Today on the show Catalina, interviews Daisy Auger-Dominguez, Author of Inclusion Revolution and the upcoming title Burnt Out to Lit Up, to consider as a podcast guest. Daisy is also a TEDx speaker and former senior executive at The Walt Disney Company, Google, Vice Media, and Moody’s Investors Service.

She shares her journey as a Latina, discussing her upbringing, cultural identity, and the challenges she faced while navigating her career. We talked about the importance of mentorship, skill-building, and embracing vulnerability as key components of her leadership style.

Daisy Auger-Dominguez shares her experiences navigating significant career transitions, the emotional weight of success, and the importance of recognizing burnout.

I took so much wisdom with me throughout this conversation — I know you will too. 

To learn more about Daisy, follow her on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daisyaugerdominguez/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/catdelcarmen
Email: catalina@catdelcarmen.com

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SUMMARY TRANSCRIPT

All right, Daisy, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the show. I wanna get started with your story. Can you please tell us a little bit about how you grew up as a Latina? Tell us a little bit about what it was like and how you kind of, how like, what are the pieces of your, you know, your childhood that really kind of formed who you are today?

I know that’s a loaded question.

my gosh.

Yeah, I was gonna say, you’re like, tell me a little there. I can tell you a lot. Well, first of all, Catalina, thank you for having me. I’m absolutely thrilled to be here and always happy to talk to a fellow Latina. So my story begins as it always does with the beginning. I am the daughter of teenage parents. So my father is Dominican and my mother’s Puerto Rican.

wow.

And they were 15 and 16 when I was born. that really shaped, know, it’s not unique, but it certainly shaped my life and my sense of family and identity. I also had the tremendous privilege of being raised by my grandparents. So I was born in New York City, but I did the opposite migratory pattern. I went to the Dominican Republic and I was raised there.

my gosh!

So I moved there when I was about two years old and I was raised by my paternal grandparents, mommy and papi is what I call them. And they, by the time that I came along, they had migrated back to the island from having been exiled in New York City following the demise of the dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. And they had lived, right? They had lived through a brutal dictatorship.

Wow.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm, yeah.

They had raised their three children in New York City. My grandfather worked at a bodega. My grandmother learned English and became an executive secretary. And they moved back to the DR with a bit more stability than they had ever had. And then they had, I like to think of myself as their fourth kid, right? Like I was like, and then they raised me and they were able to invest in me.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

a lot of the things that they couldn’t have invested in my dad or his two sisters. And so I went to an international school and that’s where I learned English. I went to the American school of Santo Domingo and I was a kid of a working class family amidst kids from all over the world, expats and just folks from my best friends growing up were Danish, Chinese, Israeli, Venezuelan.

wow.

wow.

name it, right? We had this mini microcosm, if you will, of the world. you know, but at school we had to speak English, but when we left school we spoke our native languages and not only was I fully embraced by that diversity, I was also part of the we, right? So when I left, people looked like me, right? When I went home, everybody spoke Spanish and that wasn’t

Mm-hmm.

Yeah!

Yeah, yeah.

different, right? When I went to my friend Ria’s house, everybody spoke Danish, that was different. When I went to my friend David’s house, everybody spoke Chinese, that was different, right? So I grew up with diversity and difference, but also the confidence that comes from being part of the we. And when I moved to the US, so when I was a junior in high school, my father,

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

someone told him, the reason why I was going to this school was the plan was always that Desita is gonna go to university in the US, right? Like that was always the plan. My grandmother used to, when my grandfather would complain that I didn’t know my way around the kitchen, my grandmother would chastise him and say, she doesn’t need to, Desita’s gonna be a professional someday, right? So I grew up with a whole lot of love and a whole lot of promise.

Mm-hmm.

No.

and a sense of direction about what my life trajectory was gonna be. And when I was a junior in high school, someone told my dad I had to come to the States to get my PSATs, to go to college, because that’s what you do. And so he bought this house that he could ill afford in New Milford, New Jersey, in Bergen County. And I moved. It was like October. I know it was a couple of weeks before Halloween, because it was my first Halloween in the US.

