Is Exhaustion the Price of Caring? Redefining How We Show Up – Why Are We Still Doing That?
No Vacation Required
Self-knowledge is the Key to Achieve Sustainable Contribution
The world often demands that making a difference requires a level of sacrifice we simply don't have the bandwidth to make. IN this episode, we explore the "exhaustion trap" and why treating your own energy like an infinite resource is a recipe for burnout. This episode challenges the tradition of the "burnout martyr" and offers a roadmap for contributing to the world without further dysregulating yourself.
Learn how to align your strengths, values, and interests to find a sustainable way to show up. Whether you are feeling guilty for being a bystander or are at zero capacity, discover how to move from asking what you have to do to what you have to give.
Onward and Inward,
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CHAPTERS:
(00:00) Why are we still doing that?
(00:59) Mind Share: The case for all-in pricing and why "customer hostile" fees need to go
(05:16) Listener Spark: Feeling guilty, burnt out, and at zero capacity
(07:11) The Exhaustion Trap: Why showing up shouldn't be a second full-time job
(11:51) Beyond the Instagram "Hero Moment": Finding your natural strengths
(13:24) The NVR Framework: Aligning strengths, values, and interests
(18:47) The Life Wheel: Auditing your energy cost and "Tuesday night" capacity
(23:22) Worth the Time: The Olympics and the power of finding awe
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
The Energy Audit: Stop treating your resilience and empathy like infinite resources; they require intentional management and refilling.
Alignment over Performance: Sustainable contribution happens when you stop trying to mimic curated social media activism and start using your specific "build," like project management or database work.
Energy Reserves: Living a No Vacation Required life involves planning for "energy-heavy" weeks by proactively creating reserves during quieter periods.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
Strengths and Personality Assessments: https://novacationrequired.com/services
Episode 207: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6Cta2x5Q88sKX9jE1kGH1E?si=uv-s6leKQ2Sszntf32ARPg
Episode 221: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5U0FYd7zxr0qd2jOIqXoTU?si=1PKBLGeuQrC5ZPMIHx2mUA
Episode 222: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4wQluJxx1Md8BWcwyqNyUf?si=eG5hMucDR2e0PAIuVRecBg
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Kent: The world is on fire, and we're all standing here with empty buckets, wondering why we feel so guilty for being tired. We've bought into the idea that making a difference requires a sacrifice we don't have the bandwidth to make. If we agree that the world is dysregulating, why are we trying to save it by further dysregulating ourselves? Why are we still treating our own energy like an infinite resource? Welcome to the No Vacation Required podcast, where we break down tired traditions and outdated thinking by asking the question, why are we still doing that? It's all about building a life you don't need a break from, being more present and fulfilled, and showing up in a complicated world that needs your voice and unique talents. So I've got something on my mind this week before we talk about treating our own energy like an infinite resource.
Caanan: Okay, go ahead. What's your mind share?
Kent: I'm thinking I'm 100% into all-in pricing.
Caanan: Oh, all-in pricing.
Kent: Yes, which is kind of a weird, like, why is this on my mind? But I've been thinking about the times that we've gone to restaurants with all-in pricing, where gratuities included. Yeah. where you pay what you see and They don't allow you to add more gratuity because everybody's well taken care of. It just dawned on me this last week that all of those places we've gone to, and there's quite a few in Seattle because we're pretty progressive in that regard. We have really good service. People seem really happy. People have told us they're very happy working there. The service is great. We don't even pay too much attention to the prices because I feel like, you know, prices are just expensive. Especially in a place like Seattle now, period, I feel like knowing that this is all in pricing and we're not gonna have to worry about gratuity or figuring that out or having that weird feeling like, you know, how much, yeah.
Caanan: Listen, I'm with you 100%, obviously. We're like same brain on most of these things. But I can't stand when we go to a place and it's already expensive. because everything in Seattle is expensive. But then you've got a mandatory service fee, which does not go to your tip. And then you've got tip, which includes your tip on the service fee. And before you know it, your bill is, you're paying like 50% more for the meal you just had. And I know It's like economics 101. They don't want to put all those prices right up front. They want you to feel like the sandwich you're getting is $15 and not $25 as it is actually going to be.
Kent: Yes.
Caanan: But we're not children. We know it's expensive to operate a business in Seattle. So just put up the prices, include what you need to cover salaries.
Kent: Yeah, everything.
