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Maggie Reyes:
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. I am so excited for the conversation we’re going to have today with Dr. Jo Braid.
She is a life Coach, a medical doctor, and she specializes in burnout. I’m so excited to talk about, first of all, our experience in Coaching together, what she does with burnout, how she helps people have better lives, and she really focuses on helping exhausted women get their energy back and live the life they have worked so hard to create.
She is in Australia, and I am in Miami, and through the magic of technology, we are talking together in one place in the magic of the here and now to you. So I’m so, so, so excited. So one of the things she does is, also, she practices brain injury rehabilitation, which I think is fascinating.
She knows the science of the brain on one side, and then the psychology of the brain and Coaching, and mixes those two in her burnout Coaching practice. So welcome, Jo. I’m so happy you’re here.
Jo Braid:
Thank you so much, Maggie. So delighted to be here.
Maggie Reyes:
Tell us a little bit about what you do.
Jo Braid:
Okay, so what I do. I guess I’m an Australian living in Orange, New South Wales, Australia with my gorgeous hubby and my three energetic sons. So that’s part of my doing thing as well, Maggie.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah.
Jo Braid:
Then, I’m also a doctoral physician and a Life Coach. I work with a range of people, some doctors, and some non-doctors, and other healthcare workers, helping exhausted people, women overcome burnout and getting their energy back again, and working with them in a Coaching setup, regular Coaching through programs that I do with them over about six months.
The other part that I do as you alluded to is my brain injury work. So that’s working for the public hospital down the road in Bathurst. So that’s 45 minutes away. I go there once a fortnight and see my range of patients of working age who have either had a motor vehicle accident, or a stroke, or a tumor, or an aneurysm. I work with them, rehabilitating them, getting them back on the road and back into work.
Maggie Reyes:
Have you seen a common thread with brain rehabilitation and burnout? Is there something that you’ve noticed that overlaps between the two? I’m just so curious about that. Jo Braid:
Goal setting is a really big part of rehabilitation. So I’ve done goal setting for years with my 20- year career there, and then as I work with people on their mindset, I think also setting a goal to measure against, which is a really different, generally, a really different kind of non-productivity goal.
It’s more like a feeling goal, like how do you want to feel in six weeks’ time? “I want less frustration,” “I want less exhaustion,” “I want to feel more confident,” or so forth. That kind of measurable goal that’s super subjective.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah.
Jo Braid:
It doesn’t involve anybody else. It’s really working with the individual. That would be the common thread, Maggie, that I see between the two.
Maggie Reyes:
I love that so much, setting a feeling goal. So I have another podcast episode on setting a sex goal with Danielle Savory, which is super fun.
Jo Braid:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
I love this idea. We’ll link to that one in the show notes if you want to hear that, but I love the idea of setting a feeling goal, and then following all the things that help you cultivate that feeling. So for everyone listening, you want to be bold this week. Set a feeling goal, and then see where that leads you. I love that so much.
One of the reasons I wanted to have you on was to talk about exactly what Coaching is. So for someone who’s never Coached before or who’s never had the experience of either a private one-on-one Coach or being in a group program, I think it’s so useful to demystify what happens in Coaching and how Coaching works, and I thought it would be super fun for us to talk about.
So Jo is a former private client of mine. I still have a small private practice where I work with a handful of private clients every now and then. We both nerd out on the science and the psychology, that kind of stuff. So if you were talking to someone who maybe had experienced therapy, or had experienced rehabilitation, or something like that, but never worked with a Life Coach, what would you tell them Coaching is?
Jo Braid:
I think there are lots of different ways to talk about it, Maggie. One way I talk about it is to invite an individual, or a person, or a human to become aware of what they think and feel, and then how that impacts on what they do or they don’t do.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah.
Jo Braid:
That simplifies it down, I think, in some ways.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah.
Jo Braid:
I often repeat and allude to, again, in Coaching sessions for my clients to get clarity that the situation doesn’t cause the feeling. So the workplace doesn’t make you feel exhausted until you have a thought about your workplace, and that thought makes you feel exhausted. I’ve got an at-home example that I drew up for you, Maggie.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah. Yeah.
