This episode is for you if you want to learn how to use reading fiction books to influece and change your real life. 

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Aurora Winter, MBA, is a creative entrepreneur who has built several 7-figure companies, bestselling author, TV writer-producer and the founder of SamePagePublishing. Using her expertise in film and neuroscience, she helps people tell memorable stories that build brands, books, and businesses. A popular media guest, Aurora has been featured on ABC, CBS, KTLA, Huffington Post, Oprah Radio and more. 

Things talked about:

• What is the relationship between fiction and reality?

• Benefits of reading fiction books

• and so much more…

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

And the reason for this topic is I am avid reader of nonfictions, I mean, I read at least two nonfiction books a month. And I, I know you write both fiction and nonfiction books. I mean, I love both genres and I don’t know about you, Aurora. I could not have survived COVID without reading my fiction books. Like I was not able to read any nonfiction books when I was stressed out during the worst times of the pandemic.

Well, the pandemic or why I started writing fiction again, and I’ve, I wanted to just share this, how fiction can change reality topic for your busy, successful female entrepreneurs.

Because I think sometimes we don’t give ourselves permission to read fiction because we think we’re just wasting time and we should read nonfiction. But actually we need to have both inputs, the logical, sensible, how to input, but also the inspirational or the emotional input. And during COVID I asked myself, you know, if not now, when.

Specifically, I had always wanted to write a fantasy series like C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe inspired me so much. I realized reading that book that gosh, writers are kind of like wizards and they can transport us to another place and time just with words on a piece of paper. And so when COVID hit, reminding us all that life is not guaranteed and you might not even have tomorrow, decided to give myself permission to write fantasy.

So I have this new fantasy series called Magic, Mystery and the Multiverse, and it’s on Kickstarter. The first book is available. The next book’s coming out on Kickstarter, but the themes in the book underneath an entertaining, inspiring story that actually BBC’s expressed interest in turning into a TV series is a message that really matters to me.

So good books or good movies or good songs are like that. There’s a message that matters. And the message that matter to me, matters to me, is about freedom of speech.

So the evil people in Magic, Mystery and the Multiverse are censors. And I feel strongly that by, it’s for young adults. So, you know, kids 10 and up could really enjoy the book.

And I think, you know, if you lecture somebody as a mom or dad, that doesn’t go so well, but if you give them something interesting and engaging and entertaining to read, that perhaps opens their mind to something new. So I feel like not only is the book entertaining, but it matters to me to, to help cancel the cancel culture, which I’m totally against and how fiction can change reality. Just one more quick, and then I want to hear Lucy’s timing in on this is everything is twice created.

First, you need a blueprint and then you can create the thing. And fiction is brilliant at showing us either what not to create like 1984 or Fahrenheit 451. Those were warning us, don’t go there kind of stories or a song like Katy Perry’s Roar, you know, kind of became like, yeah, you’re a woman, you can roar.

And so we need to tap into the emotion. We can launch movement with something that dramatizes whatever you care about. So this is why I believe and know that fiction can change reality from Animal Forum to 1984 to various different stories that have often been in banned books.

But they’ve helped to do great things like women, seeing that there could be women as the boss of the home, women voting, women running businesses. Yeah, things that are reality today used to be only possible in books. Yeah, yeah.

And now, well, for example, Star Trek was a great leader in that. The Gene Roddenberry’s TV series helped people to think about equal opportunity. You know, Uhura was like a woman.

She was wearing a short skirt, but she was a woman and she was a woman of color. And yet she was in a position of power. And so I, I see that I love it to be part of my responsibility as an author to usher in books that can make a difference.

I also write nonfiction, but I think we need to rest our brains and we also need to be inspired and encouraged and see some other, some other possibilities.

Yeah, absolutely. Especially for busy women.

I think we get so caught up in the notion and feeling of not enough. Like I’m behind, I’m lacking more information. Let me read this other nonfiction book, which is great.

We’re learning, right? I’m an incessant learner myself. I’m constantly reading nonfiction books, but yet at the same time, it’s really important to have those fiction, me time, down times, because that’s self love right there. That’s self worth.

You are worthy of having the luxury of indulging in your favorite fiction series.

Yeah. And it can be self care.

It can be an indulgence. It can be relaxation and it can also fuel you and inspire you. Like I hope in the book, Magic, Mystery in the Multiverse, I have created some invitational things that, that were in Harry Potter.

