Moving from Burnout to Joy @ Work

Nov 10

A READING LIST FOR REIMAGINING WORK

Ross Gay

Joy is the evidence of our connection.

Story

In 2012, I attended a conference at Google on the intersection of technology and wisdom. During the event, participants were divided into small cohorts for tours of the campus. Our group entered one of the main engineering buildings and stumbled upon the aftermath of a surprise experienced by the group before us. A well-known philosopher had done something entirely unexpected—something that threw them, hard.

Picture it: a sleek, modern building surrounded by welcoming green space, complete with rows of brightly colored Google bicycles neatly lined up outside. Inside, a vast, open lobby stretched before us, anchored by a massive whiteboard that spanned the entire length of the wall.

This board was legendary. For years, employees and visiting leaders had been invited to write their big ideas on it — the kind that change lives, businesses, or maybe even the world. The surface was layered with overlapping colors and phrases from thousands of markers. You couldn’t even read most of them anymore — the board was dense, full, and humming with ideas.

They told us that before we showed up, the company’s leadership team was hosting a guest: the world-renowned philosopher Eckhart Tolle. Everyone was buzzing with anticipation, waiting to see what profound message he would write on this board of ideas.

When the moment came, they handed him a marker. He stood there for a few seconds — silent, still. Then, instead of writing, he set the marker down, picked up an eraser, and began to wipe a space across the center of the board.

The room fell completely silent. As they heard the eraser easing across the sacred whiteboard, people gasped — some smiled, some looked almost stricken.

When he finished, there was a space — open, empty, and prominent.
Later, he shared in a keynote event that there is wisdom in emptiness. In our hyper-achieving culture, we feel pressured to constantly do more, add more — more thoughts, more goals, more ideas. But space is what actually allows something new to emerge. It is often the birthplace of JOY.

The Space Between Burnout and Joy

That experience has stayed with me for years. And I thought of it while prepping for a speaking engagement last week.

Last Thursday, I spoke, along with my colleague, Amanda Villaveces, to a packed room for our breakout session at the Canopy Good Business Summit 2025. Our topic, Moving Burnout to Joy, certainly struck a chord with many. And I kept thinking of that whiteboard — of how our minds and calendars can begin to look just like it.

We fill every inch with tasks, meetings, projects, and ideas — many of them good and necessary — but eventually, there’s no room left to breathe. We lose the space that makes creativity, connection, and joy possible.

At the Summit, we explored how our brains are making a choice every day between survival mode and learning mode. In survival mode, there is an undercurrent of searching for threat - we’re reactive, protective, and focused on staying safe. In learning mode, we feel fundamentally safe in the moment - we’re curious, flexible, more connected with others, open, and able to grow.

But there’s also a third state — one that’s often dismissed in modern busyness — the resting mode. It’s the space where the body repairs, the mind integrates, and our whole system returns to center. It’s not about disengagement. It’s about making contact with our being — the part of you that exists beneath the noise and effort.

The “resting mode” or default mode network (DMN) in the brain is active when we’re not focused on external tasks — when the mind can wander, reflect, integrate, and restore. Activating this state helps balance the constant stimulation of goal-directed “doing mode.” The DMN supports integration, linking emotional and cognitive experiences into coherent meaning. It’s also involved in memory consolidation, creativity, empathy, and perspective-taking — all functions that require space/being over forced doing.

Examples of resting mode are sleep, deep rest, unhurried time in nature, a day without an agenda, mindfulness practices, meditation, restorative care, floating in a pool, sitting by a fire, slowly sipping a cup of hot tea, being in a “time has stopped” moment with a loved one. All things that allow for a natural state of joy to arise.

When I think back to that Google whiteboard/Tolle story — I can feel the weight of it. The vast space of big ideas that got disrupted by a plea for emptiness/ non-doing. But it’s weighted in a really good way, like a weighted blanket. A comforting weight that keeps us grounded and connected to our physical experience. The space on the board invited a different and critical way of being if we are going to hold on to the best of what it means to be human - imagination, creativity, care, and connection — the same qualities we lose when burnout takes hold.

In our breakout session, we explored how burnout isn’t just exhaustion; it’s a loss of spaciousness. Our days become crowded with urgency, our minds tangled in productivity, and our inner life goes quiet. In our conversation, we explored how burnout isn’t just exhaustion; it’s a loss of spaciousness. Our days become crowded with urgency, our minds tangled in productivity, and our inner life goes quiet.

Burnout can also be a signal - alerting us to something being out of alignment in our lives. That we’ve been running on output for too long and that restoration, not more effort, is what’s needed next.

Joy, on the other hand, arises when we make contact with that inner space again — when there’s room to breathe, to feel, to imagine, and to reconnect with what we love. It is the connection to our inner worthiness and outer interconnectedness that nothing can take from us. From this place we find our meaning/purpose, our Northstar, which is essential to know if we’re going to name what we need, set healthy boundaries, and figure out how to be in relationship with our work that doesn’t destroy our wellbeing.

My favorite moment in the session was when we moved from talking about the topic to embodiment. We did a 5-minute mindfulness practice to drop the noise and tune in to our present experience. After people looked so relaxed that I wanted to give them blankets and tell them they could nap. I did not - we were all in suits at a business conference. No amount of words can replace actually living and feeling our experience.

I hope you’re inspired by this weaving of two stories. When we feel burnout at work, in our lives, creating space and allowing a resting state can reawaken the fuel for our meaning and purpose, which includes joy. My final question to the audience at our talk is also one I leave with you - do you know what brings you joy? The places that bring you joy? The people who bring you joy? Everyone needs a list ready to go, like a menu where we select a daily dose.

The topic of burnout at work is extensive and complex. Below I’ve chosen books that focus on this topic of burnout and joy from a variety of perspectives. They’re companions for the in-between moments — guides for remembering your aliveness, re-orienting to what matters, and creating the conditions where joy can naturally return.

Book Recs for Dealing with Burnout and Increasing Joy

These six books remind me of that erased whiteboard. Each one invites us to make space for presence, rest, and conscious choice — to clear away the noise and return to what matters most.

Inciting Joy – Ross Gay
A poetic reflection on how joy is not the opposite of pain, but something that blooms within it — through connection, care, and shared humanity.

Set Boundaries, Find Peace – Nedra Glover Tawwab
Boundaries are not barriers; they’re invitations to live in alignment. This book offers practical tools for protecting your time and energy so joy has room to exist.

The Choice Point – Joanna Grover & Jonathan Rhodes
A science-based guide to interrupting autopilot and choosing intentionally. It’s about living in alignment with your deepest values instead of reacting.

Real-World Enlightenment – Susan Kaiser Greenland
A bridge between ancient wisdom and modern life, showing that enlightenment is not about escape — it’s about awareness and compassion in daily action.

How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work – Robert Kegan & Lisa Lahey
A masterclass in reflective leadership and growth — revealing how language itself can shift culture, mindset, and relationship.

How We Work – Leah Weiss
A mindful guide to reconnecting purpose and sanity within the rhythm of work — a reminder that meaning is built moment by moment.

For Further Reflection

If you’d like to explore this theme more deeply, here is a blog post I wrote on the topic of Joy. And here is a worksheet on going into resting mode. May they support your own movement from burnout toward joy, meaning, and wholeness.

So grateful to be building a mindful life with you.
May you be well,

Shelly

Practice

A Practice for Space

Before you move on to your next task, take a moment.
Put your feet on the floor.
Let your body settle into the chair beneath you.
Take one deep, steady breath.
Then another.

Notice the quiet within and around you.
This is the space where restoration begins — where creativity and joy reawaken.