Burnout is a growing challenge for entrepreneurs and professionals alike. In this episode of the Michael Peres Podcast, host Michael Peres sits down with Toronto-based psychotherapist Delia Petrescu, founder of Get Reconnected Psychotherapy, to explore the causes, symptoms, and solutions for burnout.
Delia shares her expert insights, practical strategies, and personal experiences to help business owners recognize the warning signs and take proactive steps toward a healthier, more sustainable work-life balance. Whether you’re struggling with stress or looking to prevent burnout before it starts, this conversation offers valuable advice you can put into action today. Watch the video and read the transcript below.
A Conversation with Delia Petrescu – Michael Peres
Michael: Delia, welcome to the podcast.
Delia: Thank you. Thank you for having me today. It’s pleasure.
Michael: Yeah, I’m excited to dive right in. Delia Petrescu is a Toronto-based psychotherapist, psychometrist, and the founder of Get Reconnected Psychotherapy Services. Her practice focuses on helping clients manage trauma symptoms, mood, anxiety, and burnout.
She has created an eight week Burnout Reset program. She also offers services for the treatment of life, transition, infertility and relationships. Delia has over a decade of experience working as a psychometrist in various clinical settings, conducting neuropsychological and neurodegenerative assessments.
First and foremost. Delia, how did you get started with all this? That’s awesome.
Delia: I finished a, I have a bachelor in, psychology. And basically I, was always interested in numbers. statistics was, I guess one of my forte. So being a psychologist was the way to go. And it was really interesting work because I was doing basically assessments with people that had traumatic brain injuries, either through car accidents or workplace injuries.
And being in the assessment got me interested in doing the treatment aspect of it as well. So I got into the trauma.
Michael: And you also work with, like helping entrepreneurs with burnouts? is that right?
Delia: Yes. So basically how it started is that when I was doing, when I was working as a psychometrist, I was taking a lot of, assessments here and there, and sometimes I would commute for five hours at a time.
And that was my first experience with burnout. And it got me a little bit more interested about what happens in our brain when we’re getting burned out and what exactly drives the burnout. And the more I learned about it, the more I learned about how I can help myself. I made me realize that I wanna help others as well.
Michael: So just a weird question here, but you’re talking here, people go into accidents and they get blunt force trauma, right? And you’re dealing with people who get burnouts. Is there like a correlation here? So an underlying, is it your just happened to be how it played out?
Delia: No, it just happened to be how it played out. It is just that the way I was doing my work, it led me to burnout, But I think absolutely 99% of people that we know, everybody burns out at one point in their life. So it got just curious about what is the psychology behind it?
And is the burnout affecting our brain in such a way that, it keeps that cycle going.
Michael: Yeah. first and foremost, can you define to me, ’cause I actually talk about burnout all the time. On the show, strangely, I’ve never spoken about burnout. I’m someone who almost has a weirdly bittersweet relationship with burnout.
But everyone on this podcast who I interview, just mentions that word. So I wanna know what’s your definition, first and foremost of what burnout is?
Delia: So burnout is basically, like when I think about burnout, I always like to differentiate between exhaustion and burnout, right? Because a lot of the times, when we’re just tired, we usually throw the word burnout as it goes, right?
So burnout is just chronic stress. So when we’re stressed on, on a daily, like it’s human, it’s natural, it’s something that everybody goes through it. When we don’t, when we don’t close that loop. So it’s basically when we go home And we’re still thinking about work or you’re still checking the email, you’re still going on, like the Slack notifications, right?
You’re prolonging that stress response. So that’s when it’s chronic, when it’s happens over time.
Michael: But here’s the thing that’s almost, that could almost be a byproduct of a person’s lifestyle because when you have a nine to five, people have these clear cut times where they, and they also have very discreet responsibility.
So if you work for a corporate job and you’re in charge of accounting, like you don’t care about sales, you don’t worry about the company loss of sale or close of sale or whatnot, you’re focused on just doing your job good. And so it’s very like narrow and specific, but when you enter the realm of entrepreneurship, it’s a little different because accounting is your responsibility. Sales is your responsibility. The design, marketing, is all your responsibility. And also to compete in this landscape where you’re just a new company dealing with other well-established companies, you have to work all the time. Nine to five is almost a non-existent pipe dream for an entrepreneur.
So I, I wonder, again, like someone works till midnight. I work till midnight all the time. I work till three, four in the morning all the time. How do I dissociate now what would be just me doing what I love doing? Or maybe I have a deeper addiction or maybe that stress is something that’s deeper and that can be considered burnout.
