The incredible Jules Galloway and I had a very candid conversation on the Natupreneur Movement podcast recently where we revealed the 3 sneaky things that can lead to burnout without you even noticing them!
About Jules Galloway
If you aren’t familiar with Jules Galloway, she is a passionate naturopath, speaker, and podcaster.
Health wasn’t always Jules’ priority. She lived a party lifestyle for over a decade and later threw herself into her career to the point of burnout. But when it began to take its toll on her mind and body, she ditched the busy inner-city life for a fresh start in the Byron Bay hinterland.
Diagnosed with Pyrrole disorder, adrenal issues, and a couple of pesky gene mutations thrown in for good measure, Jules had to learn the importance of nourishing herself – using whole foods, supplements, happiness, gratitude, and a good dose of humour.
With over 10 years of clinical experience and an interest in complex cases and functional medicine, Jules has made it her mission to help exhausted, busy women find their shine again. She’s guided hundreds of people through her eCourses, and also sees clients individually – mostly online. Her podcast gets thousands of downloads every month and has been in the top 10 in the iTunes charts.
Jules is also the Fiji Nutrition Coordinator for Involvement Volunteers International, where she runs a public health and diabetes prevention program. She takes teams of medical and nutrition volunteers to both the mainland and remote areas of Fiji four times per year.
When she’s not helping her tribe to become healthier, Jules can be found surfing, hanging out with her husband, adopting (yet more) rescue dogs, doing yoga and pilates, or walking the famous Byron Bay lighthouse track.
You can find Jules at JulesGalloway.com but for now I invite you to tune into this podcast episode, or read the transcript below for the juicy insight she shared about burnout.
Jules will be also gracing our stage and sharing her wisdom with all of us at NatEx!
T: Hey everybody! Welcome to another amazing episode of the Natupreneur Movement. We are excited today to chat with the amazing and incomparable Jules Galloway. Hello!
J: Hello! So good to be back.
T: I love it. And I’m so pumped that you are coming back to NatEx 2020 as well so we can see your smiling, wonderful face and hear your nuggets of wisdom, because you have so many.
J: Thank you! I’m so excited. It’s not long now.
T: So for those of you who don’t know, Jules is an incredible practitioner who predominantly works online but also has an extraordinary dispensary that opened up last year in 2019. She also has an incredible podcast if you haven’t tuned in yet, which is a straight down the line, straight-talking naturopath. I hope we’re going to have more of those conversations today, Jules.
J: Absolutely. I would expect nothing less from both of us.
Getting Into Naturopathy
T: For those of those people who are listening who didn’t get the opportunity to see you at Natex last year and don’t know who you are, how did you get into the profession of naturopathy?
J: Oh my goodness, it’s been a while now because I finished college in 2005. So I’ve been out since 2006. I’m thinking back to the olden days!
I think the scene was set very, very young for me because I had an immediate family member who had a lot of health issues that could not be solved by doctors. In fact, when the doctors did their various interventions, they made this person worse. I watched this from a very young age and started to question everything right back then.
It’s a very early age to be having that sort of stuff imprinted on you. But I think that might be the case for a lot of us that we see something and it causes us to think a little bit differently.
But then I went on to live a pretty hectic lifestyle in my teens and my 20s that involved lots of partying and not eating good food whatsoever. Drinking way too much, smoking, you name it, I did it back in the 90s and early turn of the century. I really got to a point where I had reached my own health crisis. At that time, it was probably more a mental health crisis than physical.
I was very lucky at that time because, as they say, when the hard time comes, the teacher is in the room. Because I just happened to know someone at that time who was studying naturopathy
She pointed me in the right direction. So my first naturopathic consult with a naturopath was with someone who was in their final year of college. It just went from there. I realised that there are other ways to help yourself and heal yourself. And kept being drawn back to it until I was actually ready.
I went back to college as a mature age student. Then it was four years of really tough going, really, really tough going. But yeah, came out the other end and that’s how it all happened.
3 Sneaky Things That Lead To Burnout
T: We have the honour of hearing your wisdom at NatEx 2020 all about burnout. We have been in some really cool business circles together so I have known you for quite some time as the online practitioner who really gets adrenal fatigue and burnout. And now the classification of burnout and what that’s all about. You’ve got programmes and all sorts of goodness for the general public.