Caanan: It's so, it's so much nicer.
Kent: Yeah, and it's so nice you just look And this has been my big contention. We've talked about this and this is what I thought about this week is I thought, hey, I really like call-in pricing. You see the number, you can deal with it or you can't deal with it. And then you know what it is. You know everybody's treated well. You're not reading all the weird, yeah, 2% goes to cover Seattle's fair employment laws. You know, and it just makes you feel bad.
Caanan: It's customer hostile, I think.
Kent: It is customer hostile. So I'm. I'm way into this and it's a silly thing because, yeah. But what's this what's on my mind?
Caanan: Yeah, I love it. So if you own a restaurant or a business where you're not doing all in pricing, you've heard it from us. We don't like how you're handling it. So please change it for us. Thank you very much.
Kent: This month, and I'm really excited because we're centering on conversations around listener emails and the sparks, we're calling them sparks, that have been hitting our inbox. We're tackling these next level questions from readers who, listeners who, well, I guess in readers too, because we have our scripts out there. That's true. who get in touch and say, you said this, but what about this? So I just want to tell you that if you haven't caught the other episodes, there's one on communicating. We did that a couple episodes ago. And the last episode we did was centered on waiting for ready. So if you haven't checked those out, Go and do that now.
Caanan: But now this e-mail is coming in response to an episode we did quite a while back. Right? One about sitting out when everything's changing. I'll put a link to that in the show notes. But go ahead with this e-mail. I love these.
Kent: This is an e-mail about an episode from several months ago about sitting out when everything's changing. And this emailer said, the episode really stirred me. I feel the weight of everything going on. And I feel guilty for being a bystander, but I'm also so burnt out for my daily life that I have, that I feel like I have nothing left to give. So then they go on to say, I want to be part of the change, but I'm at 0 capacity. How do I find a way to contribute that actually energizes me instead of just adding to the overwhelm. And I want to jump in here and say something that I think about often as we're contemplating these episodes. Like so many things in life, our episodes tend to be variations on a theme. Because I see that question and I think, interesting that this emailer got this spark from, in this case, an episode that was put up in October, but they could have come to the same question from a number of episodes. So I always want to say this. I think I've said it a couple times. You're going to hear a lot of the same kinds of things packaged in different ways. And that's the beauty of what we've learned over the years and years and years is that so much is interrelated. And the more you lean into that interrelatedness, the more you begin to holistically understand how to best, we say, create your own version of a novocation required life, which really starts with knowing yourself. So I just wanted to say that before I go on and say, This week, as we have before, we're really talking about the exhaustion trap, which is so real right now in this turbulent world. Why are we acting like showing up for the world has to look like a second full-time job? I know this e-mail grabbed both of us.
Caanan: Yes. Everybody is overwhelmed by everything. Because there's so much to be overwhelmed by. Like, as we've said it before, but like you were just saying, we're going to say it again and we're going to say it in multiple ways. The world is exhausting. There's so much to care about and you need to care about something, but we can't care about everything. And it feels like you need to care about everything. And lots of people are essentially telling you, need to care about everything, but we just can't. We physically can't. Our mental health can't handle it. So I understand this e-mail. I feel this deeply myself, and we're experts in this, and I still feel this way at times. What really strikes me here is that what this listener or reader is saying is that they're feeling this moral pull to do something because there's a lot that needs to be done, but they're exhausted. And so they can't show up in the way that they want to. And so I think for me, it just immediately triggers the thought, like, we have to change the way we think about showing up. Because if we're supposed to care about everything, will never be able to show up in any sort of meaningful way. So we need to retire this idea that showing up has to be depleting because it doesn't have to be. And we need to get rid of this idea, oh, there's sort of this like burnout martyr idea, like the more exhausted you are, the more you care. So we need to get rid of that idea. And we need to start actually looking at showing up as something we can do and be energized by.
