66: Less Tired, More Inspired: How Givers Can Thrive Without Burning Out with Phil Januszewski

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Cherie Lindberg

Hi, I'm Cherie Lundberg and welcome to Elevated Life Academy where we share real stories of healing, hope and transformation. Tune in to hear how everyday people are rising above and lighting the way for others. Welcome to another episode of Elevated Life Academy and I am your host, Cherie Lindberg and we have a very interesting guest today. His name is Phil, and I'll let him introduce himself.

00;00;31;15 - 00;00;47;03

Cherie Lindberg

And we're going to hear about his life story, his life, about philosophy of living and stories of hope and healing, which, you know, everyone, that this is what that podcast is about. So welcome, Phil. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today.

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Phil Januszewski

st,: 2025

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Phil Januszewski

Amazing career. I loved it, actually left the classroom a little kicking and screaming. I had one of the best years I've ever had after 20 years. But the truth is, Cherie, that I been noticing that a lot of adults, especially in the giving fields like education, health, a lot of people dragging into work, feeling really either unmotivated, overwhelmed, exhausted, cynical, jaded.

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Phil Januszewski

You know, just looking at myself and I'm I'm naturally an energy outlier, very energetic person. My DNA is definitely the sunny side, my disposition for sure. So I had a lot of things going for me grow up in a really healthy, supportive home. So Cherie, I'm not a comeback story in any way. I mean, I was given A Wonderful Life is, full of love as in childhood, so I have every reason to succeed.

00;02;11;03 - 00;02;31;16

Phil Januszewski

However, I started in the last 20 years really thinking about what is it about me or the way I live my life, that even though I'm experiencing work the same as some of my incredible coworkers, why am I showing up the way I am? And why are so many people not? I ended up getting this book as a gift from an acquaintance through LinkedIn.

00;02;31;17 - 00;03;04;05

Phil Januszewski

It was called Big Potential by Shawn Core, and she reached out to me and said, Phil, you always do these positive things online, and because you're a teacher, I think you'd really like this book. Long story short, I read this book and it changed my life, and I started getting into positive psychology, and I started realizing that the way she read that I accidentally just luckily lived my life was a way that allowed me to flourish and be resilient, even under the constant pressure and stress that educators feel all the time.

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Phil Januszewski

st of: 2025

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Phil Januszewski

So that's what brings me here, and I think that's how we got connected. I met your wonderful coworkers or an acquaintance that saw me speak, and she said, you've got to meet Shari. I think this is a good match.

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Cherie Lindberg

Wow. Okay. Well, thank you so much. And I wrote the book down. I always love to hear other resources that are out there. And thank you for for sharing. My husband is a retired teacher as well, so totally understand, you know, where you're where you're coming from with that he retired right before Covid. He was very fortunate. Yes, he was very fortunate.

00;04;08;18 - 00;04;18;27

Cherie Lindberg

We say that so. So tell me more. How are you going out? Are you as a speaker going out or are you going into organizations. Tell me some of what you're sharing.

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Phil Januszewski

Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah, I definitely am like consider like a keynote speaker and a workshop presenter. But what I love to do, my signature talk is called Less tired, More Inspired. And I love to do everything with high energy, very lightweight, nothing overwhelming and heavy. But I love to give adults three things through storytelling and interaction.

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Phil Januszewski

Three things. First of all, do you even remember the things that you love that energize you? Let's recap on what fills us up and positive psych they like to call that year. So I'm a teacher. I'm a father. I'm a speaker. I'm a music listener. I'm a weightlifter. I'm a cooker. I'm a baker. Not necessarily things that have to do even with your job or profession, but what are your ERS that lift you up and fill you up?

00;05;06;08 - 00;05;25;28

Phil Januszewski

Once we know what those things are and we start looking, givers tend to be pretty bad at this. Now, are we actually intentionally scheduling that into our day and in first overwhelm people? Sure. I'm sure. You know, they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm not looking to add anything more to my day. I was looking to declutter. And we talk about that.

