Links to Dr Hayley D Quinn Resources
Reclaim Your Time and Energy: 6 Key Boundaries for Women Business Owners
Download here, completely FREE! https://drhayleydquinn.com/resources/
Book now available: https://drhayleydquinn.com/product/book/
Link to podcast mailing list: https://drhayleydquinn.com/podcast/
Group Coaching Waitlist: https://drhayleydquinn.myflodesk.com/timetothrivewaitlist
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drhayleydquinn
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedIn.com/in/dr-hayley-d-quinn-43386533
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drhayleydquinn
Links to Cherie Clonan’s Resources
Website: https://www.thedigitalpicnic.com.au/
IG: @thedigitalpicnic
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/7598439/admin/dashboard/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheDigitalPicnic
This transcript is computer generated and may contain errors and not be an exact representation of the audio
Hi this is Welcome to Self® and I’m your host, Dr Hayley D Quinn, the anti-burnout business coach. I’m a speaker, author, former clinical psychologist and a late identified auDHDer.
Welcome to Self ® is a podcast for business owners like you who want success but not at the cost of your well-being. This is about transforming self and transforming business. I’ll be here to remind you that you’re human first and as well as being a business owner, you have different roles in your life that need your attention and to manage those well, you need to take care of yourself in the best way possible.
Here you’ll learn about practices that’ll help you navigate not just your business but your non-work life as well and you’ll realise that you’re not alone in the ways you struggle. You’ll have your curiosity piqued on various topics as I chat with wonderful guests and bring you solo bite-sized episodes.
I’m here for service-based business owners and entrepreneurs like you, to help you increase your self-care and compassion, change your relationship with yourself and your business, and elevate your business to a new level so you can live the full and meaningful life you desire.
This is a place of nourishment, growth and helpful information. A place where you can learn ways to assist you and your business to thrive.
We’ll talk all things mindset, strategy and well-being and I’m so excited you’re here. If you haven’t already, go and hit subscribe so you don’t miss an episode.
So, let’s get started
Dr Hayley D Quinn: Hi, and welcome back to another episode and our final guest episode for the season. My next guest is coming back to the podcast to chat about her burnout experience. We’ve had the pleasure of welcoming Cherie before, and you loved that episode, so I’m sure you’re going to get a lot from this one as well. Cherie Clonan is the heart and brains behind The Digital Picnic, a trailblazing digital marketing agency that’s become synonymous with cutting-edge strategy and authentic connection. An autistic PDA CEO who proudly embraces her neurodivergence, Cherie has built a business that champions inclusivity from the ground up, making TDP a place where neurodivergent talent isn’t just accommodated, but celebrated loudly and proudly. Cherie also generously gave her time to read my book, and her praise had me in tears. It’s my absolute pleasure to welcome Cherie back to the podcast. Welcome back, Cherie, thank you so much for joining me. So, trigger warning, we are going to be speaking about suicidal ideation during this episode.
Cherie Clonan: Thank you. I’m really proud to be back, and I think there’s been a background update, because I’m looking at you right now, and I can see your book in your background behind you, so that especially makes me so proud. Thank you so much.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: So, can you give us a brief background for those who haven’t listened to our previous episode?
Cherie Clonan: Yeah, sure. Well, about myself…
Dr Hayley D Quinn: Yes, please.
Cherie Clonan: Yeah, sure. Okay, well, I am Cherie Clonan, I own a digital marketing agency here in Melbourne, and I’m really proud about I guess… Yeah, connecting my name with a business that can do better in an industry that sort of ends up forcing people to not do so great by people. I just think we can do better than that, so I created a business that could do that, because we should. And so that’s what I do. So it’s not just, you know, it’s not just digital marketing, I say that to anyone who’ll listen. That’s the easy stuff that we can probably do with our eyes closed, but I’m really proud of what we achieve while doing our day-to-day, the way that I and we serve our people. And as it turns out, 11 years in, we’re even starting to design world-first policies, you know, which I think are bare minimum. And yeah, I just hope that we can be influencers in our industry and teach people that you can be profitable and still care for people, so… yeah.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: Yeah, I love watching what you do, obviously. You know, the sort of work I do about burnout prevention and well-being and treating ourselves as human first, and you really do run a business that sees people as the humans that they are, and focus on their well-being, which is just fantastic. But you had a time where your well-being wasn’t so great, so let’s talk about that, and what… when did you first realize, and when was it that you had your burnout?
