[00:00:00] Hi everyone. My name's Dex Randall, and this is the Burnout Recovery Podcast where I teach professionals to recover from burnout and get back to passion and reward at work.

[00:00:22] Hello my friends. This is Dex and today I am delighted to welcome our special guest, Oli Johnson, who's the health tech co-founder of PrescribeLife.AI, which is the human resilience platform for coaches, which helps high performers reach their peak without burnout. Obviously of interest to me and therefore possibly to you.

[00:00:43] So he's about to launch his app, which links fitness trackers or wearables to AI coaching, giving actionable, personalized coaching insights on resilience, performance, and personal growth. I met Oli, who lives in Spain when one of his team emailed me, suggesting that I invite him as a guest on my podcast. And I was researching him, that research revealed that he was about to launch his beta test program for coaches, and the tagline was "Making high performer coaches so good they become irreplaceable". So I wrote to him saying I'd like to join the beta, which I did. And the launch has been a little bit hush-hush, and we haven't spoken a lot, so I'm pretty excited to hear what he's going to talk about today. 

[00:01:31] So, hi Oli. Welcome to the pod. How are you?

[00:01:36] Thank you very much. That was a excellent introduction there. You covered things very nicely and I'm very well thank you. Yeah. Morning for me. I think it's afternoon or evening for you, isn't it?

[00:01:44] Yes, 8AM you, 4PM me.

[00:01:46] Okay, good. Yes. Nice.

[00:01:49] As long as you're awake, we're all good. So I don't want to avalanche you at the beginning with specific questions. Just tell me everything starting now.

[00:01:56] Sure. Okay. That's easy. Yeah. So you covered it nicely to begin with. So yeah. I'm Oli Johnson. I'm the founder of PrescribeLife.AI. So I'm an entrepreneur. I've founded and led several startups and, in common with many founders and leaders I have experienced

[00:02:13] burnouts at the sharp ends. Particularly in one instance I can think of where I was leading a cyber tech business and yeah, I did the classic founder thing of being myopicly focused on growing the business and all of the good self-care stuff fell by the wayside and ended up having some pretty serious burnout.

[00:02:31] And now I have this startup PrescribeLife.AI where my team and I are building a platform to help people at scale, to stay resilient and yeah, and avoid burnout. So I'm from London. That's where I grew up, but about eight years or so ago, I moved to Ibiza in Spain where I now live.

[00:02:51] And yeah, we have a small, globally dispersed team for PrescribeLife.

[00:02:56] And so we could go into your burnout a little bit more. I know we talked about it in a previous conversation, and I was interested in doing the beta test and you said you didn't have a burnout coach involved and I got involved on that banner, but

[00:03:09] i'm always really fascinated to hear people's burnout stories. Because a lot of people have difficulty getting out of burnout and it sounds like it was a bit of a slog for you as well.

[00:03:20] Yeah, certainly I'm happy to talk you through that, Dex. If I go into too much detail, feel free to stop me.

[00:03:25] Just so that people get a feel for it because tell us about, your bounce back really.

[00:03:30] Yeah, I'd say bounce back would probably be overstating it. It took a while. I was incredibly burnt out by the end of it. It happened over the course of a few years of building a startup and there was a confluence of things. It was like I said the classic myopic view of a startup founder where it was so focused.

[00:03:47] We had this five year plan to build the business, and I was so focused on that. All the self care of, like sleep and nutrition and exercise and meditation and family time and friendship time, all of that fell by the wayside sacrifice to the God of building the startup. And yeah, it really took its toll and got to a point where, frankly, I was completely on my knees.

[00:04:10] And, luckily I had some signs which became completely unignorable getting progressively worse and worse. Eventually I took action and I had an exit from that business, and it took me about nine months to really get back on my feet. And that looked like, luckily I had some financial security, a financial cushion after exiting the business.

[00:04:31] And I took my family and myself to Thailand. First of all, I had a sort of 10 day in the desert silent meditation retreat to really do a hard reset, I would say. Then we went to Thailand and yeah, completely reconnected with my family and with myself to get myself back on my feet.