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Phil Januszewski

What are the things we can get rid of? But I'm talking about little tiny two minute wins where maybe it's listening to one of your favorite songs in between two things. Maybe it's if you work from home, actually giving yourself ten minutes to create and cook a really nice sandwich that brings you joy. I'm a I'm a food person, so like, food and emotions are tied together pretty well there.

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Phil Januszewski

But it's not like I'm saying to reinvent your entire life. However, if you start scheduling and intentional stuff, you slowly start to reinvent your life because you start to realize how much time we waste on things that don't serve us or our jobs. And we start replacing it with things that fill us up, and all of a sudden we end up a little bit more net positive.

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Phil Januszewski

What I like to say, a little bit more thrive and a little less survive. Yes. Once we get to that point and we're thriving, not just surviving, then we can do what I mean gives us the most joy. We have the mental capacity and space to give to others, and I think we all know when we can help someone else support them, cheer them on.

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Phil Januszewski

Given our own natural, unique, quirky way, man, we create that positive upward spiral or we just start thriving even more. Now our life's a little bit more fun. We're helping people and all of a sudden, like, we're more resilient, or more patient, or more calm and understanding with people, or better problem solving. And life continues to get better and better.

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Phil Januszewski

But it can start with just these little tweaks, which isn't sexy, doesn't sound overwhelmingly exciting, but actually makes a huge difference in our lives.

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Cherie Lindberg

I, I love it, I really I always talk about intentional, loving, conscious living making those choices. So I completely understand where you're talking. I, I talk a lot about let's connect you to your spark. Again. It's it's kind of what you know, what you're what you're talking about. So so tell me a little bit more. And I want to also validate what you're saying because I teach brain spotting to therapists, coaches.

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Cherie Lindberg

And yes, I travel all over the world and you are exactly on target. Like, as a giver, they struggle to like they give their energy away, they give it to others, and they have a hard time giving to themselves. So can you speak to that a little bit more? What what advice you've done with folks that you've come across?

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Phil Januszewski

Yeah, for sure. I think the givers naturally are resistance. And, you know, a lot of a lot of adults are just end up being parents. And that is a very giving role. So whenever they do something for themselves, they naturally, accidentally can almost feel guilty, like, oh, there's other things I could be doing. But I think we try to shift that mindset and I'm sure you do the same thing if we don't take care of ourselves first, we can't take care of the people we truly love at the at the height that we would really like to.

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Phil Januszewski

So we have to really be okay with that. So again, the idea is that can we practice one little win tomorrow, that even if you're uncomfortable, it feels guilty or frivolous. That's going to bring you joy. And I want you to try it. And then I want you to sit with it and think about your energy. And now think of it in a giving way.

00;08;41;18 - 00;09;02;14

Phil Januszewski

Now that I have this energy that I've taken in conservation of energy and science, I can now give that back to someone or out to the world. We can't continue to give energy if we never take in. So some people say it's selfish to do for yourself, but I say it's actually selfish not to pour into yourself because then you can't give to others.

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Phil Januszewski

You have less to give. So again, switching that mindset is is definitely hard to do. But you're absolutely right. People in public health, people that are civil servants, it's natural for them to think of others first. But we can flip that around and allow ourselves to realized, yeah, I can give even more if I'm showing up energized, excited, enthusiastic, just calm and levelheaded at my profession, I can do my job even better.

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Cherie Lindberg

Yeah, that that all makes sense. I loved how you you brought your your science in there too. Is it with the with the energy? Yeah. I mean, it's bringing it full circle because we all know like, you know, energy is not finite. Like you got to make make choices of where you put your energy and, and so forth for sure.

00;09;49;08 - 00;09;55;25

Cherie Lindberg

Where did you come up with this idea? Like, hey, I'm going to do this full time, I'm going to go out and I'm going to encourage people, I'm going to motivate people.