Jo Braid:
My husband likes to leave his socks on the floor, and they used to make me feel really frustrated until I had the insight that it was the thought that I had about socks being on the floor.
I actually really could easily turn things around and have more of a lightness to it of, “Well, it’s up to me if I want to feel frustrated about that,” or if I go, “Well, there’s socks on the floor. They need a dressing at some point. It’s okay. We’ll get to it.”
So that was another part, and the last part I wanted to say, Maggie, is I never found this or was mentored in this in medicine. But in Coaching, I read about this, and I believe it to be true. Coaching is an act of love, and the space that we hold for our clients as they come in to share and understand themselves better is a place of non-judgment, and love, and presence in the moment for who they are.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes.
Jo Braid:
I love working in a space like that, Maggie.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah. I love that so much. So, “Coaching is an act of love,” reminds me of… A very renowned psychologist named Stephen Porges says, when it comes to therapy, that safety is the treatment.
Jo Braid:
Uh-huh. Yes.
Maggie Reyes:
So just creating a space of safety. That is the treatment when in a therapeutic space. I read that, and I took it in my world of Coaching to say presence is the Coaching so often where it doesn’t even matter sometimes what you talk about or the thing that you’re unraveling.
I mean, it is helpful and useful. You do focus on goals and other things, but sometimes just having that person who’s always on your side, who sees you as your highest inner self, who’s totally rooting for you no matter what given topic you’re exploring that day, the experience of receiving that presence so often is the Coaching.
Jo Braid:
Yes, yes. I agree. I couldn’t agree more, Maggie.
Maggie Reyes:
I think if someone is listening, and they’re wondering the difference between Coaching and therapy or Coaching in other modalities, one of the ways I like to explain or think about it to bring it to a very grounded example is I like to think about a baseball team because it’s the only sport I understand, so it’s the only one I take examples from.
But if you’re running the bases on a game in a baseball, and someone falls and breaks their leg, they need the doctor. They need someone who’ll come in, make a diagnosis, treat the leg, put them on treatment. Then, they might need physical therapy to rehabilitate the leg, to do more things, and those two roles are very distinct and different than the Coach of the team.
The Coach of the team, once the leg is ready to be run on again, right, once you’re ready to engage with the game of life, with the game of marriage, or whatever it is you want to win at, then the Coach comes in and sees all the bases, sees the big picture, sees your strengths and weaknesses, and helps you win the game you’re playing.
Jo Braid:
Right.
Maggie Reyes:
They’re very different, distinct roles that sometimes work together. So if we think of something like a psychiatrist, a therapist, and a Life Coach, right? The leg is broken, psychiatrist to treat the medical portion of it.
If there’s medicines to be given or things like that, you have a professional who does that part of it. The physical therapist who helps rehabilitate, right, when we put that in the therapeutic side of things.
Jo Braid:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
Then, you have the Coach who then helps you win the game that you’re playing.
Jo Braid:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
All of those three things, there’s times in life where you need one of those, or two of those, or sometimes all three together, and they can be very complimentary to each other.
Jo Braid:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
So if everybody was wondering, that’s how I’d like to break it down, so that, for me, it’s as clear as I could possibly make it. Do you have anything to add?
Jo Braid:
Well, I do having a few of those skillsets that you’ve just mentioned then. Maggie Reyes:
Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Jo Braid:
I guess the only skillset that I bring into Life Coaching is, as a Coach, I’m also a Certified Health Coach as well as a physiatrist or rehab doctor as well. So I’m mindful that I have that medical skillset, but no diagnoses are ever made in Coaching session, and no advice is also given in a Coaching session.
Focused there in my scope of practice as a Coach. I’m really mindful, and I let my clients know of that too, but yeah, I think the team around you is a great approach. That’s what I’ve actually loved about rehabilitation. We’re very team-based in what we do there.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah. I love that so much. It’s so good. Okay. So now that we’ve talked a little bit about what Coaching is, let’s talk about your experience in Coaching. What are a few of your favorite either aha moments or things that just helped you from our Coaching container and helped you move forward?
