Lauren Baptiste | Effective Strategies for Combating Burnout in the Legal Profession

Lawyers frequently report that they are exhausted, overloaded, or burned out. Sound familiar?

In this episode of The Lawyer’s Edge podcast, host Elise Holtzman chats with Lauren Baptiste, a burnout expert and founder of Acheloa Wellness, to delve into the all-too-common issue of burnout in the legal profession. Lauren shares how to prevent burnout as well as how to recover from it.

Learn the importance of recognizing the signs of burnout, the need for self-awareness, and the differences between coaching and therapy. Lauren will also introduce you to Ayurveda, an ancient wellness system, and discuss how it can be used to understand our unique body-mind compositions and spot early burnout indicators.

Listen in as Lauren offers practical tips, like the importance of taking breaks, especially for lunch, and striking the right balance between solitude and social interaction. She also shares why it’s critical for legal professionals to prioritize self-care and seek the proper support when facing burnout. Taking care of yourself is not only crucial for personal health, but is also imperative for sustaining professional efficiency and achieving success.

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WHAT’S COVERED IN THIS EPISODE ABOUT BURNOUT IN THE LEGAL PROFESSION

2:09 – Lauren’s personal experience with workplace burnout and her realization of the prevalence of burnout among colleagues.

5:23 – The prevalence of burnout in the legal profession, including long hours and unhealthy habits.

7:43 – Exploring the historical presence of burnout and the recent emphasis on addressing burnout in the legal profession.

12:07 – How to identify symptoms of burnout and distinguish between general burnout and chronic burnout.

17:33 – The importance of exploring coaching and therapy, and the severity of the issue.

22:42 – Recommendations for small, daily activities to combat burnout.

Connect with Lauren Baptiste

Lauren Baptiste is enhancing today’s work culture with a simple strategy: prioritize well-being as the “hardest-working” professionals climb the corporate ladder. As a life coach and consultant on a mission to help women level-up at work and at home, Lauren brings more than 13 years of experience in corporate culture and workplace burnout alongside her knowledge as a practitioner of Ayurveda, hormonal health and other evidenced-based modalities. This results in clients shifting from exhausted to energetic, cynical to optimistic, and ineffective to empowered.

Acheloa Wellness | LinkedIn

Mentioned In Effective Strategies for Combating Burnout in the Legal Profession

Niki Schaefer | How a Stroke at 38 Changed a Lawyer’s Approach to Life and Work

Get Connected with The Coaching Team at hello@thelawyersedge.com

The Lawyer’s Edge

SPONSOR FOR THIS EPISODE…

Today’s episode is brought to you by the coaching team at The Lawyer’s Edge, a training and coaching firm which has been focused exclusively on lawyers and law firms since 2008. 

Each member of The Lawyer’s Edge coaching team is a trained, certified, and experienced professional coach AND either a former practicing attorney or a former law firm marketing and business development professional. Whatever your professional objectives, our coaches can help you achieve your goals more quickly, more easily, and with significantly less stress. 

To get connected with YOUR coach, just email the team at hello@thelawyersedge.com.

Elise Holtzman: Hi, everyone. It's Elise Holtzman here, a former practicing lawyer and the host of The Lawyer's Edge Podcast, where I sit down with successful attorneys, legal marketing specialists, business leaders, and authors to talk about how lawyers and law firms can grow and sustain healthy, profitable businesses.

Hi everyone, it's Elise Holtzman here, a former practicing lawyer and the host of The Lawyer's Edge podcast, where I sit down with successful attorneys, legal marketing specialists, business leaders, and authors to talk about how lawyers and law firms can grow and sustain healthy, profitable businesses.

Today's episode is brought to you by The Coaching Team at The Lawyer's Edge, a training and coaching firm which has been focused exclusively on lawyers and law firms since 2008. Each member of The Lawyer's Edge Coaching Team is a trained, certified, and experienced professional coach and either a former practicing attorney or a former law firm marketing and business development professional.

Whatever your professional objectives, our coaches can help you achieve your goals more quickly, more easily, and with significantly less stress. To get connected with your coach, just email the team at hello@thelawyersedge.com.

