Get Unruly

Resentment as a Superpower: Cait Donovan on Breaking Free from the Rules

• Kim Bolourtchi • Season 5 • Episode 1

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Get Unruly returns for a 5th Season with Cait Donovan, host of the top global podcast: "Fried, the Burnout Podcast." In this episode, Cait shares how she's harnessed resentment to uncover her true needs and boundaries, challenging societal expectations along the way.

Discover Cait's unconventional approach to life and business decisions, and learn how to use your own inner rebel to build a fulfilling life on your own terms. Listeners will walk away with a fresh perspective on the power of resentment and strategies for prioritizing self-care over people-pleasing.

About Cait:
Cait Donovan, host of "FRIED. The Burnout Podcast" and author of "The Bouncebackability Factor," merges Biobehavioral Sciences and Chinese Medicine to promote emotional intelligence and combat burnout. Her keynotes offer transformative insights and real-world solutions, making her a sought-after speaker for leading global organizations.

Get in touch with Cait:
https://caitdonovan.com 
https://friedtheburnoutpodcast.com
https://linkedin.com/in/caitdonovanspeaks 
https://instagram.com/caitdonovanspeaks 
https://youtube.com/@caitdonovanspeaks

Kim Bolourtchi:

Welcome to the show. I am so excited to have you today. I have an incredible guest with me. I have Kate Donovan. Kate is the host of fried, the burnout podcast and the author of bounce back ability factor. She merges bio behavioral sciences and Chinese medicine to promote emotional intelligence and combat burnout. Her keynotes offer transformative insights and real world solutions, making her a sought after speaker for leading global organizations. Welcome Kate. Thank

Cait Donovan:

you, Kim. I am so glad that I sat next to you on a couch in Portland three

Kim Bolourtchi:

months ago that was so fun. And your video is incredible, by the way. Thank

Cait Donovan:

you. Yeah, having a new speaking reel is feels like such a flex. And also, the first day that I put it out was torturous, like I was torturing myself.

Kim Bolourtchi:

Did you feel really vulnerable?

Cait Donovan:

Oh, my God, but most vulnerable,

Kim Bolourtchi:

yeah, I feel like the more the more something captures us authentically, the more exposed we feel. And so if we don't feel really scared and really vulnerable, we probably didn't hit it. So I take it as a really good sign when I feel really nervous about something. Yeah,

Cait Donovan:

I'm gonna take that in immediately. I'm just gonna absorb that thought and own it, because it was really and I mean, I've been podcasting for years. I speak in front of 1000s of people like you'd think that this was not an uncomfortable thing for me to do. So

Kim Bolourtchi:

I am really excited to talk to you about getting unruly. And the funny thing is, is that you and I haven't talked a lot about, you know, kind of your background or mine before we decided to do this. And you know, one of your responses was the rules give you hives, which I freaking love. So tell me a little bit about that. Yeah,

Cait Donovan:

I think that there, it is possible that there's some sort of undiagnosed neurodivergence that comes into this. But anytime somebody tries to put me in a box, ask me what my favorite something is, create a routine for me, or any of those things, my inner rebel screams with such a fiery, fierce passion against it. It doesn't even matter if it's good for me, if it would work. It's just the sheer idea of having to put myself in a set of rules makes me so uncomfortable that I've been pushing against them. Forever?

Kim Bolourtchi:

Has it been since you were little? Yeah,

Cait Donovan:

like, except for, this is funny in another sense, I was also a huge rule follower because of a people pleasing tendency. So there were some things that like I chose which rules in my mind I was going to follow, because they were the ones that I deemed to be the most important, which meant that I also had, and this was part of my burnout story, a huge sense of moral superiority around the rules that I chose to follow, because if I'm choosing to follow them, then you're not a good enough person if you're not also doing it, and I'm not a good enough person unless I'm doing it all the time and never making a mistake ever. Like, what's

Kim Bolourtchi:

the rule that you felt like you you followed for yourself? So one of the

Cait Donovan:

things that this is a really silly example, so it's going to make some people laugh. I will never not put the grocery cart back in the grocery cart little section. No matter what store I'm in, I'm never leaving it in the parking lot. I'm not also going to just throw it in there. I'm going to tuck it into another grocery cart of the same shape and size, because that's what you're supposed to do.

