Burnout can look like success right up until the moment your body refuses to cooperate. We’re joined by Jobert Abueva, originally from the Philippines, who shares what happened when years of nonstop global travel and high-stakes performance finally caught up with him and dropped him into a breaking point in a Hong Kong hotel room.
What follows isn’t a quick fix. It’s an honest look at how sustainable change actually happens when you’re exhausted, lonely, and tired of living for everyone else’s definition of winning.
We dig into Jobert’s three-question reset for any transition:
What’s working? What can I set down? What lessons are these years trying to teach me?
From journaling and facing hard patterns to stepping away from a draining role and returning to a childhood passion for writing, Jobert lays out practical ways to reconnect with your values, your mental health, and your sense of purpose. We also talk about achievement culture, people pleasing, and why the “clues” to your authentic self often show up early, then get buried under pressure and expectations.
Jobert breaks down his book, The Janus Plan , and the six-step approach he uses to reflect on the past, set meaningful goals, declutter life’s noise, build supportive rituals, and revisit commitments throughout the year. If you’re searching for work-life balance, a faith-informed reset, and a clear framework for personal growth without guilt or performative hustle, this conversation will meet you right where you are.
Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a reset, and leave a review to support the show. What’s one thing you’re ready to set down today?
To connect with Jobert visit his website: https://joberteabueva.com/book/
To download a free chapter of host Sylvia Worsham’s bestselling book, In Faith, I Thrive: Finding Joy Through God’s Masterplan, purchase any of her products, or book a call with her, visit her website at www.sylviaworsham.com
Transcript:
If you’ve ever struggled with fear, doubt, or worry, and wondering what your true purpose was all about, then this podcast is for you. In this show, your host, Sylvia Warsham, will interview elite experts and ordinary people that have created extraordinary lives. So here’s your host, Sylvia Warsham.
I’ve still got a lot of fire left in me.
Hey Lightbringers, it’s Sylvia Warsham. Welcome to Release That Reveal Purpose. And today is Jobert Abueva. He is originally from the Philippines, and he is someone that understands what it is to keep going and to at one point stop and look back. Because in his own life, in his own journey, he learned that sometimes in our journey, we learn it a very hard way through pivotal moments, through major changes. I’m not sure what his story is. I do know that when we turn and look behind us, we see the lessons that God intends to teach us to equip his children for the journey ahead. And when we apply those lessons, is when we get to level up in our journey. And then it starts all over again. Because as we journey and we stake obedient steps forward in faith, he reveals more of our path to us. And it’s until we transition, and I always say graduate into heaven, is when we’ve reached that pinnacle. We’ve learned what he intends for us to learn to prepare us for the eternal life that awaits us. So without further ado, Joe Bird, thank you so much for joining us on Released Out Reveal Purpose.
Thank you, Sylvia. It’s such a pleasure to be here.
I’m really encouraged, but I what I read in your biography. Could you honor us with that amazing story of transformation that led you to this space where you now encourage others to turn and look and ask three very poignant reflective questions to get us back to center?
