t work. Let’s try again. We’re going to do this. And to just seek comfort in forward momentum, in action, and robbing ourselves from the time we actually really need to fully process what has happened. And of course, they’re not mutually exclusive. You should also make it up next quarter, Madison. Fair. It’s okay to do both, but you cannot just do one of these two things.

Jess Dewell 11:45
So do that without sweeping something under the rug. Do that without saying, I was seeking the, I’m fine.

Julien Godbarge 11:54
Oh, I’m fine. Maybe that’s the phrase that your listeners can be on the lookout for. Like how often do you tell yourself, I’m fine, but are you? And if you have to tell yourself you’re fine, that may be the symptom right there, the kind of the sign that maybe you’re not.

Jess Dewell 12:17
Okay. Okay. And then it’s interesting because that I’m fine, that forward momentum, that seeking solace in whatever’s next without thinking, feeling, experiencing any more than already has happened with what has happened, that feels like we’re going to do it anyway in spite of ourselves, this brute force approach of let’s just keep going. Let’s just keep trying. And that actually creates a lot of drag. More importantly, though, I think in organizations and especially individuals that are responsible for other people and making sure that they’re removing those obstacles and the company is also going in the direction that they want it to is this concept of a heartbeat, a strategic heartbeat that actually will also falter. The whole company falters when one of its leaders falters. Would you agree with that?

Julien Godbarge 13:19
Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, excuse me, heartbeat or cadence is a very important ingredient in an organization’s success. How does it orchestrate those different moments of opportunity to slow down before accelerating and those kind of things is important indeed. And when some of the key executives are not able to keep up with that expected pace, then indeed it can throw a wrench in the entire organization’s cadence and direction. And I think that’s exactly why burnout is such an expensive epidemic in corporate America is because it doesn’t just take a very expensive toll on the executive, on the person who suffers from the burnout. And that certainly is expensive and painful. It is not a fun thing to go through. And I would know. But then that is also a lot of lost productivity for the enterprise. Right. So there’s a lot of good reasons to protect employees and teams from this type of phenomenon because it pays great dividends in continued gains of productivity.

Announcer 14:43
You built a business to thrive, not to referee decisions every day. That’s why you’re here at the Bold Business Podcast. You know the exhaustion. Everyone’s doing good work, yet you’re still the bottleneck. Now, imagine the relief of stepping back into the role you love while your team confidently executes. That’s driving solutions. We replace hustle with an execution engine so you scale without burnout. Link in the show description for systems-led leadership. Now, back to the conversation.

Jess Dewell 15:20
So since you broached the subject about your path and having experienced some of these concepts firsthand, I’m curious, do you know the point that your performance-based approach that always looking forward stopped serving the business and only started to serve your ego?

Julien Godbarge 15:47
So, certainly, you know, it’s an interesting question because timing is often hard to pinpoint, right? And part of the reason that the work I did while recovering from burnout led me to write this book and develop this model of 10 blind spots. What I’ve realized while doing this is that those blind spots predate my burnout by not just months or years, but decades. These are mindsets, patterns that we think serve us well, we think serve the organization, but they are actually creating a strong emotional debt that is accruing interest. and someday it comes due and we’re not always able to afford it. And then we go emotionally bankrupt and burn out, right? So timing is deceiving because a lot of those conditions are growing in the shadows, which is why I’ve called them blind spots. We’re not aware of it, but they’ve been here for a very long time.

Jess Dewell 16:59
Fair. I’m thinking, I’m listening to you and having looked at some of your 10 blind spots, I can relate to that, but they predate this. Hindsight being 2020, I think the first time other people saw the result of the “I’m fine” because I am one of those people was in an organization that was they brought me on to launch technology and do the change management piece that went with that through many locations and thousands of people. Okay, I remember their kickoff meeting. I was in the back room. I was the emcee of the event. I was working and had structured all of these things. And this great team surrounded me. And I was on the floor and I could not walk. I was laying on the floor from the moment I got there to the moment I had to go talk. And then I would get done talking and I would come back and I would lay on the floor. My body gave out.

Julien Godbarge 18:01
Right.

Jess Dewell 18:02
Wild. Wild.

Julien Godbarge 18:03
Yeah. So these are painful moments. I can certainly tell you very precisely the moment my body gave up.

