Intro: Welcome to the Heart Soul Wisdom podcast, a journey of self discovery and transformation. Moira Sutton and her amazing guests share real life stories, tools and strategies to inspire and empower you to create and live your best life. Come along on the journey and finally blast through any fears, obstacles and challenges that have held you back in the past so you can live your life with the joy, passion and happiness that you desire. Now, here's your host. Create the life you love. Empowerment Life Coach Moira Sutton.

Moira: Welcome to season five, episode 103, overcoming burnout and winning in the now with our very special guest, keynote speaker and e-lite success coach, Doctor Eric Recker. Eric spent the first half of his life doing what he thought he had to, putting his nose down and enduring the, the grind of every day. But it was never quite enough. Through experience with triathlons, mountain climbing, owning a dental practice with a team of 20 people, becoming a pilot and extensive travel, he learned that what he was searching for wasn't at the top of the mountain. In the second half of his life, he's committed to helping people learn to live present in their own lives and find a life of fulfillment, joyous and not just accomplishment. Through his coaching, speaking and writing, he's working to help as many people as possible learn to win the now, Eric and his wife Amy and their two kids proudly live in a small town in Iowa. So, without further ado, it's my pleasure to introduce you to Doctor Eric record. Welcome, Eric.

Eric: Moira, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here with you today.

Moira: Yeah, I love this mountain climbing thing. I know that when I was shifting you and I appreciate you shifting with my time because I've been really. So, this is perfect with what you're going to talk about that really looking at my own health and well being and, you know, I have a lot of people that wanted to be at the end of the show and I'm like, I'm sorry, no. And that's that. No. Right. Because to leave my energy for somewhere else, for. Yes. So, no, I'm excited to have you too. So, let's just dive in. Let's start by talking a little bit when you're growing up in your family.

Eric: Yeah. So I was, I grew up in the early eighties in a small town in Iowa still where I, where I live today. I'm the oldest of three kids and a big part of my story happened on the recess, kickball. So, I played, we, I wanted to play kickball. That was the thing that happened at recess. We'd run outside and we'd pick teams and play kickball. The problem was, when I was in second and third grade, I was told that I wasn't good enough to play. And so, when you're told something like that, it sticks with you. And it wasn't just one time. It was a number of times I would have been fine getting picked last because at least it meant that I could play. But I was told that I wasn't good enough. And so those words have rung true for me for far too much of my life, until a few years ago, when it was kind of rediscovered, when I was doing some meditation and quiet times. And I realized and remembered the pact that I had made with myself in third grade on the side of that recess kickball field. And that pact was that I was going to be so good at everything that I ever did, that no one would ever not pick me. That's a bold statement to say for someone at that age, but it really influenced the way I lived my life. I truly believed that nothing was good enough. And I pushed myself so hard. In fact, I pushed myself into seasons of significant burnout professionally. So that's kind of my origin story for how I. How I came to be where I was. And now, just like the intro said, now that I've been through that, my goal is to help people so that they don't have to go quite as far as I went down the burnout trail.

Moira: Did you have a wake-up day that you realized that you were good enough? Because, like you, in grade two, they took ten kids in grade two. So, you're very impressionable, like you were, you know, to the side of the room. And they said these, these ten children are extremely smart and they'll excel in life and the rest of you are average. So, like you, I never told my parents. I did hear it. And, and I also, like, through college and university then I always worked extremely hard to make sure, like, I got the marks and the grades and all that, but that kind of thing, until you realize, you know, no, I can do that. You know, I can do anything kind of thing. And I am smart. I'm not stupid and intelligent. So. Yeah, well, for you to make that pack in grade three with yourself, that's quite the thing to do at that young age.

Eric: Yeah. So, I look back at that and what you were just saying, Moira, how in the world can people separate kids at that age into who has potential and who doesn't have. I mean, that's just, that's a horrific thing for kids to have to go through. So, I'm sorry you had to go through that.