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Phil Januszewski

y been a public speaker since: 2013

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Phil Januszewski

And then we really enjoyed it. But anyways, I had experience with public speaking as a side job for years, being an educator. And then when Covid hit, I think Shari and I really started this and I wasn't in an amazing place. I mean, I wasn't loving life, I wasn't enjoying my job, but because I had these tactics in place, these steps, I was flourishing or at least resilient more so than a lot of people.

00;10;46;13 - 00;11;05;26

Phil Januszewski

And I didn't go as far down the spiral as many people. And I started saying, now, more than ever, especially when we came back to education, I think adults need this. Yeah, really weighing on my heart. And it came to a point where I was already had a side job, youth speaking that I love, and I don't want to give up selfishly.

00;11;06;03 - 00;11;26;01

Phil Januszewski

And I was like, I don't know how to give more with the actual time in my day. So I had to make the tough decision that I felt my message was more important to the masses of adults and continuing the youth speak, than it was to those 125 kids that I got to see every day. That honestly, I loved seeing and I miss a lot.

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Phil Januszewski

I was actually at my school yesterday. I went visited my advisory group, which is a group of students I see all four years every day before they graduate, and they're juniors now. They've got beards. But again, even though I miss that, I'm hopeful that if I can empower more educators, they can help more students in in the long run, I can help more kids that way.

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Cherie Lindberg

So yeah, I mean, it's like a ripple in the pond. You're I mean, you're you're role modeling and who knows where those juniors are going to go? I mean, you've made it. You made an impact on your advisory group and I, I love I just love your energy because that's me too. I love watching people rise like to their highest potential to flourishing, especially in the world that we're living in today.

00;12;11;03 - 00;12;25;20

Cherie Lindberg

That's why I'm like, I need to be out here getting connecting with people like yourself. Let's tell these positive stories. Let's bring some positive energy into the world and and show people like how they can do it too. Like, everyone can do this.

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Phil Januszewski

It's amazing to I think sometimes people think that you we have to do something grandiose, you know, change people's lives. But let me give you a quick story, please. I had I had a student who came in nontraditional, was older than my other students, didn't know their background. Long story short, I was a little worried. They were coming into to my class late in the year.

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Phil Januszewski

They ended up being a wonderful student. We got along great, and even though this student was older than my 15 year old sophomores, she was like a motherly figure in such a great addition. But I tell you what, at that may, before she graduated, things changed a little bit and she was a little prickly. Long story short, we got in a little bit of a tiff in an argument, and before she graduated, she she never would speak to me those last two weeks of school.

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Phil Januszewski

And it weighed so heavy on my heart that we had such a misunderstanding that kind of blew up that it it really dragged me down. And it's one of those days as an educator where you ask, like, is this what I should be doing? Like, hey, did I just ruin some kid's life accidentally? I tell you what, about four years ago, I got a random message from this student that basically said that high school is one of the hardest times in her life.

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Phil Januszewski

She's not sure if she would be alive if it weren't for some positive adults like me in her life. Now, I tell you what, I had that heavy on my heart for years. That was one of those students that got away, not realizing what an impact I made on her life. Now, the reason I'm saying this is because I didn't do anything extraordinary or special.

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Phil Januszewski

I simply showed up as myself, my genuine personality, and genuinely, genuinely wanted her to be herself. And just by being there, being able to show up as a flourishing adult and just present, that made all the difference. That maybe allowed her to be alive here today. No, man, that's an incredible, ridiculously large story. But just to show you that it doesn't take much to make a positive impact on the world, but I think sometimes, again, because of media, because of the news and online and viral videos, we our brain tells us it has to be something overly extraordinary to make a difference.

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Phil Januszewski

But that's not true. Those things don't go viral. That's just. But normal. Everyday life makes a huge impact on people. If we want to be the heroes that we really enjoy being, you just got to show up your genuine, happy, flourishing self and it can make a huge difference.

