Beyond the Grind: Erin Stafford on Achieving Success Without Burning Out

0:00I do think there is something about having that laser focus on money and prestige and title that really get you there. I mean, and this is why my book is called The Type A Trap, because it absolutely is this sort of trap. Like we're obsessed with this achievement addiction. We're obsessed with accomplishing and achieving. But then it's like, at what cost? Listen, you can still make a boatload of money and not be grinding yourself down all day, every day. Driving high performance in all areas of your life, working so hard till you burn out. Maybe there's a different way. Let's talk to Erin Stafford.

0:36For me, it has always been if I work hard, I win. And if I don't win, I didn't work hard enough. Sarah Blakely, the founder of Spanx, and she always talks about how when she was growing up, her dad would ask her every day, what did you fail at? Because if you didn't try something new, you didn't fail, then you weren't growing. Multiple careers, success at each of them. How do you go from burnout to success? Erin Stafford. All right, Erin, how do you define success? I think success is something that's changed for me over time. Like growing up, it's very much been like money and job title and fame and prestige and, you know, all the things that I feel like we're conditioned to believe our success.

1:19And then as you grow in your career and you start achieving some of those things, you have the good title, you're making the good money, you know, you have the big team. All of a sudden you could find yourself being like, hmm, I'm still not very happy. You know, this isn't really all it's cracked up to be. And so I think as I've gotten older and as I've grown in my career, I've really started redefining success as like, am I happy or not? Am I enjoying the work that I do or not? Do I have flexibility in my schedule? That's something that's really important to me. Am I getting to spend enough time with my friends and my family and the people that I love?

2:00Am I waking up in the morning feeling good and excited about the work that I'm doing? Am I healthy? You know, like I really start looking at it more as instead of just money and job title as like these multiple buckets of my life. And am I happy in all of these different areas? You know, let's go back a ways and imagine you had today's definition of success when you were young, because a lot of young people today are not defining it the way I did when I was young and the way you just espoused it when you were younger. They are defining it the holistic way. Do you think you would have had the level of success you have today if you'd gone with that definition early in your career?

2:49Oh, that's a tough question, because I do think there is something about having that laser focus on money and prestige and title that really get you there. And this is why my book is called The Type A Trap, because it absolutely is this sort of trap. We're obsessed with this achievement addiction. We're obsessed with accomplishing and achieving, but then it's like, at what cost? And I think you're exactly right. Younger people today growing up and just starting their careers, they have a whole different an outlook on the world, on holistic, you know, happiness. And they want to make sure the companies they work for are like good and making a good impact on that world and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

3:28But yeah, I mean, I don't know. I don't know if I would have, I probably would have been a hell of a lot happier. But I don't know if I would have had the success I've had without having such a laser focus on achieving those things. Yeah. Cause like, you know, we achieve the goals we set for ourselves. And so if your goal was happiness and health and time with friends, you would have achieved more of that rather than the career oriented type stuff. Do you, do you think, Like, where do you think you chose that, you know, that type A career success thing? Or was it chosen for you? How did that happen for you?

4:13Well, my parents always joke and say I came out of the womb, like, you know, opinionated and motivated and driven. They're like, you were a firecracker from the word go. So I definitely think there's part of it that's just nature. I mean, if you look at me and my brother, we are complete opposites. We get along very well. We're great friends. but like we couldn't be more different. He's like, Mr. Chill, relax. Oh, whatever happens, happens. Like maybe I'll do it. Maybe I won't. I am like, you know, laser focused, motivated, pedal to the metal. So I think there's a lot of it that's nature. But I also think, you know, when I look back, my brother was very much the guy that was like, had all the looks and all the girls loved him and all the guys wanted to be him.

4:56And like growing up, he was really the like popular good looking guy. And I never felt like I was that person at all. And so I do think at an early age, there was part of me that was like, okay, well, he's getting all the attention for his looks. Like I'm just going to outwork him. I'm just going to accomplish more than him. I'm going to achieve more than him. I'm going to do, I'm going to make more money than him. I'm gonna have a better job than, you know? So I definitely think there's like part of it that stems back to that of like wanting to one-up him and make myself feel good about myself.

