Have you ever noticed that the harder you push at work, the heavier everything seems to become?
More effort, more hours, more responsibility — and somehow, less energy, less clarity, less joy. Most leaders assume this is just what success looks like. That the people who make it are simply the ones who outwork everyone else. But what if that belief is actually one of the biggest leadership burnout causes hiding in plain sight?
The biggest productivity breakthrough isn’t working harder.
It’s working in alignment with how you naturally create results.
In this episode, Blake shares what she’s witnessed over nearly a decade of working with high-performing leaders — and what she experienced herself during 18 years in corporate retail, where her brain rarely shut off. The constant rumination, the analysis from every possible angle, waking up in the middle of the night with a running list. Externally, things looked successful. Internally, it was exhausting. The shift didn’t come from doing less. It came from understanding how she actually works best.
This episode explores one of the most overlooked root causes of leadership burnout leaders and organizations face today—and why alignment is the key to sustainable leadership success.
Many leaders believe the reason they’ve been successful is because they work harder, think more deeply, and push through challenges longer than others. But over time, that approach often creates the very burnout they’re trying to avoid.
In this conversation, Blake challenges one of the most persistent myths about success: that effort alone drives results. While hard work certainly matters, the leaders who sustain high performance over time often operate differently. They learn how to align their work with how they naturally think, process information, and create solutions.
Blake shares a personal story from her own leadership journey, including how years of constant analysis and mental load initially seemed necessary for success. But through experience—and through working with hundreds of leaders—she began to notice a powerful pattern: when people align their work with their natural strengths and thinking styles, they produce better outcomes in significantly less time.
The result isn’t just improved productivity. It’s greater clarity, renewed energy, and a leadership style that is more adaptable in a rapidly changing world of work.
In This Episode, You’ll Discover
- Why leadership burnout causes are often rooted in hidden beliefs about work
- Why pushing harder often makes work feel heavier over time
- How high-performing leaders unknowingly reinforce burnout patterns
- Why effort alone doesn’t create sustainable success
- How early beliefs about success shape leadership behavior
- Why work feels harder when it’s misaligned with how you think
- What friction at work is actually telling you about your performance
- How alignment improves productivity, clarity, and energy
- Why working differently—not harder—creates better results
- How leaders can redesign their work to reduce burnout and increase impact
Episode Highlights
The Work Myth Driving Leadership Burnout:
[02:15] — Why pushing harder is often the thing holding leaders back
[04:30] — How beliefs about success form by age 7 & why we rarely question them
[06:45] — Mark Twain’s quote that captures exactly what happens at work
Why Work Feels Harder Than It Should:
[09:10] — The hidden pattern behind every success you’ve ever had
[12:00] — Friction as data: what your frustration is actually telling you
Alignment as the Real Unlock:
[15:30] — A personal story about verbal processing & 50%+ time savings
[18:45] — Why the future of work isn’t about doing more
Powerful Quotes
“The biggest productivity breakthrough isn’t working harder. It’s working in alignment with how you naturally create results.” -Blake Schofield
“The frustration you’re feeling at work is often data. It’s not that something is wrong with you—it may be telling you you’re operating against how you naturally work best.” -Blake Schofield
“The future of work isn’t about doing more. It’s about understanding how you create your best work and designing your career around it.” -Blake Schofield
Resources Mentioned
Let’s explore what’s possible for your team: If your company is investing in burnout, wellness or adaptability initiatives, but seeing rising burnout, disengagement, or retention risk, it may be time to address the root cause.
We identify & diagnose organizational risk – surfacing the key drivers of burnout, leadership capacity and adaptability strains impacting your team; reduce leadership attrition, disengagement and preventable turnover; equip your leaders with the skills to increase their productivity & lead effectively during pressure and uncertainty.
Explore Workshops, Leadership Development or Consulting at https://impactwithease.com/corporate-training-consulting/
Executive Coaching: For founders, executives, and senior leaders who are successful but feeling drained, stagnant, or uncertain about their next step. Whether you’re burned out, standing at a crossroads, or simply know you’re meant for more—you don’t have to figure it out alone.
