Preventing Burnout

Burnout is everywhere right now—and if you’ve been feeling foggy, drained, or like you’ve lost your sparkle, this Episode 200 conversation will feel like someone finally handed you a flashlight and a map.

In this milestone episode of Wellness in Every Season, Autumn sits down with Deborah Mallow (aka “your ray of sunshine”)—a lifelong New Yorker, motivational speaker, and positive energy coach who helps people have fewer days that suck without forcing fake positivity. Deborah shares her lived experience of burnout from high-performance pressure (including her journey to becoming a #1 biotech pharmaceutical sales rep), the moment she hit her breaking point, and the small, consistent shifts that helped her reclaim joy, calm, and self-trust over time.

Together, Autumn and Deborah unpack what burnout can look like across different lived realities—including ADHD, autism, medical professions, and workaholic culture—plus how to spot your early warning signs before you crash. You’ll also hear practical ways to “flip the script,” protect your energy, build micro-moments of happiness into real life, and create positive patterns that actually stick.

Deborah has a free gift for listeners: visit thedailydecisions.com/inspire to join her Positive Energy Club, get her upbeat newsletter, and download complimentary worksheets on Happiness, Motivation, and Feel-Good Activities. You can also find her book “6 Steps To Fewer Days That Suck” on Amazon, and follow her on Instagram at @daily.decisions and LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/deborah-mallow-12905a69.

For more wellness tips and exclusive content, join my newsletter! Sign up now at https://wellness-in-every-season.kit.com/5-days-to-mastering-mornings-and-evenings receive a free 5-day guide called "Awaken and Unwind: 5 Days to Mastering Life's Mornings and Evenings." 

Transcript

This is episode 200, and we are talking about burnout, and this is a topic that we keep talking about because so many people are having it. You can have burnout from A DHD, you can have burnout from autism. You can have burnout from being a workaholic. You can have burnout from being in the medical profession.

There are so many things that burn us out, so we're talking about it again.

Welcome to Wellness. In every season, we talk all things wellness, to help you align yourself, align with your goals, find balance in your life, and just recalibrate yourself if you are listening for the first time. Welcome, welcome. I'm so glad you're here, and let's get started in the rest of the podcast.

Today I have with me Deborah Mallow, and I am very excited to read her bio because there is so much here. So I'm gonna move this outta the way for a second. She's often called arrays, sunshine. And if you are following on video, you could see why, like there's smiley faces everywhere.

Now you look like the Statue of Liberty. I love it. And she has all these positive quotes that I had to read when we first got on All on her wall. It's beautiful. She is a seasoned coach and a strategist specializing in positive energy, mindset, and overall wellbeing. Even just saying those words gives me a bigger exhale.

I love it. She's also a sought after motivational speaker and the author of the Well received book, six Steps to Fewer Days That Suck. I love the wording. She's showing it here if you're watching on the video. Her career journey has been anything but linear.

It's not everybody from home furnishings and giftware designer. That's quite different to a number one ranked biotech pharmaceutical sales representative and now being a coach. It is a path that has shaped her deep understanding of both creativity and high performance pressure. It was Debra's compassion and firsthand experience with burnout and negative emotions that inspired her to create the daily decisions.

A self-improvement toolkit that isn't about forcing positivity, but about gently shifting your mindset to enjoy more, worry less, and approach life. Differently. Debra believes life is too short to be grumpy, and she's here to help you have fewer days that suck and reconnect with your sunshine. I'm so excited to talk about this because I think it shows up very differently.

If you were somebody who you whole career was about this and you study this from college days on compared to you having lived experience. Thank you. 

Welcome to the show, I'm excited that you're here to talk to us about this because I feel like we get a little bit closer and clearer each time we talk about burnout, but it still can be so foggy.

For so many people of what is burnout? What does it feel like for me? What, when can I tell that I'm getting close to it and how do I prevent it before I get close to it? Because even when you get close to it, it takes a while to recover. So I am excited. 

Thank you, autumn, for that beautiful introduction honestly, when you've lived life.

