Overcoming burn out: Big Decisions, Lessons from Podcasting, and the Unleashed Conference

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Ever feel stuck in life and yearn for a breakthrough? I too, have walked that path, and today, I, Femi Akiyemi, am eager to share the significant life decisions that sparked my transformation. I'll take you through how these key decisions have unlocked an unprecedented level of energy and creativity within me, and how they can do the same for you. We'll delve into the importance of striking a balance to truly harness your best self, and I'll recount my experiences and lessons learned from ushering this podcast into existence.

But that's not all. As we navigate through the art of transforming ideas into actions and leveraging your strengths for success, I'll also guide you towards the upcoming Unleashed Conference. Not only will I be sharing details on how to sign up for this life-changing event, but also introduce you to our exciting lineup of guests. Together, we will engage in profound discussions about personal branding, health, wellness, and the courage required to embrace your destined path. Stay connected through my newsletter and social media platforms for all the updates you need about the conference and beyond. Let's leap into this journey of unlocking our full potential together.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

We all come to a time when we feel stuck. We all come to a time when we feel low on energy, when we feel like this can't go on. I can't continue to do what I'm doing and before you know it, you start to feel like people are passing you by. You get to a point where you feel like how come everyone is doing these things and I'm not? You'd be surprised that the real secret and easy way to solve this problem. I made a big decision in my life recently. I made a big decision in the way I do certain things and when I've been reflecting on it, it's helped me come out of that stock process and give me a new life, a new lease of energy, and you'd be amazed, if you did the same thing, how it would change things for you. So in this week's podcast, I share about how I came up with this solution. I share a bit more about why I'm making this big decision I'm making. I'm sharing the decision as well, but I'm hoping you can learn from that and in anything you're doing if it's relationship, if it's business, if it's career, everything just taking these few steps and reflecting on why I did the same things would probably make a big, massive shift for you. It's a game changer. So in this week's podcast, you want to listen into the story of why I made this big decision I made and what the decision was and how you can get involved in it, but also how you can learn from it and unlock the next level to give you that next level of energy, creativity, life that you know that when you have it, you're shining.

Speaker 1: 1:33

Welcome to the latest episode of the you Unleash podcast with Femi Akiyemi. The podcast will be consistently focused on delivering you content that helps you reflect, gives you the tools and tips to cause you to move to the next level, and we're consistently looking at the broad range of things because to be on least in life, it's not just about one part. It can't just be about work. It has to be about relationships as well. It has to be about finances, it's about everything, because you are a complete person. You are not just one person.

Speaker 1: 2:07

If you ever find one person who is excelling in work but on the personal life, like their family is breaking down, there's a problem. If you find someone who is excelling in work, financially they're struggling. There's a problem. If you see someone who is excelling in relationship, but finance or career is struggling, there's a problem, and it's the same for all of us, because we are all consistently seeking balance. Every one of us is always trying to find that balance and there are times the demands of life will take you one way or take you another way. And that's fine because life is right. It's a journey and there will be times where you need to overindex, you need to put in more effort on one part To be able to balance up the other part. But when it's like that for an extended period, there's a challenge. Right. It means we consistently need to look for that balance.

Speaker 1: 3:01

And that's what it's about in seeking this unleashed life. It's trying to make sure in every phase of life we are continually looking to grow. At least, it seems like a powerful word and it is, but it really is about releasing your best self. To release your best self. You cannot do that overnight. It's day by day. You get better, you go home at night you reflect what can I do better? And you get better, or you try to get better.

Speaker 1: 3:31

So this week I want to share a personal story. Now I think about two weeks ago we finally finally started marketing the unleashed conference, a face-to-face conference which we're going to be running in somewhere in Reading as part of our journey, and hopefully it's going to be bigger and do greater things and move to more locations. But I also wanted to share the story, because a lot of people will be asking well, femi, you've got this podcast, why do you need a conference? And I just want to share my personal story about why the conference. Because, at the end of the day, I can continue to podcast, which I will continue to do, but why do we have to do this, why that? And I want to share the story because so let's start at the beginning.

Speaker 1: 4:21

How did the podcast start? I was probably during the pandemic or just before the pandemic around we're talking about three years and some change ago, and I've always been someone who liked to communicate. I enjoy encouraging people, I enjoy writing, I enjoy speaking and I've always enjoyed taking concepts and explaining them to people. And, above all, I just love having new, refreshing conversations with people. I absolutely love having conversations with people, meeting strangers or people you consider strangers, and at the end we already have a rapport and we're sharing some of our more intimate thoughts. So I've always enjoyed that, and for a long time I struggled to think how can I use more of this gift and in the end I thought, ok, our podcast.