👉Go toimpactwithease.com/coaching to apply!
Discover what is driving your burnout: In just 5 minutes, learn your unique burnout type™ & how to restore your energy, fulfillment & peace at www.impactwithease.com/burnout-type
Transcript
Blake:
Real leadership. Real life. Real impact. No more choosing between your career and your life. Here you’ll find honest conversations, science-backed strategies, and inspiring stories to help you thrive at work and truly enjoy your life outside of it.
I’m your host, Blake, and I’m honored to help you create more impact with ease.
Blake (00:12.034)
Have you ever noticed that the harder you push at work, the heavier everything seems to become? More effort, more hours, and more responsibility. And somehow, less energy, less clarity, less joy. A lot of leaders assume this is just what success looks like. That the people who succeed are simply the ones who work harder than everyone else.
But what if that belief is actually the thing that’s holding you back?
Because the biggest productivity breakthrough I’ve seen isn’t working harder. It’s working in alignment with how you naturally create results. And when you understand that, everything begins to change.
Blake (01:05.954)
A lot of the beliefs we hold about work are things we inherited. They’re things we absorbed when we were young. In fact, our belief system about how the world works, those beliefs are largely formed by the time we’re about seven years old. So we learn what success is like. So we learned what success looks like. We learned what work is supposed to feel like.
And we learn what we believe it will take to be successful. And then we carry those beliefs with us into adulthood, often without ever stopping to question them or even realize the hidden beliefs that are driving our life. This reminds me of one of my favorite Mark Twain quotes. He said,
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” – Mark Twain
I’m gonna pause here for a second. It’s not what you don’t know that gets you in trouble. It’s what you believe is truth that isn’t.
And I see this is exactly what happens with work and with our lives. Because so many of us are operating based on beliefs about success that might have been true at one time. Or for our parents or grandparents generation that may not actually be true anymore.
Blake (02:40.492)
I was having an amazing conversation earlier this week with my friend, Telomy. She worked at Microsoft and she had an incredible experience there. But what she realized is that so many people were stuck in what they thought success had to look like and what work had to look like.
And that belief was actually preventing them from experiencing more joy and more ease in their work and in their lives. This is what I have seen now for nearly, well, this is what I’ve seen now for a significant portion of my career. Well, this is what I’ve seen now for the last nine years.
Blake (03:24.482)
And at the same time, the world of work itself is changing dramatically. I saw a post recently that captured this really well. It talked about how startups with 10 people are now producing what used to require hundreds. And most companies are responding in one of two ways. They’re either adding AI to existing workflows or making small incremental organizational changes. But both approaches miss something important.
Because the real shift that’s happening right now is that we’re moving from companies built around old structures and headcount to companies built around being more agile and being focused more around decision making. Sometimes that means fewer people, but each person generating dramatically more value.
This really isn’t about a cost-cutting story, and I don’t want to diatribe, but we’re already seeing some of the things where the market saying all these jobs are going away with AI, we’re actually seeing the data show up very differently for companies employing AI and that that AI is actually creating more burnout and isn’t creating the efficiencies expected. But regardless, right?
I think what’s important is to understand what we’re talking about today isn’t a cost cutting strategy, it’s about leverage.
Blake (04:58.38)
And if that’s the world we’re moving into, then the belief that success comes from pushing harder and working longer hours is already and is going to continue to break down faster and faster.
I know this personally because for a long time, I believed that pushing harder was the reason I had been successful. For 18 years in corporate retail, my brain very rarely shut off. I would ruminate consistently, replaying decisions, analyzing situations from every possible angle, making sure I hadn’t missed anything. If there was a big decision I needed to make, whether it was personally or in the work, sometimes I would spend weeks or months and personally, even sometimes years, trying to figure out the right solution. Externally?
Blake (05:51.136)
Externally, things looked very successful, but internally, it was exhausting. My brain would wake me up in the middle of the night with a running list of everything that needed to get done. And because that was my normal, I just believed that’s what success looked like. I believed that that level of analysis and effort was why I was successful.