[00:04:48] And it took a long time, it took a lot of self work and took yeah, reflection and patience really. It got to such a bad point that I was just, I was so disconnected from myself and everything else that it was a long road back. And if I look back on that time, one thing for sure I would've liked to have done is to have taken a preventative, proactive approach rather than getting to such a bad state and taking so long to recover.

[00:05:16] Yeah, and I think we would wish that for almost everybody. It's interesting, you and I have that in common that we burnt out while we were techs in a startup. And yet now here you are again in another startup with a little baby as well in tow, and you are looking pretty well on it, I gotta say.

[00:05:34] Thank you Dex, yeah. One thing I do feel like I have learned, and I can feel it in my body. I can feel it in my mind when I'm going down that route. It's almost like an acute awareness and sense that I have now because that was such a difficult thing and I can be prone to doing that. It's hard to build a business.

[00:05:51] It's hard to get a startup off the ground. It does take grind, it does take effort, but I'm doing it in a much more mindful way now. And it's interesting. It's almost like that experience has seeped into my body. I can really feel if I'm getting pulled in that direction. And having that awareness is super important and very helpful.

[00:06:11] And yes, there are days when I will do 12 hours or maybe a bit more, but I will balance that throughout the week. And I have certain routines and certain disciplines that I do that become non-negotiable and that really helps. Even if I'm doing a 12 hour day these days, as an example, I'll intersperse it with things that I know are going to help me.

[00:06:30] Might be little like, bits of exercise snacking along the way, or be taking regular breaks. It'll be checking in with family. There'll be things I will do to ensure that I'm prioritizing my wellbeing. That habit stacking is super important now, and just that general awareness really helps.

[00:06:45] Yeah. I've had a really big difference in my life since I've been using a wearable, and I can see what's happening with my sleep and my stress and my recovery and all of that kind of stuff, exercise. It's actually been very helpful data.

[00:07:00] It's really important and very helpful. One of the, one of the reasons Dex that we've created the solution in the way that we have is when I was experiencing burnout myself in that situation. I actually had some support around me I had some challenging relationships within the business from a co-founder perspective, so that wasn't particularly helpful and we were all working at a pace which frankly was unsustainable and proved to be. But actually, I had a therapist that I was seeing once a week and I had a business mentor and coach who I saw about once every month or so. It was interesting Because I'd see my therapist once a week and I would see her in, like a one hour window in the middle of a 15 or 16 hour day.

[00:07:40] So I'd have a whole load of client calls through the morning. I'd see her mid afternoon and then I'd have a whole stack of work after that. And I remember speaking to her saying, oh, I'm not feeling any better. We're not getting to the root cause of what's going on. And she would, got to the point where she was almost laughing, just saying like, how can you possibly expect to be able to make any progress from a therapy perspective or feel better when you are so overwhelmed or overloaded with work. And I just didn't listen. And similarly with the business mentor and coach doing a dual role there, he'd been on this journey before and he was acting as a mentor for us and showing us the pathway to the business we were trying to build.

[00:08:19] And he just said the same. He said, look, this is completely unsustainable with the way you are working this. And unfortunately I knew it, but I didn't respond to it and I just basically ignored it. And I think there was a bit of hubris, a bit of arrogance, and the fact we had this five year plan. I had in my mind, it's just five years. Get on and looking back, I could laugh at myself. It's impossible to sustain that. It's you can't run a marathon for five years. But at the time it made sense in my head. And one thing that was missing was anything data-driven. I couldn't see how I was showing up day to day and what those habits were looking like.

[00:08:54] And my habits were terrible. And increasingly it was having this severe detrimental impact on my health and wellbeing. And I think, seeing that business coach once a month. It was great and it was good advice and it was very helpful from a business perspective, but from my own sense of wellbeing and resilience, I didn't have any data points to refer to.

