Jun 4, 2020
This week’s podcast is with a fellow German coach Stephanie
Schaffner. After a corporate career in sales and business
development, she changed direction to become a trainer for stress
management and a coach for burnout prevention.
The reason for that was because that she was suffering from
stress herself, was close to a burnout, and a few of her colleagues
had burnouts at work. Recorded during the lockdown, we talk
about stress, and what burnout actually means. How is it defined? I
actually realised that I myself would have been on my way to a
burnout a few years ago, based on the definition Stephanie
shares.
With the current state of affairs - people being
furloughed, loosing their job, combining home schooling with work -
stress is high; for our children this might have an impact moving
forward. Whilst resilience will grow for adults, for children it
might turn out to have a negative impact, not being able to
socialise for instance.
We also discuss the impact compared to the war generation,
particularly in Germany. I love having a German on the show to
discuss this, as there are so many things people don’t understand
unless you are from a certain generation in Germany. Thanks
Stephanie, I loved chatting about that!
A stage 12 burnout, the highest stage, leads to
hospitalisation and includes both a physical and a mental illness.
We also discuss the differentiation of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’
stress, and I learned a lot about how positive stress has no
negative effect on your blood vessels for instance.
To be honest, on the back of this conversation, I enrolled
myself into a stress prevention coaching course, to apply some of
the techniques Stephanie talked about to my coaching clients too.
This is a topic close to my heart and related to the mindfulness
courses I deliver.
Germany has over 13 million people who suffer from burnout,
which is a big chunk of the adult population. This translates into
millions of Euros of costs for companies in terms of absenteeism
and long term sick leave.
As a stress trainer Stephanie works hand in hand with
companies to reduce stress in the workplace which then also leads
to burnout prevention. Communication and honesty, according to her,
is the most important step to take for stress prevention.
Mindfulness also plays a key role.
We discuss office layout, pre- and post Covid to foster deep
work and being able to concentrate on work. Has focus improved
since us all working from home? Of course home schooling is
challenging but without that, it might actually help us doing
better work?
You can find her on Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin finding
all links on her website: www.diestressmanagerin.com
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Volker coaches
transformations (career, life & business), and helps
individuals and companies through change. He is also
a mindfulness trainer
and productivity expert, consulting companies on soft skills around
sales and business development. In his podcast he interviews
successful people and wrote a best selling book about the
advice.
His latest project is a personal development course and
listeners from the podcast can sign up and receive a free book with
code “Book2020”: http://bebetter.ballueder.com