hi welcome to the business class esl break room we’re a company of passionate language trainers and coaches we’re here to share ideas to improve our skills and strengthen the training community come in for some inspiration leave with tips to apply to your sessions today hi and welcome to the business class esl break room the podcast to keep you and your esl training moving forward my name is sue and i’m very excited for today’s show as it is a topic that is near and dear to my heart self-care we are extremely lucky to have a guest who is uniquely poised to speak to us esl trainers in particular rachel roberts is a career-long esl professional who has done it all in this field from training in egypt portugal poland and brazil to writing materials for many well-known publishing houses she’s had a rich and varied career steeped in the esl world so at this point her career is dovetailed into business and life coaching for esl professionals among others so welcome rachel we’re really happy to have you here thank you for taking the time really pleased to be here thank you susan yeah that’s great so to start i would love if you might just share a bit about your journey and and what brought you into coaching and wellness after such a good career in yourself so i mean this is something that you know i talk about quite a lot because i think it’s important um you know that people understand that i’ve been there if you like so what kind of got me into all of this in the first place really was two experiences i had quite early in my career um of burning out so the first one um was when i was teaching abroad and working ridiculous hours and traveling um all the time as well i was probably doing about 70 hours a week i would say and it it just got to the point where i came home back to the uk for christmas and having that break made me realize just like how bad things were um and so basically you know i didn’t go back no more and then i got a job at an fe college that’s further education college in the uk and everything went swimmingly with that for a year or two um i got my arm twisted into becoming a manager which wasn’t quite so swimming but it was still you know okay um because i had a range that i wouldn’t do you know all of the tasks that perhaps should be included so i wasn’t doing the funding because i knew nothing about that kind of thing you know so there was somebody who was dealing with those sorts of things and i was focusing on the people which is what i’ve always liked and then the person who was dealing with that side of things went on maternity leave and we had an ofsted inspection which is like the government inspection and suddenly i had to deal with all of it and be inspected on it and guess what happened you know it was just too much and i ended up having to take time off again and at that point i finally i’m obviously a slow learner realized that something had to change not just in the jobs that i had because yes they were complicit you know and they were overloading me but it was also about me and it was about what i was agreeing to you know what i was taking on um the sort of urge that i had to kind of be perfect and to please people and all of this kind of thing and that sort of set me off down a path which um ended up with me um training as a counselor and psychotherapist actually wow so that that was what i did like 20 years ago but then didn’t use it professionally other than in my work as a manager and a teacher trainer and so on and then about three four years ago i decided that actually this was something that i wanted to do and you know if not now then when so i retrained as a coach and here we are beautiful that’s a beautiful marriage of a lot of skill different skills and yeah i’m sorry i neglected to mention you are experienced teacher trainer as well which is the whole other level of training well it’s 30 years in the business so there’s time to do a few things but i think that’s so fantastic because you know if i can say us and on quotes well you know the trainer and i’m not all the same exact person but i imagine there are a lot of traits that are very similar that bring someone to this kind of profession yes i think so yeah and so may i ask then i had two questions as you were speaking i kind of wanted to jump right into burnout um but before we get there um maybe first you could address what are some traits you’ve seen repeated that come from people particularly working as trainers well you know i think that people who are drawn to work with other people in this kind of way you know as trainers and teachers tend to be very giving people and empathic people and both of those are obviously really good things however they can both i think be you know a bit of a a double-edged sword in that we can end up being too empathic to giving towards other people and not enough um empathy and um self-care directed towards ourself and you know that’s a very sort of short-term thing because ultimately we can’t continue like that i i found the ad i find that we don’t recognize it i mean many of us just don’t realize what has been your experience with that yes i think that’s true i mean the other thing i would say that i often find is that people that i work with have um kind of they’re very strong you know and they have this idea that oh you know it’s it’s only sort of people who are weak that burn out but actually it’s kind of the opposite um because when you when you’re one of those people who you know is very strong who can and does work very hard because they’re passionate about what they do you don’t really notice what’s happening it’s a bit like there’s a metaphor about you know if you put a