Yeah.

But I moved in October of my junior year of high school. My grandparents came to help me with the transition and they ended up staying. And this was the first time that I was living with my father. I had grown up spending enormous amounts of time with my dad. My dad would always, all his vacations, he spent them in the DR with me and all of my vacations I spent in New York with him. I was estranged from my mother. So that was also part of my upbringing. But this is…

Mm-hmm.

This is where all of a sudden, Catalina, I became Hispanic, right? Like I had been Dominican, Puerto Rican my entire life. And all of a sudden I was placed in this box, right? Like you’re Hispanic. And I’m like, okay, well, I know the word, but what does that mean? Right? Then it’s the depth of what people expected me to be because I was Hispanic. And so I checked some of those boxes, like working class poor. Yeah, that’s me, right?

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

yeah yeah

Mm-hmm.

But,

wait, but she speaks English fluently. Like, how is that possible? And it wasn’t until years later that I was able to come back with cheekier responses than like staring at people. I would just stare at people like, why did you ask me that question? Now I would ask them like, well, how do you speak English so well? But back then I was like, I don’t know, I just speak English. Like, this is what I do. I used to have my best, and actually she’s still one of my dearest friends, but my best friend in high school,

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah!

would tease me, she’s like, I’m gonna deport you, right? And that kind of sounds really heavy and painful right now, but back then, it was just like these silly and also yes, very phobic attacks. But I remember my response would be like, I’m an American citizen, I was born here. I was like, you can’t deport me, like what do you mean? But I was clearly like this kid fresh off the boat, right? I was fresh off the boat. And that…

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, you’re different now. Yeah, yeah.

navigating that difference, navigating now being part of the other, navigating my identity as a U.S. Hispanic, and then all of that being a teenager, right? So all the things of being a teenager. That was when I started discovering a bit of my place in this country and the harshness that comes with being an outsider and an immigrant.

Yeah, it’s a lot.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

And again, I always use the word immigrant very loosely for myself because while I am, I’m not. And so it is that complexity. And then I went to college, I went to university at Bucknell University. And again, there, I’m taking my daughter on out of college visits, she’s a junior in high school. And she’s struck by the fact that most of the schools that we visited just so far, a handful in the Northeast.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

their minority percentage, their BIPOC percentage is 23%. She goes, they all have 23%, mama, how is that? I like, I don’t know, we’ll have to test that. But all I know is that when I went to school, it was 5%. So I am like, this is better than it was, although not nearly where it should be. But my point is that I went to Bucknell, a predominantly white institution in the middle of central Pennsylvania. And that is where I discovered my identity as a person of.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right. And I know again, all of this language has shifted in the last year. I graduated 30 years ago. Right. So, but that is where I discovered my place in the context of race and class and gender, right. All of these elements. and instead of running away from it, I chose to run towards it. Right. So I joined the social justice college on campus and I learned about social justice. I decided to create a second major on.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Back then we called it women’s studies. Now we call it gender studies, right? But I decided, and the reason why was because I realized I am learning all of these wonderful things in this wonderful campus, but the experience of is not centered. The experience of women needs to be, you know, like these little outliers. And I want to center women’s experiences in my education. And so I had an opportunity to shape my education and to,

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

and to again, all in the spirit of the exploration of race and class and identity and ethnicity, right? Like all of these things that were about me. And from there, I went straight to grad school. went to NYU. I have a master’s in public policy, right? Like every good immigrant, like I get all the checks. And then after NYU, I went on to get a fellowship in public affairs, the Coral Fellows Program.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And all of those experiences, right, I love learning, you know, just naturally curious and connecting dots, all of those experiences, were all great academically. I mean, this is what you do when you’re a student, right? Finding your place in the world. And every time that I tried to find a place in the world that felt safe for me, there was always, right, there was always this sense of like, I can only go to these places to find safety, right? What does it look like?

