This week’s podcast is with a fellow German coach Stephanie Schaffner. After a corporate career in sales and business development, she changed direction to become a trainer for stress management and a coach for burnout prevention.   The reason for that was because that she was suffering from stress herself, was close to a burnout, and a few of her colleagues had burnouts at work. Recorded during the lockdown, we talk about stress, and what burnout actually means. How is it defined? I actually realised that I myself would have been on my way to a burnout a few years ago, based on the definition Stephanie shares.   With the current state of affairs  - people being furloughed, loosing their job, combining home schooling with work - stress is high; for our children this might have an impact moving forward. Whilst resilience will grow for adults, for children it might turn out to have a negative impact, not being able to socialise for instance. We also discuss the impact compared to the war generation, particularly in Germany. I love having a German on the show to discuss this, as there are so many things people don’t understand unless you are from a certain generation in Germany. Thanks Stephanie, I loved chatting about that!   A stage 12 burnout, the highest stage, leads to hospitalisation and includes both a physical and a mental illness. We also discuss the differentiation of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ stress, and I learned a lot about how positive stress has no negative effect on your blood vessels for instance.   To be honest, on the back of this conversation, I enrolled myself into a stress prevention coaching course, to apply some of the techniques Stephanie talked about to my coaching clients too. This is a topic close to my heart and related to the mindfulness courses I deliver.   Germany has over 13 million people who suffer from burnout, which is a big chunk of the adult population. This translates into millions of Euros of costs for companies in terms of absenteeism and long term sick leave.   As a stress trainer Stephanie works hand in hand with companies to reduce stress in the workplace which then also leads to burnout prevention. Communication and honesty, according to her, is the most important step to take for stress prevention. Mindfulness also plays a key role.   We discuss office layout, pre- and post Covid to foster deep work and being able to concentrate on work. Has focus improved since us all working from home? Of course home schooling is challenging but without that, it might actually help us doing better work?   You can find her on Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin finding all links on her website: www.diestressmanagerin.com   --- Volker coaches transformations (career, life & business), and helps individuals and companies through change. He is also a mindfulness trainer and productivity expert, consulting companies on soft skills around sales and business development. In his podcast he interviews successful people and wrote a best selling book about the advice.   His latest project is a personal development course and listeners from the podcast can sign up and receive a free book with code “Book2020”: http://bebetter.ballueder.com

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