frog into a pan of cold water um that’s the other way around if you put a frog into a pan of hot water it will jump out immediately if you put it into cold water and heat it gradually it will stay there until it’s too late i mean not that anybody’s actually doing that to frogs i hope but you know the metaphor’s clear it builds up over time gradually it becomes normal for us to feel constantly stressed and we just don’t realize until we kind of hit that point where it’s just too much you know the body just isn’t designed to put up with those kinds of chronic levels of stress and would you have any red flags or signs that other people may not recognize as red flags that you’d like to mention yes sure i mean i think i think there are a few actually um i’d say one thing you know that that is quite often the case is you have that sense of not having any spare capacity um emotionally as much as anything you know so it’s it’s like the tiniest thing that you ought to you know normally just shrug off will infuriate you you know so that’s often a sign that like your bucket if you like is too full already and so even just a you know a few drops more and you’re overflowing um health-wise you know if you keep getting ill i don’t mean major things although that can certainly happen with burnout but just i mean we’ve all been away from everybody for a year so this probably isn’t happening now but if you’re normally the kind of person that always catches every cold going that’s a sign that your immune system is suppressed which is something which often happens as a result of stress and so that can be an indicator i think um what are sleep problems um you know whether you’re finding it hard to switch off at night or you’re waking up um you know 3 4 a.m with everything going around your head you know that you’ve got too much cortisol and adrenaline going through your system basically and so your body cannot understand why you want to sleep when clearly your life is at threat you know so it’s keeping you awake yeah i mean an attitude as well i think if you if you start to become you know more cynical and detached when you weren’t like that before um that can be a sign well yeah i think i’ve noticed sometimes with myself if i find myself i’m driving and i get irritated quickly with other drivers i go oh oh because normally i don’t do that too often yeah i find that creeping up then i have to look elsewhere in my life yeah absolutely yeah interesting yeah okay so it’s interesting a burnout may not look like what i think we think we expect it to be just total breakdown or it may not quite look like that well i mean eventually if you continue it probably will get to that but i think there can be lots of stages along the way and we can go through a process of kind of coming close to the edge and then pulling ourselves back and then coming close to the edge again you know if if every holiday you have you feel completely exhausted and you can’t switch off for like the first week then that’s a sign i think that you are generally doing too much okay people do you hear that listen up that’s so true how many of us just say the first week is just coming down and then by the second week you’re ready to finally yeah interesting so what might you suggest or offer that might help prevent this from ever becoming the case what are some of your favorites that you find with you well i think it’s a combination um for me of practical tips um and looking at what’s underneath if you like you know so so the practical tips i think are in many ways more obvious you know they’re about things like um getting some exercise because exercise is really good for releasing those stress hormones because it’s like you know the body sort of has built them up in order to do something and a lot of the you know like fighter a tiger or something like that you know biologically and a lot of the time we don’t actually do anything with those stress hormones so if we exercise we can release them and stop them swilling around our body getting outside and especially into nature if we can you know that has that’s not just a kind of hippie thing it has been shown um that walking amongst nature definitely reduces like blood pressure more than say walking in an urban situation and they even think that trees give off particular pheromones i think it is that will actually help us to relax so walking in a forest is particularly good i believe that that’s fascinating it’s incredible isn’t it yeah and i love the science that you’re putting behind it because it’s easy to say oh i could go for a walk in nature that’s nice but if you say i’m really doing this to release some toxic my body it might motivate us more yeah no absolutely um and then things like you know good sleep hygiene um you know not looking at your smartphone and your emails when you’re lying in bed before you try to go to sleep um meditating um you know we know that that can have a really positive impact on the brain on the physical structure of the brain um deep breathing you know there are lots of practical techniques i think right we hear those all the time in the wellness area and they are now becoming more and more um quantified justifying kind of hard statistics i think that help people but um just before off off uh the recording we were talking a bit about some habits i thought that was a great concept you mentioned um habits also help yes well habits can either help or hinder can’t they it depends on the habit but i think you know we all have this thing um where we get we’re at the beginning of the year you know it’s new year we make these sort of oh you know i’m going to have all of these great new habits