[00:09:16] I would give him whatever story I wanted to at that point in the month and it would be very much business focused. So I didn't have anything to track and measure against. And I think that contributed to me being able to just completely ignore it. And that has been a one of the foundational elements to why we created this platform in the way that we have. Because that's a point that I really think we can work to resolve.

[00:09:37] I think that's gotta be the upside, really. I'm the same with my burnout. If I hadn't had burnout, I wouldn't be a burnout coach now.

[00:09:43] Yeah.

[00:09:44] And you're the same with PrescribeLife. So I think it's important to have that feeding in. And I also think it's very important when people are burning out, they do switch off to all the normal kind of flags. You just stop noticing them. All the red flags, they're just shooting past so fast, nevermind. But I think it is, helpful in that moment to find somebody who can slow you down enough to be able to support you out of those habits and then to start addressing root cause of the problem.

[00:10:15] Yeah, a hundred percent. I've gotta say Dex as well. You mentioned that when we first spoke that you were the first direct burnout coach that I'd spoken to in terms of coming onto the program. We have a range of other coaches around fitness, mental fitness and resilience and leadership coaching, mental wellbeing, resilience coaching, it's now one of the most demanded additional parts of coaching that there is. The ICF, the International Coaching Federation put out a study at the end of last year run with PWC and 85% of their members are now seeing mental wellbeing being requested as part of the coaching. Even though they're not mental wellbeing coaches.

[00:10:53] Coaches typically who would be coaching on strategy, execution, all that kind of stuff, are now seeing this increased demand for mental wellbeing coaching as well. So obviously it's exploding. There are huge numbers out there. There's a trillion dollar impact to the global economy each year from the World Economic Forum.

[00:11:13] In terms of mental wellbeing at work and how that shows up in, in terms of hitting the bottom line of companies and it's a huge problem and burnout contributes massively to that number. But when I spoke with you speaking to someone who understands burnout so well. It really got to me actually that conversation we had actually, I felt pretty emotional because the way you described it and the way you described your methodology for getting people back on their feet, it was just, it absolutely spoke to me.

[00:11:42] And the degree of confidence that you spoke with, because you've taken so many people through that process. Yeah, it's a really lovely thing to see Because that is somebody who really understands how to get to the heart of it, and it totally struck a chord with me. Fascinating.

[00:11:55] Yeah, I felt it resonating with you and I think it's magical in a way. I don't know why I've got this gift. It's not from me, I'm just channeling it from somewhere. But it does seem to work for everybody. And I saw again a person this week who's in week five of their program, just turn that corner.

[00:12:14] And I just watched him and I just thought, oh, you've got it. There it is.

[00:12:17] It happens differently for each person. Like the landscape of burnout is different for every person.

[00:12:23] Their personality is different, but somehow they all arrive at the point.

[00:12:27] Yeah, but what I loved about the way you described your methodology and how you work it, there is a commonality that runs through it. So obviously people are coming to a place and oftentimes I think, as you said, there are other complexities that are woven in. It's not necessarily just about working too hard or what one might think is something in that area, there could be loads of other things going on.

[00:12:47] I know like addiction is something that a lot of people struggle with and people use to, luckily I had stopped drinking, before I'd gone through that process, so I didn't have that, but I know for sure if I had been still someone who consumed alcohol that would've had a massive contribution to my burnout.

[00:13:03] So there's all these other things that weave in, all these complexities, personal relationships, family pressures, and again, it's this kind of confluence of things that comes together. That's why I think it's so interesting that you have a methodology that you apply and that it works across the board.

[00:13:19] And like you say, people might recover in different stages at different times, and it might show up in different ways, but that commonality is there, which I think is really interesting.

[00:13:29] I find it endlessly fascinating, it's the work that I love to do. And so I'm quite interested, I don't know very much about your app, and there's a few hints on the website about the kind of service that you provide, but I know the app's coming out pretty soon now. It's a bit like Christmas coming for me, but what can you tell us, what can you tell the listeners who don't know about you, about the app and your ethos ?

