Dealing with Burnout When You Do Work That You Freakin’ Love

Episode Transcript
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George B. Thomas (00:03):
Set boundaries and communicate. Ladies and
gentlemen, this is a big one.You have to set those boundaries
and make sure people know aboutthem. We we actually did an
entire podcast episode onboundaries. And if you wanna do
a deep dive or dive deep intothat conversation, just listen
to the episode setting healthyboundaries that fortify your
path, foster growth, and createpeace because boundaries are

(00:27):
huge.
Here's the deal. Let yourcolleagues, employees, families,
friends, clients know whenyou're available. More
importantly, when you're not.Listen, I've gotten really good
at, like, 5 15, 5:30 saying,done. I'm gonna go live life now
because I've been working sincex y z time in the morning.

(00:48):
I'm trying to get better withthat on at least one day one day
on the weekends too. I'mdefinitely still trying to make
it a focal point on, like,vacations. When I'm on vacation,
it's done. We're over. So LouHolt's, quotes, it's not the
load that breaks you down.
It's the way you carry it. WhenI think about that quote, I

(01:08):
think about are you carrying italone? Are you carrying too much
of it? You know, the mountains,the hills. So I don't know who
I'm talking to here, but ifyou're listening to this and
this resonates, then please justtake it and run with it.
It's okay to say I'm offlineafter 6 PM.

Liz Moorehead (01:29):
Welcome back to Beyond Your Default. I'm your
host, Liz Morehead. And asalways, I'm joined by the one,
the only George b Thomas, and ithas been so long since we've
been on the mic together.

It feels like forever, which is crazy. I don't
I don't necessarily like thatfeeling, but I'm glad to be
here. I'm glad to be talkingabout this topic, and I'm also
glad that it's after all of thethings that I've done over the
last, like, 2 weeks. So there'sthat.

Well, before we dig into all of that, talk to
me. Highlight, lowlight from theweekend. What do you got for me?

Yeah. And I I think I'll extend past the
weekend since it has been awhile since we recorded. The
highlight for me is we're comingback from a marketing slash
sales slash conference. Ifyou're listening to this, you
might not be in the HubSpot orinbound space, but there's a an
event called inbound. Thehighlight is this year, I have

(02:29):
reached something that I'venever reached before, and that
is I spoke 5 times at inboundthis year.
Yeah. So we had these 2 latenights with George b Thomas and
Friends shows, and then I did adebate. And then I got to do my
actual talk on the future ofcontent, human and AI harmony,

(02:49):
basically, and then had anencore for that. So it it means
that I got to meet a lot ofpeople, shake a lot of hands,
all of that good stuff. The lowlight, is also around that event
or, dare I say, getting to andcoming from that event.
My wife went with me and alittle side note. I love my
wife, but my my wife hates tofly. Usually, when I fly, it's

(03:12):
like there's no harm, no foul,like, things just go the way
they're supposed to go, but Ifeel like maybe it's because my
wife was with me. On the way, wegot delayed. On the way, there
was literally a captain who cameon and said, there's something
hanging off the wing that we'regoing to check before we take
off.
To which my wife looked at meand said, what did he just say?

(03:35):
Because she was watching yourmovie. I said, you don't wanna
know. But she watched yourentire movie on the tarmac
before we even took off. Andthen on the way back home, well,
let's just say we were delayed 3hours before we actually took
off, and we ended up gettinghome at, like, 1:30 AM in the
morning.
So I was, like, note to self,traveling with wife, maybe stay

(03:57):
in a car, maybe don't doairplanes, but the event was
amazing. Traveling and beingwith her was amazing. It was
just getting here and there thatwas slightly the low light for
us. How about you, Liz?

Oh, man. It has been a wild couple of weeks, and
I'm very excited to say that myhighlight and my low light are
related. So I had a prettysignificant health scare over
the past week. And you and Italked about it a bit yesterday,
and I made a comment about hownormally when we hop on the mic

(04:33):
and somebody's getting humbledby a health scare, it's Liz
getting to ask very incisivequestions of George

Yes.

About his experience. And now the shoe had
switched to the other foot. Andit was one of those situations
where you have to let theprocess work itself. Meaning, I
had to spend a lot of time assomeone who is a control freak,
as someone who doesn't like towait for things waiting, and

(05:01):
really working with myself tonot doomsday predict, to not
lapse into fatalistic thinking.And it really burns me out
because as a result, I had to beresponsible.
I didn't get to go to theconference. I needed to stay
here. There were things I had todo in order to be present. And
so for the past, gosh, week ish,I've had to find ways to stay

(05:27):
positive and not or at leaststay functional and not kinda
bottom out.

Yeah. Yeah. Which is, first of all, it's a
lot of energy. It's hard. Beenon the other side.
Proud of what you've been doingand how you've been doing it, by
the way. And it's funny becauseI'm sitting here nodding my head
as you're going through this,and I'm like, yeah. We could
teach the health care system athing or 2 about customer
experience and, like, streamlinecommunication processes. Yeah.