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Cherie Lindberg

Yeah, well, I love that because I hear, you know, you never know when you're planting a seed that's going to blossom years, years later. And then, like you said, understanding how you made an impact for a lot of kids, it's the consistency. It's the role modeling. It's just like being there in your authentic self, even if they don't get it at that developmental time, later on when they can reflect, they're like, okay, this, this is what helped me through that, through that time.

00;15;28;28 - 00;15;36;17

Cherie Lindberg

So I really I really hear your story and like what you're saying, where do you go from here? Or like, what are you going to be doing right now?

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Phil Januszewski

My, my main goal is to just speak to and pour into as many adult givers as possible. So going to all school, all staff institute days, I'm headed to educational conferences and public health conferences and mental health conferences. And just trying to spread the word to all these people that are the foundation of our country and their supporting people.

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Phil Januszewski

They're building our future leaders. I feel like I'm so called to just to help that heartbeat of our country, to help them continue to push forward because the work is worthy and is important, even though it's challenging, sometimes not respected by everybody, too hard to show up and do a tough job when you're not sure people support you.

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Phil Januszewski

And things are constantly changing. From the book of tomorrow. Mind Marty Seligman he's talking about how our work world is a whitewater rafting experience now, and that you used to have one career your whole life, and now it seems like with everything changing, your job will look dramatically different about every three years. And that's going to be taxing on a lot of people who aren't open to being flexible, consistently growing and pivoting.

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Phil Januszewski

And, you know, obviously that's going to weigh heavy on a lot of people's mental health. So the goal is how do we help people do that to be resilient, but also flexible, because our world will consistently change. And I think if I can help them get better grasp of their personal life to show up to work, I think they're going to be more open to that change so that they can continue to thrive in an ever changing world.

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Cherie Lindberg

Yeah. And if we if we can support people and helping them with resiliency and the ability to be flexible and to see those changes as new beginnings instead of something that's taxing that it's that it's I get to, this is an opportunity to do something different or to bring in some more of the creative power to make some, some potential changes that are positive for themselves.

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Cherie Lindberg

But I, I, I get what you're saying, that there's, there's a large portion of our population that might still be operating from the paradigm. I've got to do this. I picked my career, I've gone to school, I picked my career, and I got to do this for 20 years. Then I retire that I because that's the way it used to be.

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Cherie Lindberg

But it it has been changing rapidly.

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Phil Januszewski

Yes, yes. And I've been I've been reading a lot into it just because it's fascinating even like what the workplaces will look like in ten years. And yeah, a lot of people will have more gig like jobs. I might not have a full time job. I might have three separate jobs, and just one of them gets me health insurance.

00;18;19;20 - 00;18;40;25

Phil Januszewski

And I think people are going to be scrappier, because you can be with the way technology works and how you can work with people around the world. And agreed, if you look at that, is exciting and a way to learn and grow, that can be really energizing. But it can also be terrifying. If you're like, listen, I got ten years left.

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Phil Januszewski

I just want to do this because I like it and I want like, no ripples in the water. I could see how that is overwhelming.

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Cherie Lindberg

Yeah. Especially when it comes to security, because that's one of our main things that we need as human beings is security. And if we're not sure where the next paycheck is coming from, that can certainly be disconcerting or uncomfortable for sure.

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Phil Januszewski

One of the workshops I do, it's called five Happiness Hacks I Stole from Heavy Metal, and I take five of my favorite heavy metal lyrics, and we break it down into the perma model for positive psych. But 2 a.m. are the challenges in the end actually make us happy in the end? When we overcome them, right? They allow us to thrive.

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Phil Januszewski

And I'm the first to admit that I complain when challenges come my way, but in the end, I look back and I'm grateful for the skills I built and sometimes the new relationships. And then the idea of learning. Like when we're constantly learning and growing, we're also thriving. So sometimes when we get set in our ways and stuck, we can get that block languishing kind of feel.