Whether you're a therapist or just a student of life and you've experienced all these things and have empathy and compassion for people like I do, all I want is to help people get unstuck because when you get stuck it's that cycle of you keep chasing your tail, you're on this hamster wheel, you're exhausted.

You're not eating right, sleeping right, you're not taking care of yourself. You don't take care of your wellbeing, and it perpetuates itself. We. All have different reasons. Mine was, overachieving, wanting to prove that I was capable, not necessarily to everyone else. 

It was really to myself 

I was standing on this New York City subway platform. I'm from Manhattan. I grew up there and I live there and I feed off the positive energy. No matter what you read in the news, I do feed off the positive energy. What happened was the tears started welling up in my eyes.

I was late. I was always feeling I was never caught up. I had to get from one call to the next, I needed to do six to eight calls a day. I had to do 12. This was constant pushing, and all of a sudden we all get to a breaking point, whether you hit rock bottom because you lost all your money or however you get there.

I was at a breaking point and I said to myself, and it seems so simple. We just have to choose to act. I said, if I don't change something. Nothing will ever change, and I'm gonna start to cry now because I remember it even though it was over eight years ago now.

I remember it like it was yesterday because I just couldn't go on I'm a problem solver. So I said, you know what? Today's the day I start and I started to write a guidebook just for me. It was part pep talk because I needed to get myself out of this negative thoughts and just exhaustion and I was losing my sparkle,

I asked myself questions. I came up with strategies and solutions, action items, things to do, the science behind why we do what we do. Very simple, like the 1, 2, 3. Clear, So it made sense. And friends, colleagues, they saw a change. Now, this takes time because nothing happens overnight. Once we choose to do something small changes, over time, will happen.

They noticed a change and they encouraged me to get this out there, which was another few years 'cause it just takes time to figure out the process. But I did it. Not because of the money I did it because I felt so lucky to have figured out a way to enjoy my life more, to accept myself, to give myself a hug every morning and say It's okay.

Give yourself grace. Do things that serve you. Don't do things that don't serve you. And that is how the book. Was born because I wanted fewer days that suck and I wanted to reconnect with my sunshine. And as it turns out, so many people wanna get their glow back and rekindle joy. So I'm glad to have made and be making a ripple and a difference.

So use some words that have been trending. 

So sparkle, let's start with that. What is sparkle and what isn't it? I think of glitter. 

It's funny that it's trending because I have always been, even on the subway platform I always try to enter a room with sparkle.

To me, sparkle is just. Shining your light, your gifts, what you have to share with the world, stop judging yourselves. We all have gifts to share when you go into a room, you are. Gifting happiness. That's what sparkle and smiling is. It's gifting happiness to the people around you rather than bringing them down.

And I wonder how much easier it would be if you weren't wearing the mask of what you think people expect you to show up as, or if you just came as yourself. And when you're doing the work, maybe that's what helps you glow. 

I agree with you a hundred percent because I think we all think that we need to be this wonderful person.

It's that imposter syndrome that gets to all of us. And honestly, when we let all that go, we take off the mask and we are our authentic self. This also helped me because I get stuck like many people do in circular thinking, in the worry, in the fear. What if, what are people thinking?

All of that stuff doing. The science part of my book and understanding the why for myself. I stumbled on this. University of Pennsylvania. A Penn State study. Maybe you know it, researchers that actually had. People in this study and they ask them about worry, and the things they worried about 91% of the time never happened.

And that's why I don't worry. I let it go because honestly, what are you gonna solve by worry? Except you are not serving yourself and you're bringing yourself down and you're losing your sparkle. So get rid of that worry. I know it's not easy, our brains thrive on patterns, and the more we make positive patterns, then we're going to create positive patterns that stick because that's what our brains like.

They like the familiar. If we do these more positive things. Slowly over time, it just becomes part of us and we don't struggle anymore, that's why I start with the decision, the first step. We have to choose to do this, but why wouldn't you do this?

This is for you. You're not doing it for me. I'm happy, I wanna help you, but honestly, it's for you. 