[00:13:56] Yeah, certainly Dex. So we're I guess there's a bit of a teaser. We are very close now and I have a demo certainly of the coaching portal element that I can show you very shortly, and the app's in the final stages of testing as well. So everything is coming together well. There's two primary components. So we have a smartphone app that the end user, like the client as a coachee would work with. And then we have a portal for the coaches as well. So a client will be using the app on a regular basis. And one of the core things we do is we do look at someone's physiology, but we are looking at the entire makeup of that individual.

[00:14:33] So we also have a genetic component. So, interestingly, we can actually look at somebody's genetic makeup in terms of resilience. So things like neural pathways, for instance, really important. I had this work done myself, and having a protocol for neuro supplementation has been genuinely life changing.

[00:14:51] I'm someone who's prone to anxiety anyway. And actually a neuro supplementation protocol has completely changed how I'm sleeping. Like ambient levels of anxiety have completely changed. So that's one component that's, obviously it's a real deep dive into someone's individual makeup.

[00:15:09] On the physiology side, as you mentioned, we're actually integrating wearables. If somebody already has a wearable, we're actually wearable agnostic from a hardware perspective. So whether you had a Garmin or a Whoop or an Oura, any of those that we can actually take that data, integrate it and bring it into our solution so we can see how someone's showing up on a day-to-day basis.

[00:15:29] Dex I remember from the call that we had, we talked about some of the biomarker data and how good that can be as an indicator as to how someone's dealing with stress and how they're showing up. So the one I always talk about is heart rate variability because it's such a good indicator of how someone is dealing with stress.

[00:15:45] So that's one of the biomarkers that we collect and we analyze and we show trend information on as well. It could be such a strong indicator to see how somebody is and how they're responding. That's something we can work on. It can bounce around a bit, it can be a little bit alarming.

[00:16:00] There's definitely an element of that. But yeah, we also have a very interesting piece of technology as well, which can almost be hard to believe to begin with. But if someone's doesn't have a wearable, there's no need for anybody to go out and, purchase a Whoop or an Oura.

[00:16:14] We actually have a piece of technology integrated in the app, and we can use the inbuilt camera on any smartphone device. And with that camera we can do a facial scan. It takes 30 seconds, and in that 30 seconds we're using the camera to, as the blood flows around the body, it pulsates beneath the skin and there's very fine changes in light as that happens.

[00:16:34] And from there we can get incredibly accurate biomarker information. So we can read HRV, we can read resting heart rate. There's so many different signals that we can take. So if someone doesn't have a wearable, we can integrate that as well into our solution. Which is obviously very handy for us to do.

[00:16:50] So that's the more kind of genetic techie medical side of it. But Dex as a coach behavioral change is absolutely huge. Like habitual change. For me, the big thing about staying healthy, as I mentioned is having those habits, whether it's around nutrition or exercise or sleep.

[00:17:06] Even around productivity as well. The other component is, to resilience and burnout. The productivity element, if you are operating. At a level where you can perform much higher, the output you get is so much better. And I look at how I'm operating now, as a founder in this business, compared to how I was before. My productivity is so much higher. So that habitual element is really important and we have a great tracking system within there, which we also share with the coach as well. So keeping people on track is massive. The other component is there's an interactive chat function where we have a very good LLM component, large language model. So it's like having a resilience or performance coach in your pocket. And what we can do with that is when someone's interacting on a daily basis, the things that are showing up every day. That are causing challenges or causing stress, potentially taking someone off track, we can help in the moment.

[00:18:01] And also we can surface those challenges and insights to the coach. So that if you see your client once every fortnight or once every month, you are getting all of these insights from, the habits, from the interactivity on a daily basis from the physiology. And you are getting this very personalized view of how someone is showing up between those sessions. So as a coach, you come completely prepared with this full 360 view of the individual, which is obviously golden in terms of, coaching and how to, see how someone's showing up. What one thing I would say to highlight that is.