Moira: Yeah. It's interesting. I didn't realize. It really hit me to my. Probably my later twenties when I was doing my own coaching practice, and I realized that was a story I was playing. So, I got so many certificates, and I'm trained in so many modalities and all the rest of it, but it was sort of like, you, like, doing a this, doing that, or, you know, you saying, you know, you got the top of the mountain, you realize that that's not where the answer was. Tell us about that. Tell us about your climbing and what you learned from climbing and. And this whole thing about, you know, climbing the mountain and in several mountains that you climb, and that's not exactly where the answer was found.

Eric: Yeah. So, with. With the whole not believing I was good enough when I started running, you know, five k wasn't good enough, and then a ten k and a half marathon and a marathon, and none of that was good enough, I actually thought about doing ultra marathons. I'm thankful that I didn't. I started in triathlon, and nothing was good enough all the way through the ironman distance, and then I started doing mountain climbing, and my. My brother-in-law baited me to do a race called the Leadville 100 mountain bike race. And the reason he wanted me to do it is because he wanted us to all take a trip out to Leadville, Colorado, so he could do hiking and do all the fun stuff while I did the race. So, uh, we ended up. We ended up doing that. But really, I was still working on that, what I call it a broken operating system. And I think we all have. We all have some of those words that are spoken over us. For you not being good enough to stand on that one side of the room. For me not being good enough to play kickball on an author that I really like, John Acuff, he calls those soundtracks, says the repeated things that we tell ourselves. And so he talks about replacing the broken soundtracks with better soundtracks and then repeating them until they're true. Until we believe they're true. And so, I found myself. We had gone out to Leadville, Colorado, and here I was in the best shape of my life, and it was such a hollow feeling. And three days before I did this grueling mountain bike race, we climbed a 14,000-foot peak called Mount Princeton. And it should have been just this amazing moment where I was looking out at creation and just experiencing the views and how it was so amazing. And really, it was just a feeling of, okay, what's next? And I really knew there was a problem at that point, because if I couldn't enjoy that moment any more than I did, I needed to figure out what that was all about, because there would always be another mountain. Even if you climb Mount Everest, there's another mountain somewhere. And so that was the problem. And so, I realized that at that top of that mountain, that if you don't know, if you don't know why you're climbing the mountain, you will not find the answer at the top. And it's been so huge for me and in my coaching practice and with the people that I work with, we have to know why we're climbing the mountain. We have to know why we are doing the things that we do, or else we're not going to find any joy in it. We're not going to find any purpose in it. And the answer is always going to be, I need to do more. I need to do more. I need to do more.

Moira: And we're kind of a society like that. I know that my husband and I were together 35 years when we first met. Close said, you know, let's sell everything and go live on a boat in the Bahamas. And I said, okay. And so anyway, we, we did that. And when we were away, we didn't have any computers, we didn't have any tv, any of that stuff, and we didn't miss it. When I came back for a short time, I was sitting, looking at the tv and all the things that would come into, I was staying with my mom with, you know, buy this, buy that at the store. And then the commercials, I just sat, and it was like a, you were in a hypnotic state. Like, I was just staring at the tv. It didn't matter what was on. And it was like, you know, keep buying this stuff. And I really didn't understand it because I had a, I had a break from that whole thing. So that's that you're saying, like, we just keep adding and, you know, doing the next thing if we, we don't find kind of the present moment. How do you teach people to be in the present and really be in that state of gratitude and, and, you know, I know that here you and your wife are going off on a trip the end of September. We just talked before this conversation and really stop and be in the present and really enjoy the moment. How do you teach your clients and when you speak and, you know, how did I do that?

