052: Solutions for Banishing Burnout in Overworked Remote Workers + Navigating Cancel Culture in the Workplace with Janice Livtin and Evan Nierman

In this episode of Saving With Steve, host Steve Sexton is joined by coach and stress management expert, Janice Livtin, who is the author of the Banish Burnout Toolkit, a workbook designed to help you learn how to change your reactions to stress from the inside out, and Evan Nierman, who is a crisis management expert who serves as the Founder and CEO of Red Banyan, a globally-renowned public relations firm.

Before the pandemic, American workers were already stressed to the tune of $190 billion annually in healthcare expenses. The World Health Organization had declared burnout as a syndrome caused by unrelenting stress that never gets handled. We have been living with COVID-19 for the last year, and we see the devastation in the news, parents are worried for their children, and many people have started working remotely. Remote work can lead to overworked employees that sit on computers all day, never get outside for a healthy dose of Vitamin D, and suffer from loneliness. It’s time to banish the burnout!

My first guest today, Janice Livtin, is a coach, stress management expert, and author of the Banish Burnout Toolkit, who is on a mission to help leaders and teams banish burnout in their organizations. She joins us today to discuss the importance of identifying our stress response and unpacking our emotional baggage and explains what a stress audit is, why we need one, and how to conduct it. Janice also provides insight into how anyone can build habits for optimal wellness, performance, and focus, and shares three proven tips for banishing burnout during uncertain times.

With 19% of Gen Z workers having participated in cancel culture, either by canceling someone or attempting to, anyone can become a target. So, how can we address this trend in the workplace in an effective way? “Simply canceling a person or brand eliminates the hard work of conflict resolution which is key to the workplace,” says my second guest, Evan Nierman, the best-selling author of Crisis Averted and CEO of international crisis PR firm Red Banyan. “Workers must learn to think critically and come up with alternatate, long-term solutions to problems rather than defaulting to “canceling” someone because they do not see eye to eye.”

Evan joins us today to discuss navigating the threat of cancel culture in the workplace, what business owners or employees should do if they find themselves a target, what to do and what not to do in the midst of a workplace scandal, two things that every employee can do right now to sidestep disaster and avoid a future crisis, and how pressing versus telling the truth can help protect your reputation.

Janice Litvin is on a mission to help leaders and teams banish burnout in their organizations. She does this through keynote speeches, workshops, and accountability groups.

As an award-winning speaker, certified virtual presenter, and official SHRM Recertification Provider, she wants to help as many people as possible take care of their physical and mental health, including teaching them to manage stress to prevent burnout, fall in love with fitness, and eat healthier. 

In these ways, she is helping people change their lives. She has developed unique strategies to maximize engagement in workplace wellness and has also developed a stress management methodology available through her workbook, Banish Burnout Toolkit™.

What makes Janice unique is that in addition to 20 years as a technology recruiter, 10 years of IT experience, and her studies of psychology, she has overcome all the challenges she talks about in her presentations. 

She went from being overweight and sedentary with a critical, negative attitude to a lighter, fitter, happier person who now teaches Zumba Fitness and leads stress management and healthy eating workshops and accountability groups. She is certified by the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America.

After forming Micro Search in 1983 to help clients learn how to manage their business using a desktop computer, she became a human resource executive technology recruiter in response to her Fortune 500 clients’ needs for technology talent. 

Over the next twenty years, clients included Charles Schwab, Oracle, The Gap, Computer Partners, Network Appliance, QuinStreet, Symantec, Vodafone, Chiron, TheraSense, Nokia, Borland, United States Army, Pacific Gas & Electric and Pacific Bell.

Janice has served on the Workplace Wellness Committee of the American Heart Association and spoken on their behalf to San Francisco Bay Area organizations. She is a professional member of the National Speakers Association, WELCOA (Wellness Council of America), and SHRM Northern California (Society for Human Resource Management). In 2017 she formed the Bay Area Wellness Association.

Evan Nierman is a crisis management expert who serves as the Founder and CEO of Red Banyan, a globally-renowned public relations firm recognized for its ability to deliver the right messages at the right time to those who matter most.

With more than 20 years experience, Evan’s crisis management agency is rooted in the company philosophy “Press the Truth.” Evan has guided international, celebrity and corporate clients through complex high stakes situations and has become a valued resource whose expertise is regularly tapped by the media.

Prior to founding Red Banyan, Evan formulated public relations strategies for the Government of Ethiopia and wrote speeches, op-eds and coordinated public appearances for the Ambassador. In addition to operating his own Washington-based boutique PR agency, he also worked at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, one of the country’s leading advocacy groups where he wrote speeches, drafted memos on foreign policy and supervised all aspects of the organization’s 15 electronic and printed publications.

His book Crisis Averted is a peek-behind-the-curtain into the unpredictable world of crisis management and the tough decisions that leaders make at a moment’s notice that can make or break an organization’s future. This candid book is based on Evan’s decades of real-life crisis management experience and offers sound advice that readers can use when life doesn’t go as planned.

Evan gives readers a glimpse inside the thought process that goes on when a company or individual’s reputation is on the line. His motto of "Press the Truth" is a resounding theme throughout this thought-provoking guide about what to do when things go wrong.