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

And then I started working, right? Then I entered the workforce and my first job was as a credit risk analyst at Moody’s Investor Service. There was no rhyme or reason for that role. was simply, I had a master’s in public policy. They were opening up a department in the public policy team, sorry, in the public sector space. And my father’s friend, I should say my dad, just retired last year from…

Yeah!

over 40 years as a doorman at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. And his good friend who had moved to this country from Iran with degrees in economics could not get a job when he first came to the US during the Iran Contra War. And he ended up working at a hotel for a couple of years, met my father, became lifelong friends. And then he gets this job at Moody’s Investor Service.

wow.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And my dad one day complaining over a barbecue that like my kid can’t get a job. I don’t know what’s happening. Right. It’s like, can you help her out? what’s my resume and, know, in the slot there and I get an interview and I get the job. And so that, and that’s how I landed at Moody’s and I ended up having a 12 year career at Moody’s. was, a credit, I was a credit risk analyst for six years. ran our foundation for three years, and then I went into HR.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

and I went into HR a bit kicking and screaming because like most folks that do not understand the function, I just thought that that was the place where you go to when you’re in trouble. And, but I was being offered an opportunity to create the company’s first diversity and inclusion function. And this was in 2007. so many, many moons ago, when, when this work was still emerging, right. had, it certainly had existed already, but.

Wow. Yeah.

Yeah.

I’m still in, I would say the emergent mode. Yeah. And, and so I, I took that job and that set the trajectory of my career in a, in a way that I have, I have been serving. I like to think of it, right? I, it’s work, but I have been serving people functions with a DNI lens and with a broader lens as head of HR for companies.

was so early, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

from Moody’s to Time Warner to Disney to Google to Viacom and most recently to Vice Media where I worked last year.

Wow.

Yeah. Wow. What a career. I have questions. want to know when you got, so like when you were, when you started your professional career, how did you find your voice? I mean, you weren’t a leader. I mean, I imagine, sure, you were a leader the whole time, but like as you became a professional leader, right?

Yes, please.

Did you always have, were you always confident to share your like your voice? Did you have like a vision for your career? Were you kind of just, you know, like picking the next job or whatever? I’m just curious because although I’m not in my nine to five anymore and I have my business, my business is at this point where I’m like, my gosh, like it’s the last couple years, it’s really needed me to like develop that leadership muscle. It’s like.

I could make this feel like a nine to five if I want to, but if I want it to go somewhere, if I want to grow it, right? Like I have to be the leader. I have to have the vision of what I want and what I want to create it. And now I’m starting to see like how, you know, business is business. Like I think a lot of people like that in my audience, they want to leave their job so bad to start their business because they think the business is like this like la la land of like, it’s and there’s,

amazing pluses, right? But if you want to grow it, eventually it’s going to become a business, like a real life business and you’re, it’s going to need work, you know, to get it growing. So I’m curious for you. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yes. So I’m curious for you, where in your career did you really practice your

Yeah, yes.

Yeah, you can’t eat what you can’t catch. That’s how startups operate.

you

leadership muscle. Like how, how did you really find your voice as a leader and, and really create like your career? You know, like, was it a vision? Did you know where you were going? Did you have mentors? You know,

Mm.

I know,

no, no, no. I mean, I benefited from tremendous mentors over the course of my career. And it was mostly people who saw something in me that I didn’t see. folks, women, men of color who…

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

just had skin in the game to try and build the next generation of diverse leaders. And so I certainly benefited from a lot of wisdom that way. But Catalina, I honed my voice by making a lot of mistakes, By not knowing what I didn’t know and trying to figure my way through. I honed my voice and a lot of people…

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I talk a lot about courage, right? And people reference like the courage that I have. And it was like, you know, that’s really hard earned. That I don’t start that way. In the early part of my career, I really thought that I needed to shrink myself to be respected, right? To just survive, right? Just to, that I needed to overperform, overwork to be respected, right? That was, that’s a lot of the messaging that many of us have.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

So many of us.

