Bernie Borges [00:00:00]:
What if the reason you’re burned out or unfulfilled at work has less to do with your job and more to do with how disconnected you become from your own spark? That inner spark is your energy, your drive, your sense of possibility. And when it’s dim, it shows up everywhere, especially in your career. In this episode, you’ll get a new way to recognize where and why you feel stuck in your work and in life, and simple strategies to reclaim your energy and take momentum building steps and a mindset shift that helps you lead yourself with clarity even when nothing around you changes. My esteemed guest return guest is Heike Yates, a coach and the author of Pursue youe Spark. Heike, in your work, you help people rediscover strength and fulfillment by rebuilding their confidence from the inside out. And today I’m excited for you to share insights from your book Pursue youe Spark, to help people see what might be holding them back and how to start showing up differently, not just in personal life, but at work and beyond. Heike, welcome back to the Life Fulfilled podcast.
Heike Yates [00:01:18]:
Bernie, it’s a delight to be here. I love being on your show and exchanging information and sharing my book with your audience today.
Bernie Borges [00:01:26]:
Fantastic. Well, it’s, I’m excited to have you back. You were on episode 110 and so that was quite a while ago. So let’s get, let’s get right to it. Your, your book, Pursue your Spark, I’ve thumbed through it. It looks really terrific. And I know that you talk a lot about being stuck, right? So let’s, let’s start there. What is, what does it mean? You even describe a gap, right? A gap between where someone is right now versus where they, they want to be.
Bernie Borges [00:01:55]:
And so what does that mean? What does that, how does that gap impact people? What does a gap look like?
Heike Yates [00:02:02]:
You know, many people don’t realize that there is a gap. It’s. They, they just know they’re unfulfilled. Nothing’s the way they want it to be. Everything seems out of reach. And they have this dream. Maybe it’s just somebody else doing what they might want to do or just something that they thought maybe, you know, I would love to do that as well. But then they’re stuck in this gap where they are in their reality at the moment and way far away from what their actual goal or their dream would be.
Heike Yates [00:02:38]:
And this gap becomes wider the less we address it. What is it that we need to do or even overcome to jump over that gap and move on, to fulfill our dream and so this is where I look at the gap and everybody has it but not everybody really wants to acknowledge the gap. And that what definitely keeps us stuck not acknowledging that gap.
Bernie Borges [00:03:03]:
Okay, you kind of read my mind there. I guess. So how does someone even begin to. Because I talk about self awareness all the time. So if I’m stuck but I’m not acknowledging it, what’s going on? And I realize you can’t psychoanalyze, you know, the human race but generally speaking as it relates to what you’ve written in your book, how do people just come to that point of acknowledging a gap?
Heike Yates [00:03:29]:
You know, first off they, it goes down to self protection. If I acknowledge that there is a gap then I must be less than I’m, I’m probably not good enough to actually identify a gap or acknowledge that there’s something that’s missing in my life and I’m afraid of to step forward and take the first step and find all kinds of excuses why everything is fine and everything is great. And I keep living a life that’s unfulfilled and stepping really into the fear of acknowledging that life is not the way I want it. You know, stop self protecting yourself by saying oh now is not the right time, I’m just going to stick here and this is all is good and not really letting yourself look at yourself on the inside and say what do I really want? What is it that I want, not somebody else wants and how do I move forward in that? And the self realization that comes with that is so scary for so many of us and uncertain of what it will bring. So that’s why my book started out with the gap. Figure out what is your gap by looking at what your needs are and what you see yourself as in, in the future and what’s missing.
Bernie Borges [00:04:55]:
Right. So again I, I get that. So from a self awareness standpoint, Haikim, what are some signs or signals, you know, warning signs if you will, that someone should could be thinking about in terms of that gap?
Heike Yates [00:05:15]:
I am not good enough to move forward. I shouldn’t even think about that. I am the one who might actually want to have a different goal, a different career, a different job opportunity. Who am I? I’m not smart enough, I haven’t gone to college or whatever the hang ups that we all have about not being, not holding ourselves to our higher standards that we can but putting ourselves down.