[00:18:37] When I was going through my burnout, I had all of these contributing factors. I had lots of things going on and very challenging clients. We were serving, lots of tier one financial service organizations, investment banks, challenging. The high performing team who were, challenging themselves in a good way, but also there were lots of difficulties there.

[00:18:56] One of the primary things that was an issue, there was a lot of tension within the founding team and on a daily basis, that was one of the things that was having the biggest mental impact for me. And I needed continuous support. It was a thing that was really causing me a lot of angst and, that's something where we will be able to surface that to the coach and they will be able to see. It wouldn't be a guessing game. When I turned up at those coaching sessions, once a month I'd be straight into business stuff. I'd be, focusing on other things and the coach really wasn't getting an insight into what was really making it difficult for me.

[00:19:28] And that's a thing that with this 360 view, we are really helping to solve.

[00:19:32] I think it's important just we touch on, for the listeners who don't know about you, privacy and security of this data, obviously a bit of an issue with wearable and DNA and all of that.

[00:19:43] Yeah, it's massive. Luckily, I have a background in cybersecurity and data privacy. So it's absolutely paramount for us. For sure, with our dev team, security and data privacy is baked in right from the very beginning. Obviously for us as a business, we live or die off that data privacy and security.

[00:20:01] So with my background it's been incredibly useful to be able to ensure that we are meeting the highest standards. We're operating globally, so we are meeting, all of the data privacy standards that are required and ensuring that's just the highest priority to us. We obviously appreciate that the kind of people that we're working with.

[00:20:18] Obviously data privacy is important for everybody, but certainly, there's a lot of leaders that our coaches work with and people are very concerned with privacy. So it's a highest priority for us.

[00:20:29] Yeah, me too. No privacy, no engagement really.

[00:20:33] For sure.

[00:20:33] So I'm inviting some of my clients who are on a coaching program to supplement it with the beta test of PrescribeLife, what can they expect?

[00:20:42] Well Dex, I think you and I would for sure have a deeper conversation into how you want to work it specifically. We will deep dive into, specifically around how you are doing your coaching and how it can best serve you. So the element that we definitely want to run through in detail is the coaching portal.

[00:21:02] So I, I talked in depth around the app itself. So for the experience for the individual. For the client we recommend daily use. Now, the good thing is once we connect wearables if somebody is wearing a wearable, then that data collection is passive. The individual doesn't have to do anything at all beyond that.

[00:21:18] So at the very basic level, if they just download the app and connect their wearables, then you as a coach get those insights into their physiology. And what we do is we give an aggregated score as well. Lots of granular biomarker data can get very overwhelming for an individual trying to interpret it.

[00:21:36] People aren't doctors. We have a team of data scientists and medical doctors. My co-founder is a medical doctor and a psychiatrist. So obviously we have deep expertise, but we understand that the individuals and the coaches aren't necessarily in that position. So what we do is provide rolled up aggregate scoring, looking at, readiness, mental wellbeing.

[00:21:56] Basically how people are showing up on a daily basis with these aggregated scores so they don't have to understand the details. And that's so if someone just connects their smartphone, you will get information as a coach, which will be very helpful in itself.

[00:22:10] What we do suggest is if the individual interacts with the app on a more frequent basis, so ideally daily and checking in, on the LLM side.

[00:22:19] So basically just, how is someone showing up, daily reflections. Reflections are so good for mental wellbeing for resilience. So the more interaction that individual has, and certainly, looking at those pillars of resilience as well and creating habits around it. So Dex, if you are giving habits to your clients, then we can use that app to track those habits and then see how someone is actually adhering to them. So I'd say that, the more interaction the client has, the richer the data set that we have, and the more help it gives the individual and the more help it gives you as a coach.

[00:22:55] But obviously there's a cap on that. You're working with really busy individuals, right? So I'm not saying you spend three hours a day using the app, it could be five minutes, it could be 10 minutes, it could be half an hour. But that more regular use will give us deeper insights, which will help both them and you as a coach.

