Resilience Is Built On Sleep, Sunlight, And Self-Talk w/ Karen Andrews

What if the most powerful performance tool isn’t another tactic but a kinder inner voice? We sit down with clinical psychologist Karen Andrews to blend psychotherapy with entrepreneurship and uncover how high performers can chase big goals without torching their well-being. From scheduling rest as a priority to using NSDR for quick nervous system resets, Karen gives practical steps that fit real calendars and real pressures.

We explore why meditation isn’t one-size-fits-all and how guided practices protect a fragile mind. Karen tackles two common mindsets head-on: “I’m fine, nothing’s wrong” and “I can’t face the past.” Her take is refreshingly grounded—therapy can be a gym for self-awareness before crisis hits, and trauma processing doesn’t have to mean reliving the worst moments. She walks us through brainworking recursive therapy (BWRT) and contrasts it with EMDR, explaining how these approaches interrupt the brain’s replay loop so you can reclaim focus and calm.

The heart of the conversation is self-talk. Driven people often run on anxiety disguised as ambition. Karen shows how becoming your own best friend rewires how you interpret stress, setbacks, and everyday friction, which changes behavior and outcomes. We rethink balance as alignment built through tiny tweaks, not heroic overhauls: frequent short breaks, planned downtime, and habit stacking that sticks. We also map early signs of burnout and the simple guardrails that protect empathy and performance. The fundamentals matter more than hacks—sleep, hydration, nutritious food, sunlight, movement, and connection are the true competitive advantages.

If sustainable success, resilience, and mental fitness matter to you, this conversation delivers practical tools and a humane mindset you can use today. Subscribe, share this episode with a friend who runs hot, and leave a review with the one habit you’ll change this week.

Chapters

• 1:17 Setting The Stage: Mind And Business
• 2:09 Meet Karen: Structure And Scheduling
• 4:48 NSDR, Yoga Nidra, And Nervous System Reset
• 6:48 Meditation Myths And Safety
• 10:35 Slowing Down And Reflecting
• 13:58 Therapy As Ongoing Mental Fitness
• 15:22 What Mental Health Really Means
• 18:08 “I’m Fine” And Avoiding Trauma Work
• 21:06 Fast Trauma Tools: BWRT And EMDR
• 23:01 Entrepreneurs, Anxiety, And Drive
• 25:36 Self-Talk As A Competitive Edge
• 28:30 Redefining Balance With Tiny Tweaks
• 31:14 Burnout Signs And Guardrails
• 34:20 The Foundations: Sleep, Sunlight, Connection
• 37:05 Daily Awareness And Grace
• 39:32 One Mindset Shift: Be Your Own Ally
• 41:00 Where To Find Karen And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:50

Welcome back to Mind Force, the podcast where we get real about resilience, mindset, and what it takes to thrive in today's world. I'm your host, Nate Scheer, and today's episode blends two worlds that don't always talk to each other: psychotherapy and entrepreneurship. We're joined by a guest who's not only walked the professional path but understands the psychology foundation behind sustainable success. Together, we'll unpack the mental health principles that apply to everyone, no matter your profession, the real life pressures of running a business or building a career while staying mentally strong, and the core fundamentals like sleep, sunlight, and connection that so many overlook in this pursuit of high performance. This is the guest introduction. Let's start with you. Who are you? What do you do, and what keeps you grounded in both the business world and the world of mental health?

SPEAKER_01: 1:42

I'm Karen Andrews. I'm from South Africa and I've been living in Dubai since 2014. I'm a clinical psychologist since 2009. Um and I'm not sure if specialize is exactly the right word, but I but my favorite clients are high-performing entrepreneurs and professionals. And what was the next part of your question? Keeping things grounded.

SPEAKER_00: 2:09

Yeah, what are uh simple habits that keep you grounded?

SPEAKER_01: 2:12

I would say that I schedule everything. Which sounds, you know, maybe tiring for some people. I think it I I don't I don't necessarily recommend this for everybody, but it depends on your personality time. If you're someone who likes structure and who feels comforted by having structure, then scheduling everything, including your breaks, your off time, your exercise, your quality time with your kids, can make a huge amount of difference to your overall well-being.