Cherie Clonan: I think my burnout was a slow burn, that I probably didn’t recognize, so I think it really began, postpartum-ish with my second child, my daughter, and it sort of, yeah, it was… it was genuinely slow burn. I… I think, as well, just confusing, because I would have thought that any new mum and sleep-deprived mum would, and probably. Well, not should, but you can expect that they would be tired, you know, but for me, back then, especially not knowing that I was autistic, I… I was not well. The level of just everyday scream slash, you know, sensory hell for me. I’m an excellent mum, but babies are really hard for me. I would say I come home strong from toddler and beyond, but babies, I just need to understand what’s wrong. Why are you crying? You know, and I also genuinely… I’m someone who genuinely needs, not just sleep, but quite a lot of it. And I’m not ashamed to admit that. I find a lot of people feel embarrassed to share that they honestly need 8 hours sleep, and I’m like, no, you don’t want to be around me if I haven’t got 8 hours sleep. Like, I… if I don’t have that, I’m gonna need a Snickers, you know? So the burnout was chipping away and quite slow there, but not recognizing at that point. And then I would say it really hit by 2018, because especially work was colliding with what I’d not resolved, you know, around that time, and I was in a really, really unhealthy, business partnership at the time. Just unhealthy for me. And probably that person too, honestly, we just didn’t work at all. And I’ve never been so, honestly, miserable. It was an unfair business partnership, because I would say that the workload was honestly predominantly coming my way, and that was on me. Just an absolute lack of boundaries, a bit of a yes girl at the time in every sense of the word, and so I was just flying all over Australia, you know, saying yes to literally everything, and it really did get rock-bottom-esque. You know, it reached a point where it was not just physical, and the physical part of the burnout was that my stomach, on investigation, was covered in ulcers, gastric ulcers, which had to be… I’d have to have surgery, you know, to treat that. But mental, impacts as well. So, for the first time in my life, really intense, and your audience won’t hit a trigger warning, obviously, but incredibly intense, suicidal thoughts. I could not see a way out, a way up. You know, my brain, had begun to play the genuine tricks on me, where I was talking to myself about my value to the kids being worth more in terms of life insurance than me being around. I thought that, you know, I could just, you know, do… do what I… what my brain was sort of tricking slash forcing me to believe was the best way out, and at least, at a bare minimum, chip away at our mortgage, and maybe leave my kids somewhat set up, which is wild, because that’s the horrible reality of suicidal ideation, is that now that I’m so very far on the other side of that, I can honestly say I am so more valuable than a life insurance payout, you know? I am an excellent mom, and I’m irreplaceable on the home front, but that’s what… Burnout, you know, does to a person when left really untreated. Continuing to ignore every physical and mental sign of burnout. At that point, still being an undiagnosed autistic woman, so genuinely believing there was just something so very wrong with me, you know? And yeah, that was genuinely the rock bottom. I can remember making plans. Being really scared, scared to be left alone, trying so hard to reach out for help, but probably not in productive ways or logical ways. I thought that people would just know that I was struggling, but they don’t, you know, especially for a high-masking, high-achieving woman, burnout just doesn’t look as obvious, to anyone from the outside, you know, looking in. So, it was a really, really dangerous time, to the point where my husband, who I describe as my best friend, didn’t even know how serious it really was, and how severe the plans that I was making, you know, even were. And you can just imagine that it just hit that point of absolute rock bottom. Yeah, and just had to sort of claw my way out and get back to… Me, again, which took a long time.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: Yeah, gosh, there’s so much going on. You had young children.
Cherie Clonan: Yeah.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: business was really busy, you had the stress of the partnership in the business not going well. And, you know, thank you so much for your openness and vulnerability to share that as well, because I think these aren’t conversations that we tend to have. And burnout in the conversations we are having, I think, can be minimized. And what you’re saying is you had physical to the point of surgery for ulcers, but also that you got to this point that you actually were thinking of ending your life. And it’s so important that we do talk about this, because when we get to these places, it can be so hard, and like you say, with high-masking individuals, a lot of people aren’t going to see this. So there’s so much in this, isn’t there, about, you know, that inability or unwillingness to let people know because of a lot of the stigma and shame that can come from this in the society that we live in. But also, when we can get to those dark places, and I’ve been to those places in my life too, so I do understand that, is that we don’t feel like we want to reach out either. We don’t even know how to reach out.
Cherie Clonan: Not at all.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: So I really appreciate you sharing that. When you do look back, what do you think some of the signs and symptoms, kind of, earlier on were that you missed, or minimized, or just didn’t want to think about?