For you to have a wonderful life, and life is messy. Nothing will ever be perfect and there's no magic bullet. But when we give ourselves some kindness, grace, and we practice self-acceptance, I promise you life will be easier.

Just give yourself the grace and don't be so hard on yourselves. 

I need that too, like giving myself grace. 

I know part of your story because I've listened to so many podcasts. I understand from, when we're young, that factors into many of the stories in our minds, and those stories many times are not reality.

And it's interesting, there's science behind this about what decade you're doing, what type of work on yourself and as I've read those, I've been like, oh yeah, I did do that. Or yeah, I am in that phase of life right now. In your thirties and forties, I think it's mostly in your thirties, is when you're starting to unpack childhood stuff.

Starting to say, oh, that belief is actually not true. And that goes along with rewiring your brain and the negative voices you're hearing. Are they possibly your parents? They're not even your voice. What's going on there? It really helps to give yourself grace in realizing first of all, giving your parents grace 'cause they're still learning 

every parent messes up. It's the what are you doing to fix it part, and I've had that conversation with my kids. Okay, you've given other people grace, but are you giving yourself grace? What does that look like and what does that feel like? And that goes along with when we are visualizing all the bad things that can happen.

Okay, well let's flip both of those around. A lot of it goes back to visualizing. You visualize the negative. Let's kind of shove that away and rewire your brain by visualizing what's the best thing that can happen? How many times have we gotten something that is better than we ever imagined, but we don't know what to do with it?

So it kind of goes to waste, or a lot of it does because we aren't at the capacity to step into it and really embrace it and do something with it. If we're visualizing good things happening, then we're already ready. And if we are visualizing, giving ourselves grace, maybe then we can learn how to do it more.

And it can be so hard because of the way that I grew up. I'm very hard on myself way before anybody else will ever be. I've even had my husband be like, well, hold on. No one's feeling this way. You can let that go. And it's like, oh. You're right. And I've even had therapists tell me that in the past.

So it's that reminder that whose voice is actually speaking and is it truth and can we maybe work to rewire that? And I feel like that's so much of what, there's even a happiness class out of Penn State, and I think that's what the point of all of that is.

I visited New York and that's not a place that I could ever live. I love nature and there's way too many buildings for me. And when I was there, I stayed above ground the whole time. I didn't even go in the subway because I just needed the fresh air at any kind of sunlight I could get.

Isn't abundant with nature, it's abundant with buildings, amazing water views everywhere. And you can be happy in that because you are choosing that and because you're doing the work. And I think that's important to realize that we can live in any type of situation. Even not ideal ones,

where we feel naturally comfortable and we can still be happy when we do the work. And I think that's what's showing up the most for me, especially seeing you on screen. You guys have to watch her on YouTube, like she is just smiling all over the place. She has smiley faces behind her. It will give you a different vibe than if you're just listening, but you can even hear the smiles in her voice.

Those are the things that are really coming across for me how much it is your decision and the work that you do on yourself. 

It is because I keep saying, why wouldn't we choose to be happier? And I say happier, not happiest, because I do this in real life and I know.

The emotions we go through, and I know that stuff happens. But we all know that it won't be perfect. And I keep hitting that nail. It won't be perfect, but more days can be happy than not. And why not choose it for yourself? And yes, you have to do the work, but once you do the work.

That whole pattern thing will take over. It's like the dopamine, the serotonin. Once you get the fix of feeling good, this is what you crave. That's why people do the running and the exercising and everything because it gives you such, you talk about runner's high.

Well, it's the same thing when we feel good. When we accomplish something, even something small like cleaning the dishes, think about it. Those little accomplishments make us feel good. We need to find these little things, and I can give you lots of little things that can make. You feel good.

Just like I said, walking outside, you don't have to run every day, but taking a walk, walking is known to boost your endorphins. Laughing. Why do they say laughter's the best medicine? Find people in your life that lift you up. 

It's time to rid, and I'm not being mean, but it's time to rid the toxic. It's time to rid, the people who draw down.