Like Harry Potter helped us remember and reconnect to the value of friendship, right? And the courage that it takes to stand up to your friends with Neville Longbottom standing up to Harry Potter. So the fiction can also help remind us, you know, why are we a mom? Why are we a business owner? Why are we doing whatever? The values that we care about can fuel us so much more than just how much money did I make this month? How about you, Lucy? What kind of books do you like reading? What genre do you like reading? Fantasy or Thriller, Romance or Mystery? I’m a sucker for mystery. A good old murder.

But you know what? Like I tell my teenage daughter, she just started, I mean, she refused to read. I tried to give her all types of books when she was younger and she just hates picture books. She hated reading period.

I’m like, how could this happen? I love reading. Reading is like one of my most fun hobbies. And once she became like, she’s like 12 now, once she became 10, I’m like, okay, well, let’s start you up with some young, like teenage murder books.

And then immediately she fell in love. So it’s not about if you love a certain genre or not. There’s a book out there for you.

There’s a book out there for you. It’s a puzzle. I just got to find your thing.

Right? So now when she read the back cover, she’s like FBI. Okay. I don’t even need to think about it.

I’m in.

She’d probably like the Inheritance Games. That’s kind of fun.

You might enjoy a book that I helped a client produce and publish, Confessions of an Accidental Lawyer, which has got almost 3000 reviews on Amazon. So it’s a great whodunit sort of thing. That’s inspired by a true story.

Confessions of an Accidental Lawyer, but it’s a legal drama.

I don’t have the book with me right now, but I think the book she’s reading right now is the Confession of the Accident Murder. So it’s just one word off, but one word off, one word off.

But, and the point is, I think we really have to have a different perspective and also know that even when fiction books are written, the author has to give so much work to writing enough evidence and nonfiction facts into the book as well, just like how all these murder mysteries, they are written alongside of tons of police officers and government workers so that the details, even though the storyline might be made up, you’re learning about all different genres and departments of the world and of our society. And that’s important. I think that’s another way of learning, but it’s an entertaining one.

And it’s kind of a puzzle. So it challenges your mind. Like one of the things I love is that, is neuroscience with the study of how the brain works and how it works in communication.

And one thing that I just love learning is that struggle actually grows, our brain grows the myelin in our brain. So when we are deeply focused on something and we’re challenged, like you might be challenged when you’re trying to figure out who done it in a murder mystery, you’re trying to solve that puzzle, you’re actually growing your brain. So myelin can go at Billy goat trail speed, like two miles an hour.

But if you keep practicing or you keep focusing right on the edge of, of your area of competence, like just 2% or 4% over where you’re competent, you can grow the myelin sheath and it can change the speed by a hundred fold or more. So instead of your response for, it could be for thinking, or it could also be for sports, like for an activity, like hitting that ball can go from two miles an hour to 200 miles an hour. So that’s another benefit of fiction that it actually changes reality and can help you get a sharper brain, which you can then use on your everyday problems.

Absolutely. And something else that’s true is that the fiction books have most of the time heroes as well, right? Your favorite character or a character you’re rooting for that, that you actually look up to that’s saving the world or saving the story or storyline. But because we look up to these characters, we tend to try to behave in a similar pattern.

We see their heroism and their power. And that actually empowers us.

I’m so glad that you brought that up, Lucy.

So the hero’s journey is behind many books and many movies. And I believe that stories are like the DNA of humanity and it’s how humanity tries to teach the next generation and the generation after that, the right way to live. Actually, data doesn’t tell you how to live.

Doesn’t tell you how to be a good person. Doesn’t tell you what matters. Data only tells you what is the information, but the information needs to be filtered by what is the right thing to do or what are we attempting to do here? And those values are coming mostly from stories.

It’s stories that tell us, like you said, Lucy, what does it mean to be a hero? What does it mean to be the person with the white hat? Who’s doing the good things? What does it mean to, to deal with challenge? Like heroes are always facing incredible challenges and they struggle and they struggle growing their myelin, changing their brain, but then they have the epiphany and always the hero’s journey results in coming back basically with the Holy Grail, which you’re supposed to bring back to the community and help others. So this story, Joseph Campbell wrote a book called The Hero with a Thousand Faces. And it’s basically, he made the point, he was a professor that throughout humanity’s history, there’ve been so many different versions of this hero’s journey.