Cherie Clonan: Yeah, oh, it was, just waking up each day with a feeling of dread. And I felt like, and this is really niche, so if your audience haven’t watched this movie, I completely understand, but… There’s a movie with Hugh Grant in it called About a Boy, and he feels like his life is not a lot, and he’s getting through each day and considering almost each hour slash couple of hours as units of time, so he’ll just complete one task, and he’s like, 11 units, alright, I’ve just got to get to whatever the ultimate score is for the day. That’s genuinely how I felt like that period of my life was. It’s hard to even remember so many parts of it, you know, to be really honest. So much of it is a blur. And I would just hang for my husband to get home from work, which he had a really unkind work schedule at the time, lots of interstate travel as well, because I just needed to tap out all the time. I was craving to tap out more than I was craving to tap in. I felt really selfish. But the body just and the mind goes into self-preservation mode. It is just trying so hard to survive. You know, for me, some people, I’m not sure everyone’s different, some people stop eating, but for me, it was a level of binge eating that I was… I couldn’t recognize myself. I would just be eating to find comfort, in ways that I wasn’t able to actually reach real comfort, you know, and peace. And so I would just take it out on a KFC, twister meal, like, upsize right before dinner. You know, hiding in car parks, just eating that before I’d get home, and, you know, and then the, the health impacts, like, straight away, just an immediate, almost, like, type 2 diabetes piece for myself, and, you know, just hitting a weight. I don’t… I’m not gonna talk about numbers, it’s not… that’s not the point of this conversation, but I felt so physically uncomfortable, in my own body, because it was not the body I was used to moving around in, you know? forgetfulness, forgetting things that should matter, like my dad’s birthday. I just couldn’t even remember the date. And, you know, just… my friends, especially my best friend, would describe my attachment style as avoidant. Thank you, childhood. But she is incredible at bringing me out of my, you know, kind of, like, avoidant cave, but I would say around that period of my life, the avoidant attachment would have picked up in a really big way, and I was just self-isolating to protect self and so on. Except that no one would recognize any of what I’ve just shared from the outside looking in, because I also had a business that had a growing, you know, visibility piece, and all I got told every day was how proud I should be, and, you’re growing, you’re this, you’re that, you know, and so on, and I just thought, I don’t even want to be here, you know? I’m not enjoying literally any of this, you know? So, it was just torture to hear people constantly commenting on how proud I should be, and you’re growing so much, and everything’s so successful, and we all know no, around that time, that was 2018, so literally just a couple years into business, there was no salary. I was so broke, it wasn’t even… you know, you can’t even comprehend the level of growth that Dave and I were at the time. So… for a woman who craves authenticity, and it not feeling in any way, shape, or form authentic in any way, and also having to market a business and share a, and I say this in inverted commas, but successful business partnership. Torture. Just hell on earth, daily, to be that… inauthentic, you know? Just such a sad time. So, like, lots of science, but again, too many of them, you know, attributed to just postpartum in general, I would say, yeah.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: Yeah, and I think that’s a really good point. I mean, it was such a devastating time for you. And I think, you know, you make such a good point there, that people will look at this and kind of say, you know, the experiences they’re going through themselves, and be like, oh, it’s because of, or I’m just tired because I’m a new mum.
Cherie Clonan: Or, we’ve got on a lot at work, or, you know, it’s a tricky time in the business.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: And really kind of rationalize and come up with reasons for why. Rather than really tuning in and thinking, well, hang on a minute, there’s so many different things here. Physically, practically, emotionally, all of it, disconnecting from family. And it’s so important that we have these conversations. I mean, the reason that I’ve done this whole season and had different people on to talk about their stories is because there’s there’s some real similarities.
Cherie Clonan: Mmm.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: But then there’s some really different and unique pieces to this, which I think shows this picture for people that this can manifest in so many different ways. Yeah. And we can Google, I’ll say to people, look, you can Google, and you can find a list of what burnout looks like, but don’t just think that if you… if you don’t match that list, that you’re not in burnout, because I’ll always share as well, my roommate from uni when I was doing my PhD, he was my first guest on the podcast. And he talked about… He’s a really funny guy, and he talked about how everything became funny. But for him, that was about avoiding dealing with anything in a serious manner. But nobody’s gonna look at somebody and say, oh, like, you know, Jacques’ so funny, he’s probably not okay.
Cherie Clonan: Yeah, so true. Robin Williams thing? Like, sometimes the funniest… the funniest people I’ve met, you scratch the surface, and they’ve got so much childhood trauma, like, and they’re so funny, because it’s almost like a coping mechanism, I would say, you know?
Dr Hayley D Quinn: So I always say, look at what you are doing more of or less of.
Cherie Clonan: The, you know.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: You know, less of the helpful stuff, and perhaps more of the unhelpful stuff, so that we can get this picture for ourselves of what it is. If you look back, what would you say was the thing that surprised or shocked you the most about that experience with burnout?