My guest today, Lauren Baptiste, the founder of Acheloa Wellness, is a burnout coach for accountants, attorneys, and consultants. Her mission is to enhance today's work culture by prioritizing the well-being for hardworking professionals climbing the corporate ladder.

Lauren brings to her work more than 13 years of experience in corporate culture and workplace burnout alongside her knowledge as a practitioner of Ayurveda, hormonal health, and other evidence-based modalities.

Her work guides clients to shift from exhausted to energetic, cynical to optimistic, and ineffective to empowered, which I think we all could use. Lauren, welcome to The Lawyer's Edge.

Lauren Baptiste: Thank you so much for having me. Hello.

Elise Holtzman: Hi, I'm so happy that you're here. This is such an important topic to talk about. Before we dive into the nitty gritty of burnout, tell me a little bit about your story and why you chose to focus on workplace burnout. I know that you were suffering from it yourself. So what was your background and then what did that aha moment look like for you?

Lauren Baptiste: Yeah, for me, it hit all at once. Eleven years ago, almost to the date, I ended up in an emergency room from workplace burnout. I was a few years into my career. I was the type that would push to the finish line and there was a point where my body just said no more even when my brain wanted to keep going.

I realized initially, “Well, I had to get myself healthy.” But then when I zoomed out, I noticed that so many of my colleagues were experiencing something that looked a little bit different symptomatically, whether it was early onset diabetes, anxiety, depression, or even infertility that then they all had symptoms and they were also coming because of stress.

That was my aha moment that it's not just me, something has to be done about this, and I think I might be better to help those that are in the billable hour world than to continue to be in it myself.

Elise Holtzman: What did you do to prepare yourself to be able to help other people who were experiencing burnout, maybe in some similar ways, and it sounds like in some different ways? Because it sounds like it can show up in a lot of different ways for different people.

Lauren Baptiste: Yeah, I mean, they say that 75% to 90% of all visits to the doctor are for stress-related health concerns, which is powerful if we just sit with that number for a second.

Elise Holtzman: That's insane. Yeah, that's really crazy because you don't think about it that way. You think like, “Well, disease is out there and we know that people are subject to getting diseases and there are lots of things you can do, but some of it's going to be out of your control.” But if a lot of it is stress-related, I think that's something that people need to pay a lot more attention to.

Lauren Baptiste: Absolutely.

Elise Holtzman: What did you do in order to get yourself in a position to be able to do this? Because if I'm not mistaken, you were in the accounting world, right?

Lauren Baptiste: Exactly, I worked at a Big Four accounting firm, and so I was working alongside attorneys. I was in the consulting profession, so that's why those are my people that I end up working with: accountants, consultants, and attorneys.

But for me, I always had an affinity for health. I grew up as a kid that was drinking green juice and my family was into all that stuff too before it was even a thing. If anyone remembers wheat germ from back in the 80s and 90s.

But for me, I always loved health. I noticed once I lost it in myself after I burnt out, I was like, “There's a part of me that just fell off track.” To get myself back, it was one small step at a time to move myself in a forward direction. That's where I then, when I started feeling better, was like, “How can I help someone else who's sitting across the desk from me that's experiencing their own version of this?”

I started doing it for fun, just say, “Hey, how can you stop smoking a pack a day? How can you start getting healthy again, even in a busy season? How can we start feeling happy and good again?” That's where it really just builds one person, one team, one project at a time.

Elise Holtzman: Let's talk about burnout in the legal profession. First of all, maybe this is an obvious question, but I suspect there's more to it than what I'm thinking about, why is burnout so prevalent in the legal profession? We hear about this all the time.

Lauren Baptiste: All the time. I've been thinking about this a lot too. There are the obvious long hours. We all know we work a lot, especially in the law profession. But what I was also realizing over time is the exposure to unhealthy habits and the okayness that the profession just almost allows it.

We drink with clients at really late hours. We bend over backwards to hit dotted lines. We put everyone before ourselves first. So when we have these personality types, these unhealthy habits, and a profession that just perpetuates that cycle, it becomes almost inevitable that burnout's going to happen.

Elise Holtzman: Well, it's funny that you said that it's a profession that allows it. I remember when I was younger and I was practicing law ultimately coming to the conclusion that it was not just a profession that permitted it, but a profession that drove it.