And so I bought into that too. the fact is that, listen, to survive and not just to survive, but to thrive in organizations. And I think that there’s a lot of angst about this right now in conversations of the workplace. I was like, you have to work really hard. If you want to get noticed, you have to hustle, you have to grind. You don’t have to do it to the point of depletion and to the point of extreme humanism.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

100%.

Yeah.

But you do have to work hard at it and I had that, right? This is what comes from, well, I didn’t know how to navigate.

Workplaces because I didn’t have a family that knew how to do that. I had a family that taught me value of hard work, right? I had a time I had a family who taught me the value of sacrifice and you know of investing in others so that they can be better, right? And so who was I not to achieve what I was trying to achieve given all that had been invested in me so and anyways that it was the combination of having

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

mentors and in some cases managers and leaders who really, you know, who took me under their wings, right, and helped me. It was learning from mistakes, right? Learning from saying the wrong thing, being in the wrong place, talking to the wrong people, judging the wrong people or trusting the wrong people, right? All of those things.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

It is like, know, fool me once, but not twice, right? It’s like that, those kinds of experiences, it came with a lot of pain in the next, but it also came with a lot of joy and growth. And eventually, as you move up in your career, right? And you I hope that you’ve experienced that as you move up in your career.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Like you, have to keep a growth mindset because we have to stay open to possibilities, but also having done things gives you a certain level of confidence and capability. I, I learned and I have learned that my vulnerability is my secret sauce. Right. and for a long time, that was something that I, I was taught not to display and not to share. And I learned that I can be vulnerable and also still highly competent.

Mm-hmm.

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah.

That I can be kind and empathetic and also still highly skilled at the work that I do. And that the two can go hand in hand. In many ways, that’s who we are as women. That blending of the hard and the soft. And I have learned and I have had to do work on myself to be able to embrace that as what makes me me, you

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

uniquely me and what allows me to be successful, allows me to be effective, what allows me to gain followership and to inspire others is by cleaning all those lessons and operating and generating what is authentic to me.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. No, I love that. And I’m curious, how are we on time? Let me check this one. I’m curious, what in your career has been one of the hardest decisions you’ve ever had to make? Like in your entire career? I just, I love asking this question because it’s like so much. I know.

Mmm.

my god, you’re like going deep, deep in there.

just love it because you have a lot of experience. You started this with saying, and I wrote this down because so many people want quick success. You said at your first job as an analyst, you were there in that role for six years. Now, six years now feels like an eternity in one role.

I wrote it down because it’s like, need to remember this. Like, skills and the people, like your skills take time to develop. Yeah. So I’m curious with, yeah.

It’s skill building. Yeah. And that I’m frankly.

Yeah,

when you say that, and I’ll answer your question, but what worries me most about young workers now is that they’re not, many of them are not learning how to work and how to skill build with guidance of others in the workplace the way that most of us did because we are in remote or hybrid workplaces. And it worries me because I think that there will be a skills gap as a result of that. And I know it’s not the most popular comment because

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

everyone, know, like nobody wants to be in the office. I was like, don’t, I don’t agree. I don’t disagree with flexibility, but I do think that there is value to be had of learning next to someone, right? Of watching, of observing, of falling on my, on my foot right and being, but being able to like get myself back up and be able to speak directly right away to the person that I need to address versus like having to schedule a zoom call and that, right? So, so I did, you know, I was a credit risk analyst for six years. I was promoted.

Yeah!

Yeah.

For sure.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

in that time and I had growth and I had different areas but that was that was the role I honed that skill set and

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

The

reason why, this is not the answer to your question, but the reason why I moved from being an analyst to working at the foundation was because it was of interest to me. But also one of the decision making criteria for me was that around that juncture at your six plus year mark is when you have to decide whether you’re going to become a marquee analyst and that’s going to be your path professionally. And I knew I didn’t want to do that. Right. So that was,

Yeah.