Cherie Clonan: Just how high-performing I can be in rock bottom levels of burnout, which is why I love what you just shared there around… you can look up the description of burnout, but if you don’t see yourself represented there, you know, you can feel invalidated. No one still, to this day, would know how rock bottom things were for me around that particular time. And it’s because I think I could be down to the… I could be sub-levels of energy, I could be absolutely struggling, and I just don’t think people would ever know. I am such a… and I don’t mean this in a, like, a complimentary, about my own self kind of way, it’s actually a bit dangerous, to be so honest, you know? But I can still perform really well, and to a really high standard, in the thick of burnout that folks wouldn’t even believe, you know, is going on for me. And that’s what scares me about me the most. You know, I just… it’s why people aren’t gonna reach out and say, Are you okay? In fact, I don’t know that I’ve ever been asked if I’m okay. I could count on one hand how many times people have asked that, you know, and I know why. I’m just so high performing slash high-masking, you know.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: It’s such a good point, because when we… when we see people who are very high achieving, and, you know, perhaps their business looks like it’s going well, or it is going well. We never quite know on social media these days, but, you know, if it looks like it’s going well, and they’re doing all the things. You don’t assume that people are not okay in general.
Cherie Clonan: Yep.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: I had been diagnosed, I’m, like, diagnosed autistic ADHD, and throughout my life, I’d had diagnosis of anxiety and depression, and I can remember my GP always saying, you’re a very high-functioning, depressed person, Hayley. And people would have not known I was depressed, because I could do a lot, so I’m really resonating with what you’re saying. And again, it’s important for people to hear this, because if you’re out there doing all the things, people are not assuming you’re not okay. Like you said, you just wanted people to know that you weren’t okay.
Cherie Clonan: Yeah, cool.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: Most people don’t know, because we’re not mind readers.
Cherie Clonan: Absolutely.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: So these conversations, I’m so passionate about having these conversations, because… There’s so many things, whether it’s the different types of symptoms that people are minimizing, or missing, or not realizing could be the pathway to burnout. Or that people are… holding this to themselves, and pushing on and pushing on and pushing on, because they think that’s what they need to do. It’s just so important we keep talking about this, so I really appreciate your… your openness and your honesty and your vulnerability in sharing what you’re sharing. It’s really much appreciated. What were some of the things you did to recover from burnout.
Cherie Clonan: Yeah, well, I hit as much as I could tolerate within an unhealthy business partnership, and then called it. I hope that that person felt equally relieved, you know, we weren’t working. So that just… like, logically, was the easy thing to do, because I just thought, I can’t bear this for another month, you know? It just reached that point. More importantly, though, what did I do to recover? I needed a quiet room kind of treatment approach to recovery, so my husband took our kids away one weekend per month to his parents’ house. Which really helped me, because for 2 days, I could sit in our home in complete silence. I didn’t even turn the TV on. I’m not a TV girl anyway, so that’s not actually a really big deal, but I didn’t even play music, and I’m a huge music person. You know, there was not a single sound that got turned on, at all. And I honestly sat on the couch and stared at our plain white wall, which sounds… I can only imagine what people are thinking as they’re hearing this, but I can’t tell you how much it healed me. I needed the silence. I’m an autistic woman whose sensory quadrant is sensory avoidant, so I just needed to take away as much of that as… you know, humanly possible, and that was actually a huge… that was… that played a huge role, in just finding peace as a high-functioning burnout person who still was working full-time throughout all of this, throughout the most intense suicidal thoughts, you know, leading team. It’s just wild how high-functioning this, state of burnout, you know, that I was in really was. And then, of course, medication. I needed antidepressants, very much so. And then, therapy. You know, so, they were the main things, I needed a really supportive best friend. They needed to be a safe green flag. I’ve got the best friend that I would wish on every autistic woman. She is the biggest green flag. She’s Audi HD. She is the safest person I’ve ever met in my whole life. She’s… saved me, in so many ways, and so I was really lucky that I had a friend like her. That was really helpful, you know, but I would say those pieces were the bigger things. My burnout, it’s never really had a lot to do with reducing work hours, to be honest. My burnout comes from, not achieving. To be honest, if I can see that I’m just literally, for lack of a better word, but, like, pushing you-know-what uphill, that’s when I get really burnt out. If I can just see that there’s no purpose to what I’m doing. And it’s just… not moving the needle on anything good in my life, that’s when I get burnt out. It’s never had anything to do with hours worked, believe it or not, which I hate to share, because I don’t want anyone to hear that and think, oh, well, I can just keep… where if burnout looks different for someone who’s listening, where it has everything to do with the hours that they’re working, then reduce them. But for me, it hasn’t… it hasn’t ever really been that. I’m not sure why I wish it was, actually.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: Yeah.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: So, what I’m hearing in that is there was lots of support from others in that, in lots of different ways. Like, your husband would take the children away on a regular basis, you had support from, like, medical intervention, you had support from therapy, you had support from a friend. And then that alone time for you as well, where you were really understanding yourself and what you needed from a sensory perspective. And, you know, you and I have talked about this, about the hours’ work not being an issue for you. And for some people, that might be the case, and for other people, like you say, it might be that they’re working too many hours for them, and they do need to kind of reduce that.