Absolutely. I will never forget the day, September 6, 1997. That’s about 39 years ago. And I was waking up in a hotel room in Hong Kong. I could not get out of bed. I had this splitting headache. I was intoxicated. I was exhausted because I had been through 24-7 round-the-clock budget meetings. I had been traveling all over the world for three and a half years launching Claryl Herbal Essences shampoo and conditioner, a very well-known brand here in North America. My job was to launch it as quickly as possible across Central Eastern Europe, Israel, Turkey, and all throughout Asia Pacific. So I was on the go, go, go, but on that very morning, everything came to a full stop because I had just broken down. I was exhausted, overeating, overdrinking, working nonstop. I was homesick, I was lonely, and I just figured that this was the lowest point I had hit, and I had to find a way out of it. And what happened was I was brought back to a memory when I was nine years old, when I discovered in the Encyclopædia Britannica that my family owned, this image of Janus, the ancient Roman god of beginnings, endings, and transitions. And for some reason, I associated the fact that I was in this low point as a threshold, not unlike the dual vision that Janice has, looking to the past with honesty and looking to the future with clarity. And I thought that was indeed the point where I had to take stock of everything that led me to that low point and to find my way out of it so that I could be more sustainable, more intentional in how I improve my well-being. And to what you said, there were three questions that came to mind at that point, which I spent time with, if not days. Question number one was what was all the good that was happening in my life? Because the opportunity to travel the world and to launch products is exciting. That is a unique opportunity. So I wrote everything positive in that regard. And I did that because I wanted to be grateful for it and I wanted to celebrate it. Having said that, the second question that came to mind is what can I put down? What can I lay down so that I can lighten my burden, the pain I was feeling in it? And that’s when I started to confront all the behavior that was hurting me and all the psychological conversation I had, thinking that failures for losers, and I had to accomplish at all costs. I came to understand those themes just by taking time with that second question. But the third question, perhaps the most challenging, was what were these years trying to teach me? What were the true lessons? And that is uh a little more challenging because it requires the deepest type of self-reflection. Sometimes it’s painful, it’s embarrassing, it’s hurtful. But the only way I could get through all of this was to be brutally honest with myself. And that’s perhaps where the light started to show that there was a way forward and that I could start to repair myself, both my battered self, both physically and emotionally, and then to start coming up with goals, sustainable goals, to change the trajectory of my life so that I could be a more whole person and I could be of better service to the folks around me. Uh, unlike that low point I had been experiencing on that very day.
I’ve heard so many interviews where that pivotal moment is just exhaustion from the go, go, go. Because in the United States, it’s all about achievement. I mean, I fell trapped to the same thing you fell trapped to, and it’s easy to do because the subliminal messaging out there that our mind is always taking in with no filter is if you are not succeeding by achieving, you are a failure. And that’s simply not true because success, I always say, instead of beauty is the eye of the beholder, success in the eye of the beholder as well, in that success means very different things to different people. It used to mean that for me as well, because I was raised by a type A perfectionist, high-achieving father who became a medical doctor in this country, and then just proceeded to get the highest achievement possible in his career and expected his children to do the same, or they would be considered failures, right? And I rebelled against that, which is a hard thing to do in such a conservative family. And I was the oldest to top it off. I’m supposed to be leading by example, and I was the one rebelling, saying, I don’t want to be a lawyer, I don’t want to be a doctor. That is not for me. I want to do something different. And that went completely contrary to that message that my father had received upon stepping foot in this country, in that she’s not gonna be successful unless she achieves. And I find our stories very similar in that aspect because you fell from exhaustion and then you used three questions that centered you and you were able to pivot from that. But I’m assuming there’s more to the story here, Joe Bird, because people are gonna hear this and go, really? He just asked himself those three questions and he was able to pivot out of there. Can you share with us how, in fact, did you pivot from answering these questions in relatable terms for the listeners?
Thank you.
Yeah, Sylvia. So I don’t want people to get the impression that this just happened one, two, three over a span of, let’s say, even three days. This was weeks and weeks of really understanding where I had fallen down and really thinking about what really mattered in my life. And I know you and I, and perhaps many listeners, we all reach a point somewhere. It’s too bad that sometimes we reach to a breaking point and even ignored the signals along the way. But if we can be more aware of those signals, then we can start to address the issue at hand. For me, it was a lot of iteration, if you will. I have a journal, I believe in writing things down. That was very helpful. And then I’m also a bit analytical, and I even had on a spreadsheet the number of hours I was lacking in sleep versus the number of missed calls or emails that people were starting to bug me with. I mean, that’s hard data that fake you have to face head on, and saying, I’m not doing enough here. Why is that? Or is there a deeper root cause to all of this? And I think it’s my in the end, I came up with themes of trying to chase achievement and ambition because I’m young, I can do it all. And I also, like you, had a family of high achievers. And the last thing we want to do is disappoint our families. Uh, you you mentioned your background, my background is a Filipino. We come from cultures where family is important. And there is nothing greater than my mother’s pride in her children. That she wants to amplify that with her world. And so I did not want to disappoint. But in the end, I had to reach a point where I did ended up disappointing myself. And therefore, I needed to pivot towards a direction that would work more for me, that was more me, and just to jump ahead, I was able to take a bit of a sabbatical and to start writing again. Because one of the things I learned is that part of my dissatisfaction with my life was that I had ignored this passion I’ve had for writing ever since I was a young kid. My mother had my first poem published in the Manila Chronicle when I was six years old. I still remember that moment. And that carried with me that there was some magic and excitement in creativity and writing things down. So after I had that downfall, I quit my job. I took time to recuperate and rejuvenate, and I started taking writing classes. And I attended the new school in New York, the Gotham Writers Workshop, and I started to write and write about my experiences and even painful episodes from my childhood. And that was part of the broader repair of myself that I am so grateful for. And it also opened up a whole new avenue of writing for different publications. I ended up writing my boyhood memoir, and I got to write the Janice Plan, which is my latest book, my latest project. And the Janice Plan is all about that experience and the framework and approach that ended up coming out of this painful episode, where I was able to ask the right questions, take the proper actions, so that I was more aligned with my true self and go after the goals I really wanted in life, which was to express myself more through writing, to still have a career, but to do it with more honor for work-life balance and to appreciate my loved ones, family, and friends, who are the greatest safety net support when things can get really rough.