Jo Braid:
Sure. There were so many, Maggie. It is a little hard too. I’m just zoning in on a few amazing ones that I really enjoyed with you.
So, firstly, the weekly reflections and celebrations was so good because I hadn’t ever really lived a life of celebrating. So, gratitude. Yeah. I was a bit used to that through a gratitude journal, but for me, there’s a different energy.
There’s a different… It’s actually a different sentence, I think, that I even form when I’m thinking about celebrations through the week, and they could carry on for ages, which was great. Some weeks, there were so many.
I really enjoyed that structure that you invited me to complete on the regular with your Coaching sessions, Maggie. That really helped a lot about mindset, but starting off strong with celebrations.
Maggie Reyes:
Mm-hmm. I love that. I focus a lot of celebrations, both in private and in group programs. One of my beliefs is that when we celebrate something, we come into full ownership around it. Sometimes we tend to discount our accomplishments for a variety of reasons, including how we socialize as women and how accomplishments are measured.
Sometimes our accomplishments aren’t the big fancy ones. Yet, they’re still huge in our life and in our world. So when we think about a question like, “What do you want to honor yourself for this week? What do you want to acknowledge yourself for this week?” and then…
First of all, we celebrate it, and we own it, and then we dissect it to see how you create more of what you’ve already created or how you create the next thing using some of the skills and ways that you’ve already created accomplishments with. So I’m a big believer in really understanding what we’re creating on any given day or any given week. Not just troubleshooting the stuff that’s going wrong, but learning from all the stuff that’s going well. So I love that.
Jo Braid:
Yeah, yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah.
Jo Braid:
A great springboard to do more. Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah.
Jo Braid:
A really lovely way to start our sessions. You generously shared a meditation on taking up space.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes.
Jo Braid:
That was also incredible. So these two, certainly, I think are not opposite, but they’re quite different to my experience of medical training to date, Maggie. So, celebrations. Yeah. You get through your exams and so forth, and there’s always some more to do.
So, great. Let’s just finish that one, and let’s move on to the next one, taking up space. I don’t come into medicine with a big ego. Some people do, and I wouldn’t say I’ve grown an ego with the taking up space, but I just felt from that lovely 10 or 12 minutes that you crafted there.
I just felt, I guess, more whole and more accepting all of who I am and coming with myself or inviting myself into the space that I was going into with not only grace, but just sort of… not just recognition, but just sort of, “It’s okay to be here.” Like, “Don’t hide.” Like, “You are as welcome as anybody else is to be here.”
Maggie Reyes:
Yes. So good. I love that meditation, so I did some work, a Coaching certification with Layla Martin who is amazing. I love guided meditations just in general. It’s one of the ways that helps me relax, and return to center, and just feel more connected to your world.
That meditation really is inspired by her work, and the idea of taking up space is something that I don’t think we talk about really. I mean, when do we have conversations about that?
But for so many of us socialized as women, whether it’s raising our hand in a meeting, whether it’s asking for something we want, whether it’s telling our partner something that’s on our mind, the idea that we can take up space, that we can have attention, or we can have someone go out of their way to do something just because we want it is something that so many of us struggle with in so many ways.
Recently, I went to a family barbecue where they were making steaks and all those different barbecue things. I am not so much into steaks, and my cousin who was doing barbecue said, “Oh, we’re going to have burgers also.” I was like, “Great. I’m going to have a burger.”
Then, they didn’t make the burgers. They had them in the refrigerator ready to go, and they didn’t make them. They had put out all the food for everyone, and they were just about ready to get everything started. I said, “Well, where are the burgers? I was really looking forward to it for like the last two hours.”
They kept on saying, “We’re making burgers too.” I was like, “I really like one,” and I teach this. Right? I have a meditation on it, and I still felt uncomfortable to say, “Actually, I really do want one. Could you make one just for me?” So just to share it with everybody, right, that we’re always on that journey. We’re never done. Right?