Why is this story structure so prevalent? And it’s exactly what you said, Lucy. We want to be guided, be inspired to be heroic, and we need to be reminded that life has struggle. It has suffering, but that doesn’t mean that you’re not a hero.

A hero pushes through in spite of the dragon and saves the day, right? Yeah. It’s so funny that you mentioned the hero’s journey. I love every hero’s journey.

And I think just like our lives, it goes through ups and downs, just like the hero’s journey. And that’s exactly why we need to remind ourselves. We want to live.

I always say that we want to live the epic life, right? Just how, how you have an epic scene from a movie or a book. That epicness does not come until you choose to develop yourself, right? To go through that journey, that development of yourself. So that is exactly what we want for every listener here is to, to be open to different scenes, right? Be open to the ending and not attached to what’s going to happen in the story, but just be open minded to be entertained by this life.

Exactly. Well, Magic Mystery of the Multiverse is a trilogy of books and it is about a young girl, Anna, who’s 13 years old and she’s from Los Angeles, like you, Lucy. And she’s an aspiring actress.

So she is a very confident, bold, physical, athletic girl. And she always thinks what could go right. She doesn’t ever imagine what could go wrong.

Her younger brother is 11 years old and he’s the opposite. He’s more of an Eeyore kind of character. He’s always thinking what could go wrong.

And he’s also recovering from cancer. So his health is frail. So we’ve got these two dramatically opposed characters.

One is confident and outgoing and optimistic. The other one is frail and pessimistic. And they go on this adventure, kind of a Doctor Who sort of adventure through the multiverse, and they face these incredible challenges dealing with the censors who want to chop out their tongues and do other horrific things to them and the planets that they visit, but throughout there’s this theme of the siblings looking after each other.

The brother is surprisingly heroic. We’ve come to get used to the sister always rescuing her brother who’s younger and frailer, but in a dramatic scene, it’s a role reversal. And the brother does something extremely heroic and surprising facing the adversary, facing the evil censor and saves his sister’s life.

And so that’s important to me. I want kids and everyone to think about the love and loyalty between siblings. And I have that kind of relationship with my brother sometimes.

I feel like I’m always the one looking after him. But then every now and again, it’s the role reversal. And I want us to also be open to that possibility.

Things don’t always have to be the way that you expect them. And to just honor that anybody can be a hero, even the most unexpected person, even the youngest, weakest, sickest person can be heroic if they so choose. Wow.

Amazing. My daughter’s name is Annabelle and she’s almost 13. So I’m heading to Kickstarter now and it’s yeah, I got my copy.

We go to Kickstarter and just search magic mystery in the multiverse. And I would appreciate that support. But on Kickstarter, you can offer extra things.

So I had full color designs of the characters and bookmarks and extra things that you couldn’t offer or can’t easily offer just on Amazon. So Kickstarter is a fun, a fun platform. Perfect.

Well, in your days running your multi businesses, what is a favorite quote that you go by? You can do it. I think that the favorite quote I go by is really that you can do it attitude. If there’s a will, there is a way.

And that what I learned, what I just shared with you a few minutes ago about Mylan is like, if it’s difficult, it doesn’t mean you’re going the wrong way. It means you are learning. Actually, you know, what I often say is the quote that my mother always said to me is there’s no growth in the comfort zone.

So beware the comfort zone. There’s no growth there. And it’s easy for us to to coast.

Right. I’ve reinvented myself every decade or every couple of years with different businesses because I’m kind of a restless or curious or creative person. But it’s every time I reinvent myself or start a new business like now I’ve got the same page publishing, which helps people with their books.

It’s like, oh, well, I’m comfortable doing the old thing. I could just keep on doing that. But then you end up living a groundhog day life.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to have multiple experiences? So beware the comfort zone. There’s no growth there. That’s a quote from my mother.

What about you, Lucy? What’s a favorite quote that that you live by or perhaps that your mother passed on to you?

For me, it’s yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is the gift, which is why we call it the present.

I love that. That’s great.

All Aurora’s links are in the show notes so you can connect with her and check out and support her Kickstarter.

Thank you so much, Lucy. I really appreciate the connecting with you. What a great show you’ve got.

Thank you.

This episode is for you if you want to learn how to create binge worthy content, attract more leads and sell more stuff.

