534. The Surprising Science Behind Burnout (And How to Avoid It) w/ Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe

The ONE Thing

NOVA Media

Entrepreneurship, Business, Careers

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 1 December 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Do you ever feel like you’re doing everything “right”? Performing at a high level, meeting everyone’s expectations, carrying the load—and yet still feel yourself slowly wearing down? It’s more common than you might realize—and there’s a way out. Jay Papasan is joined by behavioral psychologist and bestselling author Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe to unpack why the people who look the strongest are often the most at risk for burnout. She calls it “the curse of the strong”—the slow erosion that happens when high achievers overuse the very muscles that once made them successful. Together, they explore why burnout isn’t just about workload, but about losing agency, operating outside your values, and ignoring the subtle signs your body sends long before the collapse. Dr. Hanley-Dafoe shares practical, compassionate strategies to prevent burnout, restore alignment, and regain control—from tiny daily decisions to intentional pauses, grounding techniques, and value-based prioritization. Challenge of the Week:Look at your to-do list. If you have more than three items, you’re writing fiction. Remove one thing. Delegate it, delay it, or release it completely—and notice how much agency returns with that single act. To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: the1thing.com/pods. We talk about: Why high performers are uniquely vulnerable to burnout How agency, choice, and language shape resilience The role of values alignment in preventing exhaustion and cynicism Links & Tools from This Episode: Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe Follow Dr. Hanley-Dafoe on Instagram: @dr_robynehd Her Books: Calm Within the Storm Stress Wisely Free Resources Want to be a guest or share feedback? Email podcast@the1thing.com or send us an audio note at Speakpipe.com/the1thing. Produced by NOVA

Transcript

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0:00.0	So this week, we're talking with Dr. Robin Hanley-Defo about the curse of the strong.
0:04.1	What's the curse of the strong? Burnout. The people that we look around and we see as the top performers, the highest performers in every area, they're often the people most at risk for burnout.
0:15.6	And Dr. Robin, she's a behavioral psychologist. She's a published author. She wrote a book called Calm Within the Storm, another one called Stress Wisely.
0:23.6	She is an expert on strategies around resilience and how we can grit through but do it in a healthy way that's sustainable for the long term.
0:32.7	And she works with high performance athletes, companies around the world to solve problems all related to this idea of how do we avoid burnout and how do we get out of it if we're there.
0:44.2	And so we'll walk through some strategies with Dr. Robin today.
0:47.3	I hope you find this helpful.
0:49.0	If it's not for you, I hope you'll share it with someone that is also maybe in that season where they're at risk for burnout
0:55.1	and they just need to see the light at the end of the tunnel and have some really simple
0:59.0	strategies for working their way past the curse of the strong burnout. I'm Jay Papazan and this is
1:04.8	the one thing. Your weekly guide to the simple steps that lead to extraordinary results.
1:24.1	Dr. Robin, welcome back to the show.
1:26.0	Thanks for having me, Jay.
1:27.3	It's always a pleasure.
1:33.5	Now, I want to talk about burnout today, and I love a quote I found from you on LinkedIn,
1:37.2	and you refer to burnout as the curse of the strong.
1:38.1	Why do you say that?
1:43.0	One of the things we noticed that all persons who experience burnout had in common is that they were exceptionally good
1:45.9	at their lives. They were strong. They were people who were able to do amazing tasks. They
1:50.8	experience greatness consistently. And where they struggled and where they ran into that wall about
1:57.2	burnout was trying to do a lot of it by themselves. So it was almost as this kind of what
2:02.4	went along with it, that they were able to be high performers. They experienced mastering in so many
	...

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