Kent: Before we move on, I think it's a good time for me to jump in and say, yes, energized. How do you know what energizes you? And the best way, as we're always saying, is to know your build, know your personality type. That is the first clue or the first, I guess, guidepost to understand why some things feel exhausting and why some things feel energizing. Okay, so regarding the person who emailed and wanting to feel energized, and not overwhelmed and not feel like they're just adding another thing to their plate. I want to say that whether this is the case or it's just normal life happening, you always want to come from a place of being energized. And the only way to do that is to come from a place that aligns with your personality and especially as it relates to this emailer relates to your natural strengths. That's the only way you're going to make any kind of meaningful, sustainable contribution. And this is a tough thing to do because we're seeing on social media how people perform certain things. So I imagine this emailer wants to get involved in a certain type of cause because they're seeing how people are performing their activism in a very specific way. And we talk endlessly about how Social media is a curated moment, not a real life. Right. So you can't base how you want to show up for something that stirs, or should I say sparks, our word of the month, sparks, sparks something in you by what you're seeing. You've got to go deeper than that, not only with these things that spark you in the moment, but also in how you live all the elements of your life, period. You have to be thinking about how can I make a difference? Do I have the capacity to make a difference? What do I know about myself that can help me move forward here?
Caanan: Because you know what you're never seeing on Instagram or TikTok or any of the socials? You're not seeing somebody doing database work for the charity or for the cause. You're not seeing them doing the, what many people would consider mundane work that lifts up that cause. And that may be the very work that you are built to do.
Kent: Yeah, this is so funny. I had the same vision, as you said, one mind. I just pictured the picture of the people being sprayed with tear gas.
Caanan: Right.
Kent: That those sort of hero, it's curated moments. The real, but curated. Yeah.
Caanan: Those are headline grabbing, but that may not be how you want to show up or how it is right for you to show up in a sustainable way. You're wired. So I want to talk talk about understanding yourself so how you can show up in a sustainable way. And I'm going to reference something that's in our book, No Vacation Required. I'll just paraphrase it here. We talk about in the book understanding your strengths, your values, and your interests, and that real fulfillment and sustainable contribution comes when you align those three things, when you align your strengths, your values, and your interests. Right? So in the book, we talk about this person who loves to sing, but they're not a particularly great singer. And they're not actually like, it's an interest for them, but it isn't a passion. They're not one of these people who can't not sing. Do you know what I mean?
Kent: Yes.
Caanan: So this person, if they were to rely on external indicators, would believe that the only way to show up to put that interest to work is to become a singer.
Kent: Yeah.
Caanan: That's the script.
Kent: Yeah.
Caanan: But this person, knowing about themselves, knowing their strengths, values, and interests, might actually be better with a clipboard at the City Opera supporting the arts, right? So if they look at their interest in singing and actually align it with their strengths in, say, project management or database management or whatever, and then figure out how they can align their contribution with those things they know about themselves, they are going to be fulfilled. They're going to be doing something that they're passionate about, and it's not going to be exhausting because they're not working against their own personality. Did I say that well enough? Does that make sense?
Kent: Completely. And I think that with the reminder that people just want to be adding more right now, running from one thing to another. Here I go, proving my own point about the interrelatability of things. We talked about crisis hopping, I think in episode 222, which is waiting for ready. It was our last episode. So there's a lot of things at work here that get compounded because we not only have ourselves, our internal selves to work with, but we have this whole external landscape adding pressure, adding a level of How do you say like inaccurate reporting? Yeah, so you first have to understand, you have to care for yourself in the best way possible, and that what is happening externally isn't the full picture. That you've got to assign your capabilities and strengths and interests to different things according to the fact that contrary to what you think you see on the internet, you do not have an infinite supply of capacity, resilience, empathy, willpower.
Caanan: Yeah, no. Yeah, so you need to figure out how you can show up so that it aligns with who you naturally are, so that showing up feels energizing and not depleting. You have to get honest, as you were just saying about this, kind of crisis hopping that we talked about in the last episode, because a lot of people will crisis hop and feel like that's giving them some sort of sense of purpose, but that is adding to their exhaustion. And we have to get over the idea, as we said in the earlier on, that showing up means you have to be exhausted.
Kent: So I want to talk about the life wheel, but I first want to say that I think you and I have both had big struggles with ambition for different reasons in our life. And I think, as I was hearing you talk in the last segment, when you have that realization, I don't want to say that you don't have to care about everything because care isn't the right word. Maybe you can help me find the right word. You noticed a change in me specifically many, many years ago now, where something I would usually involve myself in, that isn't my true strengths, that isn't this work we do. And I would be like, screw it, I don't even care. It kind of created a vibe that was like, oh yeah, I can just do that to do that. We can just do that to do that. This doesn't have to be an 8th mission in life. So there's just something about this whole concept we're going to get into now with the life wheel that's very freeing when you think about your energy and how much you're putting out and passing that hump and being able to say, I want to be a part of this, but only in a small way. And I'm not going to care that much.