Cherie Clonan: Yeah. The key…
Dr Hayley D Quinn: you know, I always talk with people in my work, and a lot on the podcast, is the key is really understanding ourselves.
Cherie Clonan: Hmm.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: We have to know what works for us, because if we start kind of giving prescriptions of, you should be… you should live like this, and you should work like that, and you should only do this many hours, or you should only see this many clients, or whatever it is that you do. Then we again fall into these traps of then. well, I’m struggling to work, perhaps the way Cherie works. What’s wrong with me? I’m not…
Cherie Clonan: Then it has that impact again.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: Because I think the other piece with burnout is it really has an impact on your identity, doesn’t it?
Cherie Clonan: Yeah, absolutely, and what can be appropriate for one person is… you know, I remember when I was in it, I saw a practitioner, and they suggested that I needed to build a routine. Now, you can imagine how quickly my brain got around. I’m like, okay, right, tell me what it is. I’ll write it down, and it was horrific for me. I had to wake up at 5am. I don’t want to wake up at that time. I had to go for a walk, and look up at the sun for 20 minutes or something, and make sure that the vitamin D somehow got into my body. Now, fair enough, I understand why that would work, but I was… a busy mum to two very young children, trying to pull off kindy runs and school runs. I don’t have, honestly, unfortunately, I don’t have time to wake up at 5, start my day earlier, peer into the sun at 5.45, or whenever the sun happened to rise, you know, for 20 minutes. I just don’t… I would rather sleep in, get the school lunches made, like, that just added so much extra stress, you know. I think within a month, I was like, I hate this. I want to see the bloody sun. You know, I want to sleep. Yeah.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: Absolutely, and you, you said earlier you know you’re somebody that needs at least 8 hours sleep, so asking you to get up at 5 o’clock is not going to be helpful.
Cherie Clonan: And…
Dr Hayley D Quinn: We need to be really careful, because there are so many prescriptive ways of living.
Cherie Clonan: Yep.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: That are being, you know. promised wonderful outcomes for everybody, and we can fall into, well, maybe it’s about me, maybe I just need to fit myself into that, maybe… maybe I need to change how I think so I can do it that way. And I always come back to, you need to understand yourself, and you need to design it in a way that works for you. And we can find beautiful ways of nurturing ourselves and nourishing ourselves that don’t look the same as somebody else, but still have the same benefits. So I’m really glad you mentioned that as well. Now, you and I have also talked, and you’ve been very public as well, that this year, for The Digital Picnic, and no doubt your personal life as well. Has been massive.
Cherie Clonan: Yes.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: And of course, I’m always on the sidelines watching, like, are you okay? Are you okay?
Cherie Clonan: Yeah, because I love.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: I love you daily. Thank you.
Cherie Clonan: Same.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: So, What are you doing? Having had that experience of burnout, and I’m sure, like myself and many other people who have had significant burnout, you don’t ever want to be back there, so what have you been doing to help prevent burnout happening again.