Eric: Yeah. So, the concept of win the now was one of the things that really helped move me forward from where I was. So, I've. I've owned a dental practice for 22 years, and I have a big team. And part of the reason that I got so burned out is because I found myself either stuck in the past or worried about the future. And when I was in either one of those spaces, I missed out on the most important thing. And the most important thing is the moment right in front of us. That's where the action happens. That's where all the good stuff is. But we are either stuck with our broken operating systems, we're stuck with those things that happened to us, the regrets of our past, we're worried about the future things. So how do we get ourselves into the present moment? Well, the first thing, as in most things in life, it's just an awareness that we're not being in the present moment. We have to know that there's a problem before we can go to work on solving the problem. So, realizing, okay, this is the problem. Here we are not being in the present moment. I'm at home, but my mind's at work. I'm at work, but my mind's at home. I'm at home, but I'm on my phone. There's all different levels of it. So being aware of that and then always trying to bring ourselves back into the present moment. Looking at the present moment and thinking, what does a win look like in this moment? So, I always like to use the example of sitting around the dinner table in the evening, because if you've gone to a restaurant, you've noticed the family that's sitting there and everyone's on their phones, and they might as well have been sitting at home distracted as they are missing out on this wonderful moment to interact in a restaurant. So, what does a win look like in a dinner with your family? At my house, a win looks like us all having great conversation, asking good questions, taking turns listening and supporting each other. It also looks like not being on our phones, not being distracted. It looks like it enjoying food. I think food is one of the greatest gifts that we've been given. The different flavors that we get from food and the experience, cooking it and all of that. So, it's looking at all of the moments in our lives. How can we be in that moment? And then what do wins look like? And yes, we are going to take some losses. That's just part of life. When we take a loss, we can get stuck in that. Or we can ask ourselves one question, what can I learn from this? And once we get the answer to what we can learn from this, it's no longer a loss, but it turns into a win. And then we start stacking wins on top of each other, and we start feeling momentum, and it helps to keep us in that present moment.

Moira: I love that one thing that I teach, and it's one of the things I’m going to add (in my book) in the future is, what is the gift in this? What is the gift in this moment? And I find that when I was coaching, that my clients, like you're saying you can learn from something, obstacles and challenges, or you can without. I've given the challenges in her life. So, to stack them up, like you're saying, is a wonderful thing. What? You know, you talk about that day that you were at work and you found your son sitting on the floor. You were in a fetal position crying. I know that some of my listeners can relate to that, that they've been to burnout, they've been to anxiety. For sure. There's a lot of anxiety. And that moment, how did you get yourself out of that moment? Like, to really, like, whip, like, okay, I got to get up to my practice. What happened that day?

Eric: Yeah, so it was kind of a perfect storm. And as I look back on it, it really needed to happen for me to have awareness of how far gone I was. So, I think just a little bit, as an aside, some of the really things that happen to us that are horrible in the moment can be some of the most necessary and transformative things for us if we allow ourselves to learn from the moments. So, I was set this tone for that just a little bit. I was about 30 minutes behind already in my. For my day, and our office usually runs pretty well on time. We don't want to be a typical medical office that's an hour or an hour and a half behind. I just respect people's time way too much to do that. And so, I was behind. I had five hygienists that were waiting for me to come do their exams. I was behind in my own patient, and my front desk came and told me that the server had crashed. Well, in a small company, the owner is oftentimes the it person as well, which, unfortunately for everybody, because I'm terrible at it solutions. But anyway, so I went out to the server. Usually, it was just a matter of restarting the server, but that was about a 15 minute process for that to happen. You can't just flip a switch and flip it back on. And as I was walking down the steps to our basement where the server was. I could just feel it building. I got in the room and I closed the door, and I restarted the server. And in that moment, I was just physically brought down to the ground, and I started weeping, and I was just in the state of, I don't want this, I don't want this, I don't ever want to feel like this again. And I was just, I just felt like there was no way I could move. I was just stuck there. I didn't know how I was going to get out of it. And then all of a sudden, a song popped into my head, and it's a song by a band called Switch Foot, and they're that I really, really like. And I don't know if you've heard of them before, moira. No, but I really, really like Switchfoot. And they have some songs, like meant to live, where there's a lyric that is, you are meant to live for so much more, but you lost yourself. And the particular song that came on in my head was, dare you to move. Um. I dare you to move. I dare you to pick yourself up off the ground. I dare you to live. Um, like today never happened. And I thought, okay, I got a choice here. This is either going to be it, and I'm just going to completely melt down and, or I'm going to pick myself up off the ground. But I'm not just going to pick myself up off the ground and forget that this happened. I'm going to go to work this figured out so that this doesn't happen again.