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Tracy Hazzard is a seasoned media expert, influence strategist for speakers, authors & experts, founder of Podetize,and she co-hosts multiple top-ranked podcasts with over 2000 podcast episodes combined, including: The Binge Factor, which I had the pleasure of being a guest on. Besides being featured in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Wired, and CNN Money, Tracy was also a Columnist for Inc. Magazine, Authority Magazine, and so many more.

Lucy and Tracy Hazzard, discussed the concept of ‘bingeworthy’ content strategy in their marketing strategy, emphasizing the importance of creating evergreen, timeless content that builds a deeper connection with the audience. 

They also discussed the best approach to creating content for their business, with a focus on understanding the target audience and using video content as a primary format. 

Lastly, they touched on the importance of sustained growth in content creation, the dangers of relying on viral content, and the use of “open looping” to keep audiences engaged.

Things talked about:

– What is binge worthy content? 

– Binge Worthy content as a marketing strategy?

– Why is it better than just going viral?

– and so much more…

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to the show, Tracy.

Thanks for having me, Lucy. It’s good to see you again.

Yay. We’re so excited to talk about binge worthy content, because as we were just talking about, that’s what you are all about.

Yeah, I mean, I think too many people are out there talking about viral content, but viral content is one thing.

How do I get somebody to buy something from me, like my brand, come back, hire me to coach them, whatever that might be, that requires a deeper dive. Viral is just a tipping point. It’s just getting noticed.

It doesn’t mean somebody’s going to trust you. Totally. And binge worthy content, that is actually a kind of marketing strategy, right? Yeah, because look, some of us have programs or we just require a deeper dive into something before somebody is going to hire us.

They need to have more details, more information. I used to be a consultant in the product design and development world. It’s how I got my ink column.

And in that world, it would take me nine months to close a client because it was a multimillion dollar project. It would last years. So when we have something where lots of trust is required, we need something they can dive into and binge on things because the more touch points they get with us, the more likely they are going to be to consume whatever it is we have to sell.

Let’s go back though. Let’s go back to the beginning and start with what do you consider binge worthy content?

So my definition of binge, and I mean, many of us know this term, like binge watch Netflix, you know, we use this term, but think about it this way. If I’m going to find you through whatever means possible, I find your show and I say, I’m going to go back to the beginning and I’m going to listen to every episode.

I’m binging on your show. That means that your show had something to give me at any point in time that I find it. It’s sometimes we use the term evergreen in social media or in just, it means it’s still timeless help and information today as it was the day I recorded it.

So that’s really important is that we want something defined as evergreen. Then the second thing is, is that it builds on itself. So it’s kind of like when we binge watch a series, right? They’re coming from point A all the way to point B. It’s just, they’re taking a really long time to get there, right? That’s the kind of thing.

Any kind of bingeable content is taking us somewhere to success, to personal development, to transformation, whatever it might be that you’re taking them through. You’re taking them through piece by piece in actionable ways that they can do something about it or in entertaining ways, as we do with other types of bingeable content, right? And so those characteristics are what makes something binge worthy. So good.

But where would we start? Where should we start? Should we start with understanding the audience or should we start about our business goal?

That’s such a great question. And sometimes we’re farther along in our businesses and we know what we want. So my show, The Binge Factor, is clearly focused on somebody who’s already a podcaster and I know that.

So then it dictates what my content should be, meaning it shouldn’t be beginner stuff. It should be serious marketing and growth things, right? So if we’re far enough along that we really defined that audience, then we do that first. But if we don’t know, I like to call it hypothesis content creation or hypothesis branding sometimes when we used to do that in that model.

But I have an idea that this might be my audience. So now I need to prove it out by creating content that’s ideal for that audience and see what happens. So in that particular case, the content comes first.

So when you’re starting out and you’ve not really tested out a message, for instance, you got to start with the message, with this idea of who the audience is. And I know you’re not just about podcasting. You’re about a lot of things.

And I think this goes with all different types of media, right? Yeah. So I’m a big fan of starting with video. Like this is, it’s like too much of what we do today has video components to it.

Video shorts, viral TikToks, like all of those things, like we need video content somewhere in it. So I’m a big fan of like that being your starting point. So I live stream out my, one of my podcasts, Feature Brand, I live stream that out every week and I’m serving my community while I’m live streaming it.

But I am making content creation at the same time. Then I take it from video to audio, turn it into my podcast, and then I create blogs from it, put it on my website and I create transcription style blogs. So I call them SEO packed blogs.