Cherie Clonan: Yeah, it’s a really, really good shout, and I would say I have… just heated so dangerously close to burnout this year. Not by choice. it’s felt somewhat forced. This year’s been challenging, even just economically for small business owners, you know, so that’s the elephant in the room. And so, as much as I’d like to follow a list of things that I know would work for me this year to not get so close to burnout, the extra pressure that I have is that there are just so many mouths I have to feed beyond my son and my daughter. You know, it’s the pay run. I have a pay run each year that’s more than $2 million, you know, you can’t even imagine the pressure that’s associated with a yearly pay run like that, you know, and so, I’ve… almost set up my own quiet room, like what I mentioned before, with the two-day weekend, except that it’s just been an all-year-round quiet room. I had to tell my friends I knew what this year was going to be like by January 2025, and I had to sit… And when I say friends, as if it’s plural, I have a really small… I’ve got less than 3 friends, and I’m really happy, you know? But I had to sort of sit them down and say, you’re not going to see a lot of me this year, because I have to do X, Y, and Z, you know? And I promise I still love you, and I want to still feel loved by you, but friendship with me this year will look a little less like Dot, dot dot, and a little more, like. WhatsApp audio back and forths, or, you know, whatever it might be. And I’m really lucky that I’ve not been unfriended this year. I’ve set up my quiet room, and I’m glad that I didn’t force myself to keep catching up with them all year round, because I can say honestly to you, come Friday, every week of this year, I’ve got not a single spoon left. You know, at all. There’s not a single spoon. And I’ve spent most weekends just recovering from the week, and I’m glad I didn’t… push myself to do more. I feel bad, a little bit, that my friends have seen so much less of me, because they’re so good for me too, I should at least be able to benefit from their friendship, and I’d like to give them the warmth of mine in return, but… it just hasn’t been, you know, that kind of year, unfortunately, and I knew from January. So it’s been really hard, but the same thing has popped up. I know from the outside looking in, people are like, TDP are killing it, TDP are this, you’re that, you know, and… it was really especially confirmed to me, I guess halfway through this year, where someone… you know, any business owner can relate, you’ll not win every person over in terms of, like, customers. And there was one example where, I had a moment where my boundaries lapsed a little bit. I should have pushed back on someone, but I didn’t. And in trying to give them what they wanted to keep them happy, you know how it’s gonna go, you know? And quite the opposite was achieved. And they wanted me to over-service, over-deliver, despite having already offered just everything to rectify the situation down to a full refund, you know? I just wanted to, like, just… this isn’t gonna work, so here’s the refund, but then they still wanted more, more, more, you know? And… yeah, I just remember in that moment, something they said, it was just sort of like. well, you should be able to do this, because you’re killing it online. It wasn’t those exact words, but, you know, it was just holding me to my social media impressions, like the… and I thought, oh, this is… this is dangerous, you know, we shouldn’t be doing this to women in business, and at the time, I was… one month having recovered… well, not recovered, but I’d had a hysterectomy, I was one month on the other side of that. And I just thought, this is… this is terrible, you know? I’m not even able to recover from a major surgery. And that felt like a really… that was… that was one of the harder moments of 2025 for me, the… the inability to truly recover from a major surgery. And then being held by… one unhappy person, you know, to whatever we were sharing online. You’re growing so much, you’re this, you’re that, surely you can do XYZ for me. So it’s just, it’s been a year of depletion, I would say, where you’re trying your best and just seemingly not winning over, everyone that you would like to. And how I’m looking after myself is what I’ve mentioned, just, unfortunately, just having to go in and, do less. And… I think just advocate for myself more to the point of probably coming across like a villain, you know? You’re not, no one is, but the people-pleasers in this community of ours, you know, yours, will know that advocating for yourself in its early stages feels like being a villain, you know? So I’ve had to make people unhappy. I’ve had to cop being disliked, and I do that comfortably, knowing that sometimes the people that are the most unhappy are the ones who’ve had far too much above and beyond from you, you know, and they don’t like that you’re putting in the boundaries for the first time.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: It’s not… not great, but… That’s how I’ve printed.
Cherie Clonan: self this year. You know, I’m doing okay. I not joked, but I sort of said before, my burnout is never attributed to hours, however. I did push it this year, and I found out there is a cut-off with the hours worked, and I do seem to have a limit with hours, so yeah.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: Yeah. So, I mean, it sounds like you had put boundaries in place, obviously, with the friendships and the sort of things you’re doing, and it can feel really uncomfortable, and I think part of us taking care of ourselves is being willing to be with discomfort of letting people, particularly if you’re a people pleaser or a recovering people pleaser.
Cherie Clonan: Yes.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: that sometimes you are going to disappoint people, or people aren’t going to like you, or they’re going to judge you, but guess what? Some people are going to do that anyway, no matter what you do. So, you know, I say in my book, you know, I’ve got to a point where I know I need to live my life the way that it works for me.
Cherie Clonan: And yes, I am going to disappoint some people.
Cherie Clonan: And I have to be okay with that.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: You know, we need to take care of ourselves. And I, you know, I want to say as well that we have had some conversations where, and I think you’ve also put this out on social media, that whilst it has been so big this year, you are thinking about, you have been kind of paying attention to what’s working and what’s not. And in the new year, you’ve got some new kind of policy… Cherie policies for how you’re going to work and how you’re going to show up, so that you don’t have a repeat of 2025. And I think that is so, so important, because we can… we can have these periods of time. I mean, ideally, I wouldn’t want it to be a year for somebody, but, you know…
Cherie Clonan: No.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: We can do these things as long as they are somewhat time-limited, because if you were going to be doing 2026 the same as this year.
Cherie Clonan: I couldn’t.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: almost guarantee that you’re gonna be back in burnout, yeah?
Cherie Clonan: I can tell you, I could not pull off this year again, having gone.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: So I love that you’ve been paying attention and sort of had time to think about and make decisions about, okay, what are some of the things? And you’ve got an amazing assistant in Danny. And, you know, I think she’s probably… Been telling you, perhaps, some of the things that you could do a bit differently.