Delia: For sure. And as you’re talking about this, so there, there is a fine line between that, right? I usually tell my clients when I’m in sessions that burnout, just like with any difficult, any, difficult thing in our lives, is always trying to teach you something, right? So with burnout is always trying to teach you to show you like your body’s trying to tell you something about it, right?
So for a lot of people, burnout can come from people pleasing or perfectionism, right? When, you sit on the same project and it takes you a little bit longer than usual or you’re just ruminating after. But as you were talking about that passion for entrepreneurship, it reminds me of there was a Harvard study that was done.
I can’t recall the real, I think it was like 2013, and they were talking about how there are, there’s a difference between a passion and especially when it comes to burnout. So is the harmonious passion and then the obsessive passion. And that’s what differentiates whether someone is gonna lead to burnout or not.
So when you’re hor harmoniously passionate when you just. Care about the business, but when you’re obsessively passionate is that, it doesn’t matter. You’re staying till 2:00 AM even if your like energy level is depleted. A hundred percent.
Michael: Oh, that’s such a good conversation because it’s I guess one is, one is good and one is detrimental. And the worst part is like when you’re doing the one that’s detrimental, but you enjoy it. You know what I’m saying? When you have a problem but you still haven’t even recognized it or you’re okay with the problem and It’s almost a natural progress of trying to do better, because when you’re an entrepreneur and you’re like, the idea, the primitive idea of more is better seems to resonate, right? So if I can work, if I work 12 hours a day, and I get x done. If I work, 15 hours a day, I’ll get X plus some more done, right?
And it’s always more is better. But then. I think the line is when your success in your business comes at the expense of success in other aspects of your life, when the success of your business comes at the success of the relationship of your spouse or your family, or your friends or your parents, or, and the way to look at entrepreneurship is it’s like there’s no point of being super successful in business if you know your quality of life is diminished or if you’re overweight or if you’re not taking care of yourself, or if you’re not happy, you don’t have good self-esteem.
I tend to see that line as it’s okay to be passionate about your business. It’s okay to wanna work all the time, but I think that line for me is when it comes at the expense at other aspects of your life. Okay. And yeah, because like one of those things where yeah, maybe this stress is just a natural part of work.
It’s not necessarily considered burnout or unhealthy territory. And this leads on to just such an important question: you’re having a long day. You’re tired, but you have some more work left to do. And the question is, when is it a smart decision to say, Hey, it’s time to push through and bru force my way through these remaining tasks, or I’m already exhausted.
Perhaps I can kinda recoup, take the night off and start fresh tomorrow and possibly get this task done that I’m trying to do now in a quarter of the amount of time with a refreshed mind.
Delia: Yeah, and the word that he used, refresh mind, that’s like key right there. The thing is, I’ll tell you something about I usually, how I usually deal in therapy sessions with clients is I always refer back to the energy levels.
What’s your battery energy level? So I use the analogy, like same thing when you’re on your phone, if you’re planning to watch a YouTube video, that it’s one hour long and you’re a 2% battery, guess what, you’re not gonna be able to finish watching it. So it’s like the same thing with us.
it’s good to be, honest and ask yourself, okay, what is my battery level right now? Can I still go on and still do this one hour left that I have it’s midnight or 2:00 AM or whatever time it is, or, what’s my energy level, right? do I need, if I’m at a five or 10% battery, chances are I definitely need to recharge somehow.
And the thing is, with recharging is not necessarily about, like sleeping or, watching a movie. It’s whatever you feel that it recharges you. So for a lot of people, it could be just, having a half an hour or just one hour of no notifications, right? Going for a walk or just listening to some music that hypes you up, right?
So it’s like having that little bit of energy up boost.
Michael: I see. So lemme ask you a question. Does Delia ever burnout, and I know you mentioned you did and how did you come around to dealing with it? Yes. what specific masters did you take?
Delia: Yeah, so it, it was all about a lot of reflections and a lot of, awareness that I had to deal with.
But it was, it’s basically same thing that I tell clients is always finding out like, what is the pattern? What gets you there and what are the triggers? When do you realize that, Hey, you know what, I think I’m on the brink of burnout or I’m heading there. So for me, a lot of times when I am taking, if I’m taking more clients than I should or if I’m, like working on blogs or like creating content.
And a lot of the times I work more than 16 hours a day. And some days it’s okay, I don’t burn out. But when I realized that I’m having those thoughts that, you know what, you should just lay down on the couch and binge watch that Netflix series or, crave a lot of chocolate, a lot of sweets.
That’s when I know, hey, you know what? My body’s trying to tell me something.
It’s about to slow down.
Michael: Yeah, more isn’t always better. and that’s something that I struggle with too. But I guess, so I guess what you’re saying is it’s the best way to deal with burnout is to not deal with it at all, is to preempt it, is to learn on the, get those initial markers to read what your body’s telling you and course correct before you head down that downhill spiral.