We call them verbal SEO blogs, because they’re the way you say things, not the way you type things. So it’s not a written article, but then I write articles. So that might be the next step you want to take it to, or maybe you want to write a book and it becomes a chapter in your book.

Now those things are like real written, I’m going to call them summaries. Yes, but they’re also much more written in that sort of style of a listicle if you were writing an article. And so this is exactly how I used to create my ink column when I did it as I would podcast.

And then I would say, okay, well, that was really great. Maybe I’m going to lump these two concepts together and write an article about it. And then I’d write a 800 word article about it.

And it would reference the two podcasts. If somebody wanted a deeper dive or reference my video. So by tying all of our content pieces together and getting them into forms that people want to consume, because some people are readers, some people are watchers, some people are listeners, right? There are different kinds of modalities to learning.

We want to be in all those places, but we need it to start from one place. And that’s why I choose video. And would you say your goal from all of these content creating is actually to lead people to somewhere else? So everything belongs in your home base.

So this is I’m, I’m so frustrated by those models of people be like, your Instagram is your home. No, your Instagram belongs to Instagram and they can shut you down tomorrow. They could change their algorithm.

They could change everything on you. You need to own your content and it needs to belong to you. And you need to drive the traffic who truly wants more information there because they’re not distracted by all the cute puppy pictures and all the cute families who look all great in their matching outfits, right? Like we need them to be immersed in our content.

Plus social media, especially it’s very transitory. So like, in other words, it lasts about an hour, two hours on some of the social media platforms. I think like it’s 30 minutes on Tik TOK.

So like if you posted content by 30 minutes, it’s already old and no longer churning in the algorithm. So it’s not a library for someone to find and binge on your content, make that your home base. And I’m a big fan of your own website being your home base, the primary place you’re going to sell your course, your book, your whatever it is your business is in make it there.

So much truth in that while we’re creating these content, would you say there’s a special technique that you use when you’re creating your binge worthy content, for example, towards the beginning of the content towards the ending? Is there a special formula that you use personally?

So people get really comfortable with I’m gonna call it models, right? So, you know, there’s a model of how, how you produce your show. Once somebody is binging on your show, they feel comfortable that you have this. So in my show, I have do an introduction, just like you did here with us.

And I have closing thoughts. And it’s the closing thoughts that my clients will listen through for because they want that my binge listeners listen through because they want that. So if you’ve got something that you do that’s special, that is really your lessons, your perspective, you’re bringing that in the you that you bring to your show, make sure you do that consistently.

Because the more consistently you do that, the more you’re serving the audience that’s looking for that. But in today’s world, we have an attention span issue. So we really do have to deep dive and get in as quick as possible to the value they’re going to receive today.

So anytime we can do that in the first minute of our content, we don’t want to give it all away. We just want to give them the why should you stick up for the next minute, and the next minute and the next minute. So it’s the quality of what you’re producing, whether that’s video, audio or text, it’s all about the quality as well.

And sometimes it takes trial and error to know what your audience really is going for. Like you mentioned earlier, yes, you can go viral with one post one episode, but how do you keep that going? Right? Yeah, I mean, it look, I have people who are like, I have such I have 100,000 views on this one video on YouTube, but the rest of their videos don’t even get 10 views that it didn’t serve their business. It didn’t serve their channel, it didn’t grow anything.

So going viral shouldn’t be the sustained growth, where I can get more listeners coming up every single day, more viewers, more followers, more people to my website. That’s what I want every single day. And I have to remember also, it’s like too often we quit whatever it is, because 10 views on my video might be the 10 right people who needed my message today who will become two of my clients next week.

So that’s maybe more than enough. We discount it when we compare ourselves to someone who went viral and got 100,000. We don’t compare it to the results achieved from getting the numbers that we get.

And so I always look at that and say, really, what is your ultimate goal? And if your ultimate goal in this content creation is more of the right traffic, then you can’t pay attention to the number. You have to pay attention to what that traffic is transacting or what that traffic is saying to you. I want more is a really good thing if that’s what they’re asking you for.

It’s what happened in my very first podcast, a geeky little podcast on 3D printing. And we were producing five episodes a week. And they came back and asked us to make our episodes longer.

Can you imagine that they asked us for more? And I mean, how amazing is that, though? That is true, sustainable growth. Thank you for all that knowledge. That is such a good reminder.