But, as practitioners and business owners, we get a sneaky kind of things that we don’t even realise. I’m speaking from personal experience here – I didn’t even realise I was in burnout until it was well and truly in there, messing with all my systems. Cortisol was screwed, hormones were screwed. Fatigue levels. My liver was doing all sorts of things. Gastrointestinal issues. Immune system.
As practitioners and as entrepreneurs, how is it that we miss these sneaky little things? And what do you think are the 3 sneakiest little things that we just don’t recognise that get us into that feeling of total and utter overwhelm? Of thinking, what on earth am I doing? Why is it not working? What’s going on with my body?
Burnout Can Sneak Up On You
J: Oh goodness, how long have we got? One of the things you touched upon there is that it sneaks up on us. We don’t realise it’s happening until we’re so deep into it. I think you would find, if you really investigated, that one of the symptoms of having elevated cortisol is there’s something in your brain that tells you that you can just push on and you will be fine. It creates this false sense of optimism. It’s almost like when blokes have that testosterone rush and they go and do crazy things.
I think cortisol makes us feel like we can still push on, that we will be fine, and that we can slow down at some point. And then we just never actually slow down.
T: That’s what it was originally made for. Right? It was there so that you could keep pushing on if some very large dinosaur was chasing after you for a certain time But then the dinosaur would puff out and that would be that. But now we don’t have any dinosaurs. We just have these made up stories in our heads about the things that we’re chasing or being chased by.
J: Yeah, or sometimes we’re chasing the thing, and that’s causing the high cortisol! And the thing that we’re chasing might be some sort of success, or a launch of an online programme, or getting followers or clients.
I do think as practitioners we are so susceptible to burnout because we’re great at pushing ourselves but we’re also great at healing ourselves and healing others. So we actually know all the herbs that help with adrenal fatigue. We know all the things that we need to do. If your cortisol is high, you take this group of herbs. If your cortisol is low, you take that group of herbs.
I’ve got a brand new logo that is that went up on my website just yesterday. In my brand new logo I decided to include a herb. And I had to sit down and think which herb is my ‘desert island herb’ that I would take with me if I could only take one. And that’s what I sent to my branding person, my graphic design person. Of course, what was it? It was Withania!
T: I love that!
J: So now my logo’s literally got a strand of Withania waving through it. So those who know will see it and they will know. Those who don’t know will think it’s just a pretty herb. It’s like my little cheeky drop that in subliminally, just so that some people are like, “Yeah, what’s that?”
But yes, you are asking about the things that cause practitioners to. . .
T: Yeah, the sneaky things. Some of the other stuff is really obvious. What are the sneaky things you don’t even notice? It’s really obvious for us to not even notice our symptoms. What are the sneaky little things, when it comes to our business, that we don’t even notice we’re doing that are putting us in that position?
Sneaky Thing #1: Being Out of Flow
J: I think the top one or two? Well, actually some of them have equal weighting.
Let’s just say the first one is being out of flow. It’s anything that doesn’t feel like being in flow.
When you are in flow, time passes really quickly. You could keep doing that thing you’re doing all day long, you forget to eat, and you’re just having the best time. Everything’s amazing and you could do that every day of your life. That’s in flow.
Being out of flow, I find, is where I start to either feel anxiety, some worry, apathy, or boredom when I’m doing certain tasks. Or even having those feelings when I wake up in the morning and I think about the day ahead.
If I’m starting to feel those feelings about the job that I have to do the next day, I stop and I think about what I have to do that is causing me to feel this way? This is not how I want to live my life. I have disputed this greatly, but I’ve been told that I’m a sensitive person. It’s still definitely up for debate. My closest friend is a life coach and she is like, “You’re a highly sensitive person” and we definitely have robust discussions about that.
But I do feel like when people are more sensitive, then they need to be living a life that’s in flow, because otherwise they just lose their energy so fast.