Jess Dewell 18:10
Yeah.

Julien Godbarge 18:11
I’m not sure that’s the same time that, you know, the organization’s goals and mine started to diverge. I think that had happened, you know, some time previously.

Jess Dewell 18:21
Me too. I think this was the result of you can’t ignore the shift anymore, right?

Julien Godbarge 18:27
Exactly right. That’s exactly right. You have used all your motivation, your strength, your ego that you’re not a quitter and you can make it work and you will make it through until breaking point. And so for me, that moment was during a trip flying home from Florida. Part of the corporate adventure that had gotten me there was a series of mergers and acquisitions. So our headquarters and platform company was in the mid-Atlantic. We had bought over about 24 months. We had bought five companies, two of which in Florida. So I was spending quite a bit of time in Florida. This was really the beginning of the end. This was following six months of high stress, having turned into sleepless nights. And stress plus not sleeping turned into anxiety, turned into depression. I was really having a hard time functioning. And finally, on that, on that fateful day of May 2023, I was sitting at the gate at the Fort Lauderdale airport. They called boarding for my flight and I just started to cry and could not could not stop. Right. It was, it was, it was a weird feeling because part of it felt actually tremendous. It felt like finally I could like, I had held on as long as I could. I had white-knuckled this thing until I couldn’t. And finally, I was getting a glimpse that I didn’t have to anymore because I couldn’t. And so there was a little bit of sweet relief that was happening. But there was also this very scary, petrifying, really sense of loss of control. I cannot stop crying. What’s next? You know, what, what would I not be able to control next? And which, ironically, the illusion of control is what gets some of us into those situations. We’d like to believe we control a lot more than we actually do.

Jess Dewell 20:35
How do you, how do you discern these days? I mean, we could go back and forth, but I’m just like today. How do you discern what is in your control?

Julien Godbarge 20:47
That’s a good question. I mean, certainly, I think the type of management and leadership and how you manage your team and how you set goals and how precisely you build plans gives you a lot of those answers. because if you’re doing a good job documenting your assumptions from the facts that are the baseline of your plans, then you have a pretty good understanding when things start to go wrong that, okay, this assumption was wrong. And what does that mean? It’s neither good or bad. It just means that we need another plan. We assess what to do differently and we’re able to not get too emotionally attached to the reality that we thought we were surrounded with. And we just have to now adapt to the reality that we’re now perceiving, right? That now our environment and therefore requires a new plan. And so I think that’s a big part of the answer. And the other side of the answer, I think has to do with turning down your ego little bit and redefining your role as an executive that it is it is not necessarily this is going to sound weird but i’m with you okay okay it’s not necessarily to deliver the results that we’re aiming for and certainly if you want to be a successful executive you but you have to deliver results more often than not but where i’m going with this is at times things happen, life happens, pandemic, earthquakes, weird moves from competitors, fast shifting tastes from consumers, who knows, a lot of things. And what’s going to make the difference there between a good and an average executive is their ability to detect the shift, to communicate effectively about it, to federate a team behind the effort necessary to adapt. And that’s very different from judging oneself’s performance based on, oh, I’m not going to be able to deliver the profit this quarter because this change, I failed. And all that kind of negativity that starts to spiral, right? So in this type of example, your responsibility is not necessarily delivering the results for the quarter. It’s understanding what has shifted, why, what to do differently, rebuild, and eventually deliver the quarter, the year, and the goals. But in the short term, you have to realize winning can mean different things.

Jess Dewell 23:42
You know what? Okay, so there are two things in my work that everything that you just described that come up for me. The first is the whole purpose of having a 36 month or longer outlook of where the priorities might be down the road is because the majority of the time, the order of when they occur will change. That’s how much we have no control. Are they important? Yes. Are they important when we say they are? Maybe. And then the second thing that comes up is that I just coined this recently. I call it business instinct. That is what I just heard you describe. When something happens, when something comes at us from the side, did we slow down enough? Do we understand what the ripples are? Are we able to understand what the calm looks like and be comfortable there knowing things are in motion in a positive way. And we’re not suspect of that positive way of calmness so that we can be on the lookout for just these small changes, the ripples that are coming in from other stones that are being thrown into the same lake so that we can pick up sooner and go, cool, maybe that’s going to impact the order of things over the long term. I use three years. Some people use five. Some I would say, come down to is, can, is this where we get in our own way? Because we can get in our own way and feel like that rigidity is what helps other people feel confident in us and in the uncertainty that every single one of us face every day. And I’m like you, it’s actually not where we have been taught it to be. It’s our ability to be dynamic and see and change and move to deliver in the long term, even if the short term looks different.