(05:56):
But I don't think they care.

No. I don't think they care, and I will say the
care team at Johns Hopkins wereincredible. Think about our
customer experience. Right?Like, if someone is having a
hard time, us being overlypositive in a sincere and
authentic way, in a proactiveproblem solving way, that is
much more feasible than adoctor.

(06:19):
It's like, we can't get creativehere. Right? You know? Yeah. And
if you don't have answers, youcan't fake having answers.
If you don't have optimism, youcan't fake having optimism. I
will say, though, having beenwith other doctors, I agree.
Some of them, it's like, hey,cupcake. I understand we don't
have answers. But can youremember this is a whole ass

(06:39):
human in front of you Yeah.
Who maybe hasn't been herebefore?

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's funny because I'm
reflecting on one in particulardoctor. And, actually, on
today's topic, I'm like, oh,maybe he was burnt out because
he had no 0. I mean, maybenegative 20 bedside manner as I
laid there wondering if I wasever gonna leave the hospital.

(07:04):
But, anyway, not one of

the It's so funny. I had I had a similar one
when I was younger. My dad waswith me, and he's like, okay. So
you're just gonna have to suckthis up because he sucks when it
comes to bedside manner, buthe's the best at

what he does. So we need

him effective there. We don't need to him to
be your best friend. I'm like,okay. But the highlight is that
I got the call this morning.

Oh, nice.

That I am all clear.

There we go. I need an applause button.

I know. I almost told you before, but I literally
got the call at 8:15 thismorning. And what was so funny
about it is that you spend funnyNot really. It was a highlight
for me for obvious reasons. ButI would say

healthy is a good thing.

Being healthy is a good thing. But one of the
things you and I talked aboutleading up to this is that, you
know, I hope I get to the end ofthis and say, like, this is a
great exercise in emotionalclarity. And it really was. What
is baffling though is that youspent days, hours just, like,
constantly thinking and quoteunquote not thinking about this.

I know where you're going.

And then in a 5 minute thing, it's Gone. Gone.
But it's Yeah.

Isn't that crazy?

Hit and run?

Yeah. Isn't that crazy how your brain just
like, okay. Thanks. Bye. Thanks.
I'm done.

Oh, you're good? Great. Fantastic. Like, that
existential crisis was superfun. Let's never do that again.
But it was very clarifying in anumber of ways.

I feel like that could be a whole future
podcast episode of, like

Well, now we've gotten

to the meets clarity.

When Liz meets well, now we've gotten to the
part, George, where, like,remember how I made a joke of,
like, we could make contentabout this. You're like, I don't
know about that. And I said,this is me coping. Yeah. We now
can do that.
Emotionally clarifying in acouple of specific ways. One, it
really made me mindful aboutrest, which I did not expect.
Like, I had to be really carefulwith myself over the past week

(09:04):
about how much I engaged withother people, how much I poured
myself into work, but also madesure I had to stop being really
careful about everything I wasdoing because I was as tightly
wound as one could possibly be.And it was over something I was
keeping private and I didn'twant people to know. Like, I
told you Yeah.

(09:24):
And I told, like, one otherperson. And then it also made me
really mindful about I was goingthrough a week in a haze where I
didn't know if I was gonna comeout the other side with
something of potentiallycatastrophic diagnosis.

Right.

I didn't know. Because what we were dealing
with is, like, I could begetting a diagnosis where it's
fixable. I could be getting adiagnosis where it's way too
far. Like, there is a completelike, it's a scatter plot of
what the other side of thatcould have looked like if the
answer had been different.

Which is always exciting.

I love that. It's the kind of spice we love in
life. Right?

Yeah.

That's not the salt and pepper I think you and
I talk about on

this on this show. Not really.

Yeah. No. That's humor, not this. But it also
made me very mindful andobservant of where am I spending
my time. I have a 1,000 quote,unquote little projects that I'm
working on.
What are the ones that areactually important? What are the
ones that have accidentallygobbled up the ones I should be
focusing on?

Oh, yes.

It made me do a lot of thinking about certain
relationships that I have in mylife where it's like, so has
this run its course, it juststarted making me ask the right
questions. And I'm glad I havethe opportunity again to do
something about it. You know? Sothat was a big, highly big, you
know. But yeah.

(10:40):
Man, this

is great. Listening like, I want details.
Well, maybe on a future podcast,we'll give you

a chance. Podcast. But right now, Liz is
just you know, Liz gets to keepLizzie, and that's what we're
all gonna be really happy abouttoday. I am also excited about
today's topic because this is atopic that people talk a lot
about. We talk about we'retalking about burnout, kids.
We're talking about burnout.Yeah. But when you and I sat
down to talk about this, wewanted to talk about it from a

(11:06):
very specific angle,

which

is a lot of times people talk about burnout in the
abstract. Right? Burnout in thecontext of maybe you like what
you do, maybe you don't. Wedon't know. It's just kind of
this nebulous cloud of burnout.
Right? Yeah. But what happenswhen you experience burnout
doing what you love? Becausethat's a horse of a different

(11:31):
color. And I know, George,that's something that's very
personal to you.

