008 JJ Flizanes: Optimal Health and Avoiding Burnout

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In this episode, Barbara and JJ Flizanes discuss:

The increasing burnout rate among medical professionals and tools for identifying contributing factors.
Marketing strategies to increase visibility and steps for self-promotion.
How to strengthen your brand and the role that passion plays in inspiring an audience.

Key Takeaways:

When evaluating daily habits, sleep is the number one tool most people don’t utilize.
If you’re not willing to break out of the box, then your energy will get stifled.
To grow your audience and business, you need to test out different brands, different messages, and see what resonates with your audience.

“ When it comes to health professionals, they are the worst offenders. They’re working themselves way too hard, way too long, stress levels are very high, and their diets are very bad.” — JJ Flizanes

Transcription

008 JJ Flizanes- Optimal Health and Avoiding Burnout

Barbara Hales: JJ Flizanes is an empowerment strategist and the host of several podcasts shows including Fit 2 Love and Spirit, Purpose & Energy. She is the director of Invisible Fitness, an Amazon bestselling author of Fit 2 Love: How to Get Physically, Emotionally, and Spiritually Fit to Attract the Love of Your Life, and author of Knack Absolute Abs: Routines for a Fit and Firm Core. She was named Best Personal Trainer in Los Angeles for 2007 by Elite Traveler Magazine. JJ has been featured in many national magazines including Shape, Fitness, Muscle and Fitness HERS, Elegant Bride, and Women’s Health, as well as having appeared on NBC, CBS, Fox, and KTLA. Her newest book, The Invisible Fitness Formula: 5 Secrets to Release Weight & End Body Shame, debuted at number two on the Amazon bestseller list for women’s health, and number two, is a hot new release. Get your free copy at jjflizanes.com/book. Well, welcome to the podcast today, JJ.

JJ Flizanes: Thank you, Barbara.

Barbara Hales: JJ, I was wondering if you could tell me about how to avoid burnout and meditation for the health professional.

JJ Flizanes: Sure, I put together an Optimal Health and Avoiding Burnout Checklist, which is also another free item that anyone is welcome to go get a copy of. It’s at jjflizanes.com. There are 17 different points on it, and it really breaks down into groups of areas of our lives that we don’t really focus on or don’t have a benchmark or a boundary for an idea of what might be best for us. Now when it comes to health professionals, it’s really funny that a lot of health professionals are actually the worst offenders for healthcare. A lot of health professionals are working themselves way too hard, way too long. Stress levels are very high. Diets are very bad. There’s usually not a lot of downtime, play time, mindfulness. It’s sort of like we’re in fight or flight all the time in the healthcare field.

So, it’s kind of a funny phenomenon in healthcare because there are so many… I think amongst doctors and nurses, there are probably more overweight, obese, smoking doctors and nurses than I’ve ever seen. Now in the alternative medicine field, of course, in functional medicine, they’re the opposite. There are a lot of very, very healthy because part of that mindset is actually breaking down and taking the look at how we do things on a day-to-day basis, which again, compound into what our health is. So, if we’re looking at avoiding burnout, we have to look at our habits of what we’re doing and not necessarily just adding something in but possibly taking things away.

Oftentimes, again, healthcare professionals, and it really could be in any field, feel so strongly about their mission or their job, or maybe it’s about the money, whatever it is. If it’s a mission base and they want to help a lot of people, sometimes, what they don’t realize until you crash and burn and get adrenal fatigue is that you have to also be able to have enough energy, stamina, centeredness, calmness, and high frequency, high vibrating emotions, to be of the best impact because we reach more people when we’re at our best as well. And we have a bigger impact and influence energetically in that way.

And too often I work with a lot of physicians, and a lot of them, again, get into the crash and burn situation where their hormones are completely depleted. They’re just burnt out, and they can’t think straight. They’ve got brain fog. Maybe their health is bad in other ways. Like I said, I’ve seen a lot of very obese nurses and doctors and nurses smoke. I mean, that would be the first indication that we’re not dealing with health practices here.

So, when we’re looking at burnout, we have to start looking at all the different things that you do on a daily basis. How do you live your life? How do you formulate your goals for things just as simple as sleep, getting seven to nine hours of deep, uninterrupted sleep, and not necessarily jumping to medication if you can’t get there. Sleep is probably the number one tool that most people do not utilize. That is the biggest way to impact your health in a positive way, and it’s free. Now of course, it might not be free trying to figure out how to get the best, deep, uninterrupted sleep that’s restorative in nature and replenishes your hormones and your neurotransmitters and the chemicals in your brain and build your muscle and releases fat and helps with your immunity. Again, we really just need to focus on again, those habits and patterns, and at the top of the list I have here is sleep.

Barbara Hales: Well, JJ, you have so many hands, and you have so many different missions that you have to promote health in various ways. Tell me, how did you acquire the number of fans that you currently have? What is it that you did to promote yourself that you would feel is effective and that other people should try?