and then about two weeks later most of them have completely disappeared and then we beat ourselves up about that um but actually i think we need to recognize that this is completely natural in that the the brain resists change because any kind of change is potentially a risk you know if what you’re doing you haven’t died yet then as far as you know your biology is concerned that’s fine just keep doing it you know so there will always be that sort of resistance to to changing anything and so rather than beating ourselves up about it i think we have to find ways to kind of be a bit sneaky um and to get around that you know so one one for example is to and it sounds obvious but it can make a big difference to make it really easy to make the change so you know james clear in his book atomic habits which i recommend yes by the way you look like you’ve read it yeah so he talks about reducing friction that’s how he calls it so for example if you want to go to the gym assuming we can ever go back to the gym make sure that your gym kit is packed and ready to go by the door so that you don’t have that opportunity to go oh no i haven’t got time now to get it all together you know have you know have things if you if you want to drink more water make sure that you have a big glass of water on your desk you know make it easy for you to make those changes and reduce the things that are stopping you from making those changes so you know if you want to eat more healthily don’t put the chocolate and biscuits somewhere that’s really easy to get to you know just don’t buy it well or don’t buy it yes if you live with two teenagers that’s not an option but but at least it can go you know ours goes down in the cellar so at least i have got to actually go all the way down the stairs into the cellar to get it and just having to do that makes you stop and think rather than it being immediately to hand and i i think also not trying to do too much at once because then we’re often setting ourselves up for failure you know a lot to be said about that really evaluating our to-do list where we set up our days and our work patterns yes i mean actually you know moving moving on from habits that in general i think is really important because people have you know ridiculously unrealistic ideas of what they can actually fit into a working day and then they’re constantly um you know disappointed and cross with themselves for not having done it absolutely and and i am the biggest victim of that um and i’m really trying to learn but can you maybe think about some of your clients and you don’t just speak personally about anyone but what you’ve seen especially in people who are working in training maybe some changes they’ve implemented how they did their session notes or how they booked their hour you know is there something maybe you can give us a concrete example so i mean i would say you know a typical client for me actually comes to me because they are completely overloaded um so they’re trying to do far too much and equally they’re not charging enough and the two things are related um you know i mean the one of the taglines that i use in my business is work less earn more live more fully you know and those those things are related and i think as educators we’re often a bit kind of awkward about money yes um you know we shouldn’t really be expect to be paid at all you know we should be doing this for love and vocation for anybody yes exactly but the problem is if you do that you then have to work three times as hard in order to earn enough you know for your life so so those things are sort of very much linked together i think and a lot of it is about that sense of um guilt about asking people for money um you know i often hear clients say things like i don’t know if my students can afford that um you know to which i say no that’s right you don’t know because actually how how do you know what is what your clients can afford or not and how is that your business you know ultimately it’s about what you think the value is of what you’re providing and what will enable you to earn enough that you don’t have to half kill yourself right and that is one of our our goals of this podcast is to validate the profession as a whole we are a language training outfit of course we operate a little differently than a freelancer but that that said we we recognize and the founder of our company recognized early on she’s as trainer herself you know you don’t training english training might get relegated to early morning or midday who would send a management consultant to a company and ask them to do their business over lunch with the employees and it’s that idea that language training is a skill valued skill and speaking whatever language you need at work it’s it’s as important as new management techniques absolutely it’s about communication you know and how far will you get in business if you can’t communicate effectively you know so it’s extremely important i think um and yes absolutely it should it should be valued and i do think actually within esl that that is a particular issue you know there is still this this problem of you know i mean just talking about myself you know i’ve been in this business for 30 years i’ve got a master’s degree a diploma you know all of this and i still when i tell people what i do quite often get people saying things like oh yes my cousin did that for a year in thailand you know no it’s not quite the same as your backpacking cousin so you know having that that sort of um respect and status if you like and i think it’s something we’ve got to also take for ourselves and kind of make clear you know right which is exactly what this