T: I can already hear the listeners saying, “Well, that’s all good and well, I’m in flow when I’m seeing a client and they’re straight in front of me. But what about all that other stuff I have to do for this business that I didn’t sign up for. The business of being a naturopath, nutritionist, herbalist, or practitioner. I like the practitioner side of it, but this business stuff – that’s not in flow. But to keep in business, I’ve got to do this whole thing. So what do I do then?”
Coming To Terms With Your Least Favourite Tasks
J: Then we have to find ways of making it feel like it’s more in flow for you. So, if it’s not feeling in flow, what is it about that task that makes you feel really crappy? Is it that you just hate doing menial, repetitive tasks? Or maybe it’s that you don’t like going on camera and you don’t want to have to do that Instagram story that you’ve been like gearing yourself up to do? Is it putting yourself ‘out there?’
We have to look into why you’re not in flow. If you’re having those feelings around those tasks, the first thing we need to have a look at is WHY are you feeling that way? Are you not wanting to do that Instagram story because you’re actually scared or feeling some sort of fear? Then maybe you have to deal with the fear. Once you’ve dealt with the fear, then the flow will actually come.
If you can’t get past those blocks, then it will feel out of flow. We have to sit up and ask, ‘Why is this not in flow for me? Is this something that’s against my very nature? Or, is it something that I just need to look at in terms of addressing a fear?’
So for example, putting numbers in columns and sitting down and doing bookkeeping is against my very core being. I hate it – I hate repetitive tasks! But I know I have to do it. When I was first starting out, I had to do it. As soon as I got a little bit of money coming in, it was the very first thing that I outsourced
T: Agreed! I couldn’t agree more. It wasn’t even quite enough money to do it. I did it before I had enough money. But I had to hand it over because my cortisol was just not dealing well with the numbers.
J: Exactly. As soon as you get someone else to deal with it, it creates more flow in the other aspects of your business because you freed up that mental space and that energy. That’s an example of something that’s against our very nature. It’s nothing to do with any sort of fear. It’s just, we are what we are.
I’m really good with jobs that require variety. I’m really terrible with jobs that require pumping out consistent things, day after day (Husband, by the way, is the opposite). So you need to understand and have that self-awareness to know what sort of person you are and what sort of things are in your zone and what sort of things are outside your zone. If it’s outside your zone, then we have to look at outsourcing it as soon as possible so that you can concentrate on the things that are going to bring you more flow.
T: Yep. So look at it and determine whether or not it is a fear. If it’s not, delegate it, automate it, or let it go.
Sneaky Thing #2: Misalignment
So what’s hidden thing number two that’s sucking the life out of us?
J: Behind door number two, I would say what we’ve got there is a misalignment and a person who is saying and doing one thing online, but thinking and feeling another.
So this is about making sure that you everything you present to the world is in alignment with your inner message. Whether it’s:
- a newsletter
- Instagram posts
- a brochure
- signage in front of your shop
Everything you put out is you speaking to the world. If you believe one thing and say another, that’s going to mess you up and suck your energy.
The other thing it does is it creates like this discord with the people that you’re speaking to. Every year, the online world becomes bigger and bigger. Instagram is bigger, Facebook is bigger. There are more people online than ever before who are our potential clients. These people are starting to get an inbuilt bullshit radar. And they know especially have haven’t
T: When I first got into online marketing 10 years ago, it took seven touchpoints for people to decide to actually book in with this person. So seven times they had to see your stuff. Now it’s 15!
J: Oh my god. That’s 15 times you’ve said something to them. That’s opportunities to 15 opportunities to get your professional, passionate core message across.
T: And that that message has to be truthful enough, trustworthy enough, and build that trust enough to be able to get them to click the button.
So I think the thing about what you’re describing is when you’re saying one thing, and then doing another, it is energetically creating waves. Literally, the wavelength of what you’re speaking is different than the wavelength of what you’re living. So you get that discord.
So when people are consistently following you and thinking about clicking on your button, and it’s not quite right, they don’t get the right vibe about it. There’s something about it that stops them. When it’s confusing, the brain will say no. And if people aren’t in alignment with their message, we can feel it. Then the trust goes down and it doesn’t take very long for them to decide they’re never going to click on that button ever again.