Speaker 1: 5:18

But then I thought, how do you podcast? Well, I didn't know anything about podcasting, I just knew people. You log into any of the popular apps Spotify, apple and people just start talking. So I didn't know how to do that. So the first thing I thought was OK, what do I do? I research and I realize you get a mic and you just find somewhere that is soundproof, where there isn't much interference in noise. So what did I do? I, in my dining area where we eat, when the kids and the family had gone to bed, I got some pillows and I constructed like a mini studio. It wasn't a studio really. I constructed some forms of Almost like remember when we were young and if, for those of you who had the experience maybe would like to create little castles when we were young, to play with our friends, something like that just almost like pillows, create a little triangle, and then I was able to squeeze in and I grabbed the mic and that kind of worked and I I remember doing the first one. I was so nervous and I but I shared my message and, looking back, it's had a number of plays and when I look at it, the quality isn't amazing, but we'll talk about that as well.

Speaker 1: 6:27

On this journey, I want to share about how I got to where I am today with the conference. But I did that and I, after some time of about four or five episodes, I thought Wouldn't it be great to have a guest on the podcast? And then I had my first guest. I believe it was one of the guests at the conference. Her name is Nicky. I did to you. I strongly believe it was her, and if she wasn't, she was, but she was definitely the first who said yes to me, if she wasn't the first guest, towards the first who said yes to me. So we had her on the show and it was amazing feedback.

Speaker 1: 7:02

But you can see what's happening now and we went from Just having a thought, an idea, to just starting somehow to make it happen and then thinking, okay, how can I go to the next level, then getting a guest on, and then I had my first guest on and I was doing the pandemic. So a lot of people who normally wouldn't have the time to speak to me, no, no, a lot of people who wouldn't, who are so busy, who would be out and about traveling all over the world. We're quite looking to share their gifts as well. So, as I invited people to come on the podcast to speak, we got lots of guests coming on. So I was able to get quite a few guests come on and we just started to get in a rhythm, in a flow, which is the second, which is the second thing I want to mention here.

Speaker 1: 7:43

So, number one Start up, just start your idea. It doesn't matter what it looks like, Do not mock the days of humble beginnings, just start. Number two Consistently look to improve, look to freshen things up. What can I do differently? It doesn't matter what you do. If it's in your career, if it's in business, whatever you do, start there. Secondly is what can I do to freshen things up? It's good for you because it keeps your brain ticking over. It keeps you thinking about the immense popularity and possibilities, but it also causes you to think of your customer and it causes you to start to build on your idea. So we had more guests come on and that went on for a while.

Speaker 1: 8:25

But as I started to do that, the third thing happened. I realized I became quite dependent on guests. Now Don't get me wrong Guests will always be a core part of the show. It just is because they bring something different. They bring something out of me, but also I bring something out of them, and it gives you a Window to be like someone who's just in a room listening to a conversation between two people. So that will always be there.

Speaker 1: 8:49

But I also forgot that at some point. I Didn't realize that even I have something to say, because when I looked at the podcast numbers, I realized actually, when I have my own podcast, when I speak alone, we get some really good numbers too. So I moved to, started to become too dependent on guests and forgetting that I had something to share. I had a story to share too. So he meant that I had to realize that. Oh okay, femi, you need to also not forget your own gifts.

Speaker 1: 9:17

I wish is a fourth thing to learn here as well. As you start to go on your journey, whatever it is, you do Never forget that you yourself are a key part of everything. It's easy to rely on others to help you, and they're important because you can't work on this journey alone. But you're just as important in this journey because, at the end of the day, you are writing your own life story, right, and these people are characters in your life story, but it's your life story, so you would always be a central character in your life story, just as they the guests and you are a central character in your life story. I'm a central character in my own life story. So I started to realize I need to do more, more of my own podcast, coming back to it.

Speaker 1: 10:01

But the journey went on and then, if an interesting thing happened about Six to seven months ago, eight months ago, I got tired, and when I say tired, I love to do what I do. If you put a mic in front of me, I would speak for days, I would encourage, but everything that goes around the podcast, the equipment, the setup, the edits, everything else started to become a bit of a challenge for me and it started to slow me down. Which brings me to the fifth lesson I want to share with you as well, which is you have to continue to continuously look for ways to ensure that, as you build yourselves, you look for ways to leverage your strength, the things you enjoy doing most. If it's in your, if it's in business. Do you love doing presentations? Then focus on that and look for ways, as you develop, to find other people to help you do the things you don't enjoy as much.