initiative is here and you know and to join together rather than to look at each other you know competitively but we are an industry together and we’re absolutely the same goals and there’s an abundant world there is enough work out there for everyone then because there’s a real need and there’s a lot of myths about oh the germans they speak english great now i worked there for four or five years they don’t all speak english perfectly you know it’s there is a need ever absolutely yes no i think so and i think you know there will continue to be even with translation software and things it’s about that human connection and you can’t have that you know unless you speak the language right right and so you’re getting back to just kind of the um things that can help us you know train for anybody really but you know particularly i love some of your points you had made and read through your blogs um some ideas you had like stability zones or putting more work flow in your work life could you speak a little more definitely sure yeah so um i mean stability zones is not a it’s not a new idea actually it comes from a book that was published in 1979 i think alvin toffler who wrote a book called future shock and he was quite um prescient really he you know he did see i think the way that things were going and the way that life was speeding up even then yeah and absolutely has now sped up you know to quite a degree and stability zones is um the idea that we consciously try to create um things in our life that will um help to stabilize us if you like so a stability zone might be a place you know so it might be like your favorite seat in your garden that helps you to feel calm but it can also be people you know so those people who being when we’re with them that helps us to kind of feel grounded and safe and indeed you know the opposite as well you know are we spending too much time with people who are making us feel drained um and anxious for example um and also you know it might it might be objects um you know there might be a particular i don’t know that we light a particular candle or you know so it’s about finding those things that help us to feel more relaxed and grounded those things people and places and then making sure that we fit those into our life so you know consciously that’s very interesting and it reminds me of something i heard about high performers a little different but high performers like um steve jobs and his uniform they often wear the same thing every day because it takes a thinking out of their day which is in a sense of stability zone of just lightening load so he had jeans in his black top because he didn’t want to spend any other time thinking of i think it’s interesting um fantastic well very often it’s yeah it is interesting i mean personally i wouldn’t want to wear the same thing every day because i like choosing what i wear and i get pleasure from it but i think that you know thinking about those things we do which are not in any way enhancing our life but that we you know just keep doing them and often they’re things that we just kind of don’t get around to sorting you know so i had a great example actually earlier today on social media somebody was saying about how they had hadn’t got around to adjusting their heating thermostat for more than a year because it meant finding the manual and they just hadn’t found the time to do it so every day they were manually putting on and turning off the heating and then they worked out that this had actually used up four hours of their time over that year and that gave them the motivation to actually go and do something about it it’s a good metaphor because we we do a lot of things like that i think where you know we just can’t quite be bothered to to do something about it and yet the cost is actually relatively high truly it’s really and bringing it back even to our daily work habits as trainers i personally find sometimes that was my admin writing we call them sessions and you or you put them off or you think oh i’ve got to get to the next client i don’t have time for that right now but if i change that habit and make sure that i don’t finish the session without that done it saves so much time in the long run maybe you have other examples from other trainers of ways they’ve adjusted their work day to um make things smoother well i think part of it is actually allowing time for that kind of thing you know because when we when we run our own business which is essentially you know what what we’re doing um we have time that we spend um in our business i.e training but we also have time we should have time that we spend on our business and that’s what often gets completely ignored you know so somehow the time that we have to spend writing up notes invoicing emailing clients you know all of those kinds of things is somehow supposed to magically appear on top of the time that we spend actually in our business and i think recognizing that no that is actually magical thinking and it’s not you know not going to happen can really reduce the stress and so you you block out time to do things um i mean you know obviously it’d be different for different people depending on what they do you know but for me i i now have a a day a week where i don’t see any clients where i just work on my business you know so partly it’s admin but a lot of it is planning um you know setting goals reviewing what i’ve done you know those things that can help the business to grow as well which is also important it’s huge and i think that you touched upon it exactly we don’t have the mindset often to see that as important and valuable i wonder does that go back to some of that um aspect of