Down and builds a community that lifts you up. And you know, you try, mom, how I felt, the things I don't like that she does. She said things to me too, but I said, you don't need to pick on me all the time. You know what? Maybe think something. I appreciate your advice, but maybe sometimes you don't need to say something.

I think we need to, not just with your parents, with everybody. You need to find tactful ways, kind ways. I believe in being kind. Autumn knows that I'm all about kindness and helping other people, but you need to take care of yourself and find ways to talk to people if you value them and you want them in your life.

Be honest with them and explain how it could be a better relationship. And if they love you, if they care about you, they'll listen. And if they don't, we need to find things in life that serve us, make us feel good, build us up. So we reconnect with our sunshine, our inner sparkle.

I was listening to one of your podcasts, autumn, about the jungle gym in your basement and how you are watching your kids and they have so much fun jumping around. The fun, spontaneous things that you did and how it made you feel.

This is what we don't wanna lose sight of and we wanna bring. Into our lives because life is too short to be grumpy. Life is too short to be sad all the time, and I understand better than most how that feels and how it brings you down. And that's why I wanna lift everyone up. 

That makes sense.

We have dogs, which we talked about in the very beginning. I love animals. You said she even wore a necklace thinking of me, and I didn't even think about it, but I'm wearing a shirt that says, I wore my 

horse because I wanted an animal 

one thing I learned in training our dogs is if you wanna see a good behavior, you reward that.

It's the same with relationships. You are teaching by example. You are pointing out the good things you're seeing in people. And when you do that, it naturally, rewires your brain. So you're looking for more good. And it naturally gives them that endorphin hit of, oh.

I did something right? So I wanna do something like that again. So I get that same endorphin hit, that same dopamine hit. And when we are doing those things, it helps layer the good. We tend to forget how much control we have in our lives, including our relationships.

We are the sum of who we surround ourselves with, and we have so many relationships in our life that we don't need to spend as much time on. We can spend more time on the healthy ones. 

Yes. 

And the ones that aren't healthy will naturally atrophy, and that's fine. We don't have to stay friends with somebody because we've been friends with them since junior high elementary school.

We can choose to be around people who light us up and encourage us, and that can give us that healthy loving with a smile type of push, and connect us with the things that we really are striving for. We all know people like that kind of can scare us a little bit because they motivate us so much.

Be around people that are like that. They don't have to be everyone you're around but think about the things that you are doing that are weighing you down and how can you trim that plant, so to speak, to let the light in.

I wanted to let you know that there are some amazing things happening behind the scenes here that I'm very excited about. The first one is I am opening my podcast up for sponsorships, so if you are an aligned brand with wellness, reach out to me. You can find me wellness in every season.com/podcast.

Slash sponsor. I also have something going on for you listeners, if you've been listening for a while. I interview people who are aligned with wellness and they talk about the healing modalities and different modalities that they do. But it is in a very descriptive sense. I am making it so that you have the chance to experience it during a recorded episode, and other people get to experience it alongside you so that we can really see how it works instead of just this zoomed out experience.

We get to really zoom in and experience it. So you can find out more about that at wellness and every season.com/. Listener, wellness guest.

It's so true.

You know what, just the few words that sum this up is protect your energy. I love that. That's something that it's, all about the things that I think of to be able to, your sparkle is start small because nothing will be perfect just those small little tweaks that you do to feel good, beats a perfect plan tomorrow

never seem to happen tomorrow, the next day. It's that procrastination. So just start. The other thing to do is breathe. Pause whenever we get angry. Frustrated. When we feel that happening or stressed or overwhelmed, the best thing we can do for ourselves, so we don't go down the rabbit hole and we protect our energy, is to pause, take a breath, because that helps to reset your mind to be more rational and make a better decision to respond, not react.

Reacting is you just say what's on your mind, responding. You're more thoughtful. Reconnect with call. When you feel a little down, call someone who's gonna make you laugh or revisit. A hobby that you love, do things that you love to do. It makes all the difference because things like that are what bring back your sparkle.