JJ Flizanes: Well in a marketing way, I started out… My guess for some of your listeners and possibly just the general public out there is a lot of times we have a passion that we think we have when we’re younger. We go to school. We get a degree. We follow that degree because it makes logical sense to spend money on it, and then we continue down that path. And for me, my path was not quite the same. When I became a personal trainer and then I got named Best Personal Trainer in Los Angeles for 2007 by Elite Traveler Magazine, I sort of stuck on that path of the fitness and nutrition. But I had been wanting to branch out past that. While I was using science, which is funny because in the personal training world, people use gym science, and I’m sure there are people that use science. But back in the day, 20 years ago, the amount of misinformation and just crazy myths that… It still perpetuates today, that I see on the internet, that I see other podcasters doing, it’s crazy how much is not rooted in science.

And so when I started to learn science, I got very passionate about science. And then the science of the body moved into the science of the brain, and the science of our endocrine system, and the science of our gut brain health, and then into the science of psychology. And then that moved into the science of actually our spirit and energy and astrology and the fact that everything is made of energy and the physics about frequency and vibration, which correlate with our emotions.

So, as I started to learn and go down my path over the last 20 years of passion and unfoldment and trying things on myself, because I am my biggest test study, I started my business and my podcast show and all my efforts in whatever I was passionate about at the time. And I’d had some people who had been consulting with me and telling me that I should stay in my lane pretty much like, “You’re known. You have your certifications as a personal trainer. You should stay there.”

And at first, I listened, and I’m telling the story because I think it relates to a lot of people that I know who are too afraid to break out of the box. They want to stay linear. They want to stay safe. They’re not willing to have someone argue with them or disagree with them. They’re not willing to have an opinion without having a ton of research to prove that they’re right. But in today’s day and age, we can find research to prove anybody’s opinion. It’s crazy how much research someone can come up with for any diet that’s out there right now. And so it has to become a personalized decision at the end of the day because there is a lot of research. So if you’re not willing to break out of the box, that I feel like your energy gets stifled.

So for me, how I grew my audience, how I grew my business was to constantly keep following my impulse of how I wanted to grow. And when I started my Fit 2 Love podcast show, it was a six-day week show that had two videos and four audios. Monday was exercise. Tuesday was cooking, and those were both videos. Wednesday was wellness. Thursday was psychology. Friday was spirituality, and Saturday was relationships, and those were audio shows. And I did that for two seasons and 350 shows. And while I felt really passionate about my content and my information and the way that I was packaging it, the brand itself, Fit 2 Love, didn’t take off the way that I wanted it to. I thought there must be something wrong with my branding.

And what I recognized of course towards the end of season two is that each one of the days… I did alliteration because it was fun, Movement Mondays, Tasty Tuesdays, Wellness Wednesdays, all under the Fit 2 Love brand. But each one of those days, I still have highly specialized information under those days. Wellness Wednesdays just sounded very general. Now, it’s called Nutrition and Alternative Medicine. Movement Mondays does not tell you that I’m a specialist in biomechanics, so I then created Smart Exercise. Tasty Tuesdays didn’t let you know that my cooking was easy, paleo, gluten and dairy free. So I realized that there was a need to rebrand, and I rebranded each one of the different days of the week into its own show.

And when I put that out there in the world, what came back was very shocking in one way but very obvious in another way. The show that did the best the fastest was a show that I did on law of attraction and spirituality, which is called Spirit, Purpose & Energy because it still can resonate with everyone who’s looking for a healthier lifestyle. But it starts with the bigger picture of our relationship to our existence on this planet and how we view life and death and how we really go about our day-to-day life expecting things to happen or not, whether we’re a victim or we’re proactive, whether we’re taking responsibility. I grew my audience by testing out different brands and different messages and seeing which one resonated.

I got another fan mail today from a girl. Actually, I just printed it because I’m going to read it on my own show. And she writes a paragraph, and she basically said that she’s told so many people about my show and how much my show has changed her life. And I get these emails all the time. And when you get your first email from a listener that says that you’ve changed their life, it’s all you need to keep going. And not that I had any doubt because part of the show is therapeutic for me too. I don’t teach anything or present anything I haven’t either tried myself in some way or believe in wholeheartedly. And so, I just keep learning myself. I’m an avid learner, and I share what works for me and share what my beliefs are. And it seems to be working.

Barbara Hales: That’s great. Well, the three topics that I see really helped you become most successful are the following, and correct me if I’m wrong, but the first one would be specificity. When you became very specific instead of just being general and cute, it really honed in on your topic, and people went to it because that was exactly what they were looking for. The second one was that you brought in relevance. When people are seeing topics that are relevant and of value to them, they are more interested in pursuing it. And the third is following you because of all the passion that you show.