Bernie Borges [00:05:46]:
Okay, now in the book you talk about starting small, right? Starting small so that they, they can just start to make some progress on addressing that feeling stuck or burned out steak. So elaborate on that. What can that look like for. For people?
Heike Yates [00:06:10]:
You know, I. My husband who works in corporate America tells me all the time about his work life and his coworkers, this other. And how people come in and they, they’re dragging. And. And I was like, we have this conversation. And, and it’s also. How do you show up at work is. Is a small step.
Heike Yates [00:06:30]:
And when you feel that you have nothing to give and nothing to offer, I feel you dragging in. And rather than dealing with the situation at hand, like overcoming your gap, moving on, pretending that everything is fine as it is, you wish you go somewhere else, wishing that wherever you go next would be your next step and this would be a way of how you would reclaim that spark and that burnout would suddenly go away. Where I think it oftentimes may have not to do with the environment, but how we look at things and how we. The conversations we have, these people and how we stand up for ourselves and the boundaries we set with the people around us. So this momentum to start small comes really from a sense of that we’re restoring our agency for us, not for somebody else.
Bernie Borges [00:07:29]:
And, and is there a small step that, that just anyone can, can tape. I. I’ve talked about the, the power of incremental progress. It’s funny, I used to think that that was my, my idea because it wasn’t. Because there’s so many things in my life that I’ve done in small steps. You know, I wrote a book way back in 2009. I mean, even my podcast, you know, it’s weekly. Right.
Bernie Borges [00:07:57]:
Taking small steps. Is there something that you can share from the book in terms of what someone can think about, in terms of what is just a one of maybe several. I’m not saying it needs to be one. Small steps someone can take to begin to feel like they’re getting unstuck.
Heike Yates [00:08:17]:
I think a lot of times, and that’s also in my book, that I don’t have to do things. I choose to do things. I don’t have to stay late at work. I choose to for whatever reason, could be an external reason, could be a self worth issue, but that you change the. I have to. I get to choose to. If you choose to stay late at work, it is a choice. But setting these daily non negotiables, for instance, I’m not going to do this job.
Heike Yates [00:08:52]:
I just say no, this is a no for me. I’m already working a lot. I have a lot of projects on hand. No, this is something I will not Take on and that non negotiable or a good one. I finish at 5pm this is a hard stop for me, setting the boundaries that we mentioned earlier and saying, you know what? I choose to say no, I will stop at 5 and hold myself accountable for that step that I took and not feel bad or guilty because I chose this is what I want to do. So your boundaries, your non negotiables, the shifting the internal language from I have to to I choose to is so lib. Liberating. It’s scary, but it’s liberating.
Heike Yates [00:09:39]:
And I think so many people overlook that. They have that air quote choice to do that and they’re afraid they may lose their job or somebody’s talking negative about them. But it’s not. I think people will admire you for standing up for what it is that’s important to you.
Bernie Borges [00:09:56]:
Yeah, I love that. Something else you talk about in the book is, is energy. And, and I know that a lot of times when I meet someone, one of the first things that I notice about them is their energy. Now that’s when someone really brings energy to a situation. I also notice the opposite. Like I notice when someone is lacking energy. So why don’t you speak to that. How can people really think about their energy? Harnessing their energy energy, shifting their energy to really again make progress on, on feeling unstuck.
Heike Yates [00:10:33]:
You know, I did an ep, a podcast episode about the energy lack or the energy suckers that drain your energy that we sometimes don’t think about. The. For instance, the drive to work is an energy sucker. You drive like my husband drives to work, sometimes 40 minutes to work and then he drives home for an hour and a half to come back home. This, these are the energy holes that leak our energy that we have control over. But we’re not looking at what drains our energy. Is it the people around us? Is it the job itself? Is it the tasks we have to do? Is it the people whether at work or at home? Or is it in my husband’s case, the commute really drains all the energy out from it. And once we realize what drains our energy, then we have an opportunity to fill those gaps.