Jo Braid:
Yes.
Maggie Reyes:
It is part of life, and what’s interesting about taking up space, one of my thoughts about it, is when you take up space in your life, you model for others how to do that in a healthy, loving way. So it’s not about, like you said, arrogance or anything like that in a healthy, loving way like, “Would you be able to do this thing for me?”
Jo Braid:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
When you model that, what ended up happening is a couple of other people also wanted burgers and because I spoke up, then they spoke up. So it is of highest service. We don’t sometimes always know how, and it always isn’t as obvious as it was to me because we all were happening to be there and seeing it happen.
Jo Braid:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
But when you ask for the raise, or when you ask for the promotion, or when you show up and just ask for something that’s meaningful to you, it’s the way that we role model for other people that it’s safe, and it’s okay, and it’s welcome to do that for them as well. So we are helping others, even if that’s a byproduct, even if that’s not the goal.
Jo Braid:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
I love that that resonated for you. It’s incredible.
Jo Braid:
It did, Maggie. Yes. Another thing was, “How can I make this more simple?”
Maggie Reyes:
Yes.
Jo Braid:
Which was a great learning with a brain that can be quite active and can think of all these different ways to do something, or what ifs, or that might not work. So what about another strategy? Just to keep it simple, and trying one thing out, and either try it out again if it doesn’t work the first time, or do a little tweak, and then try it out again, just keeping it simple was so helpful, Maggie.
Maggie Reyes:
One of my favorite Coaching tools of all is just asking powerful questions. It’s just always, for me, the foundation of everything. I think episode two of this podcast is called Power Questions. I was like, “We need to talk about this right at the beginning.”
Jo Braid:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
There are some questions that I come back to over and over again for years, and that’s one of them, “How can I make this easier? How can I make it simple?” My name is Maggie Reyes, and I’m an overcomplicator. That question, for me, just helps me return to simplicity, and then helps me keep my life not go into burnout, not go into overwhelm. Right?
Jo Braid:
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
A preventive measure.
Jo Braid:
That is right, Maggie. Yeah. Such, yeah, a nice tie in there. Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah.
Jo Braid:
There were lots of different things. I think tapping into higher inner wisdom, again, is another thing that I hadn’t learned or made aware of from anywhere else in my trainings, and that was really great to work with the concept possibly of future self.
But also, very present higher inner self, and that knowledge, and that wisdom that comes from within us if we give ourselves time, or connect with, or see how we can, in a way, get that message or get that know-how on how to do something. So, again, and correct me, I’m never asking you for the how.
Maggie Reyes:
Right.
Jo Braid:
I’m going to do something not asking for advice from you, and you would often reflect it back to me.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah, yeah.
Jo Braid:
Then, with a bit of a brain stretch or a bit of a download from somewhere within, the answers would come forward.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah. So the idea of your highest inner wisdom is what I like to call it. People have different names for accessing that part of you that is wise and knowing, and that calm, steady voice that we hopefully can all tune in with or sometimes work with a Coach in order to help us tune in with because sometimes it’s not as clear to do that, but I’ll tell you a little bit behind the scenes and something about how I use it now.
But when I was first starting out as a Coach, I thought, “I don’t know what this person needs. What do I know? I just know how to ask them some questions,” and I started just invoking our highest inner wisdom as a reminder to myself and to the other person, “Let’s bring in your wisdom here. You’re the one who has the answers.”
I did it very much on purpose as an invocation from this place of like, “I don’t know. Let’s leave space for something besides you, and me, and our day-to-day brain to come into this space and help guide us to what is the best way forward for you?”
Jo Braid:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
Over the years, I’ve kept using that, leaving that space for mystery, leaving that space for, “I never had this stop before, and suddenly, it’s here.” It’s opening up a space for that to be possible.