I used to say that we would talk about how many hours we had billed as if it was a contest. The more hours you billed somehow the more macho you were, the more devoted you were, or the more of a rock star you were in the legal world. So we tried to outdo each other, and it was a badge of honor.

It was almost like we were gunning for it, not necessarily realizing how we were going to impact ourselves. There was a year that I built like a 2600-hour year. It was just a crazy year. I remember even at age, I was in my late 20s at that point, I remember going to a variety of doctors and specialists because my health was suffering. Yet I knew that was a problem, but it wasn't like I was trying to slow it down because that was the culture: show up, work harder, show how devoted you are, all of that sort of thing.

So I think that it breeds it and certainly did back then. We're certainly seeing more attention being paid to this stuff. Which leads me to my next question. Is this burnout that we're seeing in the legal profession, do you think that this is a more recent development over the past 5 or 10 years, or is it that it's always been there and now we're just starting to pay more attention to it?

Lauren Baptiste: The latter for sure. I mean, if you look back at early burnout, there are studies from the '70s actually that start burnout. Even what you mentioned was like, “Oh, the way it used to be is absolutely, I think the way it would still be if we walked into an office.”

The difference is now the ABA has come out with the well-being pledge. So there's an emphasis to make it better. But sometimes I think when I speak to attorneys, they'll be like, “But that's not real. That's not my day-to-day. I'm in the weeds and it looks nothing like what the ABA is promoting.” While it's well-intentioned, there's still a gap that exists.

Elise Holtzman: Are you seeing that gap in accounting, legal, and consulting? Or do you think it's worse in one of those?

Lauren Baptiste: I would say, yes, I see them in all three. I would say lawyers, unfortunately, win in this situation because it just seems to be that the hours are steady all year long. Consultants can have ebb and flow based on project and deadline, accountants have seasons, even though it seems like the seasons are tighter and also there are less individuals coming into the person.

There are a lot of factors that play into it. But when I work with lawyers, it's just this unrelenting starting at eight, ending at 11:00 or 12:00 on a good day type of schedule. It adds up over time.

Elise Holtzman: What are some of the trends you're seeing in accounting, consulting, and legal in terms of what the firms are trying to do when it comes to burnout? You say it's well-intentioned, but it may not be trickling down to the people who need it the most. What are they doing, whether it's working or not?

Lauren Baptiste: Yeah, that's a good question. There are a lot more conversations around mental health where I think before COVID, it was much more taboo. I've been in this before COVID. To see the shift in organizations has been inspiring and hopeful.

But when I say, yeah, it's well-intentioned, there are still staffing issues, there are generational issues. You have millennials, Gen X, and boomers and they're different, their needs are different, and the way they want to show up is different.

But definitely seeing a challenge of even getting new individuals into the profession, what you have are more established attorneys and accountants taking the brunt of younger folks to want to clock out after 40 hours or just not willing to push themselves to 2:00 AM and it creates a lot of friction there.

There are other factors as well, but it is a slow go to move a mountain. We just have to be really mindful that even though the well-intentioned are there and maybe we're not hitting it today, as we put effort into it, the hope is tomorrow it will be better.

Elise Holtzman: It's interesting that you mentioned the generational issues because I think those are huge. I know that the generation before me and even people around my stage, you did not talk about mental health issues. If you went to a therapist, you certainly weren't out there telling everybody you went to a therapist.

It's funny because when you talk to the younger millennials or you talk to Gen Z who are starting to step into the workplace, at least as lawyers, other folks in law firms who are already there, who are in Gen Z, as someone who didn't grow up with this kind of conversation, the way I look at it and the way some of the people I know have looked at it is, “My gosh, that's all they talk about,” is they’re constantly talking about their therapists, their burnout, and how they feel about everything.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing. It's something that is very different in the generations. I think that for people understanding how each generation shows up, what the taboos are, and what the conversations are about is very important. But it is very hard if you've got an attorney in his or her 60s who's dealing with an attorney in his or her 30s, you're going to have very different ways of looking at these issues. So maybe that is one of the barriers to success here.