Speaker 1: 11:01

Do you love doing the more technical part? Then focus on that and let other people do the bits you do enjoy, because ultimately, that's where your joy comes from. That's where your passion comes from. It comes from doing the things that you love doing. The other bits are important because we can't get through life without doing those other things. It's just a fact. But what you want to do is you want to 80% of your energy to be focused on the bits you love doing and 20% to be the bits you can do when you have some time where you just have energy. You don't really some energy that you can just use to get admin things done, and admin means different things to different people. It means different things to different people.

Speaker 1: 11:39

So I didn't do that and I got burned out. I got tired and when I reflected I realized number one I wasn't able to serve my listeners, you who have been with me on this journey. It became inconsistent. I didn't look for the help that I needed because I thought I'll fix this myself and I got more and more challenging. But number two it also meant that I lost that key habit of consistency. You have it all the time. The number one reason for any business being successful is consistency doing it over and over, doing through the dark days and the great days, the tough days, the good days, over and over and over and over. You just show up, show up resilient, turning up to work one more day than the next person, making one more phone call than the next person, releasing one more podcast than the next person. You just have to keep doing it over and over again, and I lost that message somewhere along the way. But thirdly, it meant I wasn't able to serve you. I wasn't able to encourage you. A lot of people who were looking for me to encourage them all of a sudden didn't hear from me. And this is a big thing you need to remember. It's it's. It's that In whatever it is you do at the beginning, people are watching.

Speaker 1: 13:01

Are you just a fly by night? It's just a hobby, something you're going to do for a few weeks and go away, or Is this something you are going to stick with? People are watching and the more consistent you are, the more they they realize are you're with me on this journey for the long run. I back you. I support you in business, in Career, in relationships.

Speaker 1: 13:25

When you look to date someone else, he or she's watching. Are you just someone who is trying to just Something casual? And then when they see your commitment, they go okay, I'll match your commitment, and he or she then starts to come on the journey and matches your commitment. There are some points you decide we're on this for the long haul. Then you decide to get married and then you go even deeper on our relation children, if you choose to, and and if you're blessed with it. And this is what that journey looks like. It's. It's the same for business, in life and everything. Everything's a test of desire, it's a test of commitment.

Speaker 1: 14:01

So in that respect it made me realize I was losing out on that, on some long built-up relationship I had, but also it met. It also made me reflect that one of the reasons why I was feeling tired as well was because I Hadn't switched up. I've been doing the same thing for two, three years. I'd started to get guests at the garden comfortable, consistent, and I've now learned myself. I now know enough about myself to know that I need energy, I need excitement, I need difference, I need something to get me going for six to eight months that this looks fresh, this looks different, and then I can get it to a stable state and someone else can take on, take it on. And that means to know yourself. If you don't know yourself, you people always tell you who you are, so you have to know yourself and I realized I love doing all this but I also need to move some of the the onerous parts, some of the more boring parts. But I also needed to connect it into freshen things up.

Speaker 1: 15:00

So that brings us around back to why we are doing a conference, and I'll never forget what one of our guests said to me, one of the amazing guests we're having on the show this time, and his name is Eric Collins. That's another of our guests we're having the very first time. I interviewed him for my for the podcast, and I think this was before behind the scenes conversation, before we started. The first thing he said to me was Femi, I'm a venture capitalists and when I look at a business, I'm always looking at how big can it be. And he challenged me and I'd forgotten that challenge for a long time. How big can the unleashed podcast be, the only to network of podcast be, how big can it go? He asked me that question and I Reflected and I said big and my vision started to explode. Colors and all the things I want to do which, as we did join, as you join me on this journey, you'll see more of and that's what I realized, that what is the next step on that journey, from unleashed podcast in this journey? So there's three reasons why I'm doing a podcast, not a man.

Speaker 1: 16:08

Moving to the conference, number one is growth, my growth. The unleashed podcast is amazing, but what else can we do? I've looked at it and we realized that we have loads of guests that are our listeners, absolutely loved. So we've gone over it and the guest and all the guests that were really popular that could make it as well Because there's something I can't make it we asked them would you love to come and, almost in that similar podcast setting, share your message with a lot of the listeners who absolutely loved you. So it's growth for me because the podcast is growth for our guests, because they get to meet you. It's growth for you because you get to meet them, to feel the energy to ask them questions. But it's also growth for the unleashed podcast, because as you join on this, on this journey, we're moving to next step, because this is a journey, we're all doing it together. Second is courage.