Delia: So that’s the prevention part of it. But when it, if you’re already into the brink of burnout, a lot of the times we wanna have that quick fix. And when you’re already in the brink of burnout, it’s good to have that reflection and to really think about it:;’ what led me to the burnout, right?
And there’s so many different factors and so many different layers. like we have the always on culture, right? that it’s on. And now nowadays, you have, social media and then you see other entrepreneurs or other business. Is that, they’re posting nonstop, so it gives you that sense that you’re either falling behind.
So it’s whatever, what does it drive? what the, what is the burnout trying to tell you that, are you trying to push yourself to the limits? Are you trying to preserve something? What is it that you’re trying to do?
Michael: Interesting. So going back to my initial question that I thought might’ve been a stupid question where I asked, is there relationship between people getting into car accidents and people dealing with burnout?
And infertility, I’m wondering, as a professional, like yourself, I’m trying to get into your mindset here. I. Is there a common denominator between these various disciplines? Because I find it to be finding it interesting that you help entrepreneurs with burnout and you’re dealing with people with physical blunt force trauma and car accidents.
Have you ever looked at it a little more abstractly and saying, Hey, I see why I’m drawn to this specific industry or industries and some sort of commonality between them.
Delia: Yeah, and I’m glad you asked that, it’s actually a really good question. I think it comes down to the fact it’s, however, all of these aspects, they affect your nervous system, right?
Because same with burnout, because it’s chronic stress, it’s how your nervous system is reacting to it, right? So that’s why we have some people that, like they can work for one year straight and they kept going two hours sleep and not have any vacations and they don’t burn out.
So it’s basically how is their nervous system reacting to the environment, what they’re putting themselves through. And it’s same thing with trauma, right? It’s, basically it’s not the event itself. But it’s how you’re reacting to the, to it and how your nervous system is responding to.
Same thing with infertility, right? Some can say that infertility is a traumatic, interesting response. It’s a trauma, but yeah, it’s how your body responds to it.
Michael: That’s cool because from the outside it seems so almost like confusing, like how you focus on such different stuff. But I, from how you’re framing it Yeah, it’s all perception and I guess once you look at it in that abstract lens, you’re almost solving very different problems with a similar mindset. So what would be the number one tip you’d give to entrepreneurs to, if they knew nothing about this process and if they weren’t on your eight week retreat for healing with burnout, like one quick piece of advice, what would you give to them? Just how to dealing or to prevent burnout.
Delia: So the one quick piece would be, to watch out for that, the energy levels, right? Like the, what are the battery levels? So it’s basic, if, you’re waking up in the morning, a lot of the times we, wake up and we think that our energy is infinite.
Like you wake up and you’re feeling, you know what? I’m just gonna accomplish. You put a lot of things on your to the list, but a lot of the times, even after a good night’s sleep, you might wake up with a 60% battery level, right? And if you’re planning to do something that you would do at a hundred percent, if you’re at 60%, good luck. That’s not gonna happen. and another thing, I would say is to just listen to your body. So your body’s constantly giving you signals, but most of us we’re disconnected and we miss them until we’re actually completely shut down like paying attention, like I said, personally for me, it’s creeping in when, like when I just wanna sit on the couch, binge watch Netflix, and redefining what rest actually means for you.
So what does rest, because rest doesn’t mean necessarily the same thing for everybody. So when it comes to burnout, there’s so many different nuances and so many different layers that it gets to that, but I wanted to just leave with one last thing. There was a research done right after the pandemic, the COVID-19, I think it was about 2021 or 2022, where they found that in order to prevent burnout, you need to have at least two hours of free time on a daily basis. And that free time can mean anything from, like watching Netflix or going for a walk.
Michael: Very interesting.
Delia: Yeah, so it’s basically, if you have less than two hours, that would lead you to the burnout.
And interestingly, if you have more than five hours of free time, that’s actually the opposite, that will lead you into, like not having a directional purpose.
Michael: That’s beautiful. I actually never thought of that. So two hours a day of doing nothing can sometimes help everything else be so much more productive.
Delia: Of you time. Like me time. Yeah. So it could be doing nothing or
Michael: Yeah. Lia how can people get in touch with you?
Delia: So they can get in touch with me at get reconnected ca, the website, also on Instagram, all, the social medias @getreconnected.ca, and LinkedIn, all of them.
Michael: Great. Thank you for your time and wisdom.
Delia: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
source https://getreconnected.ca/blog/michael-peres-podcast-entrepreneur-burnout-delia-petrescu/
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