Let's talk about what burnout looks like. We mentioned at the beginning of the show that it can look different for different people. But in general, what do you see when people are burned out and how do I know if I'm “just burned out” or if I'm having something that would be considered a full-blown mental health crisis that perhaps there's additional help that's needed?

Lauren Baptiste: Yeah, that's a good question. The World Health Organization breaks it down into three things. A cynicism, detachment, or ineffective at work. Using those three, that's where we can say, “Okay, well, if you were to talk to the average person, their studies level say, okay, on a scale of one to five, where would you fall on that bucket of exhausted, cynical, and ineffective at work?”

They say if you're over three, three or higher, five, meaning you're really feeling those three symptoms, then you are likely experiencing some form of burnout. Now another challenge that comes up is a lot of us in the profession know no different. This is how it's always been. This is how it always is. This is just how it's always going to be. Me being burnt out is irrelevant in getting my stuff done.

But there is a point where it starts to get really what we call chronic burnout or toxic, and that's where you can start to even see the symptoms. Brain fog, used to be good at time management and you're not anymore. You're noticing you're slipping a little bit, things aren't going as well, and it's happening consistently.

Usually, it's let's say a five out of five when all of a sudden your performance, which used to be everything, is now no longer picture perfect. It's almost like others notice it in you before you notice it in yourself.

The hope is with all of these conversations, you start to be more aware of it in yourself so that when you're a three or a four, you raise your hand as opposed to waiting for someone to tell you you're a five.

Elise Holtzman: Or winding up in the hospital like you did.

Lauren Baptiste: Exactly.

Elise Holtzman: I think I may have mentioned to you when we spoke that I had a guest on the podcast several years ago who is an attorney and she quite literally wound up having a stroke at a very young age.

I think she was like in her mid to late 30s, wound up having a stroke and I kid you not, felt these symptoms and decided that before going to the hospital, she was going to go into the office because there was some stuff that had to get done before she went to the hospital. That's a place that we don't want people to wind up ever under any set of circumstances.

I started asking you this question and I'm not even totally sure what the question is, I usually know my question, but it occurs to me that coaching—and you and I are both coaches—is not a licensed profession.

Therapy is a licensed profession. We know doctors are licensed, lawyers are required to be licensed, all of that sort of thing. For those who are listening, there is a couple, but one primary self-regulating body of the coaching profession, there are lots of standards that have been promulgated and all of that sort of thing.

How can a coach, do you think, be helpful to somebody who is experiencing burnout, as opposed to, let's say, having to go to a psychiatrist or a licensed therapist to help people navigate this sort of thing? Are there differences in approach? How do you know when one might be a better fit for you than the other?

Lauren Baptiste: I would say when I meet somebody for the first time, it's really understanding where they fall, how long it's been, what's going on. For example, a lot of people, even attorneys specifically, we know the rates of alcoholism are higher in the legal profession than they are in the statistical average of Americans.

So, if we're thinking of that, maybe a burnt-out attorney looks like an attorney that's drinking a lot. Now, when I meet someone for the first time, I start to ask questions of, “How much are you relying on this alcohol? How are you coping otherwise? How are your relationships?”

There is a point where therapy should come first. There's a point where sometimes it's good to have a coach and a therapist because they have different swim lanes. When I think of my role in staying in my swim lane as a coach and not a therapist or not a doctor, or as an old CPA, not your accountant either, it's really important to just keep in mind how I can help.

I've heard from therapists who some agree and some disagree when I say this, so I'll just put this out there though, but if we think of our life on a line, a horizontal line, and maybe our dot is somewhere in the middle, a lot of therapy takes from the dot and looks back.

Why did you start out drinking more? Where did this come from? What's happening? I think of coaching as the dot of where we are today and where we're going. If a client's coming to me saying, “I'm looking to get over my alcohol habit,” I'm not the right person for them, and I would refer them out.

If there's someone who's saying, “I've just been stuck, I feel like I can't get out of this rut that I'm in. I'm noticing that I'm starting to fall off and it's because I haven't been managing my time well or I'm just not showing up the way I used to show up at work,” then they may be more likely.

I think of it more on a severity level and also making sure it's in my lane of what I can actually help with because there are definitely areas where it wouldn't be my lane of expertise.