Julien Godbarge 25:38
Exactly. Right. Yeah. And that makes me think of the Stockdale paradox, right? Do you know the story of Stockdale, who was an admiral in the Navy?

Jess Dewell 25:52
Yes.

Julien Godbarge 25:53
And so he ended up prisoner of war in Vietnam. And him and his unit had the highest survival rate of all the POWs in Vietnam. And so there was a lot of studies of why that was after the fact. And the findings are fascinating. And I think it’s really good advice for all the leaders out there to be intimately familiar with this concept. What got him to stay alive and keep his men alive was the ability to have the following two beliefs at the same time. which can seem like a paradox and therefore is called the stockdale paradox. He’s always been able to have unwavering faith in the ultimate success of his team, which for a business can easily translate like our goal in three to five years is to have X market cap or to X market share. And we get there and we will succeed and we will serve our customers on our way there. The other side of the coin is to be able to be extremely pragmatic, eyes wide open on how challenging the short term might be. The short term might be extremely painful. We might need to restructure. We might need to lay off. We might need to divest a division where close friends of ours work. There could be a lot of hard things that need to be done. and being able to have this pragmatic approach of the short term while maintaining that unwavering in the longer term is a key ingredient of good leadership.

Jess Dewell 27:30
And is that the responsibility of one person? Or did Stockdale also somehow embody that in a way that the people that were with him also were able to embody that?

Julien Godbarge 27:43
Right. So I think the answer is both, right? Because for the leader of the organization, the duty is to have that mindset and to communicate it to the point that everybody else adopts it. And as often with concepts that are not as obvious or intuitive, it takes a lot of repetition for that to happen. And I make it a point in teams that I manage to tell this story and to tell the concept often because repetition is key. And so it is the responsibility of the leader to have the mindset and to use it and deploy it and illustrate it often enough that it permeates and cascades through the organization so that everybody can have that in mind.

Jess Dewell 28:34
How does this relate to the ratchet effect that you talk about?

Julien Godbarge 28:44
Well, that certainly relates to a large extent because it puts in perspective, it helps reduce the negative stress caused by the short-term challenges. If you come to them with strong discernment instead of emotional judgment, and you have the mindset of what is changing? What do I need to learn? What should I observe? That observational curiosity rather than a negativity of, oh, no, consumer sentiment is down. My sales are going to be down for the quarter. I might miss the earning call, blah, blah, blah, and all that negativity. Keep the negativity out of there. Use a lot more discernment and neutral exploration. Then the stress spike doesn’t even really exist anymore. There’s no reason why it would. It’s neither good or bad. It’s just this is what’s happening. How am I going to react? And what does that mean in terms of change to the plan, change to staffing, maybe new product development because of market tastes that are changing. It could mean a bunch of different things. And by having this right mindset of discovery and exploration, you can find amazing gifts and opportunities out of any situation, even the ones that could be tempting to consider as a bad development. But if you forbid yourself that judgment, And instead you observe and you look for opportunities. They are everywhere.

Jess Dewell 30:29
Yeah. That’s interesting. Okay. So there are a lot of things that come up for me as I was listening to you share about the ratchet effect. And now my question to you, though, comes back to the earlier story that you shared in the airport post meetings when you broke down and it was liberating and scary all at the same time. I’m guessing that was the beginning of recovery and rejuvenation from burnout. It was the first acknowledgement, wow, I’m here and I’m really here. Is that fair to reflect?

Julien Godbarge 31:04
Yeah, I think this is really what I call the moment of crash. This is the moment of you’ve been hanging on as hard as you could to keep things going and suddenly you cannot. This is the time where you have to call your colleagues and the board and explain that you’re not okay. You cannot work tomorrow morning and lead the team in the battle here. You just cannot. And so it becomes a whole other set of challenges of being able to rebuild and regain your health.