And then the other thing is be kind to yourself. That self-acceptance and that grace not easy, but definitely doable because what Autumn said is so true. We control our thoughts, our actions, our emotions, how we react to people, but we can never control what somebody else is gonna do.

Stop trying because you'll be beating your head against a wall and frustrating yourself and it doesn't serve you. Those small tweaks today and the positive patterns they'll create. Will make a big change just like it did me. If you knew me eight years ago, I was this stressed out, overwhelmed.

I was losing my sparkle. Honestly today, and this is, I'm not putting this on, it's really true. I don't worry about things I can't control, and I find ways to enjoy the day. I make time for myself and do my work, which is important to me too. Do what's important to you. We need to make money to live, but honestly, you'll be so much happier.

If you do things that serve you, and thrive too, you can. 

Oh, I love this. I know several people who have been unhappy, so they just throw it all away, and it's hard to know what things were working. Even in your unhappiness

so I love the idea of doing small changes and when that's working well, what can you do to dial it in or get more of that? Okay, that piece is there, what's the next piece? 

And going from there, instead of just throwing everything away, because we know so many people, who have done that with relationships, careers and everything else.

And it's oh, there were parts in there that were good. Let's focus on what were those, how do we keep those or get something like that in there. I like the idea that it's small and that it builds at like steps on each other and actionable. 

Right. It's actionable. 

It goes back to what you were saying right before we hit record, like even going for walks, how good that is, and you know that's really good for you in particular. I mean, it's good for everybody, but it's good for you in particular. So you dialed that way up you just got back right? 

I hiked 18 miles a day for a month. And yes, that's a luxury. I agree. It is, but I build my life around that because I honestly think finding things that make you happy and doing them and finding a way to do it and fit it into your life is so important at the end of the day.

Chasing your tail and just exhausting yourself. You might be making a ton of money but are you feeling good? Are you happy More times than not, if the answer is you aren't and you feel stuck in a life that you really feel isn't. For you. 

I urge you work with somebody, work with Autumn.

You can call me whatever you think you need. Find an accountability partner or a friend that can keep you on task. I like to put checklists on my refrigerator, so I actually see. What I need to do and give myself a gold star like we were saying, that endorphin boost, getting that compliment, that round of applause little things that make you feel better that's, what I share in the book, six Steps to Fewer Days.

I did this for me because stuck in that cycle of negativity and being on that hamster wheel. I did feel good about some of the things I did. I was really thrilled that I was doing such a great job. But there has to be a way to balance that.

So you bring in to the chaos. 

Some of those things that really lift you up so you have something to look forward to. Okay, you have a job that maybe you don't adore. Balance that with things that you do love to do, so you have something to look forward to and that. Reconnects you with your sparkle, your sunshine, and it brings joy.

There's always ways to balance the things that maybe don't taste as good to you, so you are. At least enjoying your life we don't always have the luxury to go hiking for a month, and I understand that. But you can do something on the weekend, on a Saturday that you plan and look forward to that's going to do the same thing.

And you can do it for a few Saturdays or Saturday and Sunday. And the most. Thing, and then I wanna stop so you can talk on him, is to be present. Get out of your head, get out of those thoughts that aren't serving you and be present in your life. Live every day like it's your last day. Look forward to the day, don't dread it.

You can create little pockets within the day of things to look forward to. I don't want anyone to feel stuck or to have been in a situation like I was in which I caused. Many times we do things. To ourselves, and we have to learn to undo those things and bring on the joy, rekindle the joy, 

We can back up.

We don't have to keep driving forward. We can back up and redo it. I think about that a lot because with cameras and sensors, I can pull into a spot. Perfectly, if I'm backing up and it's not going to be quite right, I can pull forward, readjust, and get it in that spot, right?

And we forget that we can adjust all along the way. And I was listening to a happiness expert, I forget who it even was. He's been doing it forever it was great to listen to 'em, but I like people who have had the lived experience of not being happy and switching. What he was talking about is how much happiness, and this is by research people have in doing the thing, versus how much happiness they have in looking forward to doing the thing, whatever it is.