Elise Holtzman: No question. I agree with you actually. I always describe coaching as a very forward-looking paradigm, whereas therapy can sometimes be backward-looking to look for the reasons behind something.

It doesn't mean it always is, and it doesn't mean it's not also forward-looking, but I don't treat full-blown mental illness. To your point, a lot of clients wind up having a coach and a therapist because they're talking about different things.

I have some clients who come to me after a lot of therapy and they want to try coaching. I have some clients where I'll say to them, "Hey, have you thought about talking to a therapist about this?" Where I don't think I'm in my swim lane, as you put it.

So I think it's important for people to explore both of those. It can also be, to your point, a severity issue. There are some people that coaching is not going to be enough. I just think it's important for us to lay that out for people so that they understand that they have choices.

How do people typically respond, would you say, how do hardworking professionals typically respond to burnout? What, if anything, did they do for themselves sometimes to try to solve the problem? When they come to you, if they've tried something, what are some of the things that they've been trying that don't always pan out for them?

Lauren Baptiste: They've been trying to read books, listen to podcasts, which I think are all great starts. Honestly, when I got myself out of burnout, positive psychology, for me, felt like medicine. I was also, which I can imagine many who are listening, who might be burnt out, don't really know where to go.

I didn't see my burnout as a therapy circumstance to fit that bucket. I didn't really know coaching, I've heard of it, and it just didn't land for me right away until I really learned what it was.

If someone's sitting there thinking like, "Well, where do I start?" Definitely, there are podcasts, there are books, so many books now on burnout. I know professionals who focus on men's burnout, women's burnout, and entrepreneurial burnout, it's just such a topic now.

Other things that people may have done, yoga classes or tried to work out more, more of them in minority, but some people volunteer their time just to zoom out and see a greater perspective in their life. Those would probably be the primary ones though.

Elise Holtzman: What do you see working for people versus what's not working for people?

Lauren Baptiste: I'm going to start with what's not working for people because then I think it leads into what's working for people. I think for us, a lot of us in the profession, I am a type A, I’m raising my hand. I know you can't see me raise my hand, but I'm raising my hand, a lot of us are type A, a lot of us feel like they need to solve for this themselves, and that's not working.

A lot of us are trying to scale in our lives, in our careers, and we think that we can bring old solutions to new problems, and there's a point where that just doesn't work anymore.

What we need to do then is find those who are doing it differently, who are a few steps ahead, who we’re inspired by that can help us get us from where we are to where we want to go. That's why sometimes it's not just a book, we need more than that to get us out of there.

Elise Holtzman: It's interesting to me that you mentioned this idea of trying to power through, trying to do it ourselves. As I often mention on this podcast, I work with a set of personality tools and research, not my research, but research does demonstrate that lawyers, a pretty big majority of lawyers tend to show up with similar personality traits.

The ones that can get in our way are things like being a do-it-yourselfer. Knowing that you are super competent and believing that you're the most competent one in the room or the most competent one to handle this particular matter and not allowing other people to help you. So if I want something done right, I have to do it myself.

I can't admit to not being perfect. I can't admit to not being able to hack it. If you can't stand the fire, get out of the kitchen kind of thing, and I'm never going to admit that that's me because what would people think?

Also, I think, and I say this as a lawyer myself, I think that sometimes, our identities are so wrapped up in being smart, being the helper, and being the problem solver that when that feels like it's getting a little bit away from us, it feels like it's like God forbid, somebody should find out about it because that's my identity. That's how I view who I am. And if I let that go, who am I really?

Lauren Baptiste: Yeah, if I can pause you even right there, rewind and listen to that like five times. What you just said is so powerful and that's the sticky point. “I feel like I should have been able to figure it out by myself,” the perfectionist tendency comes in strongly there. You are a competent lawyer or whatever titles, letters after your name that you are listening to this in, but you're not your own therapist. You're not an expert in everything and that's a good thing.

You're an expert in what you're an expert in. And what makes you an expert in getting out of the stuck situation is saying, “I think I need someone else's help.” Olympians have coaches, board of directors support CEOs. We have this framework intentionally in so many areas of life, but for some reason, in the profession of law and the others that I work with as well, we just feel like if it's not me, then it's like go or bust and people bust because they're not willing to raise their hand.

