"Start with Keeping Yourself and Your Team Mentally Sharp"

Wellbeing is such a huge, wide, sometimes vague, word.

In my journey of supporting others in preventing burnout, I'm keen to better understand the many layers of wellbeing – the antidote to burnout.

In the first article in a series that looks into what does wellbeing mean, I interviewed Jackie Hermes, CEO of Accelity and a startup growth advisor. Not surprisingly, our conversation about wellbeing revolved around both the professional and personal paths in that context.

*A glimpse of our recorded conversation. For the full interview, please scroll down

Davida: Let's break down the word wellbeing: what does that mean to you?

Jackie: A lot of people have a very standard definition of wellbeing: wellbeing is balance – and I hate that word balance – getting eight hours of sleep at night, eating healthy, working out.

To me, wellbeing is different for every single person. It's a combination of activities that are making you feel good and really only you can make that decision. I know that when I sleep eight hours I almost feel worse, too much sleep is not good for me, seven hours is my number and I have found over time. Trying to make healthy choices but also not beating yourself up.

In business, one of the most important things is mental wellbeing. I could be eating healthy, making good decisions, getting enough sleep, but I'd still not feeling mentally sharp at work - and then you have to look at what else contributes to that. I really think it's a very individual thing.

Davida: Which challenges around wellbeing do you recognize in the industries you work with?

Jackie: I work with a lot of startups, and in the startup culture not sleeping, not taking care of yourself and working a zillion hours - is glorified. Almost so much that it makes me, at times, feel guilty if I'm relaxing or if I'm taking the time to do something for myself, because I might think: everyone else is working and I should be doing the same thing. I do work a lot but I've found the amount of time that I like to work and makes me feel accomplished and good, that I'm not burning myself out.

I think that one of the biggest challenges is the glorification of not taking care of yourself.

People are always super proud of being very busy. Busy is good, I like being busy, but it's also a question: Are you being effective? Are you making time for the things that you should be making time for or the things that you want in your personal life? Am I so busy that I don't spend time with my kids? Or that I'm not spending time with myself? Or I'm not reading? Busy can be very bad too and that is also over-glorified.

Davida: you mentioned GUILT, let's pause here for a minute. How do you overcome guilt?

Jackie: I feel a lot of guilt around parenting, around being a mother and also a business owner. I often will feel that if I'm taking time for myself, I'll feel guilty, like I should give that time to my kids. There are a lot of my kids' friends' parents who work 9-5, and spending tons of time with their kids, or constantly volunteering at school and doing those things that I don't do as often…

You really have to start where you are and not where other people tell you to, and recognize that this may not meet the standard, whatever the standard is.

I know that when I'm spending time with my kids I'm not looking at my phone, I'm not distracted and making sure it's quality time with them. So you don't have to feel the pressure of other people, you have to make that decision: These are my standards and this is what I'm going to measure myself against and forgo the opinion of others, which is way easier said than done…

Davida: As a business owner, CEO, and a mother, do you find this combination of roles enhancing your wellbeing or maybe more challenging to cultivating?

Jackie: I think it makes me more purposeful about it. I'm healthier now than I was before I had kids, because before, I had all the time in the world. I could work for 60 hours and then go drinking or do whatever I wanted, it was a big party. And now I need to be very intentional about how do I spend my time.

I have my work, I know what I want to get done, I have time with my kids, I know what I want to get out of that, what I want to teach them, what kind of time I want to spend with them. So it's interesting because everyone always say: Oh, that must be so difficult to juggle all of that, but actually, I have found it easier because it made me put more structure into my life and plan time to take care of myself.

Davida: How do you implement wellbeing in your company?

Jackie: We require our employees to work 36 hours a week as we're trying to not overwork them. We're looking into putting a maternity leave policy in place right now, and considering what we can afford as a business but also what a parent deserves. We're trying to stand in their shoes. Especially in the agency world it's very easy to get stressed, overworked and tired, so we're constantly keeping an eye on that.

We also get out there and get active together. We volunteer together, we do a river clean up and a trash pick-up, we volunteered at a farm together. We mix that desire to give to the community and also being active together and then it feels good for everyone.

Davida: We all measure different aspects when it comes to business, like the bottom line and social impact. Do you measure the level of wellbeing in your organization?

Jackie: We survey our employees to discuss happiness in the job, which could be a contributor, but we don't specifically measure wellbeing of the team. I'd love to hear suggestions on that.

Davida: What would you advise to employers, employees, founders and executives in order to enhance wellbeing within organizations?

Jackie:

Keeping yourself and your team mentally sharp is a really good place to start and the example is set at the top.

If you're working non-stop and killing yourself working a million hours and not taking care of yourself, your management team will reflect those activities and they'll do the same thing, and it will trickle down to the rest of the company. It's really easy to set a culture of glorifying work from not taking care of yourself just by the actions of one person. So that will be definitely where I'll start.

Then just being intentional about how you talk about the topic, making sure you're talking about the topic, getting your team out of the office and not sitting stressed at their desk all the time. Things like walking meetings or getting volunteering together. These are little, tiny things that you can do to improve wellbeing on a day to day basis.

Wellbeing changes for people over time. My idea of wellbeing when I was in my twenties changed when I started having kids, when I got to my thirties, when I got employees, and so on. It's something that you keep hearing about. Trying to address it and do what's best for you, your team, your family – you know you're doing everything you can do.

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That was the first article in a series that explores wellbeing at life and work. Stay tuned for more conversations that will follow.

For a comprehensive guide to preventing burnout and cultivating wellbeing, check out my recent book "Burning Out Won't Get You There".