Don’t Be Afraid To Show Who You Really Are
J: Yeah, that’s it. If you’re talking about moderation, moderation, moderation. But then all you post pictures of green juice, you’re not speaking to the people who would benefit from your core message. If you’re into moderation, on Friday, post a picture of your glass of wine! Don’t be afraid to show them who you are. Because they will resonate with that and be like, “Oh my God, thank god – a naturopath who drinks wine! I didn’t think naturopaths drank wine.”
Do you know how often people think that I don’t drink wine? They’re like, “Oh, I didn’t know naturopaths drink wine.” I’m like, “Oh my God, we have so much work to do.”
T: You wouldn’t believe how often people assume I’m a vegetarian.
J: Yes, absolutely! “Excuse me, did you order the vegetarian?” “Me? No.”
When I had dreadlocks, everyone tried to serve me the veggie option at weddings and things and I’m like, “No, no, no, no, no, I’m fine.”
So if you’re vegetarian, then talk about being vegetarian. If you’re paleo talk about being paleo.
T: And if you’re converting back or forward to one of those things, express that as a story. I think a lot of practitioners get quite scared about sharing those things. But I know as a mentor, the mentees who share that they have fish and chip Fridays, the traction that they get on that is just huge.
And I’ve been on the other end of hearing what happens in their clinics the week after they’ve posted something like that. Clients are sharing so much more in-depth information and a true, real sense of what their families are going through, the struggles that they’re having with choosing different foods, all based on that person being really real about fish and chip Friday.
J: You suddenly become a real, tangible person. There are naturopaths out there who are doing this really well. Alisha Lynch, who you had at NatEx last year – Naughty Naturopath Mum.
T: She’s amazing!
J: She will post she post the glass of wine, when she’s struggling with her kids, or when she’s tired. She’s not trying to be perfect.
We all know that we need to be aspirational in some way and to be role models in some way in order to be successful in this online space as naturopaths. But our idea of what that needs to look like is sometimes a little bit wrong. Because we think that by looking aspirational, it means we have to be perfect.
But it doesn’t. It means that we have to be human, but also able to heal ourselves and become healthy in spite of those little things. In spite of being like a normal human who has fish and chip Friday and drinks some wine.
I think we’re so hard on ourselves. We always think that we are not perfect enough to be able to preach this stuff to other people. Actually, we need to show people those little imperfections but then show them how to crack on in spite of those things.
T: Yeah, definitely. And that attainment of perfection will always lead to burn out.
If Things Change, Own It
J: Yeah. And if you change your course, like if you were paleo and now you’re vegan or if you were vegan, and now your keto, or whatever it is – talk about what led you to that moment. Talk about what went wrong for you, about how that might happen, or what that might look like for someone else.
The Merrymakers Sisters, Emma and Carla, actually have some posts on their site like this. Because they used to be all paleo, paleo, paleo. But they put up a post recently on Facebook saying why we went back to eating grains. they owned it. They changed their course and they owned it.
We all change course. Especially if you’ve been a naturopath for 5, 10, or 20 years. You’ve seen changes where we’re not doing some things anymore that we used to do. So we have to explain to people why. And that’s all they want to know.
T: Living in that integrity and in that alignment makes life easier and takes up less bandwidth in your brain. Takes up less cortisol.
J: And imagine if you’re not living in that alignment, what that does to your energy. Your physical energy, your emotional energy, and – dare we say it – your spiritual energy? How many different ways can that deplete you? If you’re not living in alignment with the message that you’re putting out?
T: Juicy, I like it. Yes.
Another little sneaky one there, people. If you got any golden nuggets out of that, make sure you’re sharing them with somebody else who needs to hear it.
And what is the third sneaky thing that we don’t notice that actually depletes our energy as an entrepreneur?
Sneaky Thing #3: Boundaries
J: Well, behind door number three, Tammy, we’ve got the one that I personally have sucked at and still sometimes suck at. So, being in alignment, I’m going to say this is the one that I’m not perfect at. But here we go anyway.
It’s boundaries and lack thereof.