[00:23:11] Yeah, I think definitely it would help me. It would help me just to have the tracker attached if that's all they wanted. If all I had was their HRV, their stress levels, then that would help me. But I think the daily check-in is where we start to find accelerated habit adoption. So I teach them a bunch of skills that they practice in their work life, but if they can see they've hit a problem, they've had a terrible outcome in a meeting, and they're very stressed and they want to have some support over that, then we've got the feedback from them about that.

[00:23:47] I think this encourages much deeper and stronger habit adoption because then you've got real live data that you're trying to work into the habit itself, we're not doing it in an abstract.

[00:24:00] I've had a problem today. I need to fix the stress today. And I would be coaching them through that, either, when they saw me or on an email or whatever, however it turned out to be. Plus they'd have the methodology available to them in that moment of stress that they could refer back to.

[00:24:20] That's exactly right. Our lead architect of the solution is a certified resilience coach, and for her, this behavioral change model is the absolute core of it. And so all the other stuff is really helpful. But tracking change in that way is the core of getting someone better. So that's, as you've articulated exactly right.

[00:24:41] The other thing that I have found has real resonation with some of the other coaches that I've spoken with. So we have a a leadership coach in the UK who sees clients globally, has a lot of US based clients, and he's much more on the more traditional kind of strategy, execution side of things, but has seen a big increase in demand for mental wellbeing. And he has some C-suite clients that he sees one-to-one, but he also does a bit more scalable coaching in corporations, in organizations. But he tends to check in with his clients on a daily basis, and he just does that via WhatsApp.

[00:25:19] He asks 'em to WhatsApp on, how's your sleep quality? How's your diet today? That kind of thing. So instead of him collating that and chasing people to check in with him, with these bits of information, he's putting in a spreadsheet and tracking it. This is a way where all of that manual tracking is taken away and we have everything in one place.

[00:25:36] So better for the individual, better for the tracking purposes, and, ensuring that data is current and, basically well looked after on a daily basis and then straight to you as a coach as well. Depending on your style, if you're having that kind of check-in, we can take away the manual tracking side of it, which is helpful.

[00:25:54] Where I work with leaders. I work with them on their career development more than on the day-to-day strategic stuff, but I mostly work with them on how to optimize teamwork. A lot of that rests on things like psychological safety, emotional intelligence, communication, managing up and down.

[00:26:17] Yeah.

[00:26:18] Those types of things.

[00:26:19] So even using the trackers associated with that is helpful.

[00:26:23] And what are your observations Dex on in terms of those things you just spoke about, how they relate to burnout as well? Because again, you just saying those things and I think of the impact to me mentally, those team dynamics, that trust and psychological safety. When those things are missing or when they're misaligned, then the contribution to someone's mental state , it can be huge, right?

[00:26:48] Even in a situation where you are working with someone who's very aggressive or, there's so much tension when you're running meetings and people don't feel like they trust each other. I think once that trust goes, the impact to the working environment and how that makes somebody feel can be absolutely huge.

[00:27:05] I'm sure that must be something you

[00:27:07] Profound. This can tip lead us over into burnout. And when you combine that with the difficulties at the next level up, so then they've got imposter syndrome there as well, or they're not making headway on how they need to do their job. A whole pack of cards slides off the table. I think a lot of leadership is underplayed emotion.

[00:27:30] It's emotion that's not allowed to be talked about or mentioned because you're not supposed to have any. But most of the people who come to work with me have been very high performing solo in their professional career, like doctors, lawyers, accountants, techies. Enormously skilled and talented and successful in a personal sphere.

[00:27:53] Then they get thrown in as a leader and they've got no idea how to do it because nobody's ever taught them anything about leadership. Take a very highly proficient, well-trained technical person and throw them into leadership, they're not going to survive. Because the disciplines are almost opposite. Being demanding, self-contained, expert, having the answer to everything doesn't transfer very well into leadership.