Kim Bolourtchi:

I support that. I

Cait Donovan:

mean, listen, I have all the reasons to support it, but the fact that I'm so particular about it is based on stuff that I learned from my parents. Of like, this is, this is considerate, and you're kind of, like, they never said this, but like, you're not a good person if you don't do this. And I read a post on I might have been Facebook, I don't know, whatever it was online somewhere a couple of years ago where someone was like, Listen, I have three kids in the car. I am trying to get my groceries done. I'm not leaving my children in the car by themselves for two minutes while I walk down to the other end of the parking lot to put this card away. I'm sorry that that makes you uncomfortable, but these are my children, and I was like, my initial reaction, if I'm totally honest, was brutal. It was

Kim Bolourtchi:

probably you could do it,

Cait Donovan:

lock your damn doors and walk like your kids will be fine. Mm. For 120 seconds, but I'm not a mother,

Kim Bolourtchi:

yes, and it's such an interesting example that you choose because, like, I often feel like, if you can't put a card back, what does it say about society and humanity? Right? It's one of those things that connects us, and it's a consideration thing. So, and I'm a complete like, I hate the rules, right? I'm like you where you know, just the mere suggestion of them makes me not want to do them. And so I get it. But also, there are certain ones that it's like, Well, why would you not put the grocery cart back, because if nobody put the grocery cart back, it would be absolute chaos. Yeah?

Cait Donovan:

And the the fight back from other people would be there's literally someone that's paid to go out and collect them,

Kim Bolourtchi:

yeah? And I think you could make that argument about everything, right? There's somebody paid to do everything, but that doesn't excuse us from being a decent freaking human being,

Cait Donovan:

right? But what makes a decent freaking human being?

Kim Bolourtchi:

Yeah, and that's that's our my idea correct, our own filter. We decide

Cait Donovan:

exactly. And I think this is the thing that that I discovered during burnout, was that I had a lot of these consideration things, and the benefit of them was that I was getting praise and thanked a lot in my life, because I was, you know, making sure old women had seats on busses. And I was, you know, I was doing all the things that a human is supposed to do, to be considerate, which I won't stop doing. But what it also did to me personally was it allowed me to engage in non stop self abandonment and self neglect, because if I'm always paying attention to what is, what it means to be a good person for everyone else, and my energy and attention is outward toward everybody that might need anything around me at every given moment in my life, then I have no idea what my body needs, what my body wants, what my desires are, what My preferences are, I have no clue, because I'm not present. I'm not I'm not there. I'm busy making sure, giving you the judgy eye because you're not putting your card away. I was about to get real Boston accent right there, and I hope, but I was, I was getting riled up, and it was about

Kim Bolourtchi:

I love and I think that, I think a lot of people feel that way, and I think it's hard, especially as society sort of feels like it's falling apart, that there's this part of us that wants to step up where we can and do what we can and and step in where we can. And I think, to your point, there are a lot of people really not taking care of themselves in the process, right? And so, you know, it's, it's a I'm putting other people first, which it's not bad to consider other people, as you said, but when it comes at the expense of your mental health, physical health, that's where it becomes problematic, is that what I hear you saying, I think

Cait Donovan:

it becomes problematic there, and I think it becomes problematic when you are so strict about it that you are judging people harshly when they're not following the rules that you're following, because I don't think that that's a useful energy to put out into the world. So if I agree with I'm doing everything that I can do while still paying attention to my body, and it is super important to me to put the grocery card away, then I can go and put the grocery card away, and somebody else thinks it's really important to do something else that I'm not seeing or doing, because that's not part of my filter for for whatever reason, right? For whatever reason. So I have to trust that this person that didn't put their card away might be like the best mother on the planet and is raising a child that is thoughtful and empathetic and you know, like, I don't know what good they're adding to the world, but if I'm standing around judging people for not doing the things I think that they should do, that's exhausting me, neglecting me and giving me an attitude

Kim Bolourtchi:

and actually not helping the problem at all, not

Cait Donovan:

helping the problem at all. Right?