So I make sure when we go on vacation to have the kids involved with that. What all are we planning for while we're there? Let's research the place like, oh kids, what are you looking forward to? Let's make sure and do those things and make sure that the vacation is tailored to what all of us want to do.

Yeah. And there's so many parents that give me unsolicited advice. You know those parents that are like no. You don't ask the kids what they wanna do. You tell 'em. No, I want their investment in this too, so that we're all having fun. And then we get to look forward to it. My husband is very tech savvy, so he makes sure that our vacation photos are going through on our tv.

We don't really watch a ton of shows, but we'll have it turned on and it'll go through our own photos so we get to relive it again, and that's really brings more of the happiness. Package right is not going on the actual vacation. It's everything that you're looking forward to and looking back on it and trying to erase the part where you had bug bites or got sunburn 

you're focusing on the happy parts of it and then you get to look forward to the next time you do something like that. I love that you were talking about that a little bit and that just came up for me. 

So can I share something with you I, have it framed.

I don't, I'm gonna try. Oh, I love it says love. It's of gratitude. Co collage, you matter. That's my mom, that's my son, that's my family, now exactly what you are talking about. Those pictures from vacations, they trigger. Memories from your happiness bank. It's like withdrawing a memory from the happiness bank, right?

And happy words, beautiful colors that uplift you. This is something you can do with your family, with your friends, in a community, by yourself. What's so wonderful is when you're feeling a little down. You can easily look at it just like looking at those happy pictures on your phone they're so nice to make a little memory video for you.

'Cause that's an endorphin boost that makes you feel good. You love having your phone that does this for you. And then also what I do, I'm getting ready. That's why I have this all here. I'm doing a, TV morning show in DC on Monday. 

So I have, this is my make me smile box you can just take any kind of box and what I do is I write quotes.

And you were talking about the anticipation. See, this all relates, it's circular, the anticipation of a vacation bucket list, things that you look forward to, quotes that inspire you. Just happy words and thoughts, whatever it is that makes you smile. Or I call also like a happiness boost box.

If you wanna do a boost box instead of make me smile box. And just doing that, dropping them in, writing something down that makes you happy. Just write it down quickly. And then read it. Every so often, or first thing in the morning, like an affirmation.

You could put affirmations in there too. Read it, carry it with you. When you feel a little down, read it or snap a picture on your phone to read. And these are little things I always talk about. Little things you can do even if you're not feeling wonderful about your job or whatever it is to lift you up, to balance better, to bring in the sunshine and the joy.

Just little things. And I also do a gratitude jar with the same thing. Coming onto Thanksgiving. Gratitude, appreciation, doing nice things for other people, that makes us feel good too. I'm all about little things.

To flip the script as we talked about with Autumn, flip that script and find ways to bring the joy and create these positive patterns that stick. Because if we wanna make lasting change, it's not a one day promise. This is something that's a daily choice. 

So what I do as part of my morning journal is I'll write in Ask formations.

So you're asking that question. So during the day it's reprocessing your brain, one of 'em is why do I love myself so much? Oh, because I grew up not feeling a lot of that love. It was more contingent love instead of, so I ask myself that. So I'm thinking about that during the day.

What am I doing to show myself that self-care and that love? So I love starting that out in the morning. There's several different ones that go with the different areas of wellness that I'm working on. How is my spiritual health better today than yesterday?

Yes. It makes a really big difference and it's working better for me than. Regular affirmations right now because i've always been that curious brain, it gives me that chance to question it throughout the day and find ways that, oh, I am doing that.

I am on the right path with that. I've always been somebody who loves quotes. When Pinterest first came out, everything I pinned was something with a quote. And then recipes. So it's really fun to have that. Looking at your background, I'm like, oh yeah, there's all these quotes that it's super fun and definitely resonates with me because we tend to get so stuck in our head that it's good to find ways to get out of it.

There's so many little ways to do that. The nice thing is now we were talking about ai. They'll give you little things too. There's vast techniques that we could do. But I say call Autumn. Work with Autumn. She is amazing. Just such a kind human.

