A guy missed my keynote last week…

Last week, I was in Pennsylvania to give a keynote. After I spoke someone told me one of their teammates overslept and missed the talk. His coworker told me that she called him and said, “You missed the message you really needed to hear.” He replied, slightly annoyed, “I know I’m burned out.” And she said,

“Yeah, Acey said that… but she also told us what to DO about it.”

And that’s exactly why I keep getting on stages to share this.

People (you) don’t need another reminder that they’re (you’re) exhausted. They (you) don’t need another statistic about burnout. They (you) already know. Am I wrong?

What they (you) need is language... model...a way forward.
So we talked about the flow cycle: Struggle. Release. Flow. Recovery. And how most of us skip recovery and call that resilience.

We talked about play. Not games. Not f*U*n.
Play as a tool, as a reset, as the thing that helps your brain move through the cycle instead of getting stuck in it.

After the talk, people came up and asked if gardening counts as play. If sewing counts.
They weren’t asking for definitions. They were asking for permission.

Burnout isn’t a mystery anymore.
What’s missing is a practical way through it.

(Side note, my gratitude for being invited to speak in this environment is through the ROOF. It was absolutely beautiful. I’ve shared more photos and videos of Nemacolin on Instagram!)