Kim Bolourtchi:

I love that. And I guarantee you there are people listening, going, Oh, my God, I do that.

Cait Donovan:

Yeah, totally. And that's right. Like, I also, this is another funny one, like, park in the damn lines I don't understand when people are parked. Like, there was a guy, yeah, yesterday I went to Nordstrom Rack, and there's I parked in the line where the walkway is in between two, like, rows of parking spaces, and there was a truck parked next to me, and he pulled back further than he needed to from the front of the parking space, so his the back of his truck was in the walkway. It's like, I'm able bodied, I can walk around that. But my initial reaction was to be furious at this guy, because somebody in a wheelchair or on crutches or with some other mobility issue might need to get around your damn big truck, and you could have pulled forward six more inches, and it would have been fine. But what. Good does it do for me to now be furious at a person who is not in their car? It was, I can't even, I could. I can't even Karen him. I, you know, I can't even do anything like there's, I have no power here,

Kim Bolourtchi:

right? So, so how do you walk yourself back

Cait Donovan:

exactly by saying those things in my head. I don't know if you've seen there's a fourth grade teacher on Instagram. Her name is Miss Brazil, and she did this video that went viral about first thoughts, second thoughts and and on. When she said, you know you are not like just your first thoughts, the person you are goes beyond your first thoughts, your first reactions, your initial emotions, your job, as you grow and learn and change and become an adult and learn how to interact with the world is to allow yourself the grace of having a second thought and maybe a third and a fourth until you get to the one that's the way that you want to act in the

Kim Bolourtchi:

world. Love that.

Cait Donovan:

So I do that. That's my my first I admitted my first thought and my first emotional reaction to it, right? And I said, Well, what's my second thought? This person backed up all the way into the parking spot, possibly because he knows he has a big truck and didn't want to be sticking out so that people couldn't drive down the row, and didn't realize that those six inches made that much of a difference. My next thought might be, maybe this person is running in to return something, and is literally going to be gone for 90 seconds, and they will be out of here before anything could even and maybe the person in the wheelchair that happens to come along at just the quote, unquote wrong time understands that they are strong enough to move around this obstacle. And I'm making it a problem, and they are not. I'm deciding for them that this is a problem, like, maybe they're fine.

Kim Bolourtchi:

I love it. It's a good process to think through. Yeah, so when you think about rules that you've strategically broken, right in addition to the ones that you're recognizing impacted you, what are some that you've chosen to break along the way, that people were like, This is how you have to do the thing to get where you want to go. And you were like, No, thanks.

Cait Donovan:

Yeah. I think the first real big one was I started a pre med program at Boston University on a full academic scholarship, or a 95% academic scholarship, pretty much full. And for a kid from the ghetto, this was a very big deal, and my parents were never going to have the money to send me to school, so it was like, you have this opportunity, you have to take it. And a year and a half in, I realized it was not the right path for me. Chose another path. Finished my second semester of my sophomore year, and dropped out, and the world was a flame.

Kim Bolourtchi:

I bet it was, I bet it was, I bet, I bet people told you you'd lost your mind, you weren't going to make it. You were throwing away the biggest opportunity of your life. And on and on and on right.

Cait Donovan:

And also, I got told, I don't know why you're now choosing Chinese medicine. You'll never make any money doing that.

Kim Bolourtchi:

Yep, and,

Cait Donovan:

and worked out just fine, really. I mean, it worked out. I love Chinese medicine with a passion running it as a business, and burnt me out along the way. But that was not Chinese medicine's fault. That was my own internal stuff that was driving me while I was in school for Chinese medicine. It's a four year master's program. Most people don't realize that we actually go to school for an extended period of time. I know you know, but most people don't know. So it's a four year master's program. Three years in, I decided to take a semester off. I had this urge to go to Argentina. I went by myself, bought a ticket with quarters. I saved up from bartending, flew there, got there, the first person I met was the man that would eventually become my husband. I was only gone for a couple of months. Of months. I was with him in the same city for just six weeks. I came back from this semester long journey through South America, came back to San Diego, where I was doing my degree, and told everybody I'm engaged. And they were like, you don't even know this person. What is wrong with you? And I was like, I don't know. I think it's okay. 20 years later, here we are. We're all right. So