SPEAKER_00: 2:42

Do you have a practice where you plan out the week or the month or how far in advance, or do you sit down and you know plan Monday through Friday? Or what does calendar building look like for you?

SPEAKER_01: 2:53

I have allotted days and sections on days where I see clients. Breaks are already scheduled, exercises already scheduled, and I s and I mean there is some flexibility, but I fit my work vice versa. But I try I try to keep the priority around that my that work is incredibly important, but it doesn't it doesn't prevent me from living my life, the other aspects of my life.

SPEAKER_00: 3:31

Yeah, I mean I think it's a good reminder. And like you said, maybe it doesn't work for everybody, but I've heard the joke at work a lot. Like if it's not on my calendar, it doesn't exist. And it's kind of a joke, but in all jokes, there's always a little bit of truth. And so you need to have it there so that you can remember it and you know, plan the space. I had a boss, you know, as an executive person that was like running his calendar and whatnot, and it was kind of funny because we built in lunch and things like that. It was kind of funny at first, like, oh, we blocked the hour, but if you don't, things will fill it. So people will walk in, they'll need to do stuff, there's always more to be done. And so I think that is a good and good frame of mind to be able to schedule those things and put them on there. Your first uh warm-up question is what's something from your personal routine, maybe a simple habit that keeps your mind sharp but might surprise people?

SPEAKER_01: 4:20

I really love to do yoga nidra or non-sleep deep rest protocols. And I do at least one and often up to three or four every single day. Sometimes between clients, I have a four-minute one that I particularly like. It's just it's a it's a simple guided body scan, and it is massively rejuvenating. It regulates your central nervous system. It's like it reboots your mind. And I think it's it's really easy. You can find it anywhere on YouTube. It's free and something that really works.

SPEAKER_00: 4:53

Okay. Pausing, getting some breaths, you know, centering yourself. That sounds uh good. What do you think the biggest myth is behind meditation? I feel like a lot of times people hear it and they're thinking you have to sit in a certain way, cross your feet, listen to certain music. What what do you think the biggest myth is with some of these practices?

SPEAKER_01: 5:15

But a lot of people don't realize that meditation can be quite dangerous. To a fragile mind, it can be very dangerous. I recommend guided meditations because those are less psychologically challenging and less exposing to the psyche than I I think everyone thinks of meditation as something completely safe and and and um what's the word? That something something that doesn't have risk. But in fact, sitting and simply focusing on the breath, which is the most traditional form of meditation, is surprisingly challenging. Have you tried it, Nate?

SPEAKER_00: 6:00

I have. Not nearly as much as probably I should. Uh as much as it has come up on the show. I need to make sure I'm taking some of these practices and things. I feel like my mind is a very sporadic and active place. So I have tried some of the things like I tried, what is it? The salt bath where like you float in the deprivation tank. And that was I don't know. I didn't actually enjoy it, honestly. It was supposed to be relaxing and things like that. And maybe the more you go, maybe the one-off time wasn't enough to get ready. But I felt like yeah, there was just too much going on. The removing of all the other senses like hyperactivated my brain, which may be good in the proper way, but yeah, it was kind of terrifying.

SPEAKER_01: 6:44

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And I imagine if you had a very fragile sense of self and or or an incipient psychosis waiting to kind of break through, um, it can be really, really scary. So yeah, I think I think a guided meditation is is pretty safe. You know, you're listening to someone's voice, they are directing your attention. It's pretty safe, pretty relax pretty relaxing. But a lot of people feel like failures because they feel like they can't meditate. But there are multiple ways of meditating. If you have a just like most of the high achievers and high performers I work with, you have a busy schedule and a busy mind, then maybe more um meditations would be better for you. Like going for a lovely walk in nature and really focusing on what you see, what you smell, and being in the present moment would be actually more helpful to you than attempting to sit still and quiet in your mind.