5:28Cause I wasn't getting attention for my looks, but I also think it's just nature. And like, I was born like this as well. Yeah. I know with my brothers, cause you know, it was like, we almost had to find our place in the world sort of thing. It was like, my older brother was the one who was good with his hands. I was the smart one. My younger brother was the sporty one sort of thing. It was like, it's almost like, you know, the friends, how every episode is the one about sort of thing. It was like, it was that way. So where, where did you like, did you develop a formula for success for you then as it went through?

6:05Like, what was it? Was it, is there, these are the components of it or how did that come about for you? For me, it has always been, if I work hard, I win. And if I don't win, I didn't work hard enough. And so this has been a trap that I have been stuck in for most of my life. I have accomplished what I've accomplished through sheer chutzpah, hard work, working the program, making contacts, just hard work. I don't claim to be any smarter or better than anybody, but I will outwork absolutely anyone. And I also have been really good at leveraging contacts and asking for help and, and working, working the system.

6:51But I don't mean that in a way that sounds like I'm like cheating the system. I just mean in like making the most of every opportunity, making the most of every contact, making the most of like every opportunity or thing that comes my way. But yeah, I mean, it's hard. And I think that's why I ultimately burnt out years ago was because eventually I was like, working hard is at some point it doesn't work anymore. Like at some point you work hard, you win. If you don't, when you didn't work hard enough, like there's only so much you can do sometimes. And sometimes the world and the universe or God or whatever you want to call it just has other, other plans for you.

7:27And it doesn't matter how hard you work. Like you're going to be dealt a different hand sometimes. Yeah. At some point you have to recognize the fact that hard work will kill you. Um, it's, you know, I, I jokingly say often that, you know, hustle and grind is the new stupid. Um, you know, it's like, it's, it's just a way of saying, cause I think that we can cover up a lot of the ways of doing things wrong by just working harder. Um, yeah. Yeah. So what, yeah, go for it. Oh, I was just going to say, you know, and I think like I've kind of changed who I follow on social media and stuff as well, because so many people are like, never miss a Monday, like Monday motivation, you know, like really raw, raw, which don't get me wrong.

8:16Like there's a lot of benefits to that too. But I think I have shifted some of the people that I follow who are a little more aligned with like, listen, you can still make a boatload of money and not be grinding yourself down all day, every day. First person that comes to mind is like Natalie Ellis from Boss Babe, if you've heard of Boss Babe, you know, she has built an incredible multi-million dollar organization. And she started with one$27 download. That was an evergreen download that she had in a funnel and she just perfected the funnel and it created millions of dollars worth of revenue for her.

8:57She didn't have to like be grinding away all day, every day. You know, so there's like a lot of people like that, that I'm like, they're actually really smart ways that you can make money. And I'm not saying they don't require any work. Absolutely. They require work, but they don't all require you to be working 24 seven, you know? Yeah. I think when, when Tim Ferris wrote the book, the four hour work week, I think it started to encapsulate a generation of people that were realizing, I don't really want to do this whole 80 hour thing. I don't want to be in that space anymore. And we don't need that.

9:35So I want to go into what's your mindset on the relationship between failure and success? Like how does it work together in your mindset or does it even work together? I mean, I think you can't have success without failure. Like it all teaches you something. Another person I love is Sarah Blakely, the founder of Spanx. And she always talks about how when she was growing up, her dad would ask her every day, what did you fail at? Because if you didn't try something new, you didn't fail, then you weren't growing. And I think it's a really positive way to look at it because no person who's achieved any level of success has gotten there without some epic failure or 10 ,000 small failures along the way.

10:19It's part of the game. It's part of the business. But I thankfully have always had a really great sense of confidence. And I, I, I thank my parents for that, because they've given me a real great sense of confidence. I feel like I have such unconditional love from them that it's really allowed me to feel very comfortable in my skin and comfortable just going for it. And like, I don't know, I just don't care. Like, I just think there's so many things I want to do and accomplish in life. And like, you're never going to be good at anything right out of the gate. Nobody is. We have to try stuff and fail and fumble and scramble and struggle before we get really, really good at things.