[00:28:18] For sure. The classic thing that happens is, I had a technology career in banking, and what you tend to find is somebody's a very good software engineer, for instance, and they're absolutely great at their job.

[00:28:30] But they're really good at engineering software. And so because of that, they get promoted and they get into a position where they're leading a team of people. And yeah, they're amazing technical engineers, but the leadership skills and the people skills, that's not what they are about.

[00:28:46] And suddenly they find themselves in that position and they're no longer coding. They're leading a team of people and they feel completely out of their depth. And yeah, I think that's something that happens really frequently. And unfortunately for that individual. The thing that they love and they're so good at, they no longer do, and then now this square peg in a round hole, and that leads to, complete misalignment, in life.

[00:29:06] And it can have a, yeah, serious impact.

[00:29:10] I think that misalignment's actually quite easy to fix once you get those people out of burnout and performing at a very emotionally capable and stable level where they feel more comfortable in their skin and more comfortable at work. It's actually very easy to teach them the foundations of leadership that will really empower their team and then they start loving it because most of them actually enjoy their collaborative elements.

[00:29:36] Yeah. Do you not come across some people though, who just, they just don't fit that profile at all? Like, the person I have in mind is, particularly again from the software engineering developer type roles where someone is naturally much more perhaps introverted and doesn't feel like they want that role at all.

[00:29:56] It's just so not aligned with their own personal makeup. What happens when you come across someone like that?

[00:30:03] Most of those are very introverted. I came from a background of I.T. The reason I got into software development was I loved the idea of working with machines, not people.

[00:30:13] Yeah.

[00:30:13] I just wanted to work by myself and make software, do clever stuff and exciting stuff, and have big technical projects and design software and all that.

[00:30:21] And then they thrust me into leadership and I was not really my thing. Very introverted. Don't like talking to people. But actually almost everybody who comes to me turns out to be an introvert, but it doesn't mean they don't enjoy teamwork. When they become more comfortable in it, they can be introverted and still be extremely good leaders and get a lot of joy and reward out of it. You don't have to be an extrovert to be a team leader.

[00:30:50] I totally agree with that. Yeah 

[00:30:51] Most of them are big hearted people and they really want to help other people succeed and they usually secretly, they're quite like mentoring.

[00:30:59] Yeah. Yeah, and I recognize that, I definitely identify as someone who's introverted myself, and it doesn't mean that I don't enjoy interacting. And I enjoy leadership as well. I've got a, small team, and there's about 10 of us at the moment. I do enjoy that.

[00:31:12] That part of the role. What I tend to find though, is there are certain things that I need to do, whereas, from an extroverted point of view, I think people get very energized from that constant interaction. And for me, I find that I need to have my time apart to recharge. My recharging comes from my downtime alone rather than being around other people and I do find it quite draining and there's a limit to what I can do . Three or four hours of calls a day and, interacting with people, that's around my limit of feeling comfortable. Anything beyond that, I can find it draining.

[00:31:42] I don't think it's a barrier. I don't think any kind of personality that people have is a barrier to leadership. What they need to do is create the environment that will help them thrive, but people have more agency over that than they would at first perceive. People in burnout just see demands coming at 'em from every direction, but it doesn't have to be that way.

[00:32:07] You don't have to feel like you're being pelted with rocks every day.

[00:32:10] Yeah. Yeah, I think that feeling of overwhelm is a classic part of burnout, isn't it? I think there are times when overwhelm is a challenging thing, isn't it? That's a good description of being pelted by rocks from all angles. Where you have the business relationship challenges, the leadership challenges, and then, delivery of the work, the pressure of actually having to perform as an individual and the performance of the business. Yeah that feeling of overwhelm is a tough one. And being able to cope with that in the moment is a real skill to develop.

[00:32:41] Yes, it's a vital skill, but most people in burnout don't say no. Everything that comes at them, they're just like, yep, I'll fit it in. And that needs to be modified a little bit so that they can bring out their best. Otherwise, yeah, you can't run yourself in a business, nevermind run a team in a business, if you are not willing to say no to people and manage your time in a way that boosts your productivity and effectiveness in that role.