Now, in The Marriage MBA, I have a whole orientation week that we do, and in that orientation, it’s like, “Listen, your highest inner wisdom is the most important voice that we listen to no matter what I’m teaching you, no matter what I’m saying, no matter what the marriage research says, no matter what the concept that I’m teaching is telling you.”
“You take that through your own discernment, and you follow your highest inner wisdom, which will sometimes be to use some of these tools that we’re talking about. Sometimes it will be to veer in a completely new way, and what matters is the connection you’re making with your highest inner wisdom, not any particular tool that you’re using.”
Jo Braid:
Yeah. So good.
Maggie Reyes:
I love that.
Jo Braid:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
I’m so happy that resonated. That’s so good. One of the things I like to do when I talk about Coaching is it’s fun to have a two cheerleader. It’s fun to have somebody always on your side, and sometimes Coaching can be confronting and be challenging, and we discover something about ourselves that isn’t the most fun fact that we’ve ever had.
Jo Braid:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
I always like to share that on the podcast of how we self-support ourselves, how we handle that with love and care. So is there anything you want to share around just self-supporting when something challenging would come up?
Jo Braid:
Yeah. Sure. So, certainly, going live on social media was a challenge a number of months ago. I would have thoughts about, “It’s not going to be good enough,” or, “I’m going to sound like a fool,” and not really want to jump on.
I’d have all these thoughts about how it was going to go wrong or how it wasn’t going to be of value to others, and it was my brain. Once I realized it was my brain trying to keep me safe and trying to pull me back from doing something new and doing something scary, it was great to get better at catching those thoughts, not believing in them, realizing that I have a choice.
I could not do the live if I want to, or I could do the live and potentially reach one person that wanted to hear, that was interested to hear what I was sharing on that live that one day.
So I think that came back to more thought awareness, catching them, and I think calling out is a bit of a stronger word than I’d like to say, really, Maggie, but just self-talk that it’s going to be fine. It’s going to be okay. It might be a bit wobbly. It might be a bit wonky, and it’s still going to be good enough to share with the world.
Maggie Reyes:
I love that so much. So just showing ourselves compassion, talking to ourselves as we would talk to a best friend or to a child that we care about, “It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be fine. It will all work out.” Right? That sort of compassion.
One thing I’m going to point out for everyone who’s listening is when we introduced Jo, she’s a wildly accomplished person who treats brain injuries, is a double-Certified Health Coach and Life Coach, has all of these accomplishments, all of these studies, all of these different things, and she still had the thought, “I might sound like a fool.”
I just want everyone who’s listening who’s ever had imposter syndrome or who’s ever had a doubtful thought just to see when you listen to her, it’s like, “Jo thought that? Whoa.” Right? I just want to point out we all have those moments. Right?
I remember a couple years ago, I had a really challenging situation with a Coaching client. I’m like, “Do I even know how to Coach? What am I doing?” Right? Of course, I had already Coached tons of people, and I knew what I was doing.
I was like, “Do I even?” Right? I just want to normalize that we all have those thoughts from time to time. They are not the truth. They’re just a thought that we are having, and we’re going to link in the show notes to an interview I did with Katie Brooks who runs a multimillion-dollar veterinary business all over the United States.
They have offices everywhere. She talked about the same thing. So she’s the CEO of this multimillion-dollar company. She’s like, “I don’t know. Sometimes I don’t know if I know what I’m doing.” I’m like, “Even you? That means it’s all of us.”
Jo Braid:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
I love that. So that’s a perfect segue to, what is a fun memory that you have from Coaching, whether it was Coaching homework or something just fun that you remember?
Jo Braid:
Yeah, so many. One that I really liked was to create a family of thoughts. So, again, with your listeners, I’m sure they’ve got an idea about picking out what a thought is. Creating a family of thoughts that cultivates the kind of love I want to feel for my hubby.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah. That’s so good. That’s so fun.
Jo Braid:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah.