Kim Bolourtchi:

I mean, you a track record of really trusting yourself and what you know to be true about about you and your life, even when. And people don't see it at all. And even when the rules right the way we do things within quotation marks, for those people who are just listening to audio, say, you know, here's the path. You said, No, thank you. I'm going to do it my way, and it's worked out really beautifully for you,

Cait Donovan:

really beautiful in some ways, and really tough in others. You know, another one of the big moves was this person that I met was not American, and he had fully paid for apartment in Warsaw. He's polish, and he had an apartment that his parents bought him to go to college in. So we decided to start off our lives there. I wanted to learn Polish and also having incredible student loans to pay off and not having rent to pay sounded really attractive to both of us. So that was the choice we made. And my friends were like, you're going to move where they people didn't even know what language they spoke. People, I mean, everyone was very they're like, What are you going to do there? Apparently, what I'm going to do is build an acupuncture empire. But hold on a second for that, like we'll get there. Yeah, I didn't know. I didn't know if I could legally practice acupuncture in Poland. I didn't know what was going on. So that was a huge risk, but made the sense at the time for all sorts of different reasons. So cool, that job ended up being the beginning of my burnout, but it was the environment. Poland is not my place. Love it for lots of reasons, not my place, not where I feel most comfortable. I had these under underpinnings of unworthiness that I took with me. So I was over giving to every single patient. I was like a life coach, a therapist, a nutritionist, you know. I was doing everything for everyone and not charging for it. I was an inexperienced business owner, which meant that I didn't understand that I should have hired a receptionist. A long time ago, I was doing everything by myself, and at the time I was I was 27 you know, and I was extremely busy, and I had a three month waiting list, and I was getting invited to, like, morning talk shows on TV. And it was all of this success that I didn't know how to manage. And thinking about having an assistant or receptionist, the only thing I could consider was how much less money I'd have at the end of the month if I did that, not understanding that if I paid them, I could probably make more than enough to cover their salary and then some, because so much of my time would be freed up, like there was just a lot of things going on all at the same time that led me to burnout. So you could say my choices, my brave, bold choices, drove me to the ground. Do

Kim Bolourtchi:

you regret them? No,

Cait Donovan:

no, thank God. I burnt out when I did. I burnt out young, 2829 I have built an incredible business off of that experience. I get to use everything that I learned in Chinese medicine school, and I went back and got another degree in bio behavioral health, I get to do all the things that I love in a business that couldn't have even existed when I finished school. We didn't there were, like, barely iPhones when I finished acupuncture school.

Kim Bolourtchi:

This is a hard question, but do you think that because you were sort of ahead of, ahead of where society said we can be right, you were sort of ahead of the space where the rules ever contemplated. You were existing in this place where the boxes didn't conceive right? You're just sort of out there doing this thing, and at the same time, this feeling of needing to prove that you deserved to be there at every turn, that that contributed to the difficulty that you faced on this journey. 100%

Cait Donovan:

it's still, you know, the the speaking world, for those of you who don't know, is the wild wild west. You can pay to speak, or you can get paid hundreds of 1000s of dollars to speak, and everything from paying to getting paid hundreds of 1000s of dollars is reasonable in this world. There's no real rules. So changing your prices and accepting payment and getting paid big numbers for a day, which really is like two months of work, if we're honest, but all of that I had to work through again when I started this business, because it's hard, but if you don't take the big numbers, you can't survive in this business. So it's like you have to learn how to do that, but thinking that what I was offering was good enough to get that still something that I have to like, I have to sit down with myself sometimes and have first thoughts and second thoughts and third thoughts to get through it, even though I. So I am very well aware that one talk in one company could save a company literally millions of dollars. So their fee, my fee for that is basically nothing in comparison, and yet I still have to do I deserve this space. Do I know enough to speak up? What did I decide I needed to learn again. The other day, somebody said something about Chinese medicine, and I couldn't remember exactly what the like, what the rule was about it, because I finished school, you know, almost 20 years ago, and I remember thinking, Oh, my God, I have to go back and do more courses. Instead of being like, just look it up. Remind yourself and get back into your knowledge. Like, I always feel like there's more to learn, more to put underneath my name, to say, no, no, seriously, I can like, I'm good enough for this. I'm still doing that to not, not to the degree that I was doing it before, but it's still part of my story, for sure. Yeah,