Elise Holtzman: What are a few things that you think the folks listening can do if they feel like maybe they're burnt out?

Lauren Baptiste: I always like to say start small. Something like 15 minutes a day. Most of us don't have time for a one-hour high-intensity cardio workout, but we can make 15 minutes a day.

If for some reason you say, "I can't make 15 minutes a day," then the problem isn't big enough for you right now. I get that we're busy, but if this is important, you're not that busy. You need to make time 15 minutes a day. That could be 15 minutes journaling and just venting whatever's in your mind and getting it out of your head and in paper. That could be reading for five minutes and taking a walk for 10. However you want to use the 15 minutes, but just taking time that's in your control, so powerful.

Elise Holtzman: What about taking the 15 minutes and scrolling on TikTok or Instagram?

Lauren Baptiste: There's a time and a place for it. There are different buckets of burnout and if we have like forever to talk, because I love connecting, there are different ways that stress affects us. That TikTok, Instagram notification after a certain amount of time can actually make us feel more depressed, more lonely, more unhappy.

We also have to be mindful of the things that we're following. I love professional development, it's just been a thing since I've been like a teenager that I've always been into in personal development.

Most of my feed is that and French Bulldogs. It's generally an upper, but for some of us, it can be a downer. News can be really hard, just a lot of varying opinions. I always say use that with a grain of salt. That shouldn't be the 15 minutes every day. That might be one of the days, or you go for a walk while at least you're listening or something like that.

Elise Holtzman: You've mentioned a few things that are solitary. Do you think that it's important for people to do things that are solitary? Or do you think that it can be something like doing something with a friend or listening to music and dancing with your partner or something like that? Or do you think that everybody needs that alone time to recharge?

Lauren Baptiste: I love that you bring that up. I think a lot of the times when I work with clients, I focus on solitary because it's already that we don't have a lot of control over our own time, so we gotta take what we can get.

But I absolutely 100% agree that being around others is so valuable. You can even do a gratitude practice with a partner or with your kids around the dinner table and just say, "What are you grateful for?" And everybody goes around the table and everyone feels a little bit better after sharing.

There's definitely a need for both. But I think if we don't start with ourselves and we just rely on our friends to be our pseudo therapists or rely on our partners to just be the punching bag, it can also not be healthy if it's not intentional.

Elise Holtzman: One of the things I've noticed, and I'm just going to talk about me for a second because of course, mine is the only experience I really know for sure, I'm a very strong extrovert. So I tend to recharge often by being with other people.

As I get older, and I do work very hard, sometimes I do need that alone time because it's like, it's just gotten to be too much, even for me, I do think it's important for people to figure out what it is that helps them recharge. Because for example, my husband does not recharge in a group of other people.

He loves being with other people. He can socialize and have a great time. But when it comes time to recharge, he does need that downtime. I do think also, mostly speaking for myself, but I do think that a lot of extroverts don't tend to take that time.

It almost feels weird to be alone for too long. It's like, “What am I doing here?” So over the years, and I'm getting a little longer in the tooth, shall we say, I'm getting older every day, I don't know if that applies to everybody else, but I'm getting older every day and I have noticed that having more of that downtime does help me recharge if I can be alone with my thoughts for a little bit. So it's probably valuable for everyone, but I suspect that for different people, different things are going to work.

Lauren Baptiste: Definitely. I think when we think about this, there's no one-size-fits-all approach to solving for burnout, to overcoming it. All of us are in different work situations, even though if we're all in the practice, we work a lot, we have clients, and there are a lot of similarities, but how extroverts and introverts respond is going to be very different.

I have a background in Ayurveda, which we didn't talk about at this point, but it just talks about how there are different body-mind types and personality types. It's hard to have one size. Whenever we throw things out at the podcast or when someone's listening to this, those might not work for you or maybe out of the five, one might work for you. And that's okay.

If one works, that's a win. Focus on that and you can build from there. Then for others, it might be a completely different suggestion that works. I think that's what is really powerful about the work is that it's not just like, "Oh, well, if this doesn't work for you, you'll never get out of it." There's absolutely a way to get out of it, just being patient.