I love that. I can’t tell you how much I love that because you gave us a framework of what worked for you, in that you took the time for self-care. Because after years of travel, years of being in meetings, and your body’s exhausted, and you’ve got to take care of it, or it will humble you really fast. And that’s what it did with me. It humbled me, brought me from the top of my game to a hospital room facing six doctors. That is not something I wish on anyone. Now the one question that kept being persistent, so we I sense it’s the Holy Spirit asking it, is what was the most difficult lesson you learned in this journey?
I want to say there are many lessons, but perhaps one of the most difficult, Sylvia, is that I cannot please everyone. I have to first take care of myself. And in order to please anyone sustainably, I have to be truthful to myself, honest with myself about the direction I want to take in life. And one of the things that came out of this episode was not having to be so self-centered. Because when you’re at the top of your game in a career and everything is jet-set lifestyle, and you believe you’re making all that impact, you think it’s amazing. And you really keep focus on yourself. I had the opportunity by taking that pause, that sabbatical, to step away from myself when you no longer have the title or all the doodads, the accoutrements, the perks of your executive lifestyle. Uh you’re you’re really with yourself. And that’s where you have to dig deep and understand what is going to be the source of your happiness, what is going to be the source of your light so that you can move forward with intention and even have a different kind of impact on others and the world where there’s more of that alignment with your true self. So coming back to what you asked, uh, it’s you can’t be pleasing everyone. You can’t satisfy everyone. You have to learn to satisfy yourself, but also be in service of others and then go from there. Just know that um that’s just the reality of life.
Well, and it’s something that the Lord kind of commands us to do anyway. So you look at his two top commandments, it’s love me first, put me first, and then love others as you love yourself. You can’t love and serve others if you don’t love and serve yourself. And that’s the gist of that commandment. And what I find about your story, again, once, once again, a true alignment piece here.
What he’s taking from these high achievers is that identity piece. And the Lord is now redeeming that piece over to who are you in him? Forget about who you are with all of this on you. Who are you really at your core? Who are you authentically? What is your light about? What are your values? Like what defines who you are? Jobert, right? And what I found in a great deal of these interviews is people go back to what they did as children, what lit them up. And you were writing. I wrote a lot. My fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Barrera, even told me, you have a talent for writing. And I, it was always there. The clue is always there, and we miss it. Why do you think people miss those clues, Jobert?