Jess Dewell 31:37
So those that can relate, my heart is with you. My experience is with you. And I won’t speak for Julian, but the fact that we both have stories like this. There’s some relatable stuff here. I’m thinking about those of us who didn’t learn the first time. And I’m thinking about those of us who might have some of those clues that we talked about at the beginning that they’re not actually taking stock yet. I want to circle back into this because I think if we could prevent burnout within ourselves, we actually, not only do we reduce that cost and have more benefit of return that we were talking about earlier, man, life doesn’t have to be that hard. And we can avoid some of that if we’re just true to acknowledge early on. And do you think these days, Julian, like I know months and months and months it takes to even be able to start working again sometimes from this level of burnout that we’re talking about. If we were to stop right now and really think about where we’re at and what the clues are that we’re giving out, that things really aren’t okay. How long do you think it would take to start to see a shift in a positive direction? I guess I should just say, what if we took the pause right now and said, okay, we’re not okay, and then decide how we’re not okay? Is that a reasonable thing to do?

Julien Godbarge 33:02
I think it’s a great way to start. You have to start by admitting, realizing and admitting that something is not okay and find somebody to confide in because one of the blind spots is clearly the tendency for executives to isolate and to carry on their own shoulder a heavier burden than is needed, desirable, nor sustainable. So asking for help, verbalizing that I don’t think my mental health is as good as it was a month ago, or I don’t know if I’m on the right trend, right? Just whatever the realization is to have somebody to confide in. It can be somebody at home. It can be a colleague. It can be a friend. It can be the board, a business coach. It can be any of the above.

Jess Dewell 33:55
I’m going to just call us out. Call Julian. Call me. I think we would both be here, right, Julian?

Julien Godbarge 34:01
We would love to help. Yeah. Yes. Thank you for that. And in terms of your question of how long will it take to start producing results and turning things around and feeling better, I would think it’s a matter of seconds, quite frankly. I think it’s instantaneous. Now, you cannot expect that you will be back to normal in a matter of seconds, nor is it the goal. When you think about it and you peel off the layers of the onion here to understand, okay, I’ve now realized I’m on the wrong track. I’m not in a good direction. Something is not working. Then the concept of going back to something is really not helpful because you’ve been on the wrong track. If you go backwards, you’re going to still be on the wrong track, just a few steps behind. So it’s more of a matter of looking forward and realizing and understanding what are the assumptions you’ve made about your needs to be fulfilled as a human being. Some pretty deep thing in terms of what makes us humans and what’s important that can easily be misunderstood and we can be misguided. And so I think as soon as the realization that something is not right, that we need to do some of that work, some of that introspection, that can make us feel better immediately. And then let’s not think about going back to any kind of normal or repairing to be the way we used to be. Let’s just do the work to figure out what does the future look like and what do we want to be going forward.

Jess Dewell 35:44
So normal will be different.

Julien Godbarge 35:47
Because we will be different, right? And I think that that has to be the case. You know, we’ve all heard a million times the expression that the only thing that remains constant is change. So of course, we will change. And the only question is in what direction and how do we want to end up as we continue to evolve and change?

Jess Dewell 36:09
And that can be really scary when everybody around us might have this perception or expectation of us. And I actually wonder if it’s even harder with those that we are in relation with outside of the workplace, because there’s already a little bit of separation at work, even though they’re the people we spend the most time with digitally, remotely, in person, because it’s our work. But I’m wondering, too, that other side. I mean, it takes a lot of courage to say I’m not OK and to find somebody to confide in. And then what that normal needs will evolve to, I shouldn’t say needs to become, will evolve to to support who we actually are and what we really can do, want to do and are fulfilled by. Is that right?