Heike Yates [00:11:32]:
Like in his case, work from home as much as possible. It’s instantly you. You fill that gap. But energy also, as, as we’re talking about, or I’m talking about the what’s draining your energy, but what fills your cup is positive people looking at your work. We all started a job because we love it. We said we put all our energy in and this is the position I want. And then for whatever reason, it becomes maybe less attractive, boring, or we’ve been in there for too long, that it’s time to let go and move on. And move on doesn’t necessarily mean leaving a company.
Heike Yates [00:12:11]:
But moving on, maybe to a different task or different department, are all ways you can bring the energy back. And most importantly is self care. Yes, everybody at work can still practice self care. Protecting your time, protecting your lunchtime. For God’s sake, I don’t know how many people I talk to eat lunch at their desk. That does not give you energy. It gives you fuel. So you don’t keel over, but it doesn’t give you the joy and the energy you get from the food that you be eating.
Bernie Borges [00:12:46]:
That kind of leads me to where I want to go next. That also is in your book. And that’s the topic of self leadership. That’s a huge topic for me, Heike. I’m talking a lot about that. Anybody that’s been listening to the Life of Phil podcast here over the last 20 or 30 episodes or so, they’ve heard from me and others about self leadership. So speak to the role of self leadership in terms of helping people really pursue their spark.
Heike Yates [00:13:14]:
I think that we all have an opportunity to pursue that spark. When we know what we want, we know what still is under our influence. So we’re not influenced by other people and we have a clear direction of where we want to go, which might take a little while, but I feel that the direction is helping us to get clarity in the things we want to achieve and the steps we want to take. And we’re not taking big audacious steps at this point in our story or our lives, but we’re bringing things to the point where we are holding ourselves responsible for the outcome, not other people. It’s not the boss or your co worker. It’s what is within your control that you can seek out to. To direct in the way you want. Because again, we go back to I don’t have to, I can choose to.
Heike Yates [00:14:12]:
And that’s the same with, with the self efficacy in this case. What is it? How do I lead myself? And the more I lead myself, the stronger I become as a leader and as a person.
Bernie Borges [00:14:26]:
You just said something. The stronger I become as a leader. I want to. I want to unpack that a little bit with you, Heike, because one of the things I talk about is that we’re all a leader at some somewhere in our life. We may not be a leader in terms of a job title we may not have people reporting to us which would be associated with a job title, but leadership is influence. So we may be a leader in other ways. So maybe speak to that in the context of pursuing your spark because I think a lot of people sometimes either limit their view of leadership. I’m a leader over here in my job where I’ve got 10 people reporting to me, that’s where I’m a leader.
Bernie Borges [00:15:04]:
And, and they’re limiting their view of self leadership to that as opposed to other parts of their life where again they may have influence and they’re leading in that respect. So you want to speak to that in terms in the context of again pursuing your spark.
Heike Yates [00:15:20]:
You know, I think about that if somebody has that I’m the boss of 10 people and this is where I lead and they feel secure in that, more power to you. But they’re overlooking a big part of for instance, I’m a grandparent now. I’m a leader to my grandkids, I’m a leader to the people that are buying my book, that are reading my book because I am an authority that people look up to and it’s not to be underestimated what we know and what we can share with others and not in a like I’m the boss position, but it’s the knowledge that we have and that spark that we can ignite with other people or in other people, in other people to, to pursue their spark, to pursue their next step. And, and yesterday I was at my first tea luncheon with my Capital Speaker Club women that I’m now a proud member of the Capital speaker club of Washington D.C. and we had our first mentioned just as we are 23 in our group that just graduated as public speakers and we sat together and we had conversations about everything and everybody and people came to me and asked me all about fitness because they said oh, you know, fitness, fitness is your thing. And, and I felt that I had so much to give and to teach them not how many reps and sets, but they were wondering of how could they implement this like exercise and self care into their life, into their health and during the day and how could they, you know, lead their teams with some of the breathing exercises we actually talked about to calm the nervous system. So that spark of being a leader and helping people grow is within all us. And we, I think sometimes we’re just not looking wide enough to see the possibilities.