Mmm.

Yeah.

was decision-making factor for me that was made easier because then there was this other opportunity. I would have probably stayed around a few more years until something else came along. then I had, as life does, life threw me the opportunity. But I would say that the hardest, my gosh.

Yeah.

Yeah.

One of the hardest. I’m sure there were a lot of hard decisions.

Yeah, I will say the hardest decisions,

because it’s thematic, the hardest decisions that I’ve ever had to make have been to leave the organizations I’ve been at. I’ve worked at Disney. I’ve worked at Google. Those two in particular, because they’re kind of the epitome of their brands in their industries and the world. They are the companies that people want to be at.

Yeah.

Yeah, great brands. Yeah.

And my decision to leave Disney was because I was going to Google. So it was a hard decision because also I was in LA and my daughter was seven and we were living LA life and it was comfortable.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. like we were, we, we’d been there for three years by that point. So we had finally like established ourselves, bought this beautiful craftsman home, like had all the things that a young family has. And then I was like, okay, we’re going to pick up and go to San Francisco because it’s Google. Right. And, and I have an amazing, amazing husband, a wonderful, wonderful partner, you know, who in many ways helped enable me to do these things. And then leaving Google was really

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Google was tough because it was such a strained working environment.

Mm-hmm.

and the stresses, the pressures, and the lack of logic around how things were working in a way that made sense to what I wanted to do made it very hard to work there. But at the same time, it was a goodness. But this is the place everybody wants to work at. How do I… you know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I’m

from the Bay Area, so I know. Yeah, like I know Google is like huge.

It is, right? So, I mean, it’s changed also in the last couple of years and particularly everything that’s happening in tech. But back then, like I left at one of the highest points. I worked there from 2015 to 2017. And it was the way that, for me, was speaking to colleagues and friends. I remember speaking to a mentor of mine who also had a very big job and left Google. And he was like, listen,

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He also came, he has an immigrant family and I’ll never forget, and he says, this was Laszlo Bach, he was our former head of people and culture, and he said, know, I was the person, who are you most worried about telling? And I was like, my dad. Like, I’m always worried about telling my dad. And he’s like, me too. But when I told my dad, my dad just said, I just want you to be happy.

Yeah.

It’s okay, right? Like these are stories that we tell ourselves about things. My dad wants me be clear. My dad wants me to be happy and he wants me be able to pay the mortgage, right? So like these are two things that I want my dad to But fundamentally, my father wants me to be happy. And it was recognizing how…

Yeah.

Yeah. Yes.

Yeah.

significantly unhappy I was and how I deserved happiness, how I deserved and how I could still have happiness and still put food on the table and a roof over our heads. That was a really tough, tough decision because I didn’t have those direct models around me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Did you, well now we’re going different directions, but now I have a true question. Did you ever have guilt about being successful? did you, like financially, I imagine, financially successful, especially compared to where you came from. And then also, did you, because we, my husband and I actually moved from the Bay area to LA, which is like a big move to us.

End.

And this is now we’ve been here for like five, four years, but we talk about this a lot because we’re both the first in our families to like be successful. So when we talk about like our next move, we’re like, do we want to move somewhere else? And my husband’s very much like, no, I want to stay in the same place. And I’m like, baby, that’s not how careers are built.

Woo!

And I could work from anywhere, right? I have my business, with him, I’m like always encouraging him. But I’m curious, with your experience, do you have guilt about leaving your family in New York as you built your career? And yeah, what are your thoughts on that?

Yeah.

Yeah, I did not have guilt about leaving my family because again, this is exactly why they did what they did.

Yeah, this is why they put,

pour it into you. Yeah.