You really are. Autumn. Oh, thank you. As far as just being a kind good hearted human. Really cares about people. Yeah. Because that's the thing, people give lip service to caring. Autumn really cares maybe too much. But that's a good thing because it's nice to be loved and cared for.

And it's that reminder because I do have the workaholic tendencies and wanting to do and give more is as a coach, realizing that most of the work happens when my clients are giving themselves the assignment, right? That they're coming up with from our coaching session. And it's watching them do the work without me in between the sessions.

That's really where the magic happens, because now I'm no longer in the car with you helping you drive it. You have to figure it out for me it's remembering that I have to put my wellness first. It's not whenever I have free minute, I'm doing more on my business. I'm doing more with my kids or more, It's, okay, what do I need to do for myself right now to fill myself up so I can show up better as a wife, better as a dog mom, better as a mom of two-legged humans better in all these other areas outside of coaching, as well as just in the world and in my community. And I think so many of us forget that.

I know I'm not the only one that forgets that because as soon as there's a hole, I wanna fill it with something else it needs space. Or maybe I can do something that will light me up and be more than a quick win, or that smile will last longer than just a, short amount of time.

So I think that is the biggest thing, is that I am practicing very hard what I'm preaching, and it's a lot of work, but remembering that. I'm stuck with myself for my life, so I should put in the work '

cause it is for you. And we started this talking about burnout and all these things that we talk about and that's why I say if you've stuck, call Autumn to be your life coach and help you through this.

It's these little things that you can do to get yourself out of that burnt out feeling. Feeling that you're just stuck and there's no way out and you dread the day or you dread your job find little things to do so you stop the dread sometimes you have to invest in yourself.

And that's why I say, call Autumn and believe me, she did not pay me to say this. I'm just doing this because I want people to feel happier. I know they can because I know I am, and believe me, like I said, I wasn't eight years ago. So being able to do the work and have somebody to just help you drive the car and then let you go so that you are capable to do it on your own and you can pull yourself out of that dread or that feeling of being stuck.

And so that's why. It's just so you don't feel burnt out and you feel present in the moment and you're enjoying and finding things to look forward to. We talked about the anticipation, I repeat these things only because sometimes we have to say things seven and eight times.

It's not that I don't remember sometimes we need to hear it a few times before it sinks in or hear it different ways or different examples to flip that script, and then it all gels in the visuals we were talking about earlier, to have that visual in your head how you can do it.

Or the idea or the example or a way it could work for you, or a little thing you can do to spark joy in the moment, then you don't wanna go down a rabbit hole and be angry at somebody or your children or your colleague. You want to. Have grace with yourself and have grace with other people. Doesn't mean you have to love them.

I'm not talking about your kids. Of course you love them, but I'm just talking your colleagues. You don't have to love them. But I think to be respectful and kind also makes us feel good. 'cause think about when you lash out at someone. Many times you say, why did I do that? When you get back to your more of an even keel, why did I do that?

And I got sick and tired of being like that and apologizing because those apologies were like hollow because I kept repeating the cycle. So there's a way to stop that and flip the script, ways to not feel burnt out, not feel the dread, and to feel and find more joy in your life. 

And it goes with the idea that when you realize that you keep attracting the same type of negative people in your life, that's an indication you need to do some deep work.

How many people have you been attracted to? Like they walk in a room and you feel like you are drawn to them. That is because they have their sparkle. They're doing the work on themselves, so you are naturally drawn to them.

If you wanna be that type of person, you need to do the work and then you'll start attracting the healthier people to you. That's the biggest thing, and I've realized that as a coach is if I wanna attract the clients who wanna work on this, I need to work on it myself. 

we all need to work on ourselves, and we live in such a day and age where we have so much knowledge at our fingertips. It can be overwhelming. But if we are remembering first of all, what is our personality like? What lights us up? Because we are unique I love that you talked about how unique we are and not comparing ourselves.

If we are really focusing on being happier, what does happiness mean for us? Because we are all so unique. What lights somebody else up and makes them happy and their favorite hobby is not going to be somebody else's. You can try it on and see if it works for you and if it doesn't, move on to the next thing.