Julien Godbarge 37:03
Exactly. Right. Yeah. And, you know, you’re touching on a really important point that actually is part of the introduction in my book, which is the concept that just because you have the skill set, the capacity, the experience to become a successful executive or manager of whatever, Whatever that next step in the career that is available to you, just because you’re able to do it doesn’t mean that it’s going to serve you well and it’s going to get you fulfilled. And so in my coaching practice, this is an exercise that I engage in with a lot of my clients who are often high performers. That’s why they get coaching services by the organizations. And they’re thinking about how to navigate the corporate ladder and where to go next and how to move up. To really be able to take close inventory of what are the motivations for those moves that one might want to make. And what are the expected benefits and impacts of such a move? Because often there’s this really ill-conceived idea that, well, with this next position, I will, fill in the blank, be fulfilled somehow. That happiness and contentment will happen when, fill in the blank, I have the right job, I have the right income level, I drive the right car, I can upgrade to a bigger house. whatever those things are um whenever somebody finds themselves thinking or hearing i will be content when that’s a big red flag in and by itself the the contentment uh as long as you know you’ve got a couple of the layers of maslow’s pyramids of needs under your belt which i think if you’re listening to this podcast and you’re an executive you’re interested in business probably you have a roof over your head and three meals a day, then you should not be chasing happiness with the next promotion. You can be ambitious and want to build your career, but you have to have contentment with where you are to begin with. Otherwise, you’re going to be chasing the wrong thing.

Jess Dewell 39:26
Yeah. I actually think, I kind of wish it was in the clues section way at the beginning of our conversation because I wrote down in my notes, we have a bonus clue. We went from three clues, to four clues you might not be okay and they’re just spread out now just spread out what was uh so julian i want to know what your deepest fear was about having to call up your company and say i can’t do this tomorrow.

Julien Godbarge 39:57
Um I think the fear was you know was really leading to that was that maybe i would not be able to continue. And so that’s what got me to delay what ended up almost inevitable for so long, creating extra pain and suffering in the process. Actually, I have to say, when I had to make the call and I called my my colleagues and then the board I was I was not scared at that point and it’s worth mentioning that that call was to say okay look I’m not okay here I’ve spoken to my doctor and counselor and there are some symptoms of burnout which sometimes can alleviate after taking two weeks off. So that’s what I need to do. I’m going to let you guys in charge. You know what to do. I’ll be back for two weeks and we’ll reevaluate from there. So that’s the call that I made. And then two weeks later, I really thought I was going to come back to work. And I had lunch with a colleague who was my chief revenue officer good friend of mine and he asked me two or three questions as we sat down for lunch on a Friday preparing for my return on Monday um and that’s about how long it took for him to say like dude like you cannot come I don’t think you can come back to work and I said I think you’re right uh just having to think about the challenges that needed to be attended to uh made me I felt extremely anxious. I was getting mind fog. I was getting this almost like repulsion where I just wanted to run away and go hide somewhere. It was extremely challenging. And being able to overcome this kind of anxiety of, oh, I wish I didn’t have to deal with those issues. That’s fine. You can do that. But when you’ve been doing it this long that now your mind and your brain are damaged and are not functioning like they used to, then you’re unable to perform. You really are not. And so that brain fog that I’m describing is a real thing. Like produced of anxiety for a long enough period, you are not able to think clearly anymore. And you’re not doing anybody a service. You’re trying to fool yourself and the organization of saying, I can do this. No, I could not. And I had to resign. That was the only thing I could do. Speaking of brain fog, one small story that illustrates this is once I knew then that I had to resign and I could not work for some period of time, I wasn’t sure how long that would. I had a long-term disability policy that I called the insurance to file a claim. And the insurance agent told me, okay, I’m recording your claim. I’m going to send you some paperwork that you need to fill out, that your medical team needs to fill out. Meanwhile, you have to read your policy to be familiar with all its details. and they sent me this document that must have been 35 page pdf on a font 11 and i and i opened it up and i i don’t remember if i burst into tears or if i started laughing maybe it was both both but are you out of your mind that you think i can read this if i could read this i could be working right right understand at all what what i’m going through you have no idea so i did not read that policy at that point or ever. And as it happened, it had a 90 day curing period. And that’s about how long it took me to get back to work. So I never really was able to use it anyway. But anyway, that’s a side note.

Jess Dewell 44:18
Well, actually, so let’s bring up a really good point. Was mental wellness part of a long-term disability policy that you had?

Julien Godbarge 44:27
Yes.

Jess Dewell 44:28
Okay. So for everybody out there listening, those of you that have these types of policies and I’m going to have to go read mine because I don’t know if they all do. And it was interesting. So there was a 90 day period before any sort of benefit would kick in. And then it was, are you actually covered under a disability this way? So maybe everybody should just read their policy before they get to that point. Right.