How many different ways can we have our boundaries stretched in business? With online business, it’s different from having a brick and mortar store. You can turn off the work phone. A lot of brick and mortar people have a separate work phone and then their personal mobile. So they turn off the work phone, put the closed sign, shut the front door and then they’re not open again until 9 or 10 am the next day.
If you’ve got an online business, people are pinging you on Instagram, pinging you on Facebook. They like, “Me, me, me!” They know that if you answer them in that space, they know that next time they want to jump the queue, they can go to that platform and get you.
T: Yep. You’ve set the precedence. Yeah. So I actually had ‘Boundaries’ as my word of the year, a few years ago.
I had it because I had gone over to New York and was talking to some business friends of mine. We were walking across the street when my phone pinged. One of my clients who had contacted me on Facebook Messenger before, pinged me on Facebook Messenger again because she couldn’t get me on text message because I turned off international roaming. My client wanted some herbs made up. She was a Kava client, and she needed her Kava right then and there – she needed it now!
And I was away for 10 days over in New York. My friends wondered how on earth she had access to not only my mobile phone number for testing but also my personal Facebook Messenger! As soon as that happened, their shocked perspective made me see it through somebody else’s eyes. No doctor would ever do that. No mechanic would ever do that. That’s true boundary-blurring right there.
J: The thing is, they know that if they email you, they will be in the order of who emailed you when, when you go in and start answering those emails in order. But they know if they can’t hear back from you straight away via email, they will try you everywhere else. Because they’re anxious. If they’re anxious, they just really, really, really need an answer now.
And I get that, but you also need to train people to organise themselves so that they have enough cover to get through while you’re unavailable.
Educate Yourself And Others About Boundaries
T: I think a lot about boundaries is educating yourself that you don’t have strong enough boundaries. And then it’s educating everybody else about what those boundaries actually are. Aand what will sustain them to get through when they can’t get through those boundaries.
J: I will put my hand up and say I suck at boundaries. It’s hard because I actually like being on social media. I’m on my personal Facebook account at night and you’ll see the little ping come up where it says someone has messaged Jules Gallo Naturopath. And I’ll be like, “Look, I know it’s 9:30 at night, but if I don’t answer now I’ll probably forget to answer tomorrow. So I’m better off answering now. She probably only wants one thing and then I’ll answer it and then it’s done. And then I can go back to what I was doing.”
But what does that do? It opens up that gate for that person to contact you in that manner anytime they want to in the future. They might even tell their friends that that’s how they can get hold of you, too.
T: When you’re describing it as a gate, it’s true. It’s as though you’re opening up your front door to anybody at that particular time. They know that that particular door to your house and access to you is just open.
J: I’ve had people message me on two different platforms, email me, and text me all in the same hour. And I’ll look at it and realise that’s it’s something that could have waited till tomorrow. So you have to let people know that you need your self-care time as well to recharge and that you’re walking your talk.
I deal with adrenal fatigue clients all the time. It’s one of the things that I go after in my marketing. Therefore, I have a really good reason to go back and say to them, “I’m exercising my self-care because I want to show you what that looks like.”
Flow, Alignment, Boundaries
T: Totally. And I think there is something around everything that you’ve said, around flow, alignment, and boundaries.
If you can be the example, if you can start to take on some of these things yourself as a practitioner and a business owner, and actually not only talk the talk but walk the walk, as well. Then that possibility of burnout becomes less and less. The bandwidth that you have for being out of alignment and for other people encroaching on your personal boundaries diminishes. Because you have been so much in integrity and truly being an example of the change that you want to see in your clients.
I think it makes all the difference.
Establishing Boundaries In A Classy Way
J: In my presentation at Natex, I’ll be talking about ways to get those boundaries established in a classy way. Even when you’ve let the gate open before and now you’re struggling to shut it because all the sheep are running through, all at once!
There are classy ways to get that gate shut, to make people feel comfortable, and to let them know that you still care. You’re not abandoning them.
But also, one of the things that I am bringing up in that presentation I think we need to consider is why are we giving so much to people all the time? Why are we letting those boundaries lapse? Is it because we’re worried that those clients will leave us if we don’t run and jump?
If that’s the case, then we need to talk about what’s really going on there. What is that fear? Do we have some money blocks or fear issues that we need to address before the boundaries can go up?