Heike Yates [00:17:29]:
And yesterday at the tea time, which was fabulous, it was an eye opening experience to hear the, the weight that I could bring to all these amazing accomplished women in my group with my.
Bernie Borges [00:17:43]:
Knowledge, and sometimes we lose sight of that. Sometimes we almost even take it for granted. So that’s a great reminder of the fact that we, we need to be more conscious, more aware of our own self worth, our own value, and that’s part of self leadership as well. So. Okay, thank you for, for sharing that story. I want to shift gears to another topic that’s in your book. This topic, Heike, I, is not a big topic for me. So I’m not criticizing it.
Bernie Borges [00:18:19]:
I’m just saying it hasn’t been a big part of my life and maybe it’s been more there than not there, but I don’t think about it a lot. And that’s the concept of curiosity. In other words, I don’t think of myself as a curious person. I don’t use the word curiosity, but I have a hunch that when you unpack it, that maybe there’s aspects of the way I’ve been living my life that maybe exude curiosity, but I haven’t been using that word. But you tell me, what role does that play in pursuing your spark?
Heike Yates [00:18:53]:
Curiosity is always been something that was really innate to me. I’m curious about everything. If somebody says to me, heike, let’s do the tough Mudder, for instance, it’s a race in the outdoors, I would say yes. I have no idea what we’re going to do or how this is all going to play out, but I will definitely say yes. And that’s why I think it’s. I know it’s a very important part in my book because I want people to be more curious about what they can do and what’s out there. And being curious also in a business sense, lowers the pressure. You’re not deciding of this is what I’m going to do.
Heike Yates [00:19:37]:
If somebody’s on a new job search or is, for instance, looking for other opportunities within their work, it just basically helps them explore. There’s no commitment and it makes everybody feel really safe to explore. To say yes or no or maybe not everybody has to be a crazy, not like me and says yes to all kinds of things. But it gives you the freedom to explore in a safe environment without having to jump into something and experience and have an uncertain experiment or experience is probably a better word to move forward. And that also helps you. That curiosity, in my point of view, helps you with clarity of what it is that you want. If you’re curious, you’re exploring or experiencing different things without really making a firm commitment, you Have a chance to build clarity about the things you explored and say, you know, this one thing was for me, I want to know more about it. And then you go back again into more curiosity about till you find what it is that really lights you up and lights up your spark.
Heike Yates [00:20:54]:
So curiosity is innate in all of us, and we explored in different ways. And I think in a business setting, it’s maybe under a number, a different word. But curiosity is just fun, too.
Bernie Borges [00:21:07]:
It can be. Yeah, it can be. And by the sound of it, it can be risky, too. If you’re going to sign up for a tough mudder without even knowing what it is just because you’re curious, you might end up hurting yourself. Well, then again, you’re in great shape, so you probably crush it. So. So your. Your podcast is also called the same title of your book, right? Pursue your spark.
Heike Yates [00:21:29]:
Yes.
Bernie Borges [00:21:30]:
So you’re all about that. You are all about that. What about the person who’s listening? Who is sitting here listening? Not that they’re sitting, but they’re listening and they’re saying, you know, maybe my spark is not what it used to be. What do you say to that person? Besides, of course, get your book and, well, that’s going to be linked up in the show notes. But, you know, what’s something that somebody can take away from this conversation? Maybe an action step that they can take in terms of, like, they feel like their spark is gone. What can they start to do?
Heike Yates [00:22:01]:
You know, I think about that in terms mostly, of course, with exercise, but I also think that when we feel our spark is gone, we know that there is a gap, there’s something missing. And I feel that we have the opportunity now to move forward with baby steps, what I call baby steps. So first is find out, why do you feel your spark is gone? What is it that makes you feel that way? And I think with fitness is probably the most way I can relate to is when you think of yourself. And I think of a client of mine that always comes or used to come to me and say, oh, I want a new workout plan, I want a new nutrition plan. I want a new plan. Plan for everything. And then she would come back and none of the plans would be materializing. And I just got really tired of giving her stuff that she claimed to do and nothing ever happened.