Julien Godbarge 44:50
Cause once you feel that way, you can’t read it anymore.

Jess Dewell 44:53
Fair. And, and thank you for sharing that experience because I think I would be the same way. Why would I want to, Oh, I can’t, I don’t want to make any decisions right now. I can’t make any decisions anymore.

Julien Godbarge 45:05
Yeah, that was just too much. And, you know, this was before we all had an AI LLM. Yeah, that can do it for us. Yeah, just now I could upload the policy and say, Claude, tell me, you know, in simple English what I’m looking at here. This was not the time. You had to actually read the policy back then.

Jess Dewell 45:25
So it’ll take five minutes. For everybody out there, the next time you’re taking your present retreat, this would be a good thing to do if you have a policy like that. And maybe for those of you who don’t might consider a policy like this to support yourself in the way that you work and your ability to contribute. Cause I’m guessing there’s a, no, I’m not guessing. I’m saying it from experience and I’m discerning a little bit as things bubble up as a, um, what we do is sometimes our identity and it’s hard to separate that sometimes. So let’s be prepared for anything because until we’re able to get to a place we could separate our identity from our work. There might be a little bit heavier baggage. Would that be an appropriate thing to say? Or is it different than that?

Julien Godbarge 46:08
No, I think that’s a very important component, right? We associate ourselves with our work way too much, which makes recovering from having to resign a lot harder, by the way, because now you don’t know who you are anymore. If you’re not CEO, what are you or who are you?

Jess Dewell 46:28
Let’s hold space right here with julian for a moment what he’s naming isn’t just operational drag it’s an internal trap when our title becomes our identity stepping back or delegating is more than just a strategic risk it feels like we might even be losing ourselves steve brown joined me on the bold business podcast to explore this exact burden he looked at the quiet traditional expectation that we place on leaders to know everything and why shedding that illusion is the first step toward building a truly resilient organization. Have a listen to how Steve frames this.

Steve Brown 47:04
This is an identity issue, right? The identity of leaders has been that they are sages, right? That because they know a lot of stuff, they got to their position because they have deep experience and they have a lot of knowledge. And that’s why people come to them, hey boss, what do I need? And they get guidance. And we’re used to being in this position of being a sage. I think in this new era, we have to admit we don’t have all the answers because we’re making this stuff up as we go. And so you have to shift your identity from a sage to more of a philosopher explorer, being thoughtful and being willing to say, you know what, I’m going to lead the way. You’re going to follow me. I’ve got my compass out. and we’re going to figure this out together. And that’s a very different way of showing up for your teams, but it’s the only honest way to show up in this time.

Jess Dewell 47:55
Shedding that sage identity is uncomfortable. It forces us to replace that we must know everything, that hero complex, with execution architecture. Steve reminds us showing up honestly isn’t about carrying the full weight alone. It’s about building a responsive decision-making engine where your team is empowered. They are empowered to drive solutions without you or any one of them being the bottleneck.

Julien Godbarge 48:29
And one aspect of this in particular is the tendency of associating your self-worth to your performance in your job at any given time. And we’ve already spoken about this earlier today that at times the color of the KPIs on your dashboard is really not linked to anything you’ve done. Like things just happen. And now the job is to understand, analyze, recommend path forward and do it. And it might take a while for these KPIs to turn green again. And that’s okay. It’s not necessarily, first of all, it might not be a reflection on your performance. And B, it certainly is not a performance, a reflection about your worth as a human being. But if we’re not careful to keep that distinction, then that sometimes is what we do subconsciously, unfortunately.

Jess Dewell 49:25
And those of us leading companies, we have another dimension that I want to take a minute to mention and maybe talk to you about, Julian, which is we say as organizations that we want this regenerative opportunity. We want to support the mental wellness. Yet the rewards are still on those short-term goals. They’re still on the outcomes only and not the path to get to the desired outcomes and these awesome, amazing returns from doing them in tandem. So how do we start to bridge that gap so that we can make sure it’s integrated and it’s truly generative, regenerative business from our side as humans working with humans and continuing to make great impact in the world.