[00:33:10] Yeah, it's critical. One major skill as a leader is being able to let go and to delegate. And it's interesting from a startup perspective, being a founder, Because obviously the core thing you do when you found a company is you start everything by yourself. So it's just you.

[00:33:25] And as you grow and as you scale and as the team increases, you need to relinquish more and more control and being able to do that and do it in a way where you are comfortable, you have the right people in the right roles who have their capability and capacity, but it's knowing what to delegate and when to do it.

[00:33:44] And the level of oversight to have. Once you nail that concept and live it, that really, makes a huge difference. But I think a lot of people struggle with that transition and letting go of control. Particularly in overwhelm and burnout.

[00:33:58] Knowing when to be absolutely clear that you're at capacity and relinquishing those things. That's, yeah it's critical.

[00:34:05] I'm aware that we're running outta time, Oli, and I'm going to have to let you go in a second. Any message that you didn't get out to people today that you'd to say before we go.

[00:34:16] I'd like them to work with you, Dex. That would be my number one request.

[00:34:19] I'd like that too!

[00:34:20] Yeah, that'd be a great way to get across this new platform and new technology. Yeah, I'm very much looking forward to working with you Dex. Absolutely love your vibe. Like I say, the level of confidence and competence that you bring to this space is absolutely awesome.

[00:34:33] I love hearing about it. And yeah, I think we'll work very well together. So if anybody is intrigued by the PrescribeLife.AI offer, then you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm Oli Johnson, OLI Johnson on LinkedIn. It's PrescribeLife.AI, and if you're interested in the technology, then sign up with Dex and you'll have access to it soon.

[00:34:52] I think we're going to do some great work together and I'm pretty excited. I've got a few people who already put their hands up, want to participate, and I can't wait to give it a run. So thank you so much for being here today.

[00:35:02] Yeah, I'm off on a school run. I have a 6-year-old it's first week at school, so thank you very much. So really appreciate it, Dex and

[00:35:08] Lovely speaking with you, Oli.

[00:35:10] Yeah, have a nice evening.

[00:35:12] Take care.

[00:35:13] All right, so listeners, before we go, I will fill you in on the offer that I have to work with Oli and PrescribeLife. I'm offering select clients a place on the PrescribeLife beta test alongside of me as a part of their one-on-one burnout recovery coaching program. I see this as a premium offer that's going to accelerate results.

[00:35:35] It's going to accelerate habit forming. It's going to allow you deeper insights with the biometric data that you will gather. And a greater insight into your stress profile and how to modulate that. It supports habit forming each and every day, and it provides you a way of doing that in between coaching sessions or at any time when you want to do it.

[00:35:57] The other thing that I think will come up in terms of the biometric data and the stress data and the HRV is you're going to see more when your emotional intelligence is developing and with emotional intelligence comes a greater comfort. You're going to feel more relaxed and more you and more comfortable at work when we develop out your emotional intelligence.

[00:36:21] That very much affects recovering from burnout too. And of course, your work performance will be enhanced because you're not going to spend so much time in a stress, state. Because normally if we get into stress, we might still be in stress, a day later, two days later, three days later. Whereas with this process, you have a way to snip off stress pretty much real time, and this has enormous value to your health and vitality and your ability to use your brain at work because obviously when you're under enough stress, your brain is turning off.

[00:36:59] So if any of that sounded interesting to you, come and talk to me. If you'd like to join the beta test as part of your coaching program, book yourself onto a consult with me at dexrandall.com and just let me know when we speak. So it's going to be starting in the coming weeks. I have a bunch of candidates already and I'm looking for maybe half a dozen more.

[00:37:23] So let me know if you're interested. Thank you so much for listening. I'll for sure be putting out some more information about Oli and PrescribeLife in the coming weeks. So keep an eye if you're not on my email list, we need to sort that out. Alright, catch you next time. More stress busting coming your way.