Cherie Clonan: And again…
Dr Hayley D Quinn: this support from others, and realizing we don’t have to do it all ourselves, or come up with all the ideas ourselves. And if it is people that know you well and care about you, and perhaps even see some of your blind spots, it can be really helpful for them to be part of these conversations, hey?
Cherie Clonan: Danny is a huge part of my burnout roadmap. She understands me. Yeah. so well, and just is fluent in sometimes the time blindness that I lack. She… she understands my calendar better than I ever can. I can get my calendar into a disaster zone. With the click of a finger. I really can, because I… I want to say yes to everything. My brain is designed to just say yes. I love it, I love the dopamine, the excitement, just everything, and then she will look at something and say, you are going to be bawling your eyes out. by Saturday morning, if you… repeat this week’s calendar again, you know? So, yeah, and the biggest thing we… just small. This is so small, but Oh, 6 months ago, maybe 9 months ago, my calendar was accessible to everyone on my team, and they could just put a calendar block in with me for whatever they needed at any time that they needed to.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: Wow.
Cherie Clonan: I know, I know. And she said, Cherie, most people have to go through an AA, you know, for, a calendar spot, just to protect the calendar. Can we just roll this in, please? And so we did, and that was just so easy, so easy. I’m embarrassed to even share this, but I just… sometimes your business grows, and you just can’t mentally keep up with the growth, and you just think, why would I ask my team to make a time to see me with my EA, like, my door’s open? That’s how I always thought it would be, but not when you double in team size in 18 months, you can’t. And so, just her doing that, I feel so… I feel able to breathe through my calendar now, like, it’s not… mean anymore. It’s a really kind calendar. Sorry.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: I love that.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: I love that so much.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: Looking back this year, and looking back to when you had the burnout, what do you think has been your biggest lesson?
Cherie Clonan: For, from this year.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: Either from this year, or from the burnout experience.
Cherie Clonan: I think every time I end up in a burnt-out spot, it’s just this… unhealthy thing that I’ve seemingly always had where I just… I just want to please people. Like, I really do get a lot of joy from making people happy. And I, have learned that, there are some people out there that’ll exploit that in every sense of the word, and I don’t like to share that because it sounds so pessimistic, and I love my dad, but he will agree, I’ve always said this about him, he’s the most pessimistic person I think I’ve ever met, you know, and I’ve… deliberately gone the opposite. I’m so optimistic. I want to believe in everyone’s goodness. But the way that I move through the world, I’ve just learnt the hard way, time and time and time again, that people see me as a weak link and something to exploit. And instead of treasuring something or someone that is wanting to make I don’t know, they’re… their little day… their day better, or their little world, you know, better, and so on. They just… they, think, how much more can I take, from this one person? That’s my real weak, sort of, link slash, you know, spot. And so I’ve just had to… I feel like… Willy Wonka a little bit when he closed the chocolate factory, and just, like, locked the general public, you know, from it for a while. I’ve been in this era where I’ve had to close the chocolate factory and stop giving away my recipe for the Everlasting Gobstopper, you know, because, unfortunately, like in the movie, people want to steal the recipe, or just kind of, like, exploit this beautiful, wonderful. magical little place being, you know, the chocolate factory. And I’m not sure if I’ll reopen my doors, because I actually like being in the factory These days, the way that I’m moving through the factory, I’m just hanging out with my Oompa Loompas and, you know, my own peeps, and I kind of like it here, and I’m not ready to throw the doors open yet, or maybe again, I don’t know the answer to that just yet. So that’s what I’ve learned, is sometimes you can keep a recipe, you know, to yourself, and you don’t have to be everything to everyone, and… You know, burnout prevention for me looks like, Yeah, just keeping the magic of the everlasting gobstopper inside, rather than feeling this need to give everything of myself to, you know, everyone.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: Yeah, and ultimately, you can’t be everything to everyone. And like you say, there are people who will always want more, or, you know, take advantage of your kindness, and I think probably a lot of people listening will be able to resonate that they’ve had experiences with that as well, particularly if they’re neurodivergent. So, thanks for sharing that as well.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: If you had one thing to say to the people listening, What would it be?