I think a lot of it has to do with a comment you made earlier, which is there is a lot of expectation on us. I think there’s something ingrained in our culture where the individual has to rise and we have to find our path. And there is just a lot of self-created pressure that we put on ourselves. We don’t want to disappoint folks, we don’t want to disappoint ourselves. And because we are so focused on the prize that we believe is the prize, we forget about the other perspectives we have. Or to your point, what are the gifts that are God-given gifts that we tend to be setting us, just pushing to the side? And I think that’s why I’m all for having retreats with ourselves. You don’t have to necessarily go to an exotic place. Maybe it can be at the end of the year, or it could be at the end of three, the quarter, three months, or half year. Find a time to reset and just pause, spend time with yourself to reflect on all of these things. What am I missing? Is there something that’s speaking to me that I have been ignoring? It’s it’s almost like being an archaeologist and digging into the artifacts of your life. Like what is really happening versus what may be performative? And I, you know, it’s it’s kind of like social media. You know, social media, a lot of people want to put their best versions of their lives out there. We’re traveling here, we’re acquiring this. That’s great. And I’m all for that. But we have to also remember the times when we don’t post about things that are, you know, just nagging us or telling us there is something else going on here that needs attention. So I like that it was writing for you, it was writing for me as well. And I too had teachers who said that my essays were wonderful and even had me read them in front of the class. So those were moments of pride that now that we’re talking about them, they’re all flooding back to me, all these memories, because they were there all along. And I’m just grateful that I had the opportunity in my life to actually address it and to embrace the writer in me. And that’s why I’m so thankful. And that’s why I love sharing the message through my writing and through my books.
Yes, because our wisdom that we gain as we journey through these trials and tribulations is what we’re meant to share. We’re not meant to keep it for ourselves to improve ourselves and only ourselves. We’re here to serve humanity as the body of Christ. We are all brothers and sisters in that one big family. And when I look at someone I’m interviewing, someone like you, for example, I’m I’m here to serve you because your message is helping other people on the opposite side of this interview. And that’s what we’re all here to do with each other’s skill sets. That’s why the competition that exists between companies, I find kind of, I’m sure the Lord is like looking down on us, going, hi, these children, why are they competing with each other? They’re supposed to be working together. And I find it hard to accept. I wasn’t always that way, though. It took a while. It took journeying and facing six doctors in a hospital room. It took surrendering to the Lord because I was facing an eighty p 80% chance of dying. There’s like no choice but to pivot. It’s either that or die. And so it’s like I he knows he has certain stubborn children that don’t listen unless they get stopped dead in their tracks. I was just one of them. And but I’m grateful for it. Between you and I, I’m grateful for it because if I had continued working for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, I would have been extremely stressed out. I wouldn’t have the life I have today. I wouldn’t be in front of you. I wouldn’t have a podcast. I wouldn’t have published books. I wouldn’t have traveled with my family. I wouldn’t have been able to devote time to my children. And there were things that I wanted to do that I couldn’t if I was going to be the top saleswoman in the country for Pfizer, which is what I was when all this went down. I keep seeing your book in the background, The Janice Plan, which I know is your latest book. Tell us more about the other themes in that book. I know it’s mostly about this experience you talked on the podcast and the three reflective questions, but what other themes came about and how did you come about with the idea for the book?
Sure. So I did share with you the story of Janice, how I first came across Janice when I was nine years old, and that image stuck with me, looking to the past, the future, dual vision. And I have been practicing, I did not have a name for it, but I’ve been practicing for the past three decades since my uh low point, this idea of at the end of each year, really spending time to reflect on what the year had taught me. And that became step one of a six-step Janus plan. Step one is to ponder the past, to really recognize those lessons, those luminous moments in the year, because by spending time with them, we can celebrate them. We can also face what was difficult. And that is a lovely framing for step two, which is to frame the future. This is where the goal setting comes in, but it’s a different approach to goal setting where you can have sustainable goals because they are based on real lessons from the past year that you have identified. And of course, they can be SMART goals. People have heard of the corporate speak SMART, specific, measurable, achievable, uh relevant, and time-bound, but it’s more than that. It’s also goals that really matter to you as a person. Step three is to nudge the now. I believe that every year there are a number of things we procrastinate on that are really kind of burdening us. If we can identify one or two of these items to address head-on, we will feel much lighter as we head into the new year. Step four, tied to that, is clean and clear, not only clean our surroundings physically, but also mentally, digitally, um, financially. There are a lot of opportunities to declutter, to clear our minds and to make our bodies feel more refreshed. And I like to use the framing of doing that as we enter a new year. Step five is revel in ritual. I believe that ritual is so important in again, acknowledging the past, but then looking to the future with clarity and with confidence. And then step six is that it’s part of the cycle to revisit and reignite across the year, to revisit our goals, to understand what has been good, bad, even ugly from month to month just by having those check-ins along the way. I like to call them Janice check-in moments, that we we’re keeping an eye on ourselves and our roadmaps and our journeys. And we can pivot or, you know, switch things up along the way as things don’t matter anymore or as things come up in life, because life is dynamic. I wanted to share with you this framework for the Janice Plan, which is in the book. And it has served me really well. And I hope that this approach could serve others as well.
