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Welcome to Human Bandwidth, expanding your capacity for work, leadership, and life.
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I'm Dr. Tiffany McBean, and this podcast is for people who are committed,
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capable, and deeply invested in making a difference, but sometimes find themselves running on empty.
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For years, we've talked about burnout as if the solution is simply better self-care,
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or learning how to manage stress.
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But what if the deeper issue is capacity?
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What if the environments we live and work in, the expectations we carry,
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and the systems around us are constantly drawing from our bandwidth without
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giving us opportunities to restore it?
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This podcast explores how individuals and organizations can create sustainable success.
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When there is sustainable success, people don't just perform well,
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they have the capacity to thrive.
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And so I remember a few years ago juggling many hats.
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I was working on my final defense for my dissertation while mentoring doctoral
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students that were in the early stages of their program.
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I was preparing high school students for their state exams, and my youngest
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was a senior preparing for college.
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To top it off, I was heavily involved in my church.
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So you might ask, how did you have capacity to juggle so many balls?
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Now, don't get me wrong.
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When you're doing a dissertation, it's best practice to limit the amount of
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activities and responsibilities you're engaged in so you can really focus on the project.
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After all, you don't want to be in a doctoral program for longer than you need to be.
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But capacity to engage in the areas to which you've been called differs from person to person.
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Perhaps you have a similar experience of juggling many balls and wearing many hats.
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Maybe you are relocating while planning a wedding, or maybe meeting or creating
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a new team while doing on-the-job training,
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or maybe you are completing a degree while building a business,
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Maybe you're serving in your church while taking care of a family.
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Maybe you are showing up for your friendship circle while navigating personal crisis.
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As high-capacity leaders, we're involved in multiple arenas simultaneously, and that's no easy feat.
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Unfortunately, many leaders work to depletion when their loads and limits are not congruent.
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And this means many leaders end up exhausted or burned out.
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The demands placed on them, that's their loads, don't match their capacity or
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their boundaries or their limits.
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There's a misalignment. And instead of adjusting, many keep pushing until they're depleted.
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And I know what that feels like.
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I didn't always have a great system of managing my load.
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I remember being a classroom teacher, supporting seventh graders with comprehension,
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writing, and sharing their ideas in an English language arts class.
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And the pressure, believe me, was real.
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At home and at work, and I didn't stop to assess my load or my limit.
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I don't even know how I did that at the time.
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Instead, I just kept going, doing all the things, all the things that were placed
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on my lap to accomplish in my professional life, in my personal life,
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and believe me, I was burned out.
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Not only was it physically and mentally demanding, it was also emotionally draining.
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I rarely took the time to recover.
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And we all know that sleep is not sufficient recovery when you're experiencing burnout.
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But before we go any further, let's take a quick break.
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And I'm going to tell you who this season of Human Bandwidth Expanding Your
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Capacity for Work, Leadership, and Life is brought to you by.
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I want to give a huge shout out to Mind Food International.
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MindFood International is an HR consulting firm working across the Caribbean,
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the United States, and Canada.
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The company was founded by UN Ambassadors Natasia and Jamar Wright.
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And their focus is simple, but very ambitious.
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Develop people, build leadership capacity, and drive transformation that actually holds.
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So if this conversation about expanding your capacity is landing for you,
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go connect with MindFood International.
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It's worth seeing how they are doing this work at scale in organizations and across nations.
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So, all right, let's get back to the conversation. Burnout is not just about
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Load full transcript
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tired people, but about the lack of sustainable systems.
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Earlier, I asked, how does anyone have capacity to juggle so many balls?
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Well, here's how I do it.
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I manage my load while addressing my limit.
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I don't stretch past my limit.
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Because that's where depletion lands. It lands and it's not self-honoring.
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Know that you should stop before you get depleted.
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Also, your load will feel different on any given day. On one day,
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the load may feel manageable.
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And another day, that same load might appear burdensome.
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We must navigate the changes that are happening in our lives,
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our work, and our team to adjust the limit.
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You have to be the person that can stand under the weight of the responsibility that you're carrying.
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People from the Christian faith, they know that God's strength is made perfect
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when they feel most weak.
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We know that for God's design to be accomplished through us,
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we must persevere in Him and prepare for the pressure.
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You see, I've done extensive research in instructional practice in schools,
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And one of the stark findings is that an embedded system helps teachers alleviate
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burnout and teacher-related stress.
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But that's a conversation for another time because today I want to share what
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can happen when leaders are not intentional about managing work,
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managing leadership, and managing their life to prevent or address burnout.
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There can be chronic fatigue, strained relationships, loss of creativity and joy, just to name a few.
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It's really hard for high-capacity leaders to get disengaged because much of
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what we do gives us the mental energy that we crave.
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However, our clarity and the quality of our decisions are negatively affected
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when we experience burnout.
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So here is one takeaway that you can implement right away.
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Examine your load. Think through what this month or this week requires of you.
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Then process your limit. Don't wait to feel it in your body because high-capacity
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leaders already know what the energy drainers are.
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So based on what this month requires or what this week requires,
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cognitively process what your limits will be and plan ahead.
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Will this mean more frequent breaks? Will it mean rearranging your schedule
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to place more challenging interactions at a different time of the day when you're most energetic?
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Taking stock of your loads and limits is a sustainable system.
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One way to build capacity is by managing your load and your limits.
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Because you see, capacity is not just about how much you do.
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It's about how well your system supports what you do.
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I'm going to say that again for the people at the back.
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Capacity isn't about how much you're able to do. It's about how well your system
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supports you as you do the work you've been created by God to do.
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There's a scripture in Luke 14 and 28 that says, for which of you intending
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to build a tower does not sit down first and count the cost,
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whether he has enough to finish it.
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Here, Jesus is emphasizing intentional evaluation before action.
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And that's what I'm inviting you to do. Examine your load, understand your limit.
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So whatever your area of service, whether you're a teacher, a leader,
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a founder, or someone responsible for supporting a team, the question is the same.
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Are you creating environments where people can sustain excellence?
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Because the future of work will not only depend on what people can accomplish.
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It will depend on whether people have the capacity to continue accomplishing it.
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See you next time on Human Bandwidth, expanding your capacity for work, leadership, and life.