For example, my clients, most of them are not even on Instagram, and they don’t like or comment on my stuff. Mine are more on LinkedIn and YouTube than they are on Instagram. But you may not find that out in the beginning, right? So it takes some time to really understand where your core is.

But I mean, they might be stalking you. They might be just lurking around and making sure you’re so keep doing it. I call that I call that alive and posting.

It’s actually a term I use in my company here. So I was like, I don’t love Twitter. It’s not my favorite place to hang out for myself personally.

And I know it’s called X now. But I don’t like to do I just don’t like to participate in that community there. It’s not my thing.

But I post once a week to it as an auto post from my blog so that people know that I’m alive and posting and my business is legitimate. So you can find ways to get around having to actually actively do it. So good.

You know, when I think of binge worthy, one of the term that comes to mind is cliffhangers. You know how people talk about having a cliffhanger ending or a tease, you know, I have an announcement to make tomorrow or this will happen in the next installment. What is your best cliffhanger idea?

So I don’t call them cliffhangers.

I call it open looping, which is a real like entrepreneurial like, you know, mindset term, but I call it open looping. So when I am in that first minute, I’m going to say, Lucy Liu is so amazing. And you’re going to really get this value today.

And we’re going to talk about this coming up. So you have open loop and I’ve left this nugget that they’re going to get later. And so that way they were like, well, I need to hear that.

I need to hear that answers. Or if you do like one, two, three, but you don’t give them three yet. And I don’t like to leave cliffhangers because that leaves people incomplete.

So I may leave it though. The open loop is in order to really deep dive, I really don’t have a lot of time to go into three. So three is this.

However, I have a whole nother episode on that, that you could click through and go to. And now you’ll be able to, you know, get all that details on that information because it’s way bigger topic than we can cover here today. Now you’ve given them a call to action that’s really specific.

And it was kind of a cliffhanger, but without being, you know, that frustrating. Have you ever done it where you’re like, yell at the TV? No, tell us who won. Like, you know, we don’t want them yelling at us.

So much goodness in such a short time. And if you’ve listened to this episode or my podcast, you will know I will squeeze the favorite quote of my guests towards the end of each episode. That’s going to give you so much wisdom.

So hit it, Tracy. What’s your favorite quote?

So it’s almost a mantra here. So we use this again and again.

Hope is not a plan. Too many entrepreneurs, too many people out there hope that they’re going to get an audience, hope that their podcast is going to achieve this, hope that they’re going to go viral. Right.

But all of those things require a plan. It doesn’t mean it has to be the perfect plan. It doesn’t mean it has to be everything.

It doesn’t mean it has to be a lot of money. Right. It just means that we have to have an idea in mind about how it’s going to happen and take intentional steps to make that occur.

Intention changes hope into actual action.

So good. So good. Where can we find you, Tracy?

So you can find Podetize, which is podcasting and monetization podetize together. You can find us anywhere on social media, but you can also find us at podcastersunited.org, which is our nonprofit for supporting aspiring and existing podcasters on their journey to creating a podcast that really builds their brand and their business.

Thank you.

In this solo episode, Lucy discussed the concept of burnout, its symptoms, and the importance of distinguishing it from boredom. She shared her personal experiences with burnout and emphasized the need for individuals to take personal responsibility for their lives, reflecting on their habits, mindset, and lifestyle for areas of improvement.

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My mission for this podcast and life in general is to help you grow your business while having fun along the way and without burnout. So I felt it was important to put this episode out into the world so when you think you are burned out, you can evaluate and reflect if you are really burned out or simply getting bored in what you are doing.

Some of the things I’m about to say today might be hard to swallow for you if you are in the midst of feeling burnout, but I hope my tough love will give you a fresh perspective or help you make that final decision for next step actions. 

So let’s start with the definition of burnout.

Burnout is a state of mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion caused by prolonged stress. It can become hard to do things you used to find meaningful, and then you might start to feel hopeless or useless. Burnout usually also manifest as lack of motivation and decline in performance. Many people describe burnout as a sense of being all dried up and just not caring anymore.

So my question is why are you feeling this way?

Are you truly burned out or are you just bored?

And how would you know the difference?