Cherie Clonan: I would love for people to get to the place of radical self-understanding a lot sooner. I… I really wish, that it didn’t take me until my 40s. You know, I just… I really wish we could build this in somehow so much sooner, and I’m trying to do it now with my… my children, you know, both neurodivergent. So yeah, I just think the best burnout prevention advice that I give is to radically understand self, so that you know how different you are. As a person, so that you can apply what works for you, so that you don’t have to wake up at 5 and stare into the sun, and… get in however many grams of protein by whatever time, because the cortisol will spike if you don’t, you know? Actually, that advice followed for a month, spiked my cortisol higher than it’s ever been, you know? I just want people to really know, so that they don’t have to follow prescriptive advice that suits a general population. And can instead be applied to just them, you know? So that requires radical understanding of self, just go deep. you know, make yourself your own special interest. It’s not narcissistic to do that, you know? And it’s been one of the best things I’ve done. I just honestly wish I figured this out in my teens, 20s, you know, even, and not my 40s.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: Oh, absolutely, same. And, yeah, you’re not going to get any argument with me about that. The whole premise of my work is understand who you are and change that relationship with yourself so that you can take care of yourself in a way that works for you. And if anyone needs any help doing that, you could read my book, From Self-Neglect to Self-Compassion. And there’s lots of beautiful, reflective questions in there that can really help you connect with who you are and how you operate, and what works for you. And, as I said at the beginning, Cherie very kindly did a review of the book for me, and had me in many tears, as you… as you do, Cherie. I’m so grateful. Before we finish up and you tell people where they can find you.
Cherie Clonan: I’m going to ask you the question that I ask all my guests, and I have asked you this before.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: But we’re… we’re… The end of another season later now, so if you could meet your 80-year-old self today… What do you think she’d say to you now?
Cherie Clonan: I think she’s a woman who’s just… the most unmasked version of her PDA autistic self, you know? I think she’s an absolute badass. I think she’s the woman… I can picture myself at 80, as a PDA autistic. mother and maybe grandparent, if that’s what my children choose. You know, I can visualize it. I have a hallway, and in it, it’s just a shrine of everything that’s great about PDA. I want photos of my grandchildren all flipping the bird in true PDA spirit, at whatever ages they are. And I just want to, I want to believe that there will be not one part of me that’s apologetic about how an 80-year-old PDA autistic woman moves through the world, so, I hope it’s on full display. I hope PDA is just so much more heavily understood, and I hope that when people walk into the hallway of my home and see photos of my grandbabies all flipping the bird from babyhood to child teen, whatever, They know that they’ve just walked into the home of a PDA, autistic woman, and it feels like a celebration, you know? Yeah.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: That’s so beautiful. I am somewhat older than you, so I will hope that I am still living my life, and will be able to have more chats with that amazing 80-year-old woman. But if she came to you now, and she knocked on your door, and she walked in, what do you think she would say to you today?
Cherie Clonan: I think still she would, say stop trying to win people over who never wanted to be won. I think she would probably grab me by the shoulders and just say, you know, she’d give me specific examples, and I have reminders all the time where, I feel like I’ve gone to the ends of the earth for a person, only… and this is every, I’m sure, autistic woman especially can relate to this, blocked on every social channel with no explanation as to why. You know, when you’ve gone to the ends of the earth for someone, you just can’t even understand it, and she would just say, let it go. You know, they didn’t deserve you, you know, and so on. So, I think still, at the moment, today, she would be… I’d be… copying a bit of a lecture, but shared with love, you know? And probably should just be forcing me further… a little further down towards just… claiming villainhood, and, like, really just embracing it. I’m a happy little villain, you know? I love that! We should all be claiming more villainhood.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: That’s fantastic. Cherie, it’s been an absolute pleasure, again, to have you on the podcast. I really appreciate you coming. Can you let people know where they can find you?
Cherie Clonan: Yeah, sure.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: I’ll put that in the show notes as well.
Cherie Clonan: No worries. They can find me wherever they like to hang out. I’m a social media strategist by Monday to Friday design, so you can hang out with us, whatever platform you prefer, LinkedIn, Instagram, you know, Facebook, TikTok. And so on. Otherwise, if you’re more of, like, a website person, www.digitalpicnic.com.au, so…
Dr Hayley D Quinn: Fantastic. Thank you so much. Again, I really appreciate your openness, your honesty, and your vulnerability for sharing your story. Thank you so much.
Cherie Clonan: Indeed.
Dr Hayley D Quinn: And I’ll be back next week with the final episode for the season, and in the meantime, go well and go gently with yourselves. See you soon.
Thanks for sharing this time with me today. I hope it’s been helpful and supportive. If there’s been something in this episode that you have found helpful, I encourage you to share it with your business besties so they can benefit too. Shares, ratings, and reviews really help to increase awareness and reach of the podcast, meaning more people can benefit from the information. I really appreciate you taking the time. If you’d like to know about the ways we can work together, check out my website at drhaleydquinn.com. I’ll pop the link in the show notes, and you can also join my mailing list from there and be kept up to date with all that is happening.
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I wish you well in your relationship with yourself and your business, and may you go well and go gently. And remember, if you thrive, your business will too.