Moira: What, what a gift in that, Eric?

Eric: Oh, I, I love music. I really do. I think it's another huge gift that we've been given. And those lyrics at that time, it was, we had been to a switch foot concert within the last, within the previous couple months before that happened. Um, and those, those words were just at the absolute perfect time. And I had to dare myself to pick myself up off the ground, and I was able to do it and somehow pad my eyes a little bit, give myself about five minutes to breathe while the rest of the server booted up. And then it was, uh, it was back at it.

Moira: Wow. So that was definitely a defining moment in your life.

Eric: Hugely defining, absolutely. And I sure, boy, I sure learned from that, that I don't ever want to go through one of those again, a panic attack like that. I would love to say that I never did after that. That would not be true. But I was able to learn some techniques when they felt like they were starting to come on. And then also, if it. If it did happen, how to. How to be able to work through it.

Moira: You talk about one thing that I love is, oh, oh, what is it now? Oh, a paper. Paper cut. A chapter. You talk a bit about the paper cuts and how it can hurt, and then you get another paper cut. Another paper cut. So different things that keep piling up in our life. Is that something, in hindsight, that you saw? And again, when you teach other people? Because I know myself with a paper cut, if I come to a point that I'm not taking time for a holiday or a break, quietness, little add up. And my mom, we're a caretaker to her, and she's a 97-year-old woman with a walking ability, and it's a lot of work. And you talk about caretakers in your book, those little paper cuts add up. And then I'm not really proud of myself that I'm kind of chirpy and chippy and, you know, get away from me kind of thing. That. That's not what I mean. I love her dearly. So that's a moment you talk about. Let's talk about burnout things like, for people to realize they're in that area and. Oh, no. You know what? Let's start first with, before we get into that, let's talk about you. We are ****. So, your book is called the Dam analogy. So, what do you mean by we are the dam? Let's talk about that. And inflow. Outflow. That whole analogy that you've created, which is wonderful.

Eric: Sure. Yeah. I was riding my bike several years ago across a dam that's very close to where we were living at the time. It was about a mile away from our house. Sunday mornings, I would usually take this route. I would ride across the ****. I'd ride 20 or 30 miles in the morning and come back before our family would go to church. And as I was writing across the dam, I just heard it was inaudible, but I just felt it in my spirit, the words, we are the dam. And I thought, okay, am I. Is this a low blood sugar morning? What's going on? I'm not really thinking clearly. We are the ****. What does that even mean? So, I kind of suppressed it for a little bit, knowing that I would. That I would come back to it. And as I've come back to it and as I really studied it, we are a lot like a dam. So, if you think of how a dam works, there is an inflow on one side. There's a lake on one side, usually built for flood control. On the other side, there's a river, the outflow, and then there's the dam that regulates that. There's floodgates and regulates the. The level that's on either side. And it's a lot like us. All we're really doing in our lives is controlling the flow of energy through us. That's all we're doing. So, we're pretty good at the outflow part. We get stuff done. We get the things done that we need to get done. We may put them off, but we find a way to get them done. What we're not so good at is the inflow side. We don't tend to take very good care of ourselves. And so, what happens is, on the lake side, we get chronically empty. We don't have a lot left for reserves. And in my book, I talk about this. So, if we think of ourselves on a one to ten level, and ten is fully full, just completely full, you're as good as you can possibly be, and one is completely empty. Knowing through self awareness where we are. The problem is a lot of times we'll lie to ourselves and we'll tell ourselves that we're a seven or an eight. We'll live our lives like we're seven or an eight. We'll keep going and we'll keep going, doing all of the things, when really, we're a two or a three or maybe even a four. And so when we are that low and we don't take care of ourselves, then you see the problems that we see with a low lake. Our local lake is built for flood control, but it's also used for recreation. And when the lake level is just about right, people can boat on there. There isn't a lot of driftwood floating in the lake. There aren't a lot of hazards. And people really enjoy it. They enjoy the beach, they enjoy the water, all of that. But when we get low and empty, we start to face some of the hazards of a low lake. There used to be a town where the lake is right now, and they leveled the town before they built the lake. And so, if it gets really low once in a while, some of the snags from where that town used to be can come to the surface. And how does that translate to us? Well, when we're chronically empty, we can hit a snag. We don't think through our thoughts very well. We're chippy. We're reactive with those we love. We don't think things through very well. We make poor decisions. We do things that we do when our brains are not working really well. So, the goal of this is for our outflow to be equal to our inflow, so that we're in a good place, so that we can be in a good place for other people. Because ultimately, I believe we were made for impact, Moira. I believe that's why we're here on the earth, to make a difference in the world that is bigger than who we are, to leave the world better than how we found it, to bless other people, to impact other people. And we can't do that if we don't have anything in the tank. So, ultimately, we need to be a little bit selfish with how we take care of ourselves so that we can be selfless in helping other people.