So like

everything was poured into me so that I could have a life that I was building. And so I certainly felt guilty, like I missed them. It was hard. was very hard. I will say like, I miss my family so, so very much. But it was also, you know, we call it our California adventure, right? Like we had an amazing, amazing time. I don’t feel guilty about financial success, right? Again, because that…

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

it’s been hard earned, right? It’s not like people are throwing money at me, right? I’ve had to work really hard for it. And again, wealth generation and accumulation is something that is necessary in our communities and that we don’t talk enough about. And it helped for me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Yeah. Yeah.

that I started my career in finance. And so I gained comfort with that space and that language and understanding its importance in my family and in our community. So I don’t feel guilty about that. For quite some time, was a big gap between what I did and what others did in my family. The fun part is I have much younger brothers.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

25 and 28, they’re both engineers. I have another young cousin who’s 27, who is actually in LA and is in media. And I have another cousin who’s in her 30s who is a sales executive. So the younger generation, if you will, I was the first one, but the younger generation, I mean, they’re going to outpace me. It’s beautiful to watch them.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Well, we

have a lot more resources in so many ways.

Yeah,

there’s a lot more and I, many ways, paved the way for that, right? So I can have these conversations with them. My brothers, I write their resumes. I help them think about negotiating their jobs, right? I didn’t have that necessarily in my family when I was going through these decisions. so I serve that role now. So in many ways, I had to do what I had to do so that I could help.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

them now just achieve their biggest dreams and that that to me is joyful right and that is also paying it back that’s that’s what we I mean I also do not have a choice right and my family is just like like call your sister go call Daisy like she’ll

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, just go do this. They need your help.

Let’s talk about burnout. You have an incredible book that’s coming out, but I want to ask you in building like your career, how did you one, know that you were burnt out?

Good.

That’s like, I feel like step one. I feel like so many of me and my clients, I think it’s easy to be like, I’m so burnt out, I’m so burnt out. But I always tell my clients like burnout happens here first, not like in actual burnout. Sometimes it’s the other way around. But I find for me, that like, if I keep telling myself how much I have to do and how much time I don’t have and how much la la la, right? Like, of course I’m gonna feel burnt out just up here.

Mmm.

So I’m curious for you, but then sometimes we really are like, you know, overworking, right? And you’re just like, like pure, like I have too much to do, la la la. And I think as an entrepreneur, I’ve like, my gosh. I mean, I feel, you know, my husband, he always reminds me, he’s like, you worked the same as you do now, as you did in your career, in your nine to five, like you just love working. But I’m curious for you, how do you know?

when you’re burnt out and what do we do about it? What do we do about it to backtrack and get back to a place where we could have a vision and be excited about the work we do?

Okay.

You know, it’s, and thank you for framing the question that way, because I think that for many of us, we don’t have a real understanding of what burnout is, right? And so Burnout isn’t just feeling tired, right? It’s a deeper crisis of feeling truly worn out, right? Feeling disconnected from life, from work.

Yes!

Yes.

Mmm, mm-hmm.

And also feeling less effective at what you do, whatever that is, you you’re that you call your work, right? When you feel like I just can’t get anything right. Right. And that and researchers, this is research based dimensions of burnout that Christina Maslach and others have have shared widely. I find my the definition that I share in all my talks comes from Kate Donovan, who’s the host of Fried.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

the Burnout Podcast and Kate defines burnout as the slow decline of normal functioning in every aspect of life due to chronic stress.

Mmmmm

And when she said

that to me, could see myself in moments of my life that I had not seen when they were happening to me. Because the challenge with burnout is that it’s hard to spot sometimes, right? It’s not like for me, I was able to finally…

Yeah.

You know, admit that I was burnt out because I was going through bouts of chronic illness. And it was in the process of finding doctors and medical providers to help me make sense of all the things that were happening to me that I discovered. know, and some of the medical providers were like, you know, like you have, you know, my, my pneumologist was a great guy, but, know, it was like, well, you you had childhood asthma, you were, you know, you’re 50, you’re over 50 every

Yeah.

that you get pneumonia, you’re going to get asthma. I was like, like, really? Like, that’s all I look forward to in life? It was a nutritionist that I hired because I was always, I was bloating up and I was like, what is happening? And also, you know, was getting older, so my body’s changing. but there was like, had, I had these allergic reactions all over my body. was literally burnt crispy. Like I just, I was just a And she took blood samples and came back and said,

Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, you felt it.

so your level should be at this level here. Yours are all the way like at the bottom. and I was like, my gosh. Right. Like, so help me understand why. And she just looked at me and she was like, stress. Like, like, don’t you know? And, and I was like, what, what is this sustained stress you speak of? what are you talking about? Like, like I know stress.