the trainer personality that the empathetic personality who does not value themselves enough know that things that make their life easier are valid it’s not just a nicety i think in the beginning to do that even with prepping my lessons it felt like a luxury rather than wait no this has to and and yeah so this what you’re saying it speaks to that we need to adjust how we think and know that admin is as big a part of the job as the training part totally you know because that’s that’s the underpinning having said that if you can come up with systems to reduce that admin all to the good you know i mean so i i have in my coaching business i have um a client management system called dubsado which does all of my invoicing um and payment reminders and things for me um and we’ll also send out you know other sort of automatic emails so like an email asking for feedback for example and i absolutely love this because you know i used to spend so much time thinking oh god i have an invoice zone so oh i don’t think they’ve paid i better chase them all you know all of this kind of thing so to have that taken off my plate it’s fantastic you know so i do think if if there are jobs that you’re doing that you hate doing somebody else can do them or an automation can do them then absolutely you know do that if you can’t yes yes but i think sometimes people first need to have their eyes open to the fact that they can either if they can’t you know delegate they don’t have staff but they can find an automated system even google emails can be scheduled ahead of time you can plan your reminders all in one day and schedule them yeah it’s technology today the technology but you know it’s like the example about the about the heating thermostat people are like oh that would be good but i haven’t got time to do it but if you think about the amount of time that you’re wasting it’s definitely worth the investment and and it’s about focusing your energy into those areas where you can really make a difference you know which is going to be the training right so there’s a thought for everyone listening the challenge i challenge you today guys to think about what’s something that’s irking you you haven’t done don’t have time if you really think about it if you take the time maybe this week or even this weekend it could relieve a lot of stress in the long run yeah it’s a great one thank you rachel i love that um i also wanted to touch a little more on just this people-pleasing aspect you know the industry the a lot of us are like that and what have you observed what what have you helped people um with in regard to that i think i think it’s a big one um and you know when we were talking about burnout i said there’s like the practical stuff and then there’s the underlying stuff and the people pleasing is very often the underlying stuff i think by which i mean that it’s about the the messages that we were brought up with and what we saw um you know as children so when you know when we’re when we’re very little everything that our parents or caregivers do and say we take completely as gospel because why wouldn’t we you know we don’t have any other perspective and we’re completely dependent on these people and so our brain kind of gets formed into particular patterns um you know so for me to give an example um you know my mother is one of these kinds of people who is always doing something you know she doesn’t even like coming around to my house because then she has to just sit she prefers me to come around to hers because then she can get on with stuff while we talk you know so so i really picked up from that this idea that i ought to be busy and doing something all of the time and it’s a very strong kind of bit of programming if you like yeah in my brain and so once you’re aware of that and that actually not everybody behaves that way because of course you think everyone’s like that yeah then you can start to question it um and then you can start to decide you know you can choose differently you can think okay you know i can feel that i have this urge that i ought to be busy and doing something now however you know with the more logical part of my brain not the automatic program part i know that i need to rest so i am going to you know put my feet up and read this book huge huge i love this simple idea of question yeah is this a program or is this really what you want to be doing exactly exactly yeah i mean there’s a there’s a really good book another book i recommend i don’t know if you’ve read it called the chimp paradox no i don’t know though it’s it’s a great book so it’s by a guy called steve peters and he talks he talks about it’s about the brain a lot and he talks about um how it’s called the chimp paradox because we have this part of our brain that he calls the chimp which is basically the amygdala which is the sort of fight flight freeze part of the brain very primitive part of the brain right in in the middle and um the chimp um is sort of what reacts if you know we’re about to step under a bus and we step back you know it’s that kind of really automatic part and obviously we need that um when we’re under threat but what we don’t need is for that to be running our life because it’s like we’re being managed by a really reactive fearful toddler basically so another part of our brain is the human which is kind of like the real us if you like you know more evolved um and then the third part um is that what he calls the computer and what he says is that either the chimp or the human can program the and computer set up like these automatic ways of behaving and a lot of what um we were brought up with is kind of chimp programming because it’s