305: High-Performance Leadership Starts With This: Burnout, Self-Care and Small Changes with Sheetal Ajmani
About this episode
The episode discusses burnout, self-care, and the importance of recognizing the signs, featuring insights from physician Sheetal Ajmani.
Burnout isn't a personal failure. It's a clinical condition with three specific characteristics — and understanding exactly what it is may be the first step toward actually recovering from it. Sheetal Ajmani, physician turned speaker, coach, and consultant, joins Toni for a conversation that reframes burnout and self-care from the ground up. Sheetal practiced pediatrics for over 16 years and experienced burnout multiple times across her career — the first time in 2006, when nobody was talking about it, and the most recent in 2022, when she made the decision to step away from clinical medicine entirely. This episode goes deep on what burnout actually is, why high-achieving women are so skilled at missing the signs, and what self-care genuinely needs to look like to make a difference — hint: it's not the bubble bath. What we cover: ⏹ The clinical definition of burnout — three characteristics, and why naming them matters ⏹ Eustress vs distress: where helpful stress ends and burnout begins ⏹ Why high-achieving women are the last to see burnout coming in themselves ⏹ Anticipatory burnout — the specific exhaustion that comes from knowing a change is coming but not being able to make it…
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