Blake (06:18.382)
But something started to change slowly at first. I began to notice patterns. There were certain situations where work felt hard and others where things flowed almost effortlessly. And that observation started to change how I looked at work because the breakthrough was not about working less. The breakthrough was understanding how I actually work best. And when I started aligning my work with how I naturally create results, everything began to Not because I was doing less, but because I was working differently. And I was able to accomplish more in less time with more energy, more clarity, more flow and more passion.
There’s something really important here that most people miss.
The frustration that you are feeling, not just at work, but in your life, is often data. Data that’s working for you. But often we think that that frustration is something wrong with us. It’s something we have to push through, when really it’s information. It’s your system telling you that you might be operating in a way that doesn’t match how you naturally work best.
Or that the thing you’re doing or the approach that you’re taking isn’t the right one or isn’t in the right sequence. But most of us have been taught to ignore that signal. We assume the answer is to push harder, to discipline ourselves more and to force ourselves through it. And very often that’s exactly what leads to burnout and misalignment.
Blake (08:01.518)
So let me give you a very small example of what this might look like. Each one of us has a way that we are instinctively wired to solve problems and create solutions. And we also have what I call a unique fingerprint for success. This is the natural pattern behind every success you’ve ever had in your life. Not just in your job or your industry, but your life. Because how you do one thing is how you do everything. But most people don’t really understand what that pattern is.
And as a result, they’re often working two to three times harder than they need to. And the signs are usually right in front of them, but they don’t realize what they’re seeing.
Here’s a small example. One thing I eventually realized about myself is that I’m a verbal processor, meaning I figure out what I’m thinking by speaking. When I’m in conversation with someone, all of a sudden, boom, clarity happens, ideas connect, insights appear. Sometimes I’ll say something in conversation and the person I’m talking to will say, my gosh, that’s exactly it. Could you repeat exactly what you said so I can write it down?
And I’ll try to recreate it, but it’s never exactly the same because it came out in pure flow. So once I started noticing that pattern, I began recording conversations with clients or collaborators because the exact things I needed were happening in those moments.
Blake (09:31.79)
But then I noticed something else. When I was building presentations or working on projects alone, that process wasn’t available to me. There was no dialogue and no exchange, just me trying to think through everything internally. And that process was incredibly frustrating. I would second guess everything, wonder if I was missing something, try to anticipate every angle. And the work would take two to three times longer than I thought it should take. And honestly, I would procrastinate on it or feel exhausted by the time I was done with it, it began to feel heavy.
Once I realized the disconnect, I made a simple change. Instead of building presentations alone, I started talking through the ideas with someone. Sometimes I would record the conversation and in all cases, I would capture the insights that emerged naturally during that discussion and then use that to build the presentation. And the difference was incredible. The work took more than 50 % less time and the process felt easier, more energizing, and the final result was significantly better. Because the thinking that happened in the, because it happened in the way that my brain naturally processes information.
Blake (10:53.673)
Now imagine multiplying that across everything that you do. One project becomes 50 % faster than another and another across meetings, strategy, creative work, leadership discussions, leadership decisions. Suddenly you’re producing better outcomes with far less friction. Your energy increases, your creativity expands, and your adaptability improves.
And this matters more than ever right now because organizations are trying to solve productivity challenges, adaptability and burnout challenges with tools. But the real lock isn’t tools. The real unlock is alignment. When people understand how they create their best work and they design their work and their careers around that, everything changes.
We’re living in a time of rapid change, uncertainty and pressure. And a lot of people feel powerless in the face of that. But there are so many things within your control that haven’t yet been optimized. Ways of working that could dramatically improve your energy, your impact and your experience day to day at work. Not by pushing harder, but by understanding how you naturally create results and designing how you’re doing your work around that.
Because the future of work is not about doing more. It’s about understanding how you create your best work and designing your work and your career around it.
Blake:
Most Successful People don’t realize they’re in burnout, because stress and exhaustion have become so normalized, but burnout is actually a sign of deeper misalignment between how you’re wired to thrive and how you’re actually working and living. Fix the misalignment and everything changes.
Take the free quiz at www.impactwithease.com/burnout-type.com to discover your burnout type and get next steps to reclaim your energy, lead with confidence and create more ease in your life and career.