Speaker 1: 17:02

The reality is, to run things like this means, when you start, when you want to take the next step in whatever it is You're doing it, to ask more of you, because in the early stages you will. You won't get back as much as you get. You won't get back much as you, as much as you give out. So to run a conference like this has its Logistical, financial challenges and but this means I need but this is asking courage of me to take a step, to know that this is another journey and hopefully gets to a place where it runs and it's amazing. Then I can move on to the next time. So it's great, it's courage for me. And then, lastly, it also means I can serve the listeners better, because the listeners as you, as listeners, you get so much more.

Speaker 1: 17:43

The theme of the conference is called unlock your next level of growth, and the reason why I picked that theme is really because, almost for all of us, we all get to a point where we end up being stuck Stuck not because you don't want to go forward, but you need inspiration, someone to come and inspire you and give you a different perspective, to make you realize, just as Eric did to me, what is your next big challenge. How are you going to level up in your life, your business, your career, your relationship, your family, anything? Secondly, it's also about realizing that for some of you, you know where you want to go, but you just need someone to press the reset button. You know when your computer starts to slow down. Sometimes you just need to reset it and get rid of all of some of the so much noise going around. Reset, it starts again and you're ready to go again. For some of us, we need the reset button, but if, for some of us, we just need to hear what we haven't heard in a long time Someone just to remind us what we already know to be true, and then, for some of us, just need to be in a room network with other people and that's why you should sign up for the Unleashed Conference. For those of you that can make it, we have a lot of guests that are around the world. We are going to be looking to try to record some of this and make this content available to you so you can listen, watch some of the guests, watch the day highlights of the day and just get involved, like you were there. My hope is that as we start to grow, we can even come to you wherever you are and want more of these Unleashed conferences. But that's the journey of why we're here today.

Speaker 1: 19:25

So you're probably asking how do I sign up for the Unleashed Conference, if you can make it? Well, I'll be sending out links. At the end of the podcast, there is a link. If you go into the show notes, there is a link. If you go on social media, you can see it's on any of my pages on LinkedIn Femiakimi and on Instagram the Unleashed Academy and my LinkedIn page. On my Instagram page Femiakimi. But you can also find it on Twitter, where I'm active. It's there as well and the links will be there the instructions to sign up and join. It's not free, it's part of the coverage. But also, I can guarantee you it's not necessarily something we're doing out of profit. It's really about making sure we can serve you and give you everything you need.

Speaker 1: 20:07

We have some amazing guests coming. We've got Eric Collings I've spoken about. You want to check out his podcast? We've had a couple of podcasts together. Nikke Aditui we have her as well. We also have Nigel Epison Fleming, someone who's almost like a big brother coach mentor to me and he's just amazing, inspirational. He has his own show, he has his own tech business. He's in musician he used to be a rock star, but we have them. We also have people who are going to come and help us focus on other sides, like George Anderson, who we spoke to us about wellness and how wellness and health is very important to being a high performer. And we've got Laura Louder, the brand consultant, your image consultant, who's going to help you understand the importance of your personal brand and how you leverage your brand and how you accentuate your brand. We've got some really, really amazing guests and I will be there myself asking the questions and I will be speaking as well, because I can speak as well, as I said, for this podcast. But I'm super, super excited. I really hope you can join me and over the next few weeks I will be introducing some of our guests and also just a very brief intro and I'll be reintroducing their podcast to you so you can listen, listen to the podcast and understand what they're about, why you want to come and hear them and why it's an amazing value just to be in the same room and, hopefully, network and get everything you want out of them. So I'll say this to you Reflect on where you are.

Speaker 1: 21:41

Always, look to fashion things up and do things differently. Remember you are the central character in your own movie, in your own life. Remember, get rid of the boring stuff and focus on the stuff that you enjoy. Try and make your customers delight your customers or your listeners. Continue to evolve, always look to grow. You cannot be the same person you were because if you stay in one place, others, even though you're moving, you're staying in one place, others are moving, so actually you're moving, you're falling behind and then you have to have courage. It takes immense courage To go and be the person you were created to be, you were destined to be.

Speaker 1: 22:22

I Hope you enjoyed this podcast. I hope you enjoyed me explaining my journey and how I get to where I am. Got to where I am. I'm so keen to have you attend and the unleash conference, but I'm so hoping that as a standalone podcast, it makes a difference to you to understand that in any plan, vision, goal, desire you have, you yourself are looking To go to the next level and you're already putting plans to expand and grow. So without that I'll say make sure you sign up for my newsletter. It's my personal profile, the links are at the bottom. Sign up for my newsletter when I share regular shoots, not gets, and also you can get more information about the and the conference. I'm just following my social media and I'm hoping on this journey we continue to rise and unlock our greater selves. Gag on rikt zestjant ligt.