11:03And sure, you see these, quote, overnight successes. Yeah, I call BS on that. You don't see all of the decades of work and research and failures and attempts and things that they have done. And sure, they may have gotten like a nice big break, but like that didn't come out of nowhere. That came because they had tried a million things beforehand and finally something really clicked, you know. So I think failure is a part of learning. I think it's a part of growing. I think it's a huge part of success. Now, I think people also don't know. Maybe we just don't give ourselves the time to learn or enough grace to understand that it takes time to learn.

11:43And it's funny, if Aaron, if I said to you, like, okay, you got to run a marathon, you're not like, okay, I'll do that tomorrow. You know, you're going to give yourself time, grace to warm up to it sort of thing. You give yourself a year to do that. But if I said, all right, you've got to double your earnings, people are like, all right, how do we do that tomorrow? What is that about people that they expect to be high performers instantly? Well, I think there's a number of reasons. I think partly, especially with social media, we see so many other people doing it or supposedly doing it, making us.

12:19Well, yeah, you didn't see the other photo of the day. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we see people doing the thing that we want to do. And when those people are maybe our age or we think we're just as smart or fabulous as them and they're already doing it, we get in that comparison game. And I know I'm guilty of it, too. You see people doing the thing you want to do and you're like, well, God, they're killing it at it. Like, why is it taking me so long? But the reality is I've had like seven other careers, you know, and like they may have been at this for 15 years. And I'm comparing me where I am right now to where they are 10 years into their career or this particular skill or thing that they're doing.

13:02And I think, you know, social media is great because it gives us all the behind the scenes. We get to see what's going on, but it also can really be this trap again, where we, we see, we judge ourselves based on where other people are and they're racing a different race. They're at a different place in their, in their journey than we are. yeah i think it's it's kind of uh it's said that you know in in life today and i try and teach my kids this is that you're gonna have between five and seven careers sort of thing you know it's they're gonna keep changing and keep keep growing and um my eldest uh is fairly clear on what she wanted to start my second she's like people ask what do you want to do with your life i said kid that's the dumbest question ever.

13:49It's like, what do you want to try first? Oh my God. A hundred percent. I've had like 10 careers. I literally was in digital advertising for years. I worked for MTV networks, Europe and ad sales. I was a celebrity stylist in Hollywood dressing celebs for like the Academy Awards, Emmys, Grammys. I was a jewelry designer. I was a fashion journalist. I was a news reporter. I was the head of marketing for a big healthcare company. And now I'm a speaker and a writer. I mean, like, I've done all these different things. And again, I'm no better than anybody else. I've just kind of had the chutzpah to be like, yeah, screw it.

14:25I'll give it a go. It sounds like fun. Like, I'd like to do that, you know? So I just feel like life's too short. And I don't want to have the same career for 30 years. I mean, that's so boring. Like, I love trying different stuff. And I've, especially in my 20s, when you know, the stakes are lower. Like you don't have, you don't have as much to lose. You don't have a family. You don't have a mortgage. I mean, some people do, but like, you know what I mean? Like there's, there's less, less to lose. I say that's the, the decade to just say, go for it. Try all the things. Yeah. And I think though that as you get older and it's an interesting one about making decisions based on loss versus making decisions based on gain.

15:08And, and it's an interesting challenge that we face both in business, life, career. It's easy to fall into the trap of making based on loss. A hundred percent. And I know so many people that are miserable in their jobs and they stay because they're like, well, I already have this title and I'm making this much money. And if I change careers, then I'm going to have to take a step back and all this stuff. And the reality is you don't have to take a step back. There are a lot of ways that you can change careers without taking a step back. And it's just a matter of packaging yourself correctly, marketing yourself correctly, really tying up all your previous skills with a nice little bow that make it look like you're the perfect fit for this next thing.

15:56I personally think having a diverse background makes you a better employee and makes you a better thought leader in other things, because you have a very diverse pool of information and experiences to draw upon. Yeah, I think if you plan it properly, do it properly, study the right things and do it in a way, you can actually make a leap forward when you change careers. Like you can actually, it's crazy to me because people don't think in leaps. They think in sideways movements sort of thing. And they think in, well, you know, I'm at 120 grand a year. or if I go backwards to 80 grand rather than, okay, you're at 120.