Julien Godbarge 50:12
Yeah, very, very interesting point. I think there’s two distinct sides of things to look at here. One, of course, is how do you set the right incentive programs and deferred compensation and all this kind of monetary compensation in alignment with the goals, both short-term and long-term, right? So in my experience, that was actually very well done, right? I mean, the base salary was what it was. It was annual bonuses based on the semi-short-term performance that we could deliver on an annual basis. And then, you know, since we were in a private equity type of environment with a holding period target of three to five years, there was some stock option proceeds that were on the horizon that aligned well with the longer-term value creation. So there was a pretty good balance there of those things. But so that’s important. And if you’re starting to think, oh, wait, my organization, how am I rewarding people for the long term? Maybe I’m too focused on the short term. Then you know what to do. You have to look at that mix. But even if the mix is right and there are incentives in place for longer term performance, there is a big risk of having the wrong mindset of focusing on that pot of gold at the end of that rainbow. at the expense of life today. And falling into that trap I was describing earlier of this is hard and unpleasant today, but it’s okay because once I get those X millions of dollars for my stock options, then I will have succeeded and I can be happy at that point. Not too many people complain of millions of dollars and it can be life-changing for the better. That is definitely a fact, but it cannot be at the expense of enjoying the process to get there. You have to enjoy the ride, right? And in terms of kind of philosophy meet Greek mythology, you know, I think it’s good to think of that. Actually, I’m skipping a blank on the Greek mythology character who was punished by the God. He had to push a boulder up a hill.

Jess Dewell 52:30
Oh.

Julien Godbarge 52:31
Yeah. And then when he gets to the top, he would come right back down. Sisyphus, maybe it was Sisyphus or something and so you just have to be able to enjoy the process and enjoy pushing that boulder up that mountain because if not but then get a different job where it’s a different kind of boulder with a different kind of slope or something else so if that iterative process of planning, delivering plan, analyzing, and change, you know, and so on and so forth, that in itself can be a boulder. You push up a hill on and on and on. You can, as long as you’re doing that with a smiling on your face, that you enjoy the opportunity, that you do it with the team you like, you know, in a business or a non-profit that is inspiring, that is fulfilling, whose mission is aligned with your values, then all is good. But when you start to think, I don’t like what I’m doing, but there’s money at the end of it, that’s tough. Especially because the end of it can be a moving target. And I think, I know in my case, that was part of the factors that was adding a lot of stress and disappointment is we were getting close to the five-year mark in our holding period. and suddenly the reality changed from we’re going to be able to sell this company within six to 12 months to suddenly it’s probably going to be another three years until all things can line up because of whatever external factors that happen and if you want to learn about this fun kind of u.s capitalism story you know then check out my book i’m going to take a little plug to show you Crash, Burn, Learn uh it’s got this business fable inspired by that i mean that that we conducted and things went extremely well until they started to not go well at all and you know the idea that that pot of gold was and was not within reach anymore that it was going to be a few more years was a punch to to the gut and made was part of the the chinks in the armor that that That took me down.

Jess Dewell 54:53
Hey, Julian, what makes it bold? What makes it bold to admit that you’re not fine when you’re leading a highly leveraged fast growth company?

Julien Godbarge 55:02
It’s because it’s scary and it’s humiliating and you think that you’re losing face and you think that people might think less of you and there’s all those voices in your head that tell you that strong leaders don’t cry, that they don’t complain, that they white knuckle issues until they win. And so, you know, being able to go against those preconceived ideas and be authentic and share your story the way it happened is scary at first. But it’s also liberating. And writing this book has been very cathartic. It’s been a great way for me to take inventory of what had happened, of why it happened. And now I take great satisfaction at talking about my story to try to spread the word and hopefully help protect all the executives out there so that they can stay healthy and enjoy their work more.

Announcer 55:58
Future relevance isn’t built in theory. It’s built on the actions we take today. Don’t let what you heard today stay in this episode of the Bold Business Podcast. For full show notes, transcripts, and over 500 episodes created for companies running real revenue, visit reddirection.com. To continue the conversation with Strategic Growth Advisor Jess Dewell, reach out directly. Thank you for joining us. Keep building your business instinct. Produced by The Scott Treatment.