SPEAKER_00: 7:45

Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. I feel like nature and you know, things like that have been super recharging. I've lived in Guam and Japan, and I'm out in the UK now. And so seeing the different, you know, power powers of nature is uh super recharging to me. I didn't really notice it as a kid, but the older I get, like that's really where walking outside or scuba diving or skydiving or a list of different activities or whatnot. But being outside and the fresh air and everything that's been created is just super, super recharging for me. So yeah, I would agree. I think being active and outside is probably more along the lines for me. Um before we go any deeper, let's flip the mic for a second. If you could ask me one question, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01: 8:26

Aaron Powell You've done a lot of podcasts and you've interviewed a large number of people. I'm wondering what's been your biggest takeaway?

SPEAKER_00: 8:35

My biggest takeaway, I think, would be probably slowing down. Slowing down andor processing. I think that's been the common theme. We've had you know meditation mentioned a massive amount of times, and probably right beside it, either tight or maybe behind it is journaling. And so I think the ability to slow down, process your thoughts, and actually organize and take care of the thoughts. I think in today's world, we're faster, faster, and like you said, high performers. I think you know it's even worse. We want to get more done, and it's almost like a badge of honor to work extra late and extra hard and extra busy. And you know, we have fast food that can be delivered in an instant, basically. You can Google anything. Everything's like faster, but there's not a lot of times where we slow down. And so I think that'd probably be the biggest takeaway is that reflection. I try to do a better job of it, you know, every week and continue to work on it. Like, what did that day look like? Did that day go well? If it didn't go well, what can we work on? And then also like closing out weeks, looking back on Friday, you know, what the things I got done and why did I not get the things I want to get done? Was it because I couldn't? Did I need to hand that to someone else? Was it not at my level? Did someone else need to handle that? And try to process those things. But I think that's probably the biggest takeaway is slowing down, which is super counterintuitive. I feel like in 2025, like slowing down seems like the worst thing, and you're lazy or you know, whatever these negative terms are. So I think that'd probably be the biggest. Slow down and reflect.

SPEAKER_01: 10:07

Do you think that I love that? I love that. I mean, as a therapist, what I find is that yeah, I mean, all these hacks and techniques about how to slow down don't work for everybody. It's it it's not about what works for everybody, it's about what works for you. And therapy itself. Many of my clients use therapy as this reflection practice. It's just they they don't they maybe don't come every week, but they come to check in to be reminded to reflect, to think about the couple of weeks gone past, and just take an hour and sit and be with yourself with the spotlight, you know, turned inwards.

SPEAKER_00: 10:56

It's very I think it's a good reminder that everyone's different too. I feel like for some reason we like checklists or things that fit everybody or solutions where it works for everybody, but humans are just massively different and complex. And I don't know if we ever truly value or like, you know, reflect on how different we all are. We want to all, I mean, we have a lot of similarities in a lot of ways, but uh in a lot of other ways we're we're completely different. Another part is, you know, trying to reflect and and think of some of those things. Because I think a lot of times, like I was super excited when I sat down and named the show and included mental fitness in the name of the show and very intentional with mental fitness because mental health seems to have this like negative connotation. And it's like where you go when things are bad and it's a it's a building or it's a person. But the fitness aspect of it should be ongoing. You go on the good days, you go on the bad days, you go on all the days. And so like you said, whatever interval that is, once a week, once a month, it should just be that reminder. And you go all the time the same way you hit the treadmill to stay, you know, fit. You you don't wait. And I think that's one thing I want to try to get through to all the listeners and whatnot, because of all the stories of the people I I've talked to, it feels like it's always the worst case scenario, the worst day of their life, the spiral out of control before the help. But I don't understand why it needs to be that way. We should be able to talk. I think the stigma is clearing up. You know, it takes a while to clear out, but I think we're getting there.

SPEAKER_01: 12:30

I would hope so. It's definitely better than it was, but I still run a lot across a lot of stigma. And most people seem to think that you come to therapy when you're in crisis. And in fact, that is usually the reason that my clients will seek a session with me is because they're in some kind of crisis situation. And it's a pity because it's also about personal growth, and personal growth exactly as you say, it's all the time. And it's exactly like like people think of physical health and mental health as being somehow separate. And yet, how can they possibly? I mean, your brain is a physical organ housed inside your physical body.