16:36What if we leapt you to 250? Or what if we jumped you to, do you know what I mean? Like it's that thing. And it's instead of making a decision based on loss, make a decision on future. So let's then jump to high performance, right? Because, well, you talked about your burnout, right? Let's first of all, dive into your burnout and lead that through to where high performance happens. you went through that phase of burnout. And I think that people, I don't know what it is. And maybe Erin, you can answer this for me. Why do people wait until burnout before they make the shift? Because we don't ever think it's going to happen to us.

17:17We, as, as leaders, as high performers, we think burnout is a load of BS. We think it's something that happens to weak people, lazy people, those people, like people, not us, not high achievers, you know, like nobody has time for that. I know that's how I felt. I was like, you're burnt out. Like, go take a nap and figure your life out. Like nobody has time to be burnt out. Like get it together, you know? And I think so many leaders and high achievers just don't think it's going to happen to them. Or they think they constantly get stuck in this cycle of, I just need to get through this week. I just need to get through this month.

17:51I just need to get through this project. We just need to get through this phase, this period, and then it'll get better. But the reality is it doesn't get better. We as leaders, as high performers, we keep moving the bar. There's always going to be something else that's challenging you and stretching you. And so we just keep pushing through. We're really good at numbing out, ignoring the warning signs, and just pushing through. And so often, sadly, it takes a heart attack, a miscarriage, a divorce, or something pretty intense to get people to wake up and realize like, oh crap, I'm actually killing myself and like burning all my bridges in this constant pursuit of achievement, you know?

18:38Yeah. And it's interesting you use the word just get through. I think once you've got to a point of setting your goals based on just get through this, just pay the bills, just make wages, just, you've stopped sitting based on what you want and you've set based on what you need. Yeah. And you're, you're crushing yourself. Yeah. And I think we also, you know, live in a society that constantly rewards people doing more and accomplishing more and achieving more. You know, we admire people with the big house and the fancy car and the beautiful vacations and the perfect family and the, you know, the big job and the title and all this stuff.

19:20And like, I think it's natural for people to constantly want more. And so we get this lifestyle creep. We, we, we start paying more for things. And then we think, oh shit, I've got to, I got to make more money now. I can't quit this job. My kids are in private school. I've got a kid in college. I've got this, you know, massive car payment. I've now got to, like, we're not real good at kind of living within our means. We're not really good at like living a simpler life. And I think to me, again, you talk about what does success look like? What you asked me at the beginning, like, I want to live a life where like, I'm not stretched so thin financially, like I'm quite happy to drive my six year old car that I paid cash for and not have to stress about a car payment.

20:03You know, I'm quite happy to live in a smaller place that's not killing me with a monthly mortgage and have money to go on beautiful vacations and go out to dinner with my friends. You know, like I just think a lot of people, and this is a gross generalization, but I, I, I think it's true. I think a lot of people live beyond their means and they want to continue to paint this picture that they're living this beautiful life and super successful, but that can also be the thing that's stressing them out and causing them to burn out because they have to keep making more money to sustain this lifestyle that they're putting on.

20:35I see that a lot. And it's the old look rich rather than be rich thing. You know, it's a killer. So high performance today, what does it look like? Because it's changed over the years. It's definitely different today than where it was even five, 10 years ago. How do we get to be a high performer in today's world? I think, I mean, obviously a lot of things depend on what industry you're in and who you are as a person and what success looks like to you. But I think high performance today is much more holistic. As I was saying about success, it's not just about the job title and the money. I think it's really about like, are you healthy?

21:16You know, like look at some of the biggest billionaires in the world. Like, are they healthy? Like, I look at people like Jeff Bezos, you know, and like that dude's in great shape. He seems to be living a great life. Like he's not like this super overweight dude in a stale suit like we used to see so much of, you know, in these big roles. And so what does that look like? I think high performance needs to include your health and your wellness and your family and your relationships. It's not just about your job title and how much money you're making. And so I think there's a lot of ways we can do that.