Jo Braid:
So to go, “There’s not just one thought. There’s more than one. There’s about five or six different thoughts that I can tap into or can think at any different stage that create feelings of love, and connection, and fun, and playfulness as well.” So we Coached on so many things, Maggie. It wasn’t solely marriage Coaching with you. It was other things as well, but I did want to tie that one in there that you…
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah.
Jo Braid:
You invited me to have that idea of a family of thoughts.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah. So when I do private Coaching, I do life Coaching for leaders, and we just… Anything that comes up is what comes up, and we Coach through that. I love that. I think about it like a tree. So it has branches, and it has flowers, and it has all these different… It’s like a family of thoughts that you want to have.
It’s like you can go to over and over again. It’s not always the same thought, and sometimes that’s so fun because it’s not a Coaching concept that I teach or anything. It just came up in our call. “Oh, what if you had a whole family of those thoughts?” Right?
Jo Braid:
Mm.
Maggie Reyes:
I love that that was impactful for you and how you’re using it. So that’s beautiful.
Jo Braid:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
Okay. So one of the things I’d love to do in our interviews is ask a question from The Questions for Couple’s Journal.
Jo Braid:
Sure.
Maggie Reyes:
I found a really fun one that I’m so excited to hear your answer and to share my answer because it’s so fun.
Jo Braid:
Okay.
Maggie Reyes:
So let’s say that you and your partner enter the world of one of your favorite movies or TV shows for a week. What movie or TV show world would you want to live in for that week?
Jo Braid:
Wow, Maggie. Well, a lot of choices and options we have there. I think a recent TV series that comes to mind for me is Emily in Paris. So it’s a two-part series.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes. Yes.
Jo Braid:
So fun. Lots of French, lots of fashion in the heart of Paris. My hubs and I love Paris. We both speak French. We would slot right in there for a week, Maggie.
Maggie Reyes:
That is so fun. Okay. So I too love Emily in Paris.
Jo Braid:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
So this is a spoiler alert for anybody who hasn’t seen Emily in Paris. I don’t think it’s a big spoiler, but it’s a little spoiler.
Jo Braid:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
There’s a pan that the chef uses that has his initials. Right?
Jo Braid:
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Maggie Reyes:
After that episode, my husband is the chef in the family, I’m like, “I want to get him a fancy pan like the chef from Emily in Paris.” We went online, and we found the pan, and then… I think it was for his birthday. You can engrave it on the back. So I put a little love sentence there for the hubby, and that was totally because of Emily in Paris.
Jo Braid:
Look at that.
Maggie Reyes:
It’s so great.
Jo Braid:
I love it.
Maggie Reyes:
So fun. Okay. So I’m going to answer this question because if you follow me on social media, you will know. I love Bridgerton.
Jo Braid:
Oh, yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
I’m obsessed with Bridgerton. It’s a Bridgerton world. We just live in it. I would absolutely, if I had the opportunity, to spend a week in a fictional world. That is the world that I would spend a week at. I would become Bridgertons’ neighbors. We wouldn’t have barbecues. We’d have balls at the den. The best. So was that.
Jo Braid:
Amazing. We’ll come.
Maggie Reyes:
Okay. So tell us, what is the best way to follow you? If people want to know more about your work in burnout and more about what you do in Coaching, what is the best way for people to get to know you better?
Jo Braid:
Thanks, Maggie. So people can head to my website. That is drjobraid, B-R-A-I-D, .com, and that’s the same handle on socials as well, drjobraid, on Instagram, and Facebook, and LinkedIn. I’d love to see you there. Love to connect.
Maggie Reyes:
Love it. So definitely, we will put all of your handles on the show notes. So for anyone who wants to just be able to click over and do that, Jo Braid on Instagram and jobraid.com on her website. I would love to hear your favorite takeaway from this episode.
If you don’t already follow me on Instagram, you can follow me, @themaggiereyes. Tag me. Tag Jo. We want to hear what your favorite takeaway was. Thank you so much for joining us, Jo.
Jo Braid:
Thank you, Maggie. It’s been great to be here today.
Maggie Reyes:
Bye, everyone.
Jo Braid:
Bye.