SPEAKER_00: 13:09

I know. I've I've said almost the exact same thing on the show before. I'm super confused. It's inside of your body. I I don't understand. But we will talk about our workout routines all the time, back and bys, and I'm doing this, and it's Thursday and Tuesday and this and that. But if you talk about mental health, don't want to talk about why it's the same thing. I don't quite understand. But we'll move into your first pillar, which is psychology and psychotherapy. What do you think is the one misconception about therapy or mental health you'd love to correct?

SPEAKER_01: 13:40

I think that the biggest misconception is that mental health is about being in a good frame of mind all of the time. Or about being positive or happy. Because of course it's not. It's just like being in good physical health doesn't mean you never get sick.

SPEAKER_00: 13:59

Or get hurt.

SPEAKER_01: 14:00

Or get hurt or get injured. Yes, yes. I mean, life happens. And good having good mental health is more about having like a a big range of emotions that you experience in a relevant way. So when you go through a loss or a bereavement, you're sad and you should be sad. There's nothing wrong with being sad. When you're promoted at work, you're proud of yourself and you feel like a peacock and you're celebratory. And when you're playing with your kids, you're goofy and you're silly and you're ridiculous. Yes. Like so you're authentically yourself experiencing a wide range of emotions. When one emotion becomes the dominant one, it's often a pointed to there being some kind of issue. And so I think mental health, like physical health, is more about resilience. It's about the person who is healthy will probably recover more quickly from an illness or an injury and will bounce back. And maybe perhaps will not get as ill or will not suffer the effects as badly. Similarly, if you're mentally healthy, if something terrible happens, you may not be affected as badly and you will come back and recover more quickly.

SPEAKER_00: 15:13

Yeah, it makes sense. You got those tools in the tool bag. You know, nothing's doesn't mean nothing's gonna come your way. You know, stuff is still gonna come that direction, but you're able to, you know, take care of it, process it, and you know, get through it a little bit better. I'd like to ask you two questions that are like trends that I've seen, you know, back to trends. The first one is what would you say to someone that says, you know, I don't really need to. My life's been pretty good, you know, I haven't had any car accidents, I haven't had any losses, I haven't had any large things, I'm I'm good. What do you say to that person?

SPEAKER_01: 15:48

That's wonderful. I I'm really happy for you and I hope that that continues. But I would also, do you mean if they arrived in therapy in a conversation?

SPEAKER_00: 15:59

It sounds like a lot of people are like, I'm not gonna go because I don't have anything to work on.

SPEAKER_01: 16:06

Then I would be interested. I would definitely be interested in exploring how that could possibly be. I mean, we all have blind spots and we all have difficulties and we all have challenges. It's just impossible that everything's absolutely hunky dory, great. It doesn't happen. Maybe you're blocking something out or you're you're and I'd I'd I'd be interested in asking that person like would your family and friends agree? Would your best friend agree? Would your colleagues and the people who report to you, would they feel strongly that you were absolutely calm and steadfast and I don't know, had it all together? If they do, and if that is really you, then awesome, congratulations. That is a wonderful place to be, and you should probably write a book about it. Some people do have really positive kind of demeanors and they they just upbeat personalities and they they carry the weight of things that happen lightly. And of course, those people exist, and that is wonderful, but unlikely that I would see them in my therapy practice, I guess. Um But if somebody I guess I could say to that person, well, are you interested in becoming even better?

SPEAKER_03: 17:25

That's good.

SPEAKER_01: 17:26

Would you like to have a bigger impact? Would you like to would you like to push yourself out of your comfort zone and see what more you could do or achieve? And if they said no, I'd be like, Well, that's that's totally fine. It takes all types to make a world.

SPEAKER_00: 17:44

Yeah, that's true. So that's one side. The other side I think I've heard is I don't want to because I don't you know there was trauma and I don't want to process, I don't want to relive, so it's gonna be painful. What do you say to the ones that it's I don't wanna go through the pain again?