Moira: So, what are some strategies and tools that you others regular inflow and outflow, so they can be in that state to make an impact in their life and other people's life, and, you know, regulate that. What are some strategies?

Eric: Right. So, the first thing is just having an awareness of where we are. I think everything starts with self awareness. All of the things in our lives start with self awareness. So, if we know where we are, then we know that we need to do something about it. The thing is, I think we get stuck too much on the fact that we need a big holiday or a big vacation or a big trip. We think that's the only way we can really refuel. But I don't know about you, Moira. I've had seven-day vacations that it's taken me five days to uncork, get one day, actually enjoy, and then it's time to go home. So, vacations are great. The reality is that we have a whole lot more Tuesdays than we have vacations. We have a whole lot more Thursdays than we have weeks off. So, what are some strategies that we can do on Tuesdays or Thursdays? Well, how about instead of picking up our phone, we sit at our desk for five minutes and just slowly breathe? What if when we get really stressed out, we get up and we walk around the block? Or we take a five-minute walk, or we write down ten things that we're grateful for, or we send an encouraging text to a friend, or we journal for a little bit? The problem is, I think, oftentimes we think the things that fill us up actually end up being false refillers. What do I mean by that? When we sit down and mindlessly watch Netflix for hours, or when we go down a video rabbit hole on our phone. Those are not things that refuel us. In fact, they make us more anxious. They make us more drained. So how can we do, what are the little things that we can do to help refill us? And also, other things like that are very basic, like having joy on the calendar. I think it's super important and the science backs me up on this. To always have something that you look forward to on the calendar, it's so important and it doesn't have to even be something big. It's wow, I have a really busy week this week. How about we schedule on Thursday night to go get some ice cream or go out to dinner or go see a concert or a movie or go for a walk or a hike or something like that. The power of anticipation is so big. So, and one of the things that I have available for people because I, this isn't always intuitive to people, how to take care of themselves. On my website I have a list of 150 refueling hacks that you can grab. Just 150 ways to help move the needle in the right direction.

Moira: Perfect. Because a lot of people don't know that. Like you said before, when you're in overwhelm or anxious, and we've all been there, there's days that it's more difficult to shift that back to the full versus being empty. But to like yourself awareness every day, to really check in where you are and to be honest with yourself where you are. I know, again, I talked many years ago about creating healthy boundaries and saying no was a positive thing. It wasn't a negative. I know you say it to another degree. I don't have that right in front of me that you taught that. I don't know about your dad or that, but if you say no to somebody, it just means sometimes just not now. And you might be there in another way. But it's very important to say no so we can show up for ourselves and then be there to show up for others. Now you use this. Yes. Epidemic is emptiness and the epidemic of distraction. So, is this what you're talking about with people with TVs and phones and then the emptiness feeling? Do you find that again because you talk to crowds people, that there's a lot of people really empty or are they starting to find their way? Do you feel what's happening in the world?

