In 1974, Herbert Freudenberger, a German-born American psychologist, noticed something that intrigued him. An increasing number of his patients were presenting with similar conditions of mental and physical exhaustion connected to their professional life. He was the first person to coin the phrase ‘burn out' as a way to describe the exhaustion he was witnessing. What Freudenberger saw was that people were experiencing a significant impact on their health and wellbeing connected to the busyness of what consumed their time. For most people, that's work.

Over the past 40-odd years, burn out has become not only an idea to coin but, for many professionals in the Western world, also a way of operating — the new norm. In order to step into Stand Out, we need to focus on strategies to combat being in the state of Burn Out. While our first reaction might be to jump off the treadmill and do less, this step back into inactivity can lead to us slipping back into Check Out. Instead, the way to vitality and health is through values. Knowing the ‘why' behind the work and having a clear intent behind your actions begins with defining what's important, and then designing a values-aligned life and defending these values. This process of define, design and defend is covered over the next three chapters.

Let's start by getting clear on what actually matters.