SPEAKER_01: 18:03

I would say that is a justified fear and caution. Um it can be therapy can be very uncovering. Therapists and therapists need to be careful to not re-traumatize somebody by getting them to go through an incredibly painful event or story which without having the the the tools to hold, contain, and protect that person from being traumatized again. Because every time we tell the story, it is true that it actually almost happens again for us, right? We we re-experience the horror and the helplessness or the fear, whatever we felt in that moment. So, yes, I would say that that fear is justified. However, for most people who've been traumatized, they have not processed it in such a way that it doesn't come up. It does come up. It pops up, right? It comes out in nightmares and and in snappy moods with your children or your your family or your colleagues. It it comes out in maybe ways that you self, I want to say not exactly self-harm, but self-sabotage. Trauma leaves you with deep feelings of shame and unworthiness and these kind of things. So if it's coming up, it's probably it's coming up anywhere. Right? So let's bring it up in a safe space with a qualified person who deeply empathizes and also can help you to take it from where it's kind of boiling around inside you and externalize it, take it outside of you and make it into something manageable and maybe even ideally into something meaningful. Because what have you grown? I mean, what have you learned from that experience? How have you grown? How did that horrible thing? How did you overcome that? Who helped you get through that? These are the kind of questions that can really, really shift the frame on something that happened, some unpleasant or awful or terrible event that happened in your life. And good therapists also have tools, right? I s I particularly use something called brainworking recursive therapy, which is a very quick and speedy trauma technique. It's based on neuroscience and it works like in 15 or 20 minutes, and you don't even have to tell me the details of what happened.

SPEAKER_00: 20:24

How does that work exactly? Or can you give us the three-minute rundown of uh kind of how it works?

SPEAKER_02: 20:31

Sure.

SPEAKER_01: 20:32

It's like kind of it's kind of like the you know, if you imagine biting into a lemon and you vividly imagine it, you imagine bringing cutting that lemon, bringing it up to your nose, sniffing that citrusy smell, and then sinking your teeth. Your mouth should be watering if you're doing it anywhere closely. Negative events, our brains are wired towards the negative as a evolutionary self-protective strategy. And when we remember the awful things that happened, we relive them and replay them in our minds, and we actually respond as if it is happening in the now. And every time we replay the experience, we make a we we actually build a stronger neuro neurological pathway that makes your response to the trauma even stronger and even deeper. So BWRT is a protocol that seeks to disrupt that brain pattern and it does it really effectively, really simply, and I use it almost every day in my practice, actually. There are other techniques similar, things like um that people might be more familiar with, or like EMDR is a popular one.

SPEAKER_00: 21:53

The bouncing light one?

SPEAKER_01: 21:54

Yes, exactly. Yes, yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 21:57

What is it? Uh rapid eye movement? Is that what it is?

SPEAKER_01: 22:01

I can't remember. I don't I'm not certified in MDR. I chose to go the BWRT route. But it appeals to me more. Yeah, I really like it. But there but even hypnotherapy, there are various the brain spotting, there they're all kinds of trauma techniques. Most good therapists will be trained in at least one, and sometimes many.

SPEAKER_00: 22:27

I guess it goes back to your previous point of finding, you know, the right person and the right technique for you. We're all a little bit different. Your second pillar is entrepreneurship and professional growth. What do you think? What mental habits do successful entrepreneurs often have and or need to develop?

SPEAKER_01: 22:46

Entrepreneurs and professionals tend to be I can more talk about what they don't have when they're starting to do that.

SPEAKER_00: 22:52

Yeah, that works. What they need to work on.

SPEAKER_01: 22:56

What entrepreneurs and and and and all kinds of high performers, athletes not just in business, but people who succeed are often very driven. And that drive can doesn't necessarily it's not necessarily a a positive thing about leading towards a beautiful vision of success. In fact, the what I see most commonly is that it comes from a terrible deep anxiety and fear of failure and of not performing and needing to be seen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The positive part of that anxiety is that yes, it it pushed you. It pushed you to work really, really hard. Some people even do five podcasts in a week.

SPEAKER_00: 23:52

Some do, yeah. I definitely uh feel this one. And it reminds me of like the terrible term. I always hate the term like work-life balance, the one that always kind of drives me nuts because there really is no balance. That word uh doesn't really, you know, make sense. But yeah, we're we're driven.