Heike Yates [00:23:03]:
And I said, well, listen, today I’m not going to give you a plan. I said, what would it mean for you? And let’s use walking as an example. What would that mean for you to actually start doing something and she says, I don’t know. I said, why don’t you put your shoes by your door? Simple step. I don’t ask you to start the habit of walking. I start, I’m asking you to just put the shoes by the door and see if you actually do something with them. I’m not asking you to walk. Then she comes back and she says, listen, I walked.
Heike Yates [00:23:38]:
And I said, well, what happened? She says, I was by the door and I saw the shoes. And I said, heck, the shoes are already there. I’m just going to go for a walk like Heike said. And that was a big win. So the shoes are now by the door. The little momentum that she’s getting from the shoes being there, the little spark to actually feeling like she can do it. Because if your spark is gone, you feel like you can’t do anything. You don’t have the desire to do anything.
Heike Yates [00:24:08]:
But if an external trigger, like in my story, the shoe is the thing that pushes you forward. That’s the thing. If it’s leaving out a banana, so you will eat it, it’s the thing. But something that triggers momentum in you, that will help you feel, I would say, fulfilled, but it will help you feel good. And it creates the feeling of, I can do this. I don’t. Haven’t lost my spark. I don’t have to establish big audacious habit goals.
Heike Yates [00:24:42]:
I take that little shoe example and I’ll just move forward and I feel accomplished. And that applies, I think, to any situation that anybody can do to find their spark, because it’s not about this big. Now the spark’s done. Now I have to get this new job. Now I have to start this new position. Now I have to start this new project. Well, what if I just turn the page and look at it and I read the first page and I’ll see how it inspires me.
Bernie Borges [00:25:12]:
You said a lot there that resonates. You said a lot that. Actually, I also talk about the. The expression of if you believe you can, you’re right, and if you believe you can’t, you’re right. And, and I think part of your story is maybe in that client’s example, she didn’t believe she could until you gave her that, that little. Not trick, but, you know, that little approach of putting the shoes by the door. And then she said, I believe I can do this. And, and whether she used those words or not, that’s not what I’m suggesting.
Bernie Borges [00:25:48]:
But in her mind, the mindset shift was, I believe I can. And then did and then, wow, you know, what an impact that had on her. It also gave her fulfillment because as I think, you know, I. I say that fulfillment is associated with achievement. So when we achieve something, we experience that powerful emotion of fulfillment, which is what this podcast is all about. For the Fulfilled Life Fulfilled podcast. I love talking with you. I love this conversation.
Bernie Borges [00:26:19]:
I love your book Pursue your Spark. Oh, tell us, where can people connect with you and, you know, get into your world?
Heike Yates [00:26:28]:
Please find me either my book anywhere you can buy the book, my beautiful orange book, Pursue youe Spark. Find me through Pursue youe spark or@heikeyates.com h e I k e y a t dashes.com and you can find me on all social media. You can also send me an email through my website, hikey8s.com I’d love to hear from you and I’d love you to check out my book and see if it resonates with you.
Bernie Borges [00:26:53]:
Thank you. Heike, you are prolific on social media. I see you, I don’t know about everywhere, but it seems like everywhere because I see you online and you produce really fun, inspiring, activating videos. So congratulations for all the work that you’re doing and really getting this message out. I know you work with a lot of women, but I also know that, you know, some men have come into your world as well who, who get value from all of your. Your coaching and your services. So thank you so much for not only joining me back on the podcast for this episode, but for sharing some of the insights from your book Pursue youe Spark. And of course, all that will be linked up in the show notes.
Bernie Borges [00:27:33]:
So thank you so much, Heike.
Heike Yates [00:27:35]:
Thank you, Bernie.