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Phil Januszewski

And it's like just something's missing. Sometimes we're forced to learn and grow and know we're resistant to it. In the end, we're grateful. It actually energizes us and allows us to grow. But I'm the first to admit learn about change, too, even though I'm trying to reframe it. You know.

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Cherie Lindberg

I get you, I get you, I would I would complain too, sometimes. So what are what are your years?

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Phil Januszewski

Oh thank you. I've so many. My zest for life is off the charts. So I just love living. But things like this. Learning, growing. I'm a learner. I'm a grower. I'm a networker. I'm a giver. I'm a pay it forward or I'm a father. I'm a partner. I'm a speaker. I'm a teacher. I'm a creator. I'm a music listener.

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Phil Januszewski

I'm a weightlifter. I'm a lover. I'm a dancer. I'm a lot of things. I love it all in me. I'm. I'm an extremely extroverted. So me connecting with other, like you said, tree connecting with other engines in the world that are trying to look for the positives, that are trying to push the world forward and upward. Those are the people I love because I feed off that energy.

00;20;51;26 - 00;21;09;00

Phil Januszewski

I suck it up and then I can take that and give that to other people. And I think that's, you know, again, not to bring it back up, but the conservation of energy. Energy isn't magic. It just doesn't appear out of nowhere when we can take it from others and then give it and keep passing it along. Everybody did that a little bit more.

00;21;09;08 - 00;21;13;23

Phil Januszewski

We would see dramatic shifts in the world in the in in our wellness too, I think.

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Cherie Lindberg

Yeah. Agreed. Agree. Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you think would be really important for our listeners to know?

00;21;22;03 - 00;21;48;10

Phil Januszewski

Oh, thank you so much for that. No. I mean, if anything I've said today through our conversation resonated. I'd love for people to reach out to me if literally just Google my name. It's the worst last name ever. Phil. Janice, you'll find me anywhere. But I love giving keynotes and pouring into people. But just like this with Siri right now, I love conversations with positive humans, and there's a way that I can find to support you or introduce you to someone else that overlaps I.

00;21;48;10 - 00;22;12;17

Phil Januszewski

It would be my pleasure and then the last thing I do is twice a month on Wednesday nights virtually. I run a teacher membership group. So for any educators or former teachers that are looking for their positive people from across the country to just connect with, we don't really talk about how to like, give better lessons. It's more like, how can we as humans thrive more so that we can show up to our classrooms?

00;22;12;24 - 00;22;27;14

Phil Januszewski

If anyone hears this and is, you know, drawn to that in any way, or I'd like to support that group and be a guest speaker, by all means, please reach out to me. But besides that, I'm on a mission just like you, Shari. We're trying to make the on other place in our own way and brand, and I'm here for it.

00;22;27;14 - 00;22;28;02

Phil Januszewski

It's a pleasure.

00;22;28;04 - 00;22;41;20

Cherie Lindberg

Yeah, well, thank you for being a fellow traveler on that path. And I wish you wish you well. So thank you so much for taking time to be here and share your story and your enthusiasm and your energy with our listeners.

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Phil Januszewski

Thank you. It's fully received and grateful to be here. So I'm glad we met.

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Cherie Lindberg

Thank you.

00;22;50;18 - 00;23;14;24

Cherie Lindberg

Thank you for joining us today. An Elevated Life Academy stories of hope and healing. As you move back into your world, I invite you to take a breath and hold on to whatever stirred something in you from our podcast today. Healing isn't always loud, but it is always sacred. Whether today's story opened your heart, gave you a new perspective, or just reminded you that you are not alone, it matters.

00;23;14;24 - 00;23;34;27

Cherie Lindberg

And so do you. Keep choosing alignment. Keep trusting your becoming and remember the elevated life is imperfect. It's present. If this episode resonated. Share it with someone who needs a little more light. And if you're ready to go deeper in your own journey, you know where to find me. And till next time, stay rooted, stay rising and stay you.