when we’re very little that we’ve put these programs into place you know and so we can reprogram those things and create new neural pathways you know it takes time but we can get the human to reprogram that computer which is such a relief isn’t it yes exactly there’s hope for us guys there’s hope bad habits any things we think that’s just the way i am i’ll think twice yeah absolutely yes because it’s you know of course we have genetic tendencies but a lot of the way that we think we are is programming and it absolutely can be reprogrammed yeah this is fantastic to know and i like the analogy someone says like who’s driving the on bus bus or you’re letting the two-year-old or whatever well now exactly exactly you do not want your chimp driving the bus and so there are a lot of things we can we can change um fantastic so mindset to have you know habits a big part of it gives us a lot of power i mean the feeling of we do have the power and sometimes as freelancers the trainers may feel i’m at the mercy of the industry or the employees and the work that comes but there are a lot of things we can steal i i think so and i think this is actually going back to you know the people pleasing i think this is the other reason that often um clients find themselves doing this is because they are frightened or if you know if i don’t bend over backwards i won’t get more work um you know if if i don’t sort of um you know fear really that there might not be more work or that they might be rejected now of course there could be some truth in this because you know sometimes companies and employers can be um somewhat unreasonable however generally speaking that is just fear um you know i mean i spoke to somebody earlier this week who was um thinking of leaving a writing project this was an elt writer had been treated appallingly i have to say you know over a long period of time had got to the point of i can’t do this anymore and i don’t care if they even don’t pay me and was you know thinking of just making up an excuse to to stop the project and then um decide in fact the the conversation we had they decided no they were going they weren’t going to make them excuse but they were just going to leave because there was no point doing anything else they then decided actually no i am going to say something i think through having explored the alternative if you like so they they were very sort of you know just pleasant but assertive about it and the company got back immediately like oh yes that sounds very reasonable and you know we’ll be paying you more and you know they’ve got everything they wanted basically so sometimes that fear actually isn’t in our head right and people are not aware the other the people we work with sometimes the business partners they may be just in their own world and yeah completely not aware of what’s going on for you yeah well it’s really easy i think for all of us to make up stories about what the other person is thinking and what’s happening and sometimes it’s just totally wrong [Laughter] yes yes so my goodness this has been so great there’s so many i think we could probably talk for a long time um but i’m aware of your time and our trainer’s time but do you maybe is there something you want to share that you would like people to know that you just feel that they don’t and they haven’t gotten and they keep coming to you for it no pressure there i i think i think the key thing actually that that a lot of my work comes back to is that that’s saying um don’t believe everything you think you know because we tend to assume that our brain is you know um what we should trust if you like you know we’re intelligent people and we can think these things through and that will always be the best solution but actually as we’ve seen that when we were talking about the chimp and and the hume there are parts of our brain that really we should not be trusting at all you know there are parts of our brain that are trying to sabotage us um hold us back you know through fear mainly and kind of wanting to protect us but that is not necessarily the best advice if you like so it’s it’s about um not just reacting to that first kind of fearful impression but actually taking time to question it as you say to to also um become more aware of what we’re feeling because often our emotions are actually a much truer um source of information than what we’re thinking you know because we can find us our brain going oh yes you should definitely take this opportunity it’s a really good opportunity for us but if we go a bit deeper we can feel ourselves going oh my god no over my dead body you know because we know that it’s actually going to be a really unpleasant experience for us you know so yeah that would be my thing to recognize that you know your thoughts are not necessarily always right you know and sometimes need questioning right and what you just said i think is really worth um exploring just a bit the because often we want to take work because we need to work but you have that gut instinct that’s telling you this is going to be a nightmare but to give yourself permission to really explore before you say pull the trigger and say yes absolutely absolutely and i would say if you are getting that gut feeling this is going to be a nightmare believe it is you know and and trust yourself that there is other work out there and that you can find it yeah there’s enough to go around yeah to go around for everyone i believe that and before i let you go rachel would love just to dress because we are in this particularly unique time of this month i make isolation um do you have any thoughts about the isolation they feel as freelancers and now