Kim Bolourtchi:

I still appreciate you sharing that, and I think it's it's something that we do not talk about enough, because I think that every single one of us, myself included, in the space of living outside the boundaries like the one thing that the rules give us is security, right rules, people who follow the rules and do the things they've been told to do and follow the path they've been given, they know exactly what's coming, and they might have this yearning in their heart and their their soul for more, and they might know they're capable of more, and they might know this isn't really what they're supposed to be doing. But if they don't ever challenge it, and they stay there, they're going to live a life that's status quo, right? It's predictable, it's been determined, it's been lived before and and so there's that. But when you challenge, you know what's been done before, and you challenge, and you go to a space that's just for you and and you do it in a way that's just for you, and you have people along the way going, what are you doing? Are you out of your mind? I mean, if I had a dime for every time someone told me that, I'd like, literally, you know, probably a kid wouldn't. I wouldn't have paid for college for one of my kids, but, but it's, it's really hard, and of course, with it comes this idea of, do I know enough? Am I good enough? Do I deserve to be here? Does anybody actually want to hear what I want to say? Like that dialog, I think, is very real, in large part because we're doing it in a space that hasn't been done before. And so for people who are are brave enough right to go here, like I want them to know this is real and you're not freaking alone, because every one of us, no matter what it looks like, you know, this is something I sit down with, with myself. You know, you sit down you've got, you know, this incredible career, a podcast that's one of the top burnout podcast, it's like, way up there, isn't it,

Cait Donovan:

right? Yeah, we're top 1% globally. And in the burnout podcast, I think we're number two in the world. Okay, so

Kim Bolourtchi:

number two burnout podcast in the world? Yeah. And you know, you're still having these conversations with yourself. So so like, thank you so much for for the candor on that. And also I really hope people can hear this and take heart that this is sort of the price we pay for doing it this way. But I wouldn't have it any other way,

Cait Donovan:

and me either, right? Like, either

Kim Bolourtchi:

because, you know, yeah, it's it's tricky and it's painful, and neither of us is going to sit here and say, Oh, it's unicorns and rainbows and whatever, like, yeah, it's messy, messy, messy, but it's freaking amazing when you live life on your terms.

Cait Donovan:

And the constraint that I would feel living by the normal rules is more uncomfortable to me than the discomfort of this vulnerability. Yes, so if there are people and there are people that are happier in the rules and more content within the rules, and maybe they have little dreams sometimes, but they're like, this is actually more like, I'm almost jealous of that sometimes. How nice would it be to just live an ordinary life in the rules? Like that must be comforting on some level, but it's not actually comforting for me, and that's what I have to remind myself, what I'm like maybe because, you know, if you're not really an entrepreneur of every six months, you're not like, Oh my God, should I get a job? And so every time I look, because I look, I look for acupuncture jobs, I look at organizational psychology, jobs like work culture. I look at all sorts of jobs, and every time I look, I think, Oh, my God, I can't do that. No, I can't. I'm not even employable, because you're going to tell me to do something a certain way, and I'm going to be like I thought that. No, that's wrong. No,

Kim Bolourtchi:

I love that. I feel that though. I think it's hilarious that you look for jobs,

Cait Donovan:

yeah, every six months. So

Kim Bolourtchi:

I've heard you say that resentment is a superpower. And I am so curious about this, because I've always thought that resentment was really bad. Both