Caanan: Yeah, I think saying care is perfectly fine there. Although we might just say you can care about a lot of things and not make them your entire personality. And that's perfectly fine. You can care a little bit. You can care from a distance. You can care in a way that you have the capacity to care for. And yeah, that's where the life wheel comes in. So we've talked about this a million times, and we'll talk about it a million times more because it's so fundamental to living a no vacation required life. And the life wheel is where you examine and get honest about every aspect of your life, all the different components of your life. And I want to put a little twist on this for this conversation. This time I want to say not just examining every aspect of your life so that you're being honest about it, but also looking at how much energy is spent in different aspects of your life. Because I think when it comes to this idea of showing up, a lot of people sort of plan how they show up in a bit of a vacuum. Like, I have a free Tuesday night or I have a free 15 minutes or whatever, so I can do that. And they don't actually think about the energy cost. They don't think, if I go do that, I'm going to be even more depleted. Even though I have a free Tuesday night, I don't have the capacity to actually do that and show up in a sustainable way.
Kent: Yeah, I think about, we were just talking about a place where considering going and reading reviews about how people are a little bored or whatever, and just expressing in their reviews the inability to not have something filling time. And here I'm going to like throw out the word vacation, were no vacation required, which doesn't mean you don't need vacations, but These people are on vacation and the thought of being bored at their resort is unimaginable. And again, it just comes from this weird idea that we have to be jumping from thing to thing and always filling time and look at who I'm seeing on the internet. They're always filling their time. So I love what you were saying about getting honest and the blank Tuesday night. Yeah, it doesn't mean you have to fill it.
Caanan: No, it's just, it's dysregulation disguised as activism or activity.
Kent: Yeah, exactly. This is an area that we've made so much progress in, even recently, and we're talking so much lately too about our version of notification required life is changing. I won't say constantly, we're always micro-tweaking it, but we recently went through a big adjustment of it, as you know, if you've been listening to this podcast. And I think about the things we've done recently to really look at our life wheels and to look at where energy's going. we tend to check in on Monday. How are you doing? How am I doing? How are we doing? Looking at all the facets of the life wheel and looking at, so for instance, next week we have something big and unusual coming up for us. It's gonna be a huge use of energy. So this week we talked about, let's keep our energy really tight. Let's actually create a reserve of energy so that next week when we're spending a lot of energy in terms of movement and extroversion and interaction, we aren't going to feel completely depleted. So really we encourage you to Look at that kind of framework, yourself, but then apply what you then learn about yourself to that framework and think, what do I need to refill? How do I hit on all the marks I need to hit on while still saving some for me?
Caanan: Yeah, I've got it. just came to me. It's Stop asking what I have to do and start asking what do I have to give and how can I do it in a way that aligns with who I am. So I have a super basic. Worth the time?
Kent: Oh, that's funny because I was just going to say, hey Canaan, what's worth the time?
Caanan: My super basic worth the time is the Olympics.
Kent: Were you expecting me to go da da da da da da da da da da da?
Caanan: It's so basic because of course the Olympics are... remarkable, but I feel like, in the political environment and the social environment, it's maybe a little hard to want to get into the Olympics. It kind of feels a little off.
Kent: Remember we were like, wait, is this even happening right now? Yeah.
Caanan: But it's just so inspiring to watch people perform at their peak and the color stories and the backstories and I don't know. I hate to be so basic, but I didn't know you were going.
Kent: To say this, and I don't know if you realize it fits perfectly with the theme of this episode. Just watching people be in the pocket, like we're doing what we love. We have this neighbor who always stops us whenever he sees us around. And it's like, you guys are always so happy and energized. I just like being around you and you're smiling. Like, it's because we love what we do. So I think that's what you're tapping into, just watching these people that have such a passion for what they do. Now, do not treat the things we've said in this episode like you're an Olympic athlete.
Caanan: No, that is a rare breed of.
Kent: But this is finding, I like that, finding the awe. Just put things in front of your eyes that help you see the awe in what people can create and do and achieve. Achieve. Yeah, I love that.
Caanan: Yeah, let it just be inspiring.
Kent: Thanks for listening to the No Vacation Required podcast. For more information, including services designed to help you build a life you don't need a break from, check out novacationrequired.com. And if you found this information helpful, please subscribe.