Eric: Yeah. So, when I do a workshop or a keynote for groups, I always ask how many people think they have too much on their plate and most hands go up and how many people, the next thing I ask is how many of you know which things you could take away so your plates not so full and almost zero hands go up. So, one of the things that I like to do when we're in a bigger group like that is we go through a list of everything that we're committed to, everything that we're committed to. So, we really break it down to our getting ready routine in the morning, turn down routine at night, all of the drive to work, what we do then, what we do in small moments of time, all of that stuff. And then we figure out which of those things actually fit with the goals that we're. That we're wanting to, the goals that we have, the things that we're wanting to do to move forward. And then people start to think, oh, maybe this could go. Maybe this could go. Maybe. Maybe I don't need this in my life. Because what we've done, and this is how I found myself in my first big season at burnout. We're like that frog in the water. And so, if you put a frog in the water and you probably know this, you put a frog in the water on a stove and start to turn the heat up, the frog will not realize it as the heat is being turned up, and then all of a sudden, it's dead because the water is boiling. And I don't think we realize that in our lives either. It's a slow fade. We add something else, and then we add something else, and then we add something else, and before too long, we're just over full. And then we continue to get asked to do things, and we continue to say yes, and we don't realize that every yes we say is a no to something else, and then we end up in this place where I think most people are. And then you add in an unhealthy relationship with our phone and devices and technology, and it's a perfect storm, perfect equation for burnout.

Moira: I think that's true, that people, you're saying even if you say to people, especially your loved ones, no, I can't that. Or you say, this is my example, especially my mom, because she can't do stuff. So she's asking all the time, and I have to really, really create healthy bags because every time that she sees me, and she lives in the lower space of our home and we've been caretakers for her for quite some time now, that, say, I just came down to sit with you for a minute or bring you a cup of coffee, and she'll have a list of things to do, and I'm saying no, we do not talk about that right now. You put it down on a paper because I want to help. But the other side, if I. That's that yes and no to something else, meaning something that would be good for me. I love your word with the joyous. I was speaking with Cliff the other day about your book and about you. And when we were on our last station, we had our calendars with us in our book. That's all. And we started write a word of the day each day. And we were thinking the other day, I asked him, he said, I like that joy is my word for the day because you mentioned joy and that focus. What is your word this year for yourself, Eric? You talk a little bit about your and word in different years. What is your word for 2024?

Eric: My word for this?

Moira: Two words.

Eric: Yeah. My word for this year is believe. So, I have pivoted a little bit and my word is believe. So, part of that came from the show. Ted Lasso, I'm not sure if you have watched that at all. It's kind of a worldwide phenomenon, but I think we have a choice. We always have a choice. And we choose fear and doubt, or we can choose faith, hope and belief, and we always have that choice. There are very few things that we control in this life, but one of the things that we control is our response. And we can choose faith, hope and belief. And I sign my emails good days ahead, and that is because I have retrained my brain to think that way, that good days are ahead, because it is that important to me to have that mindset, because if I don't have that mindset, then I can't share that mindset with other people. People. So, I believe that good days are ahead. They're not going to accidentally happen to us. We're going to have to have the right habits and systems in place to get there. But I do, I do believe that good days are ahead.

Moira: I know that you wrote that and thank you for your book at the front. So, I thought that was very, very cool. When you talk that you know about hope, you also talk about this false sense of urgency that you had for a big part of your life again, and do you feel like people are like they have to get this done, they have to get that done? Or again, is this, this part of being more present and just stopping and being in the moment and kind of like just putting pause and doing a reset for our lives?

Eric: Yeah, I really like concept of the false sense of urgency. I think it's something that really rings true with people when I explain it to them. So really basic way to describe it is the false sense of urgency is a background app that runs in our brain. So, we all understand background apps that run on our phone. They just kind of run in the background and they do their thing, but they suck power from our phone and they can be troublesome if we don't address them in our lives. The false sense of urgency is the voice of should that's always running. And my dad taught me I would use the word should a lot, especially when we practice together. I should have done this, I should have done that. And he said, Eric, don't should on yourself. It's messy.