Cait Donovan:

people do. It's my favorite emotion. What. Resentment will teach you every single time two things that were critical for me in my burnout recovery journey, and I have found are critical for 1000s of people during their burnout recovery journey, resentment will teach you every single place that your boundaries are being crossed most of the time by you, but that's you know, different conversation. Most people are taught like, oh, set boundaries. Say no, but we're not actually taught to figure out where those boundaries are really necessary. So we start making it up, and then we don't hold them, because we're not sure if we really mean it and it doesn't. It all just doesn't make a lot of sense. Because to me, we're missing the first step. If we look toward resentment and say, Oh, these are all the places that I actually don't want to spend energy the way that I'm spending it, because that's what resentment means. I'm giving more here than I actually want to give. My generosity is being abused or underappreciated. One of the two, if you look at those areas and you find them, you can say, Oh, here's where I don't want to actually spend energy. The trick is, then you have to be honest with yourself about the fact that you don't actually want to spend energy there, even though you think it makes you a good person. So you have to let go of good person syndrome. You have to remove yourself from this. Need to be constantly the most considerate and the most everything, you have to be able to take those things away and say, Okay, here's all the places where I actually need different boundaries. Most of those will mean you just not overstepping and over giving and over meddling and doing all the extra things. Sometimes it means having a conversation with another person. So that's resentment teaches you thing. Number one is boundaries. The other thing that it teaches you, which is super sneaky, and you really have to be willing to dig for it, is resentment will show you every single place in your life that you have chosen self neglect and the type of self care that your body is actually craving. An example, was doing dishes the other day, and my husband was laying on the couch, and it was a Monday night, which means Tuesday morning the housekeepers come. Very lucky. I know that this is a privilege, very lucky to have housekeepers come on Tuesday mornings and straighten us out for a couple hours, the dishes I don't actually need to do. But in my mind, I've created a rule that I can't rest today, because I don't feel like that every day, but right now today, I feel like these dishes need to be done, so I'm doing them, and I'm looking at my husband, and I'm getting a little resentful that I'm standing here doing the dishes and he's not. And then I said, Oh, look, this is a resentment. Yay, yay. That means I can figure something out. Because I love resentment now, every time it pops up, I'm joyful. I say, Okay, well, what's actually going on here? Am I actually upset that he's not doing the dishes? Because is that really what's going on? And what I noticed underneath Dig, dig, dig, was that I wasn't upset that he wasn't doing the dishes. I was resentful and envious that he was allowing himself to lie down when I had decided there was more work to be done that day. I was not allowing myself to rest and lie down, even though that's what I was clearly craving,

Kim Bolourtchi:

interesting. So it was absolutely about you 110% I love that, and actually it makes a lot of sense, because I think a lot of times when we feel it's, it's really always about, it's really always about us, right? And what we're thinking, it's not about the person or the thing. It's, it's about how we're narcissist,

Cait Donovan:

right? Yeah, there are people that take advantage, yeah. So it's, I want to there's a caveat in here. Okay? If you're being bullied, yeah, you're living with a narcissist, then the rules shift a little bit, okay? Because it might be about their behavior, yep, if you're being gaslit, it's about their behavior. When you don't notice things along the way. That's how you end up trapped in those situations, because you accepted and accepted and you let the resentment build and you accept it, and the resentment built and you accept it, and the resentment built and you accept it, and the resentment build until now it's exploding with everywhere and everything that happens and every action they do or don't do, and you don't understand why you feel so wild. Well, it's been 12 years of being gas lit by a narcissist. That's not really your fault, and I would say 85% of the time it's about your own

Kim Bolourtchi:

shit. Yeah, so did you stop doing the dishes I

Cait Donovan:

did? I literally turned the water off and laid down.

Kim Bolourtchi:

I think a lot of people have those rules about this has to happen before I'm allowed to have x this has to happen before I'm allowed to be happy. This has to happen before I'm allowed to rest. We have to earn our satisfaction. We have to earn our ability to be happy when, in fact, we're entitled to it in every moment, at every second, no matter what

Cait Donovan:

time and where we truly want it. Resentment will tell us, I love that, right? Because a lot of times people that end up burnt out, or people that are or have a lot of resentment, one of the big reasons is what I said in the beginning, like I was so focused on on the outward things that needed to be done that I didn't know what my own wants, needs, desires and prefers. Were those to me, always come in a package of four wants, needs, desires and preferences. They belong together in my world. And if you don't know what they are, you can read every self help book in the world, and you're never going to feel good in your life because you don't know what you actually want, right? Because you have taught, been taught most of the time to not know that it's also not your fault that you're not tuned into it. You learned that also right, but you find it. You have to allow the resentment to come up, and you have to be willing to look at it, because it will tell you every single time this is something you want. This is something you desire. Your preference is Mexican food. Today you're annoyed that somebody just chose Italian your preference was something else that you did not allow yourself to point out until somebody else said something, and then it's sitting right here. It bubbles up and sits right here, and you don't say anything, and then you go eat the Italian but you really want some guac.