21:54One of the things I talk about in my keynotes a lot is like, just do less. Like what can we take off of our calendars that's stressing us out, that's draining our resources, that's draining our energy, that's not moving the needle either in our personal lives or our professional lives. As high achievers, as leaders, like we're so good at just jam-packing our calendars full of so much stuff because busy like makes us feel like we're being productive. Um, but how can we remove those things that are draining our energy resources and time that aren't moving the needle? Because those are the things that drag us down.

22:32Those are the things that cause us to burn out. And when we can start selectively removing some of those things, we can perform at a better, at a, at a higher level because we're not being distracted as much. And then I, you know, another thing I say to people is like, if there's nothing you can take off your calendar, like how can we just give ourselves a little bit more grace, remove some of that stress, remove some of the guilt, remove some of the shame. Can we just take something off of our shoulders and allow ourselves to thrive in a different state because we're not constantly beating ourselves up mentally?

23:09Oh, that's another thing. I mean, I think our mental health also plays a huge role in peak performance now. And it's not something that anybody ever talked about before. No one talked about mental health. No one gave a shit about mental health. you know, now I just keep going, dude, just keep going, walk it off. Yeah. Just keep going, walk it off. Like, and I, now I think people are so much more into it and so much more aware that like, we are never going to perform at our peak. If we are mentally exhausted, disengaged, depressed, hiding addictions and God knows what else. I mean, I think that's a huge part of peak performance today is getting our mental health dialed in.

23:49So let's go back into each of those three things. Firstly, getting things off our calendar. What are some examples that you see most regularly that people have got on their calendar that would be a great thing to just, you know, reduce that stuff? So I look at it, I call it calendar strip poker. I'm like, what are these things that we can just like take off of our calendar? You know, like when you're playing playing strip poker, you don't start with the most important pieces of clothing. You start with the little things like the socks. What are the socks of your calendar? What are those small little things you can take off?

24:22Like maybe it's a meeting that could really just be an email. There's a lot of those. Maybe this is the week that your kid carpools to soccer practice with somebody else. Maybe you've got plans three nights this week and it's stressing you out. Like cancel the plans. You know, we don't have to say yes to everything. Um, it could be simple things Like instead of doing a 50 minute meeting, a 60 minute meeting, do a 50 minute meeting. Can, if you're in charge of setting the meetings, give your team 10 minutes back, give yourself 10 minutes back to go to the bathroom, to get a coffee, to walk outside for five minutes.

24:57You know, maybe one thing I did with my team was meeting free Fridays. Now I was the head of the marketing team. I had like 75 people on my team. I wasn't in charge of the whole company. So I couldn't control everyone else's meetings, but we didn't have any marketing meetings on a Friday. And I really encouraged people to block out their time on a Friday so that they weren't booked for other meetings. Because we've all been there where like you're in meetings all week, your meetings all Friday, and then you get to the end of the week and you're like, I haven't gotten anything accomplished. Then you go into your weekend with all of these things weighing on your shoulders.

25:32And then you come back on Monday and you've just got even more stuff to do. So I'd like to give my team Fridays back to catch up, to get some of the work done that needed to be done so that they could hopefully go into the weekend a little bit with like just a little bit more breathing room, you know. So there's a million ways that we can create a little bit more space in our calendars. And again, it's not always taking a whole thing off the calendar. Like I said, maybe it's that meetings that's usually an hour. Can we do it in 30 minutes? Can we do it in 40 minutes? Can we give ourselves some little segments of time back in our calendars?

26:09Because if we keep showing up for everybody else, we will never show up for ourselves. And that is what eventually just drains us and causes us to burn out. So let's talk about the emotions. What are some of the emotions that you see people need to, or the baggage that you said lift off the shoulders? Because what gives them the lightness? And how do we do that? Well, I mean, obviously I can't tell you what's weighing on everybody's minds. What are the ones you see most? You're working with a lot of people on this stuff. What are some of the ones you see most often? I think there's a lot of parental guilt that weighs on people, whether you're a mom or a dad or a caretaker of somebody else.