Dealing With Mental Blocks
T: Absolutely. That’s that next layer, that deeper level of what’s actually going on underneath. We’re so lucky to have those conversations with you and Denise and so many others. I think that’s the really cool thing about being able to have these conversations that we’re not really talking about, but affects so many of us. One of the biggest ones is about our worthiness and value.
J: Denise is the perfect person to help so many people in our profession. The work she does resonates so much with you and me, Tammy. Because we know that sometimes you need to sort out those foundations first before you start doing some of these things like strengthening your boundaries. If there’s a money block going on under there, talk to Denise, people, seriously! Because we need to address some of that underlying stuff.
It’s like healing the gut before you actually start to help the person’s anxiety. We need to actually do these foundational things in our business and in our mindset before we can actually do some of the activities like setting boundaries. Because if you’ve got this huge fear of your clients leaving you if you don’t run and jump and you’re trying to establish boundaries, you’re not going to be all-in.
You’re going to be like, “Oh, you know, please don’t email me after 5pm. But if it’s an emergency, totally email me anytime. And don’t worry too much. And you’re a special client, so this doesn’t apply to you.”
Just sort out the mindset that has caused this problem in the first place.
T: Agree.
J: Are you laughing because you’ve done it?
T: I’ve totally done it. And I continue to do it. I’m not even kidding.
J: Oh, me too.
T: To be deep, dark, brutally honest – creating an event like NatEx, a big conference for hundreds and hundreds of practitioners with nearly 30 different speakers and so many different companies involved. . .
Sometimes my boundaries are like, “I just want everyone to be happy.” And it doesn’t go away.
This is the thing, right? We have to be aware of the things that we’ve described today:
- getting out of flow
- feeling out of alignment
- not being integrity
And having these deeper conversations about them. These hidden sneaky things aren’t going to go away.
Everyone Struggles
It doesn’t matter what level you’re at as a practitioner or business owner. They’re going to sneak up on you unless you have an awareness about them, can point them out and notice them and laugh about them. And then re-establish your boundaries, your alignment, your integrity, and your flow. Otherwise, it becomes pretty much burn out highway.
J: Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. Because we will just keep falling back into bad habits. We’ll take on too much. We’ll over-deliver, get upset with people, and say yes to everything.
So, we have so much work to do to stop those bad habits from happening. But it’s wonderful work, as well. Because what we learn when we get that self-awareness, do this work, and learn more about ourselves, we can apply to our clients. So many of them who come along are just a mirror that reminds us of us. And there are things we can teach them because we’ve had to learn it.
T: Totally. I think the first step is awareness and having a conversation like this, today. This is everybody. It doesn’t matter where you’re at, this is everybody. So if you’ve gotten some gold out of this, please share it to someone who needs to hear it and make them aware of it too. Then we can dive deeper into it and talk about what comes next.
I am so pumped! I could talk to you all day, every day, Jules!
J: I know! Can we do that?
T: Well, we can definitely have loads of fun at NatEx. I can’t wait to see you on the glow party dance floor.
J: Oh my goodness. I have so many plans for that party.
T: I just bought my sparkly converse. I’m so pumped to be on the dance floor with everybody. And I know you have moves! So I will meet you there on the dance floor.
J: It’s a date! It’s gonna be epic. I can’t wait. Thank you so much for bringing us all together again, as well. This is honestly one of the events of the year that I just honestly truly look forward to and get excited about. Because it’s completely different from all the other events and I’m just so looking forward to the connections that are going to be made and the things that we learn.
T: As am I! Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom today. I cannot wait to hear your deep dive into making sure that we can create businesses without burnout at NatEx 2020. Oh my goodness, it’s only a month away! Looking forward to it! I’ll catch you on another episode of the Natupreneur Movement. Thanks, heaps, Jules.
J: Awesome. Thank you for having me.
Take Action
If you got something out of this conversation, or know someone who needs to hear it, please share it! These are important conversations that our profession needs to discuss so that we can all elevate our businesses together.
Jules is one of the amazing speakers who will be on the stage at NatEx. Will you be there? There are only a few more days to get your ticket, so don’t miss out!
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