We were lucky to catch up with Hiba Khaled recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hiba, so great to have you with us today. There are so many topics we want to ask you about, but perhaps the one we can start with is burnout. How have you overcome or avoided burnout?
During my anesthesia residency, I failed my board exam. It was one of my biggest failures and I was not prepared for how it would make me feel. As someone who had experienced a lot of success in her life and did well in school, I was humbled by the failure and embarrassed by the fact that I had failed an essential component of my residency. I did eventually pass when I re-did the exam, but by the end of my time in residency, I was feeling completely deflated physically, mentally, and emotionally. In retrospect, it’s not surprising that I failed. I was working long hours in a high-stakes job, and studying in whatever spare time I could find around my work schedule. This came at the expense of my sleep, physical activity and social engagements. I was completely burnt out.
At the time, I didn’t realize I was burnt out because I knew the work would be stressful and it seemed normal that I was stressed, just like everyone else around me. Looking back, I was slowly disengaging and feeling apathetic about the meaning of my work. I took a break and volunteered in rural, resource-constrained hospitals in Uganda to reconnect with my sense of purpose, but it didn’t solve my burnout. It was only after I went to Harvard for graduate school that I had time for deep introspection and was able to identify the patterns that led to my burnout. For example, being a doctor gave me a sense of belonging to a community of people I respected who shared similar values. It connected me to my father, who passed away one month before the start of my internship. When I exhausted my coping mechanisms for stress, I started to feel a sense of imposter syndrome, of feeling not good enough to be a doctor because I felt the pressure of the system and work take their toll on me. My sense of belonging to my medical community and to my father, whom I was very close to, was threatened, which made me feel alone in my struggle. The desire to belong to the medical community was initially a barrier to my recovery.
Through a process of renegotiation of my identities and priorities, and committing to living my life authentically and meaningfully, I started to not only recover but have sustainable change that broke the cyclical pattern of burnout. This journey of recovery transformed my life from simply surviving to creating a dream life filled with joy and meaning.
Let’s take a small detour – tell us more about you, your story and what you are focused on professionally?
Through my personal transformation journey, I slowed down and reevaluated how I wanted to navigate life. Meditation became a game-changer, leading me to discover my inner voice and embrace my intuition. The clarity I gained from meditation, spurred the birth of Embers Consulting and Coaching, a venture started with my dear friend and business partner, Maria, an incredible health and leadership coach who embodies the values of our company. Together, we’re on a mission to help ambitious individuals and organizations bounce back from burnout, foster balance, and excel without sacrificing wellbeing.
Much like diagnosing patients with risk factors for disease, we pinpoint modifiable and non-modifiable elements contributing to burnout. For example, when I assess the risk of developing heart disease in a patient, I look at their family history (non-modifiable risk factor) and their lifestyle (modifiable factors), then to help reduce their risk of developing heart disease, we aim to work with the factors that we can change such as their nutrition, exercise, alcohol and tobacco consumption. Similarly, while the inherent stress of certain professions remains, like we see in healthcare professions, accounting, and banking for example, our focus is on reshaping reactions to stress, identifying modifiable risk factors, and zeroing in on strategies to mitigate them.
What sets our approach apart is the transformation we facilitate is not just profound but enduring. By first establishing a strong foundation of health, we empower our clients to hone their leadership skills through adaptive leadership—a framework I learned and taught at Harvard Kennedy School. This approach targets the root causes of a problem while helping improve capacity so that we don’t fall back into cyclical patterns of burnout. Our work is about enabling people to live their dream lives from a place of wellness, ultimately benefiting themselves, their families, communities, and workplaces.
We’re currently accepting applications for our one-on-one coaching programs, the Embers’ Experience, for ambitious professionals who are seeking balance in their busy lives.
We are thrilled to be hosting our first wellbeing and leadership retreat, Elevate, in Greece this May, for high-level professionals eager to prioritize wellbeing and refine their leadership skills. Apply early as spots are limited!
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
As I mentioned before, when I was burnt out, I didn’t recognize that I had a problem at the time as it was happening. I needed to take a step back and slow down to reassess my situation.
Awareness is the first step to recognizing there’s an issue that requires us to make a change. It’s like hitting the pause button, taking a step back, and seeing the bigger picture. When life gets tough, it’s easy to get stuck in the moment and lose sight of things.
Once we figure out we’re burnt out, the next move is to increase our capacity—both personally and within our workplace. It’s about getting better at handling stress and giving ourselves more options.
Stress has this knack for pushing us into all-or-nothing reactions, like fight or flight. And that can significantly impact every part of our lives—work decisions, relationships, even our health. Suddenly, we’re too busy to care about eating right, staying active, or getting enough quality sleep, all of which mess with our stress management.
Lastly, accountability- that’s gold in the burnout recovery game. Having the right support to make burnout recovery long lasting is key. It not only makes us feel less alone in the journey, knowing someone’s got your back when things get rough, but both research and our own work shows that having accountability increases our chances of success by up to 95%!
My invitation to anyone who is feeling overwhelmed or burnt out right now, is to ask yourself, to what end will I allow myself to continue feeling this way before I finally make a change?
Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?
I have non-negotiable routines woven into my daily life that really keep me grounded. Morning and night, you’ll find me meditating—it’s my way of starting and wrapping up the day. And movement? That’s absolutely essential. Whether it’s a walk around the city or a full-blown workout, I have to move every single day.
We’re all different, and there’s no one-size-fits-all stress management solution. My advice? Figure out what works for you and make it a non-negotiable part of your daily routine. Just like we schedule time for work, penciling in activities that keep us grounded is a game-changer for preventing overwhelm.
We often see exercise, healthy eating, and mindfulness as luxuries, especially when stress hits. But ironically, they’re the exact things that save us from burning out when stress increases. That’s why, when I start to experience overwhelm, I double down on practices, places and people that keep me anchored. What helps me is reconnecting with nature, eating nutritious and wholesome meals that help re-energize me and keep my mind clear, increasing my movement to help move the energy through my body, journalling also helps me from overthinking. These are all things that help me maintain my wellbeing and capacity.
Over the last few years, I’ve developed a toolkit to help me manage my nervous system when I’m acutely stressed. One of my go to techniques that works in 2 minutes or less is box breathing, which reflects a four-step breathing process. You can do this anytime by counting slowly to four for each phase: inhale, hold, exhale, and the pause after exhaling. This is a potent tool for activating the parasympathetic nervous system that takes us from fight or flight to a more restful state.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.emberscc.com
- Instagram: @iamhibakhaled, @embers_cc
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hiba.jo.9
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hiba-khaled-4294151b0/
- Twitter: @doctorhiba
Image Credits
Aileen Michel Escalera Garcia Nina Mucalov Joshua David Pineda Flores