Mmm.

Yeah. I feel like it’s my norm.

But it was sustained part of it where I realized, is that I have never actually quite healed, right? I just keep going and going and going.

And burnout can show up in these extreme cases, but it can also show up in small and subtle ways, right? Like shifts in attitude or behavior that may seem initially insignificant. Like, you know, I use these examples in the book, like that colleague of yours, that team member that’s always like really happy and all of a sudden is snapping at everybody. Like something’s going on, right? And it could just mean that she’s having a bad day.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

And it could mean that she’s on the way to Burnoutville, right? and so it’s, how do we, how do we discern that, when people start becoming cynical or detached or struggling to get focused, right? And this wasn’t their normal way of operating, right? Cause there’s some people that are like that all the time, right? But I was like, if that’s not who they are, right. If they, if you are seeing, you know, that common sign of the Sunday scaries, right? When people are feeling dread or anxiety of coming to

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

work. Like these are signs of burnout and these are as as an individual

Mm-hmm.

you

It is our responsibility to be able to spot these signs in ourselves. But also if you’re a leader or a manager, I wrote my book really to anyone that aspires to lead or manage people. I call it my no-nonsense love letter to people managers. This is what it takes. But if you’re a leader or a manager of, it doesn’t matter, two people to a hundred people. It’s your responsibility to be able to understand the health climate of your team.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

How healthy is it? Who is struggling? Who isn’t? And for what reasons? Right? Sometimes it can be personal, right? We jumped to like, that person can’t catch up. And I was like, well, but like, have you looked at the configuration of your organization? Like are roles clear? Do we have the right mix of perspectives and expertise? Do you know, do people like clarity? Because when they do, it leads to stress and frustration, which over time can contribute to.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

burnout, right? So are we asking these questions? Are we asking is the team aligned on purpose and goals? Is each member committed and clear on why they’re here, right? Because when you have misalignment, then that can lead to disconnection and reduced motivation, right? Are we carrying out our work effectively? Are there equal balanceings, right, of workloads? Is there clear decision making?

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

you

Mm-hmm.

Is there clear communication? Do we have guidelines around how do we collaborate as teams? All of these are elements that need to exist in organizations. So to answer your question about how do we avoid it, part of it is what are we structuring? What we get is by design. So look at the structure of your work and how people engage and connect with each other and identify do in addition

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

to all these structural elements, do people feel safe being able to make mistakes, right? To disagree constructively, and that’s a big piece in our country. And it is, know, and everyone’s talking about it now, you know, the wake of elections, and it’s like, it’s, you know, like how divided we are. I was like, you know what?

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Part of building shared understanding means being able to have constructive disagreements, to be able to still see your humanity, even if I disagree with you, right? To be able to do that, because when we don’t, that leads to burnout, right? Especially in workplaces where you’re either the one not feeling seen or connected, or the one that’s constantly battling, right? So we need to create spaces where people can share their truths

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

and obviously in a respectful way, because if your truth diminishes my humanity, then that’s not, that’s not true. But if your truth is about…

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, then it’s no, yeah. But no, I get it, yeah.

you know, a different political leader or a different political stance that mine, you know, we should be able to have a conversation without fear of negative consequences and be able to walk away still with your dignity intact, with your respect intact. And that’s at the core of this work. we haven’t, I mean, that was one of my big key learnings in writing the book. We haven’t thought about burnout that way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

those moral injuries that we face on a consistent basis that lead to burnout.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that’s such an interesting conversation because the work I do, so I’m a business coach, but a lot of the work I do is mindset. I’m very mindset focused with my clients and all 90, I don’t know, I haven’t done the number. I’ve only had two clients who are non-woman of color in my four years and majority are Latinas. So, and they all have businesses. And I think where we,

I have a very values-based business. No, because it’s my business, I get to choose, right? I get to say whatever the hell I want anytime I want. If I lose a client, it’s on me, right? And typically that’s my attitude, right? Because I have that luxury, right? But one thing we talk about a lot with my clients, which I think, which you brought up, which I think is so valuable, is the burnout.