Moira: Yes.

Eric: And so, because of that, I have tried very intentionally to be aware of when the false sense of urgency is bothering me. A lot of times it bothers me on Sunday afternoons. Sunday afternoons are usually a time where I like to rest and, and just breathe and get ready for the next week and just kind of not have a lot of things going on. But the false sense of urgency reminds me that I can't sit still. I have things I have to do. I should be doing this. I should be doing this. It's not a good time to rest. You got to always be doing something, something productive. Go, go, go, do, do, do. And so, I think we’ve all faced that at some point. If we can silence that, I think were more likely to live a life of fulfillment and a life where we can balance restful time and productive time. But if we always listen to that voice, then we don’t find any peace. Were always trying to figure out what needs to be done. Yes, there always will be something that we could do. But wisdom is sorting out what are the things that actually need to be done versus the false urgencies.

Moira: I like that. Your father was very wise.

Eric: Yes.

Moira: And for you to hear that, I always say, when I was trained in NLP many, many years ago, and where I met my husband in that course, there's should, there's could would. But that's back to choice, that you could do something that way. It's not, you know, there's, if you use the should, who's saying that it's usually an external thing in your head and you could do that. Or back to choice. And I like that, that we have a choice point in every moment of what we want to do. And that's back to the presence. If we're really present and aware in the moment, what do we want to do next? I know for us, we were on a lake. And one of the things we do is we go down to the dog and we have a glass of wine around 5530, and we. We fish. And our lake is very low this year, and it doesn't matter if we get fish. It's just so relaxed just sitting there with the rod. And one of those moments that you were talking about before. Yeah, that's a. I know how, yeah.

Eric: It’s a great strategy. It's a. It's a great thing to do. And I. Since you started to do that regularly, then your body craves that and your mind craves that, and you're very drawn to it. So, when you start to create those habits of self care, that ends up being what your body wants over other things so we can retrain ourselves. So, I love that you have done that. That's a great habit.

Moira: The other thing that came before I read your book, but also it reinforced it for me. So, thank you. Was the Sabbath, Sunday, and that we used to have our family dinner every Sunday. I would cook and everybody up and maybe we play scrabble with mom or something, but it was becoming a lot before I started my week to do that every Sunday. And so, I switched it to Saturday for the family. And that Sunday is my day to do whatever I want, be with the family garden, be with Cliff, whatever I want to do. And it's really given me, it's created a really beautiful, restful state just to be and. Yeah, so that was another thing I really joy and the Sabbath was two things, among other things I got from your book. I know that. Yes. Thank you. I know that you said that we're all created for impact here and agree we're here to experience life and really be present. I really don't think, you know, that there really is the past or the future. There's really now. That's the gift they talk about in the moment, which I agree with. Doesn't mean about not planning for the future, like, whatever we're planning. Like you said, we have something on the calendar which is important, that we look forward to, or there's things that happened in the past and how do we look at it to work through that? But for people to find out their big why, you know, do you have a way to teach people to find their why? And, you know, because you talk about getting clear on the what is important, why it's important, and then how they can make a plan to move forward, make an impact, really embrace their purpose is a big question. But I know people are always asking that, what is my purpose?

Eric: Yeah. And of course, as you know, that's not something that is very easy to cover in a short answer. But no, no, but. But what I love to do is everybody's why is very unique. It really is very unique. And so, to. To be able to get there, one of the things that I have my clients do first is I have them define what success looks like in certain. In the current season.

Moira: Perfect.