I don’t know about you, but you know what when I was growing up, nobody taught me the term burnout, school definitely didn’t teach us about it. I didn’t know what it was, what it meant, how it felt, it was like a new syndrome, a newer disease in the world like Covid that we never heard of before. But then I was in my twenties and I felt it, felt it hard, had to learn about it, and definitely overcame it and pivoted in my life. I’ve interviewed many women on this show who also went on a similar path going from burnout to transforming their lives. Now I am a big advocate in life transformation work, especially taking women away from burnout, but I realized that there is another possibility called boredom that can feel very similar to burnout. And if boredom is your problem, you need to go towards what motivates you, not just away from what you think is giving you burnout. For example if you think you are burned out from your current job or business, are you really burned out? Or simply not having enough fun and not doing enough inner work? 

And so what I have seen before is, we’re tired and we blame it on that supposedly new syndrome and subsequently, it’s everybody else’s fault that we got this way.

Your boss your family your coworkers your employees, whoever is giving you xyz problems.

And we don’t take that ownership to maybe say, hey, you know what, maybe I need to change something in my life, change the way I do things, change my mindset to be more abundant, and change some of my habits to align with who I want to be, I don’t want to be the same person I was last year. Because it’s so much easier to say I got burned out and it’s someone else’s fault.

So before you run off to another job or start a new business or give up on your current life. Ask yourself these questions: 

• Are there any bad habits you need to break? 
• Are there any improvements you can make to your mindset?
• Is there any way for you to make your current life more fun? 

If your answers leads to that you think there is absolutely nothing to change on your side, you are on top of your mindset, you are your best self, you are attending to your non-negotiables already, and that you are already incorporating as much joyful activities in life as possible and that you will have zero regret leaving your old life behind, then by all means go for it, make that scary leap and start your transformation journey to a new chapter in life and take action to redesigning your life.

If you are looking to make a decision on your next steps, let this episode be your sign and be your deadline to make that decision. Always remember that success loves speedy action, imperfect action and even messy action. So the goal here is to not overthink about burn out or boredom but really to take action towards a life that you desire to live. Cheers to you having more fun designing your life and feel free to reach out to me if you need help making a decision. Until next week, believe that more blessings are coming your way. 

This episode is for you if you want to relaunch your life, re-ignite your passion and design the next epic chapter of your life because you deserve to live an epic life by your own design. 

Juliet Lever is the bestselling author of Relaunch My Life and Evolve Your Mind and the host of the top-rated podcast Relaunch My Life Radio. Juliet is also a qualified NLP trainer, Yoga Teacher, Heartmath(TM) Resiliency Coach and Reiki Master, book writing coach, retreat facilitator, and keynote motivational speaker.

Lucy and Juliet discussed:

• the importance of self-awareness in personal growth
• the concept of relaunching your life
• emphasized the role of curiosity, exploration, and deliberate action in overcoming fear and illusions that hinder personal development
• share their insights and experiences, encouraging you to take control of your life and design your next chapters.
• and so much more

Connect With Juliet Lever

Website: https://julietlever.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julietlever

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/relaunchmylifeau

January is the founder of ‘The Woman School,” a mindset and skillset training school for women. She has 25 years of experience coaching women and is a 2x Best Selling Author. (‘Redefine Success for Women’ and ‘This is the Me I Choose to Be.’) She was featured in the Forbes list of top self-worth strategists.

January built a multimillion-dollar business in 2 years and went from 0 to 40+ countries in just 3 years. January has shared the stage with top influencers and leaders in the world. (Ed Mylett, John Maxwell, Russel Brunson, Amy Porterfield and more) She has a powerful mission to bring honor back to being a woman.

She inspires a message of hope for women who aspire to achieve their highest potential without compromising their marriage and desire for a beautiful family life. She built a multimillion-dollar business with her husband while raising her 8 children. 

In this episode, Lucy and January discussed:

• the importance of personal growth, confidence building, and skill-acquisition for women
• overcoming limiting beliefs and self-doubt.
• emphasized the value of continuous learning, self-mastery
• the transformative power of mentorship in shaping one’s self-worth and decision-making abilities.
• the need for women to challenge inherited beliefs, let go of comparison and competition, and embrace their unique potential to create meaningful and beautiful lives.
• and so much more

Connect With Janurary Donovan

Website: https://tws.thewholenessschool.com/januarydonovan

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/january.donovan

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/january-donovan

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheWomanSchoolOfficial

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JanuaryDonovan_

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/JanuaryDonovan

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@januarydonovan