JJ Flizanes: Nope, sounds good to me.

Barbara Hales: Okay, do you have tips for my listening audience so that they themselves can strengthen their brand and promote themselves?

JJ Flizanes: Well, strengthening their brand has to do with what their relationship is to their brand. And this does link back to the original conversation about avoiding burnout in the health profession because if we let our work get in the way of… If we look at money, we look at position, we look at attaining as a way to feel free or feel happy, there’s self-care that has to be considered, I believe, in your branding, not that it has to be part of what you put out into the world, but in how you determine how you present yourself within your brand. If I was someone who was talking about health and wellness and balance, and I have adrenal fatigue all the time and I don’t sleep ever and I eat crappy food and I’m overweight and I’m out of shape, I don’t really represent my brand. And my brand and my passion come out of my interests to be these things.

So if you’re, this is health professional-based, that’s out there and you’re thinking about how to make your message more likable, more relatable, you have to still be human, and you have to be able to connect with people in that real way. And people are attracted to you when you’re healthy, when you’re happy, when you’re centered and balanced, and when you’re passionate about what you do without attachment to it having to make you $1 million. It can, and it should, and it could, but it’s about, again, that idea of marrying the true, authentic passion with what it is you’re putting out into the world.

And in order for you to be at your best, you have to treat your body the best you can. Everything from what you eat to your sleep to the supplements you take to your exercise to your emotions to your relationships, all of those things have to be attended to to create the fertile soil to grow the best tree or to grow the best plant, if you will, that gets the best fruit. And it’s the same thing in your business. If you have a weak foundation that’s based on scarcity, then you’re probably not going to find your passion because you’re always just trying anything you can just to get a few people to pay attention to you.

But I think the longevity of… What’s really fun about Spirit, Purpose & Energy is I very rarely promote it. I promote it on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter, but I do not buy ads. I do not do a ton of blog posts. I don’t even ask my guests to share the show. And the show has grown, and I think we’re going to hit a million downloads this month just for Spirit, Purpose & Energy alone. And that’s only because of my passion, which then activates my listeners’ passion, which then activates them. They’re my biggest marketing vehicle. I mean, this email that I got today, she told me she tells everybody she can about my show. That is so much more valuable than me putting an ad out there because it has to come from a person who’s been literally moved emotionally from my message to then tell somebody else, “You really need to listen to this.” And then that person she told signed up for one of my programs. So that’s the beauty.

To me, there’s a leverage in passion and in being on purpose. And so that would be my advice is to find where you and your brand are one in a way, and not that you need to take things personally, but to understand that you are the energy behind it. And you have to take care of it, and you have to be in alignment with it, and it has to feel good. And the brighter your light shines, the more people you’ll inspire.

Barbara Hales: Well, that’s so right, JJ. Those are such good points. It’s important that you are not just representing content but that you’re representing yourself and the passion that you bring and your mission as well. And everything else will fall into place. I think those are really good points.

JJ Flizanes: Thank you.

Barbara Hales: So what is it that you can offer my listeners today?

JJ Flizanes: Sure. So, the Optimal Health and Avoiding Burnout Checklist is a downloadable two-page checklist of 17 points of the optimal health, right? So you don’t want to burn out and you want optimal health, do these things and make these a priority and build your life around these things. And then you will be at your best to bring your best in your brand, in your business, with your clients, with your patients.

Barbara Hales: Well, that’s so valuable because in medicine every day, we’re hearing about how more and more physicians in every specialty are experiencing burnout and leaving the practice earlier and earlier because of that burnout. So watching and looking at your tip sheet will be of great value. How is it that they can get it?

JJ Flizanes: Jjflizanes.com. That’s JJ-

Barbara Hales: Could you spell that?

JJ Flizanes: Sure, J-J-F-L-I-Z-A-N-E-S.com, and on the homepage, there’s a little blue bar, and it says free tools and resources. And you can click there, and there’s a couple more in there like a free copy of my book, The Invisible Fitness Formula: 5 Secrets to Release Weight & End Body Shame. So the free book is in there as well. I also do a 30-day free manifestation challenge utilizing the law of attraction, and the next one’s in June. And again, all of the links for all of those free gifts are on the homepage of jjflizanes.com.

Barbara Hales: Well, let me just tell you, everyone, you need to have JJ in your life. And thank you so much for sharing your time with us today.

JJ Flizanes: Thank you, Barbara. I appreciate you having me.

Connect with JJ Flizanes:  

Twitter: @jjflizanes

Facebook: facebook.com/pages/JJ-Flizanes

Website: www.jjflizanes.com

Instagram: instagram.com/jjflizanes

Book: The Invisible Fitness Formula

Shows: jjflizanes.com/podcasts

Pinterest: pinterest.com/jjflizanes

YouTube: youtube.com/user/jjflizanes

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/pub/jj-flizanes