Eric: What is so common is that we just chase everything. I was an everything chaser, and so I taught some things, but I was all over the place. And it's so important that we get clear on first what success looks like. And once we get clear on the things that we want, then we start asking deeper questions on what we want, and that helps get to our why. So, it's something that takes some time, but I think if people are like, okay, that's all great, but how do I really start to work towards this? And I would say the way I like to do this is I'll get a big, big piece of paper, kind of. We call them poster board. It's what we always did. Projects on school, growing up. And then right at the top, I write define success, and then I put different columns on there. So, personally, professionally, spiritually, define all of those, and relationally, so all four of those, put those in different columns, and then go to work on defining what success looks like in each of those. So, relationally, what does success look like with your significant other or spouse? What does success look like with your friends, with your colleagues at work, with all the people you interact with? What does success look like for you in the workplace? What does success look like for you personally? And if you really take some time, and I'm talking probably hours on that, then you will a long ways down the path of figuring out what's important to you. And once you figure that out, it's a lot easier to transition into figuring out why it's important to you.

Moira: Thank you. And that can also change in the different parts of our life as we get older. You know, as you know, you're 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, things change in our life, so that why can be tweaked a bit or change a bit, and that's okay.

Eric: It is okay. In fact, I recommend to people that they do this exercise annually because our lives change. Yeah. And our circumstances sure as heck changed. There was a time when you did not have your mom living with you and caring for her, and you probably had a different definition of success than you did when she moved in with you. And that's okay. But it's a lot of times we work on, just like we work on those outdated soundtracks, we work on outdated operating systems and outdated wines. And so, its important that we readdress those in the current season of life so that we can know what’s important to us in that season. Yes.

Moira: And I love the seasons of life. I know when I studied again with NLP, Tony Robbins talks about what you do in each season. And right now, were coming up a little bit quicker than we want from the summer with cooler evenings and that. But it also, you know, you put on a sweater or when you're sitting outside having dinner on the deck or you come in and you just get cozy in a blanket and read a book. Like it's just. And with work too, what you're doing with your work, your physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and financial life. So that's wonderful. So, what is a wisdom gem that you would like to leave with our listeners today? What would that big wisdom gem? And that's a big question in itself. What do you think that would be, Eric? What would you like people listening to this show? And it's all about creating and living your best life. And you're very much about the best version of our life and healthy, wealthy, wise and our health and well being. What would you like to leave?

Eric: Yeah, I would like to leave people thinking about how we're taking care of ourselves. Because I will tell you, my burnout equation every time I look back on it forensically, is that I was over committed, which means I had too many things on my plate. But even more importantly than that, I wasn't taking care of myself. So, I'd like everyone every day to ask themselves, how am I taking care of myself today? What if one thing that I am doing to take care of myself today, because if you take 15 minutes a day, five days a week to take care of yourself, you have over 60 hours of self care each year. And how much better do you think your life could potentially be next year at this time if you take 60 hours to take care of yourself and it really doesn't take away from anything else?

Moira: Yes, I love that because you talked about the self awareness growth starts there, the 1%, by knowing in the present moment where you're at. So that's very powerful. Just each day to do that and how that accumulates. That's beautiful wisdom, Eric, share with our audience the gift that you would like to give to our audience today. And I know already we're going to put in the link for the one you talked about earlier. I think 150 ways to look to yourself or, you know, so that you prevent burnout not going down that path. And I wanted to do something with your book.

Eric: Yeah. So, I have. So, there's a couple different things. There is a link for a bonus chapter to the book, which I think is a really important chapter, but that is available on my website. Also, I have a five-day knockback burnout challenge that I would like to like to extend to people. Burnout is a tricky thing and a lot of people aren't willing to say to other people that they're burned out. So, I've created challenge to work through to help people wherever they're at on their journey. So that's a couple of things that I'd like to give to people that they can tools that they can use right away.

Moira: Perfect. We'll put the link to you, those guests below in the show notes, and thank you for your generosity. Eric, thank you for today. Sharing from your heart and soul used to mind overcoming burnout and winning in the now. Namaste.

Eric: Same to you.

Moira: Thank you.

Outro: Thank you for listening to the Heart Soul Wisdom podcast with Moira Sutton. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Please join our community@moirasutton.com and continue the discussion on our Facebook page. Create the life you love. You will be part of a global movement connecting with other heart centered people who are consciously creating the life they love on their own terms. Together, we can raise our consciousness for the greater good of humanity and for our planet.