Manage a high-intensity Marathon career.
In Episode 002, interviewee is Sian Winfield is the Director and Founder of CoStartup & Go . Her company works with early stage start-ups and helps them grow by scaling their operations empathetically and sustainably, and not just for scale. By leveraging her 20 years of operational experience and a team of PM’s they provide bandwidth and direction to leaders for their growing companies, so that they can focus on what matters most, leading.
Her story takes us from her days as a personal trainer, through to studying Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), right through to running a successful business, servicing companies like Mainyard Studios , Farillio , The BIke Club, Deramores and Somekind to name a few.
Here we micro-dose into her 20+ years of professional and personal experience, specifically dropping her insights on how she keeps high performance a norm in her life.
“To work at such a high pace for such a long time, you have to work out how do you stop and reframe [where you are and what you’re doing] so that you can get the most out of your performance. Because as much as you’d like to, you can’t NLP yourself. “
Why don’t people do what they know is good for them?
This was the question that provoked Sian to leave her first career as a Personal Trainer. After five years of physical training and developing high performance city professionals, she saw that time and time again, these people would fail to follow the plan they had created together - even though they consciously knew it would be good for them.
This ultimately led Sian to look into the world of Neuro Linguistic Programming. Why? There is insight in how people communicate - and Sian wanted to understand the difference between their words, and what they actually mean. This is what NLP is for. There was something that people weren’t saying that she was missing, and understanding this would help her be better equipped to serve her clients actual needs, and not just the spoken ones.
As a personal trainer, working with the physical aspects of her clients, she knew that there was a missing link. That there was a connection to be made between body and mind, and without that, her clients, would never accomplish the goals they wanted to.
“It [the combination of Personal Training and NLP education] opens your eyes to routines that don’t support you, in that place in your life.”
Takeaway - It isn’t enough to provide people with something that is obviously good for them on a logical level. Good sense and sound theory on isn’t meaningful enough for a person to change behaviors. If you want to use physicality in your life as a way to balance stress, it needs to more than a ‘work-out’ here and there.
Professional sprinting will eventually break you.
“My single piece of wisdom for those who feel like they are stuck on a treadmill of intensity, is to ensure that there is a balance between the work and the physical side of things.”
Much of the corporate world will happily have you Sprint your way into burnout, tell you to take some time off, just to come back and repeat that trauma over and over again. Sian has experienced this first hand, and has seen it many times more. There’s no shame in this, it’s a result of the rules of the game we are choosing to play. But, if we are going to play that game, let’s make sure we are playing it in a way that doesn’t destroy us, or those around us.
After running the London marathon (which she did instead of a client who dropped out) Sian integrated a few insights that have served her well in her career.
That ‘burnout’ is as much of a physical affliction as much as it is as a mental and emotional state. That professional burnout and fatigue has a relationship with personal burnout and fatigue and to separate work from life is foolish thinking today.
The consistent level of training for a Marathon is actually harder than the race itself, and making the time for that each day is as much of a test because you need to create boundaries for yourself and protect them. Without boundaries and having trade-offs, you are setting yourself up to fail.
The personal pursuit to find time and space to physically move is key for professional balance. Sains day is Full. She works from 5am to late into the evening each day, so without continually fighting to create space to physically de-load, to make time that is just for her, it would all to easy to let life push you into an unhealthy place. Or in her words, “I wouldn’t be of any use to anybody.”
“[My career] is almost an endurance sport. I need to be at my best throughout the day, or I won’t be able to maintain the pace and quality needed.”
Takeaway - If you look at your career as an endurance challenge, as opposed to a random series of job titles and companies that sound more important over time, then you are shifting the focus from the novelty of the ‘event’ to the importance of the ‘athlete’ you. At the end of the day, people want to work with healthy, positive, well balanced professionals. To sustain that quality in yourself can be a beautiful lifelong pursuit.
Consistency will see you through, but that includes being consistent in caring for yourself.
“Massages and acupuncture every two week - It balances my heavy schedule and makes me stop and think…. Without that I would definitely be worse off.”
What’s your self-care routine? Most people need to think about this as it’s not a common thing too deeply consider when your 1,041 unread notifications behind. But Sian, was clear, very clear.
She’s a runner, she knows how long she needs to run for before the ‘mind-fluff’ gets burned up.
She knows how many times a week she needs to run to maintain her balance, and that if she starts to miss her runs then that’s a sign that things are getting too busy.
She also knows that she needs to balance the running with a practice that decompresses, massages and acupuncture are routinely scheduled in her calendar and they are well protected.
Working for your clients and helping them grow is always important, but what is striking about Sian is that she has applied all her experience as a Personal Trainer, NLP thinker and Operations Guru to her life. Using those skills to create a system of self care around herself.
Why? For her everyday is another mile in the marathon and the discipline in taking care of herself is just as important as her clients.
Takeaway - Being a professional means many things. Integrity, diligence, discipline, service being a few characteristics. Often we think ourselves as professionals for our clients, but we also need to be professionals of our personal growth. The consistency in having professional standards will serve you as you journey down your career and take on all the hills, twists, turns, injuries and victories.
Where to find this Thinker Who Moves:
You can find Sian and more about her company on LinkedIn, Website and Instagram
The Dojo and CoStartUp&Go are proud partners and work to support all professionals looking to create more meaning in their professions.