The Success Paradox: How to unlock your potential and avoid burnout — the truth lies within ourselves

Being a sales leader has arguably never been so difficult.

· New technologies are constantly redefining Leaders’ roles and responsibilities

· Leaders are managing teams to collaborate from different generations, used to working in different ways, it’s little wonder that

· They are being asked to give up control to coach people to do things their way while still being responsible for their results

· Sales leaders in tech are being asked to be more compassionate, be more authentic, more vulnerable, more aware of mental health issues

· And of course, hit aggressive targets which have never been done before to fund Scale Ups’ hypergrowth

Doesn’t this feel like a lot to expect from a mere mortal human being?!

It is no surprise that I find myself coaching many successful sales leaders who suffer from anxiety, team dynamic issues or burnout symptoms while delivering a high performance still.

The Success Paradox

I talk a lot about what I call the Success Paradox in Sales. This phenomenon, of constantly living high highs followed by low lows. Hitting target and making commission but feeing empty inside or distressed from the pressure endured and needing to numb the internal turmoil aftermath. This concept also refers to repressing emotions with behaviours which aren’t serving us, like taking frustration out on people close at home or indulging in addition to substances of various kinds.

It is when we are not being our authentic selves, or when performance and wellbeing are not aligned that internal conflict is created and success can have negative side effects which impact other dimensions of our lives.

Once I had a Leader ask me, ‘why have I got everything under control at work, and tolerate difficult people or situations all day, and then go home and find myself raising my voice at my sweet 7 year old son for no real reason?!

In many cases, success at work can come at a cost — either to your personal life, our relationships, not making time for hobbies which energise us or neglecting our health.

Risks of burnout and anxiety in Tech Sales are high

A workplace app for tech employees called Blind, was used to ask, thousands of employees across Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook, one question:

“Are you currently suffering from job burnout?”

And over half of respondents (57.16%, to be exact) answered YES.

While it’s employer’s responsibility to create a healthy work environment, it’s up to us as individuals to take charge of our own wellbeing.

Learn to listen to your body

Our thoughts become our feelings, which if not processed properly get stuck in our bodies, can become chronic recurring pains and eventually cause diseases.

Neuroscience has proven this in lots of different ways. This means learning to listen to our body and understanding when we must push back and say no to extra work. In doing so, you will inspire your teams to do the same.

The problem is, most of us have never been taught how to listen to our bodies and have no idea that burnout is just around the corner. I learned the hard way.

In 2015, I was signed off work for three weeks. I was suffering from dizziness and had run out of energy, but I had refused to listen to my body which was telling me I was suffering from chronic stress.

Since I had moved to France, and started a new life, new job, I hadn’t found my balance, and ended up not being able to really recuperate at weekends. I found myself in a constant state of fight or flight response while at work and at home, and I hadn’t realized. Human beings are not programmed to be in this state continuously.

I seeked a lot of external support from many different practitioners. I learned how to listen to the sensations in my body, acknowledge my emotions, and interpret what they are trying to tell me, so that I can express my needs in a healthier way and take a better course of action.

The solution lies within

So I invite you to look inside too. When you think about KPIs for 2020, consider your levels of wellbeing as one of them. What internal indicators could you pay attention to, in order to monitor your well-being. Is it lower back pain? Shoulder pain? Tiredness? Poor sleep creeping up? Bad skin? Lower patience than usual with yourself and others?

As a sales leader, your business is results-based. As I mentioned earlier, that constant pressure to hit targets makes Sales Leaders and their team highly susceptible to anxiety or depression. There is plenty of data proving this, so we know this now. Burnout, or breakdown, doesn’t usually give much warning.

So wake up now. Be proactive in paying attention to your internal world.

By focusing on our internal being and understanding how we are wired inside, we can become more aware of our strengths and limits. By showing more compassion towards ourselves, we therefore show more compassion to our team when they need it the most.

Put your own oxygen mask on, before helping others with theirs.

By being more vulnerable with ourselves, we can be more authentic with others. An authentic leader will show up as their true selves and are not afraid to display vulnerability, we can inspire others to do the same.

True confidence comes from within and is reflected in all areas of your life, not just your work performance.

Access your inner confidence for effortless leadership

Today, I have integrated my numerous coaching training and experience, life, and professional experience to create a safe environment and hold space for individuals, teams and Leaders to develop their own awareness in understanding their internal world.

Our external world is a reflection of our internal world.

By changing our thoughts, we can change our reality.

I have designed transformational workshops and a Conscious Leadership program to encourage leaders to unlock their internal awareness so that they can have greater self-understanding, relate to others better, and react to their external environment more effectively.

The aim being to take a more preventative approach to seeking awareness of about ourselves to make better decisions rather investing in seeking such awareness through coaching once we have suffered some type of pain on negative consequence.

In my opinion, it is this level of awareness and consciousness that can unleash the true potential in leaders and managers, allowing them to be best they can be, without having to suffer any side-effects of their success.

Watch a 7mins talk I gave last week to introduce this topic: https://youtu.be/1aI6GDgPRXQ

Lauren is the founder of Coaching Confidence, an ICF-certified professional coach, and NLP Practitioner in individual, team, and organisational coaching.

Lauren works with Founders and Sales Leaders, supporting them to access their inner being to overcome behavioural and business challenges or to simply up-level their soft skills by unlocking their untapped internal resources.