we don’t even see our calling yes i think this has been a really sort of hard time for a lot of people you know i think i mean i work from home anyway but i live with my family so i don’t have that kind of isolation and i think you know this has been particularly tough for people who are much more extrovert than i am um and people who live alone and i think if it’s a combination of those two things you know if you need to be with other people to get that energy and you live alone i think this has been hugely tough so i think maybe the first thing to say is you know recognizing that this is not like a weakness or that there’s something wrong with you or if you found this really difficult because you haven’t been getting what you need you know which is that contact with people um i think it’s important just on a practical level i think it is important that we you know we keep up a a proper routine um that we consciously try to look after ourselves you know it’s a bit like being an athlete i think if in that if you were going to run a marathon you would make sure that you ate properly that you slept properly that you exercised and this has been a marathon yeah so i think we need to take that same kind of attitude if you like of you know consciously really looking after ourselves and you know making sure that we do get as much connection with other people as we can you know even if it’s limited it it has we have to you know do do what we can to keep that whether it’s zoom calls or you know if we can meet up distanced with one other person or you know rules vary in different countries right and i think we’ve seen that that zoom you know we can talk about the zoom fatigue and all that but i do find that my lessons i feel a connection with my learner i feel the exchange and the heart and the caring and the laughter there are times that you know having sessions just brightens my day completely and it’s all over you but yes i i don’t think i don’t think it’s a question of there not being a connection i mean i i do all of my coaching pretty much over zoom and i think actually it can be very intimate um because you know you’re really quite close to the person um however in a way i think that’s where the fatigue comes from because you you are really focused on that person probably more so than you would be if you were sitting in the same room with them and that may be one thing worth mentioning is that you may feel tired after your session on zoom and if you have the luxury of scheduling a little buffer time between 15 minutes acknowledge give yourself that break i agree totally i i that is something i always do actually i always have like a buffer because i i do need to just go out and you know stand in the garden or make a cup of tea or you know and do something like that just for that and it’s sometimes i used to have that guilt feeling like oh well i’ve got this buffer between classes and i should be doing my notes and i should be doing this of the bat for work as well but actually i’m so i need to decompress giving that phone standing on the balcony of the garden please what we need to do so give yourself permission yeah well and also if you feel guilty about it you know flip it around it’s much better for the next client if you’re you know properly present and not still half in the previous session right yeah same here same here but i’m aware of your time um and we just i hope that this i know this brought some some new insights to a lot of people and i hope that they get some benefit from maybe some new food for thought and ways to preserve their energy that’s so important so thank you for the you know the opportunity now how can people get a hold of you um yes so i mean i think what what i would suggest in the first place is if if anybody’s on facebook come and join my free facebook group um because you know that’s so that’s called light bulb moments light bulb moments are helping elt professionals manage stress and gain balance is the full name so it’s kind of yeah what what it says it is so come and join that because you’re um i do regular um lives we have guest experts we have a book group you know so there’s there’s lots of things you can get involved with there if you’re not on facebook you can find me on other social media under life resourceful which is the name of my company resourceful or you know my website is the other place of contact and that’s um life dash resourceful.com excellent and we’ll be sure to put that in our episode description that’s fantastic so rachel um you do speaking uh in events um are there any upcoming events already planned out for the summer or after um may june that you know are on your calendar um so yes i do do quite a lot of um speaking around these kinds of topics and you know those things related to teaching as well so i am going to be doing a talk um for the neuro heart conference in may about growth mindset um in the classroom excellent excellent so if you don’t nora heart um conference is was the association started by rachel palin that’s right which is something we at business class are quite big fans of um we’re we have a couple neural language coaches myself included so we’re fans fantastic okay well rachel thank you so much for joining us we hope to maybe get you again someday if you’d be willing yes no that would be great okay so best of luck really nice to talk to you too thanks for joining us in the business class esl break room a podcast designed to bring business english trainers useful ideas inspiration and conversation that motivates follow us on instagram at business underscore class underscore language 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