Of course, that's how we try all things and what makes us happy in this stage of life. It might not in the next stage. That's fine. Remember to evolve with your happiness. Yes. And I think we also forget that it goes along with Maslow's high degree of needs. When this need is met, another one is going to come in

so now we need something else with our happiness, and that goes with our self-care. Self-care and happiness are very, very related. Yes. Think of 'em as like brother and sister, right? They're very related and very integral in our lives, and we need to remember that. The work that we need to be focusing on is not as much our career work as much as working on ourselves.

Yeah. 

And I know that you have social media accounts that we can follow to get more tips and tricks. Tell us where that is and then tell us all the places we can get your book you said you're gonna be on, the talk show in DC so let us know where we can follow you,

resonating with me. I heard this with the right personality in the right way. I need more of this, so we need to know all the places to go. 

Awesome. My website is the Daily Decisions with an s.com, and if you go to the Daily decisions with the s.com/inspire, you can. Join my Positive Energy Club, which just means you're going to get biweekly newsletters.

Just they're very simple, just. Little quick things to get rid of the grumpy little activities also. You can download worksheets, happiness worksheet, a motivation worksheet, and feel good activities. All these little things I was talking about with Autumn.

All these little things are on. A front and back of a worksheet. So really simple. And then my book, which we mentioned, if you're looking it looks like this, it's six steps to fewer days that suck. And it says, ditch unhealthy habits unzip a happier You

that it's just double pages like this one think happy thoughts. Happiness is our decision. It's just double pages with a mantra and action items, questions, little stories, tips. It's just a. Fast reading for our instant gratification society, you can find it on Amazon.

And other online retailers like Barnes and I'm working to get it into bookstores I'm now and again on different TV morning shows and looking to do more of that to give little snippets. I call it snippets of sunshine because I am a ray of sunshine.

To be able to do that from a bigger audience because again, it's just to make people feel good and have little tips to be able to have them, like Autumn was saying, she shows them how and then they drive the car themselves. And that's all I wanna do. Show you how so that you could do it yourself. Balance, enjoy life.

Just be. Happier and know how to flip the script like that because you can. 

Tell us where to find you on LinkedIn. 

LinkedIn to Under Debra Mallow? Yes. Oh, I'm meant Instagram. In my mind I was saying Instagram. It's at Daily Decisions. It says Daily Decisions is the title, the name, but says Debra Mallow on the page.

And I do little reels. Humorous just to make you smile. But there's messages in there. But sometimes when you say things with a smile, with some humor, it resonates more. It's how we remember to be able to snap ourselves out of a rut of a negative feeling. 

Thank you, Autumn. It reminds me of that people, the way we remember them is we remember how they made us feel. Yes. So it sounds like the same thing with your Instagram posts. We're going to remember these quotes and actions that we need to take by how it makes us feel.

So I love that. And we all need more sunshine in our lives. Less news, more whole healthy rays of sunshine. 

We really do, and we can do it for ourselves too, but it's who we surround ourselves with. You talked about that too, and that's why I've really enjoyed this conversation and why I love your podcast because there's so much hope in there.

And you have so many interesting people who can share so many. Interesting things you can do in your life because Autumn said, be curious. When you're curious and you try to figure out things. That too is happiness. 

Get away from the shoulds. Thank you. 

Thank you so much for this conversation.

This has been amazing. I know I am going to be thinking about things for a while and I know our listeners will too. Thank you for taking the time and the energy to be with us and to share so much sunshine and so many smiles. This was exactly what we need. Thank you 

Thank you for doing what you do, autumn. I'm, really honored to know you and I, really mean it. And I think your listeners feel the same, so let's give Autumn a round of applause. Thank you, Paula.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope that you found the answers that you needed, and you had some amazing aha moments. Please share this episode with others because it helps us align ourselves and then better align the world so that we can seek the healing that we really are looking for as part of the legal language.

I am a certified life coach with a Bachelor's in Applied Health. That is what I am leaning on for this. This is general advice. Take it as such. See you in the next episode.