Elise Holtzman: You mentioned when I first asked you a question, what can people do if they think they're burnt out, or they're getting there, you mentioned taking small steps. Do you recommend a certain schedule? Like do this for a few weeks, then try to add in this for a few weeks or something like that? Or is it all again, just very personal for people?

Lauren Baptiste: That's why I just like the 15 minutes a day to keep it just easy where they can fit it in. I just know some people are morning people, others have more energy at night. Maybe sometimes people like to go for a walk in the middle of the day.

If you start just by doing something and doing it consistently, small steps accumulate. We think that it has to be grandiose to be valuable or effective and that's actually not the case at all.

Elise Holtzman: You did mention Ayurveda. Can you tell me a little bit more about it? I've heard of it but I really don't know what it is.

Lauren Baptiste: Yeah, sure. If you've heard of traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda is the equivalent from India and it's a say 3,500 to 5,000-year-old evidence-based science that uses nature as a way for medicine. It can be as simple as preventative health but it could also be as complex as surgery which exists still in India.

Elise Holtzman: What does Ayurveda have to do with attorney burnout or how can it help with attorney burnout?

Lauren Baptiste: When I'm around attorneys or even just around anybody, there are three personality body-mind types that exist universally, not just in the attorney or law profession. But if we can become aware of which type that we are, I think a lot of us are more akin to a Myers-Briggs in our world today, but it's a different version of that.

If we can be really aware of our body and the way it reacts, and our mind, then we can notice there's going to be maybe smoke before the fire of actually burning out. There are going to be things that we can do to find more balance and harmony in our lives, even when we're working 2,600 hour years. As we're more aware of who we are, we can then take greater charge of ourselves and our future.

Elise Holtzman: Well, you and I as coaches both know that everything starts with self-awareness. If we're not willing to, we're not open to recognizing who we are and what's going on with us, it becomes very hard to change something that maybe we'd like to be doing more effectively or that would make us happier or feel better.

So whether it's Ayurveda or you mentioned Myers-Briggs, I use something that's called TypeCoach along similar lines, I think that some people are skeptical and God knows as a lawyer, I was skeptical, this sort of thing. But I think that they're not the be-all and the end-all.

Nothing is, but we can use them as tools to help us figure out what's going on with us and maybe how to make some shifts that could be valuable. I love this. I think I'm going to look up a little bit more about Ayurveda when we're finished.

I want to ask you a question, Lauren, that I ask all of my guests at the end of our time together. There is a phenomenon called the curse of knowledge where experts sometimes forget that what is so obvious and natural to them is not at all obvious to other people. When it comes to recognizing, preventing, and recovering from burnout, what's a principle or a piece of advice that may seem obvious to you, but you think is important for people to hear?

Lauren Baptiste: Make sure you eat lunch. Make sure you eat lunch. How many times do you skip your lunch, put off your lunch? It's three o'clock and you still haven't eaten. I've talked to so many clients who come to me and they're like, "Oh yeah, I forgot to eat." If we're not eating, we're not nourishing our bodies.

If we're not nourishing our bodies, we're putting ourselves in stress. If we're putting ourselves in stress consistently, that can look like burnout in the long run. Maybe something's wrong.

Elise Holtzman: And that's a simple one, right? We can all do that.

Lauren Baptiste: Right.

Elise Holtzman: Yeah. Some of this stuff is so straightforward and we know the answers. We know that we should be eating properly. We know that we should be moving our bodies. We know that we should be taking time to recharge for our mental health and all of that. And yet, just because of the kinds of people that we are, the kind of industry that we're in, the kind of cultures that we inhabit, we're not doing it. So I love that piece of advice.

You heard it here first, Lauren Baptiste says to eat your lunch. I think that's a good one. Thank you so much for being here today, Lauren. It's really been a pleasure. Thank you to our listeners for tuning in. If you've enjoyed today's show, please subscribe, rate, and review us at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. In the meantime, be bold, take action, and make things happen. We'll see you next time.

Thank you for tuning in. If you've enjoyed today's show, please subscribe, rate, and review us at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. In the meantime, be bold, take action, and make things happen. We'll see you next time.

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