SPEAKER_01: 24:09

But what yeah, what I what I've found is that the greatest the most helpful tool that you can have to to to manage your success is the way that you talk to yourself. And the way that you talk to yourself is reflected in your relationship with yourself and your relationship with everybody else. You know, when you're coming from a place of self-love, self-acceptance, not just the bits that you like, but the bits that you really don't like, which you cannot cut out no matter how hard you try. You speak to yourself in a different way. You can start to plate your strengths, you can become your own best friend. And maybe for you doing five podcasts in a week is actually so that maybe you can take a week off at a later point is a better work-life balance for you than for other people. And maybe the sense of celebration that you get and this the feeling of achievement and having for the entire year planned out by June is absolutely satisfying. And now you can really sit back and think about how you want to to uh plan out the rest of your year. Self-talk, it's how you talk to yourself. Because when you you know, when someone cuts in front of you and says you know, when someone yeah, when someone cuts in front of you in the queue or or in your car, you know, you your initial reaction is instantly, you know, that if you say to yourself it was so nice of you to like give him that sweet wave Or you say, or you say, That poor guy, maybe he's got a screaming baby in the car. Or he's having a fight with his wife or he's just had some really bad news, he's all over the road. The way that you talk to yourself changes everything about how you experience the moment. It changes everything about how you feel, it influences your behavior and thus actually in a way create your reality. So learning how to be your own best friend is probably the most useful possible tool that you can have as a successful person. And you can use it to even be firm with yourself. Because when you truly love yourself and you care about yourself and you're being your own best friend, you're not gonna let yourself get away with stuff. Like, as you say, your fitness, your mental fitness. You're going to hold yourself accountable, but in a loving way, in an encouraging way, not in a shaming and a negative critical way. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00: 26:53

Yeah, absolutely. It reminds me, one of my favorite books is uh Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott. And one of my favorite quotes is you're having conversations all the time, and sometimes they involve other people. And she's talking about talk, and your inner monologue is going all the time. And then every once in a while you do get to talk to other people. It also reminds me of another story. I forget if I mentioned it on the show before, but perception is so powerful. I remember there was a time I was dropping my son off at daycare. I'm going into work, I drop him off, and there's a person they're parked over the line, and I'm so frustrated. And like you said, the initial thought is this anger and how inconsiderate and they're a terrible person and all these negative thoughts. And then I go in, I drop my son off, and then I come back to the car, and that car is now gone. And I didn't realize that what I had done was I sidestepped because they were over, and now I am the car that is over the line. So the next person coming is could be just as angry and frustrated at me, the same feeling that I just had three minutes ago. I am in the exact opposite boat where I'm the perpetrator and went over the line. I didn't mean anything by it. And so I think, like you had said, trying to think through other people's shoes and grace and things like that. I I didn't mean to even do it at all. The person before me did it, really. But who knows? They were rushing, they were probably late, the daycare is crazy, you're trying to get to work. And so just pausing and kind of giving yourself grace and other people grace as well, I think is super important. But being your best, your own best friend, I think is a pretty good motto.

SPEAKER_01: 28:31

Yes, I love that. I love I love how you're framing it as giving yourself grace and giving others grace. Most people how do you Sorry.

SPEAKER_03: 28:39

Sorry.

SPEAKER_01: 28:41

I was just gonna say people are coming from a place of coming from a good place. They're coming from a place of doing the best that they can. And we haven't walked in their shoes, so we have no idea what they might be going through or why. And other people's behavior always makes sense to them, just as our behavior always makes sense to us. So I think that really helps, yeah, when you're framing how with how you respond to things according to how you frame them in the first place, your perspective.

SPEAKER_00: 29:08

Yeah. And being like a leader at work, one thing I always try to remind myself is I doubt there are very many people that show up to work to not do a good job or hurt other people. I just don't. There are people that are not great people and do hurt people, but I think the percentage is massively in the other direction. We majority of us want to help each other, take care of each other, do a good job, go home, take care of our families. And so the first initial thing, it's odd that it goes malicious for some reason. It's like, oh, they're terrible and they hate me. And what I don't think that's probably what it is, but I think everything in life is kind of about balance. So that kind of is the next question is the balance. That's something that's interesting. You said the high performers and whatnot. How do you, you know, get people or you know, counsel them on balance? Because you want them to have drive, but you also want them to protect their own well-being, their own mental health. I mean, how do you balance like having high drive, accomplishing goals that are, you know, difficult, but also like taking care of yourself and your family?