Yes.

in the battle, like the battle of like so many of my clients, including me and this honestly, this used to be me, like I used to get so triggered by people. And I would use so much of my energy being angry at them. And it took me so long, I told myself and I actually coached a client on this like years ago.

because she was saying like, my brother, whatever said this and la la. And then I’m like, what if we just told ourselves they get to be who they are? I might not like it, but they just like if my humanity, right, is is like if I believe I get to have my humanity and my brain and thoughts and whatever.

then like, need to let them be who they are. And like, I could fight it and we can have a discussion, sure. But it’s like, I think so many people grab on to that battle and make it their battle. And it’s like, no, no, no, no, we need you to focus on your mission and like, turn back and look at the people you serve, people, your why, right? Like shift from this to this. And then one thing that’s helped me and my clients I share all the time is that

Yeah.

that sentence, that thought of like, let people be who they are. Let people be who they are. Like if they want to be like that, cool. And you, get to create the boundaries and space, whatever. But anyways, I’m so glad you brought that up. Yeah.

Yes, totally. Yeah.

And we find calm, right? Like that’s how,

like it is about finding your calm and your peace.

Mm-hmm.

And sometimes we need to redirect those conversations. But really, I would say interrogate why you feel the way you feel. What is it about this particular conversation? Why do you jump to confronting someone versus actually practicing curiosity?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

When someone

says something that’s really out of this world, right? Sometimes you’re like, what? How could you think that, right? Instead, could you explain what you meant by that? Give people space. Explain, and not just why, right? Because when you ask why, people don’t know.

Yeah. Yeah.

Like why? Yeah, like tell me why, yeah.

Yeah. You were like, why?

Can you help me understand what you just said? Because I want to understand, right? And people want to be understood, right? So there’s that piece, There’s rethinking your first reaction, right? Is there another way to view this? And it’s what you said, right? Is there a way for me to diffuse my defensiveness and let a calmer mindset take over so that I can…

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

kind of

a conversation that is different than the one that we tend to go to in those moments, which is like, like you’re wrong. Everything’s awful.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And we’re the ones that benefit when we do that. Like we benefit. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Well, thank you so much, Daisy, for being on my show. It was so wonderful talking with you. I can’t wait for my husband to listen to this episode. gonna, I never make him listen to an episode. I’m gonna make him listen to this one because he is…

absolutely. We find our plumb. We find our plumb.

ew.

I smell it.

Yeah, he’s a leader. He’s a people leader and he’s, I mean, I guess he’s getting more experience, but he’s still in his first couple years as like a VP and he’s just learning. Like he’s very much learning, like, especially like the politics that comes with it too. And he, yeah.

It’s hard work!

Yes, you’re navigating

so much, the politics, the systems, the processes, but also the real messy human experience of leading people. It’s hard to get groups of people to get things done. It’s hard. So that’s real.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for being here. Where can people find you? Is there anywhere you would like folks to go who are interested in you and your work?

Thank you for having me.

Absolutely. Well, LinkedIn is my community. So you can find me at daisyeoj-dominguez, Instagram, and my website daisyeoj-dominguez.com. share most of my writings, everything that I do on those platforms, and I’d love to connect.

Okay.

Amazing.

Amazing. I just connected with you before we started this call on LinkedIn. And then when this gets published, I’ll make sure to tag you and do all that on LinkedIn. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Thank you.