Kim Bolourtchi:

I'm not going to think about resentment the same way after this conversation.

Cait Donovan:

It's the best. It's also how I do my pricing in my business, really, yeah. The question that comes up for me is, is the exchange that I'm saying yes to right now going to allow me to arrive in my full generosity and give everything that I like to give, or is it going to make me feel resentful? If it's going to make me feel resentful, it's not enough.

Kim Bolourtchi:

So this is really, this is really your guide. Yeah,

Cait Donovan:

100% Wow. It took me months to get to it. I was doing a proprioceptive writing technique, and I found I kept ending up on resentment. And I was like, What the heck is going on here? And now I've seen it pop up a little times. I have the resentment journal is, is copy written to me, but I have seen it pop up now in a couple different places since I started talking about it. And I've seen it, you know, here and there start to, like, drip around after four or five years of talking about it almost non stop, and I'm thrilled that it's starting to, like, make its way to people, because I really think that allowing people a really sure fire way to understand what they truly desire, yeah, gives people the opportunity to actually get it instead of making a Vision Board of things you think you want may not be related to anything well. And

Kim Bolourtchi:

I mean, I think, I think you've hit on something right? Because what we think we want and what we really want sometimes are really disconnected by what we've been told we're allowed to have. And so I ask leaders all the time what they want, and they'll answer me, and I'm like, Are you sure like? And then, you know, it'll come out many, many layers after we've been digging into clarity, they want something completely different, or something that's much bigger, much more exciting, but they just don't think they're allowed to have it, or that it's even possible. So to your point, you know, there's so much conditioning around staying small, staying safe, making sure we take care of our people and don't disappoint anyone in this journey. And we're so much smaller than we can be, yeah, right? If people have a tool that helps them, you know, do I feel resentful when I think about this for the rest of my life? Do I think? You know, do I feel resentful when I think about this as the path for my company, or for myself or for my team. I love that there is something tangible people can do in addition to the what do I want. You know, what pisses me off? Like, ah, what do I not want?

Cait Donovan:

What's really getting under my skin? This is also, in addition to choosing my pricing, it's also how I figure out who I'm going to hire next, because I start feeling resentful about doing a task that is not my zone of genius, that that's an easy gift, and somebody else really wants to do that job.

Kim Bolourtchi:

Yeah? Oh, 100% there's somebody that loves that job,

Cait Donovan:

yeah, let them do it, and it's so it can be easy to. Say, right? I understand that there's costs involved. Last year, at the end of the year, with the investment that I made for the speaker reel, let me tell you, my accountant was like, you shouldn't have paid any of the taxes that you paid this year, because it's all coming back, because you didn't make enough money. And I didn't make enough money because I paid all the people to do the things I didn't want to do. Which means that as we continue to grow, I get to still focus on the things that are bringing me more money and bringing me more joy and bringing me more peace, and all of the other things are going to be taken care of. It's a momentary investment that puts things sort of like I had to, I had to take a dive down so I could take a dive up.

Kim Bolourtchi:

Yes, I subscribe to that 100% I think the more we're in our zone of genius and we're doing the things that light us up, that's just for me, it's a it's a hell yes, I'm lit or it's a no. And if it's a no, there's somebody who's going to be lit up by the thing that's a no. So I agree. Tell, tell my listeners how they can find you, connect with you, if they want to have you speak. You are so amazing. Oh, thanks.

Cait Donovan:

This is so fun. The best place is to go to pride the burnout podcast, because then you can see all of the things and all of the topics and all of the people and all of the magic. And otherwise, I really recommend that people connect on LinkedIn. My name is Kate Donovan, C, A, it, and everybody knows how to spell Donovan. So

Kim Bolourtchi:

amazing. I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to be with me today. It was such a pleasure chatting with you same.

Cait Donovan:

Thanks for having me. Of course, you.