SPEAKER_01: 30:06

Well, there's there can't possibly be one right answer. I think it so much depends on what is it that you want, what do you what is it that you would love to see more of in your life? And what would you like to see less of? And then what steps can you take to make that happen? And there can be tiny steps. Like a lot of the time people think that they need to make huge changes. I'm not happy, I hate, I'm bored in my job, my marriage isn't great, whatever. They're picturing themselves, you know, getting a divorce, resigning and and moving to a beautiful island somewhere and eating coconuts. But that's not required. Often it's just tiny tweaks. Maybe your job maybe there's a there's a move that you can make within your company. Maybe it's time to think about how you could contribute in a different way. Maybe it's time to study something. I don't know. It's gonna look different depending on what you want.

SPEAKER_02: 31:03

But often it's just it's it's yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 31:08

I like that. I think it is the smaller things. I I totally agree. I think a lot of people want these monumental Herculean just massive efforts when it's really the small things. You put your shoes out the night before so you can run in the morning, or you know, these smaller.

SPEAKER_01: 31:24

Yeah, that are gonna help you. Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 31:27

You see James Clear in his book Atomic Habits, 1% better, just get a little bit better, or habit stacking, where you do one thing, you make your bed, and you feel good about making your bed, you want to do more things. We saw that from the Admiral in the Navy, I forgot what his name was, but he has the book like Make Your Bed in the Morning, and people are like, Oh, that's silly. But you get something done, you feel good, and then you want to get more stuff done. But so, you know, in all this high performers and you being surrounded with them, have you ever felt like personally burnt out or, you know, gone too hard? And do you did you learn anything from burning out?

SPEAKER_01: 31:59

Yes, indeed. I have burned out, and what I learned from that experience was that you have to I have to trust myself. And I have to trust, I have to listen to the warning signs because you don't just burn out, it's a long, slow process, and it has lots of you know, troughs, and things just kind of gradually get more and more difficult and more burdensome, and you find your ability to cope and your ability to recover from stress becoming more and more compromised over time. And you have to maintain just a healthy check-in and a healthy reflection, and you just gettle downtime. Whatever that looks like for you, and however often research would suggest that more frequent holidays are more helpful than one long holiday a year, for example. So long weekends here and there, having things to look forward to. Yeah. What I learned from from my burnout was that I can't work five days a week, 40 to 50 to 60 hours in a week. But I have clients who thrive on it. I have clients who work 60, 70, and 80 hours and are not just highly functioning, actually loving it. So, but I learned that for me, can in order to maintain my empathy, protect myself and my clients, I need to see a limited number of clients per week, for example, and to have lots of breaks and holidays scheduled in. And when I burn out, my empathy goes into overdrive. Um, some people lose their empathy, but I become overly empathic. I get far too wrapped up. I start dreaming about my clients and and I can't separate myself. As soon as I have a dream about a client, I'm like, okay, time to take a time to take a break. Other things that I do to protect myself, um in um I'm in my own personal therapy. So that's always helpful. Like a space to reflect and and yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 34:19

I think it's good that you know the signs, though. I think that goes back to our self-reflection earlier. Like you need to know the things that are popping up. And I definitely agree with the you know, more frequent vacations, especially for me. I feel like the longer you're away from work, the more you're worried about catching up. So I'd rather do the short one, get back to it, and then have something forward, something else in the future to look forward to. So I think that's probably pretty universal. You know, we're talking about everything different for everyone. Well, that one might be pretty close to across the board. Your last pillar is foundations of mental well-being. So I'm curious, you know, you got sleep, hydration, connection. Why do you think like these basic things that seem like just 101 easy stuff are often forgotten?

SPEAKER_01: 35:05

Everyone forgets these things, but it is they are so they are the they are the absolute foundations of well-being. You cannot you know, see things from another person's perspective as easily when you're tired. You can't manage your workload and be as productive or be as sharp. If you're tired, you have to sleep. You have to sleep, you have to I mean, ideally you'd be sleeping well, having decent balanced nutrition, proper hydration, sunlight, connection with nature Excuse me, and connection with others. These are these are all things that form the very basis of well-being. Oh no. Okay, you're back. Sorry, you disappeared off my screen for a second.