Definitely. I mean, even the declutter one was the one I love the most because I live with people that don’t like to declutter. Oh my.
We know, we know those.
And I really need to because when you have ADD and your mind is constantly racing, the cleaner your environment is, the more organized it is, the more organized your mind is. And so these concepts are are near and dear to my heart. And I know they definitely will be beneficial for those on the other side of this interview.
Any last words of encouragement, uh, Jilbert, that you want to leave our listeners with? And if we wanted to purchase your books, how do we find you?
Thank you, Sylvia. So, what I would like to leave people with are those three questions. Whenever you’re in a transition or thinking about a challenge or facing a new year or a new chapter in your life, what’s working? What can you set down? And what lessons are really being taught to you? Just spending time with those questions, open up some really interesting conversations for yourself going forward. The Janice Plan, a no resolutions path to begin your year with intention, is available now uh on through any bookseller online. There’s also an audible version. And my website, if people want to learn more about the Janus Plan, is Joberteva.com. And I welcome conversations. I want to hear how the Janus Plan is working for folks. Please consider me a resource on all the principles and practices of the Janus Plan.
Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Jobert. I really appreciated all the wisdom you shared, all the relatable tips. I thought of a very good book that also would be in communion with your book because it talks a lot about getting to know yourself again. And that’s The Artist Way by Julia Cameron. And I would take myself on artist dates just to go back to what was it that I loved as a child? And what did I like doing? And all these memories and things would flood back because she would do these workshops in New York City. And then her friends encouraged her to put a book out, which I’m so grateful for. One of my former mentors who also was my photographer in all the major events in my life, he became a life coach and he’s a voracious reader. He’s the one that introduced me to that book. And I’m I pull it out from time to time. I have so many notations everywhere. And this was years and years ago when I read this book. And it really was a profound uh journey for me. And I’m sure your book complements it very, very well.
Thank you for mentioning that book because what we’ve found out, people have even played back to me that the Janice Plant is at the intersection of her book, Atomic Habits and 4,000 Weeks. So think of those three titles together, and there is something in there in the Janus Plant for all of you.
So of course, you know, we we know that God is actually the author of all of these books. And it’s a message he wants to leave with his children. He wants all of us to step into our light fully, to step into who we authentically were created to be without all these layers of modeling and expectations and people pleasing and role modeling, that things that just happened to us when we were kids that formed all these belief systems that are simply not true. And he wants to free us from all of that. And so I encourage the listeners of Release That Reveal Purpose to be like Jobart, to step into the light, to be the light, according to Matthew 5.14 in scripture. Be the light. Step into it with courage, with strength, with faith, even if you don’t know where you’re going.
Yeah.
Don’t wait till something horrible happens to you. And you may not get the chance. I was lucky in that the Lord stepped in and protected me from needing a liver transplant because my body was creating these blood clots that were blocking the blood flow to my liver. And all these crazy situations that the body does because of the amount of stress that it takes on, because we fall trapped to these expectations. And our body, it wasn’t built for that level of stress. It wasn’t built for that level of expectation. I mean, the Lord Himself loves us so much. He’s made a way for us to be with Him eternally. He doesn’t want us to be achieved, achieve, achieve, and then not enjoy. That’s why He created rest on the seventh day. And we guy, we always forget that part. We think we have to keep going. We don’t. We don’t. And He’s asking us to slow down. And He’s asking us to pause for presence. And He’s asking us to take ourselves on dates and to rediscover who He created us to be. So I’m gonna leave you guys with that message. And just wish everyone a blessed rest of your day. Thanks again, Jilbert, for joining us on Released Doubt Reveal Purpose.
So that’s it for today’s episode of Released Doubt Reveal Purpose. Head on over to iTunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review on iTunes. We’ll win a chance the grand prize drawing to win a $25,000 private VIP day with Sophia Workshop Herself. Be sure to head on over to sylviaworsham.com and pick up a free copy of Sylvia’s gift and join us on the next episode.