SPEAKER_00: 35:56

Um, can you share a time when returning to the fundamentals made the biggest difference in your mental state or performance?

SPEAKER_01: 36:05

Every day. And every day for my clients. You know, it when when I'm talking to a client and they tell me, you know, I've had a really awful week, I I was snappy with my kids, I had this issue at work, I I couldn't, I just feel so stuck, I feel so what happened?

SPEAKER_02: 36:20

Often the first question I'll ask will be like, Well, how have you been sleeping this week? And like 99 times out of a hundred, they'll be actually I've had quite a few late nights, my kids have been sick.

SPEAKER_01: 36:36

I had a big presentation, I needed to prepare, and then there was a knock-on effect. I flew, I had to travel, um, I had to adjust to a time zone. Well, you know, maybe you need to give yourself some extra grace because you're you can't build a house, a good strong house on anything less than a solid foundation. And these are literally the foundation. You can't expect yourself, you can't have such high expectations of yourself that you will perform perfectly and beautifully when you're missing out on one of these foundational aspects. So I think always being mindful, having daily practices. And the thing is, it's not just a oneself, right? It's not like you just, it's not like you can sleep enough so that you never need to sleep again. You always need to sleep enough. And if you don't sleep enough, then you need to be ready and give yourself grace and be like, well, today I'm tired. So what can I do to make it a little bit easier for myself? How can I maybe fit in a quick NSDR to help me catch up a little bit? Or maybe I can take just a 10-minute power nap in my lunch break. You may need to practice more self-care on those days because every single day you're building your house anew.

SPEAKER_00: 37:53

Yeah, I think it's important to know where you're at. It reminds me uh Coach Bennett. He's one of my favorite coaches in the Nike Run Club app. So he does guided runs in there. And he talks about this where he's like, you need to be aware of what's going on so that if your run's not going the way you want it to, you're not tearing yourself down and being, you're like, oh, I had a heavy dinner, I didn't sleep as well. Like you said, the kids were sick, so I've been up. Like that run might be a little slower. It's not you don't throw the whole run out and like it's a waste, it's it's useless, like I hate it because it's slower. You just know because you had tacos for dinner and you ate too much or you know, whatever he talks about in there. But being aware, I think, is the most important part. You're not gonna just give up. You just know that that's kind of where you're at with that given point. But that is kind of funny. Uh so good reminder for everyone out there, you know, sleep, drink your water. It's kind of funny, like, oh, I got a headache, and someone will ask you, Have you had any water today? And everyone's always like, no. Saying, well, maybe you should start with the water. Might be why you have a headache. Um, but those are good reminders. Well, we talked about a lot of good things through the three pillars. I'd like to try to bring it all together. If our listeners walked away with one mindset shift today, what do you hope it is?

SPEAKER_01: 39:05

The path to becoming the best version of yourself is the path of loving and accepting yourself and becoming your own most loyal ally and greatest supporter and the person who takes care of you the best. People tend to imagine self-care as being all about going for a massage. Although I mean, that is also good, and I'm a huge fan of massages. But it's not it's not just one thing. It's gonna be whatever's the right thing for you, and you know the right thing for you if you allow yourself to step into that role for yourself. Loving yourself is the path to being the best part of you.

SPEAKER_00: 39:51

Be your own best friend. I think that's an awesome slogan. I think if you just mantra that in the back of your head, it'll push away a lot of the negative thoughts. Well, this has been a deep and practical conversations. Thank you so much for sharing both your heart and your expertise. Before we wrap up, where can listeners find your work, connect with you, and learn a little bit more?

SPEAKER_01: 40:13

Thank you so much, Nate. It was lovely to talk to you. And if anyone wants to find me, I have a YouTube channel. It is called Karen Andrews Psychology. And you can find me on Instagram and Facebook. Probably the easiest is YouTube. I also have a website called Karen Andrews Psychology.

SPEAKER_00: 40:33

Perfect. Well, to everyone tuning in, if you got value from today's episode, share it with a friend, leave a review, and let us know your favorite takeaway. This is mine for. Stay tuned, stay grounded, and we'll catch you next time. I love you all. See ya.