I mean, yeah. I love what I do. I mean, I'm
very passionate about manythings. And, I mean, if I kick
this back to, like, thesuperhuman framework, like, one
of the 4 cornerstones, one ofthe 4 pillars is literally,
like, passion and based onpurpose. It's very easy, I
think, for people to have thisconversation around burnout

(11:58):
when, like, you just clock in,clock out mentality, when you
sort of, like, hate what you do,but you do it because you need
to, like, pay the bills.
But when you're, like,purposefully passionate about
the things that you're doing,what does that look like in
dealing with that? I'm excitedto get into this.

Let's dive in with an easy question, shall we?

Oh, really? I thought this was the hardest
one. But okay. Go ahead. Goahead.
Let's do it.

I know. Well, I wanna bring some context to what
we're talking about. I don'twant us to start with let's
define burnout. Now I want todig right in. Have you ever had
to take a break from work youlove due to burnout?
And I want us, when you take usthrough the story, to talk about
what did the process ofaddressing and identifying that
burnout look like, and how didyou know when it was time to

(12:46):
come back?

Yeah. I wish I had a pretty story for this. But
first of all, I was excited whenI first started reading this
question because I realized itwas a one word answer. Yes. Yes.
I have. It's like, hey. Have youever had to take a break? Yes.
Can this conversation be over?
But I've I've actually had to doit.

I'm glad to be back on the mic. Do I have to
answer questions?

Yeah. Exactly. But I've had to do this several
times. And and by the way, inretrospect, in good ways and in
bad ways. Like, if I'm beinghonest with you and the audience
myself, historically, Liz, itusually ends up with me, like,
binging TV for a couple of dayswith copious amounts of snacks

(13:30):
and beverages, maybe like alarge blanket, all the lights
are off, or it ends up in that Iget sick and I'm in bed for
multiple days because I've,like, just run the course of,
like, just dragging me rightinto the ground.
Or let's be honest, there's beenconversations on this podcast
where I've been in the hospital,and, like, so we watched burnout

(13:54):
come, waved at it, let it passby, and kept on driving through.
In other words, historically,I've really sucked at this.
Like, I've just been bad, but itis also something that I've been
trying to focus on and getbetter at for, I'd say, probably
at least the last 5 to 6. Well,6 to 8, maybe 6 to 8 years that

(14:17):
I've been trying to focus onthis. Started with the first
time I ended up with in thehospital, and I was like, oh,
maybe hustle isn't the thingeven though good work ethic is,
but how do I manage that?
And the older I get, like, whenI was diagnosed with rheumatoid
arthritis, it's like, how okay.How do I start to pay attention
to my physical? How do I startto pay attention to my mental

(14:40):
signs that it's time for abreak? And and I got really
good, especially when we startedthe business at, like, designing
vacations, building in breaks,and kind of paying attention to
what I'll call this, like,burnout thermometer, if you
will.

I need more information on that.

Well, it's it's not as cool as it sounds.
Like, how can you tell thetemperature outside? Because
there's a thing called athermometer. Well, how can you
tell the temperature inside oroutside of you around the work
that you're doing? It's becauseyou pay attention to it, because
you have a gauge that measuresit.
It might sound strange, but myburnout thermometer is I can

(15:18):
literally feel. I'm using airquotes even though you can't see
this or if you're watching onYouTube or in the community, you
can. But I can feel physicallyand mentally when I'm close to
done done exhausted or moreimportantly when I need to
refuel. But an important pieceis before what I would call

(15:39):
burnout sets in. And so it'salmost like I can thread the
needle, if you will, or gleamingthe cube.
That's an old, Christian Slatermovie, by the way. But it's this
thing of, like, I can really getclose to it, but then pull
myself out before I get suckedinto the vortex of burnout. The
other part of your question,though, you asked about, like,

(16:01):
coming back.

Yeah. How do you know when to come back?

Yeah. So it's interesting because me for me
and, again, this is notpredicated on the conversation
of work that you hate, but workthat you love, and it's
predicated on almost like amission or passion or purpose
point. And so as far as comingback, like, it's interesting to
me how when you're passionateabout or love the work that you
do, how quickly the and, again,air quotes here, excitement or

(16:28):
desire to get back in the gamecomes in, like, real quick.
Like, as long as you giveyourself the time to do the
things, all of a sudden you'relike, oh, I'm ready to go back
and do the things that a minuteago or a day ago or an hour ago,
just depends, might have beenstressing me the heck out.

(16:51):
There's a great quote, Liz, froman unknown human that goes,
sometimes the best way to lovewhat you do is to step away for
a moment and come backrefreshed.
Notice in that quote, though, amoment. Like, there are days
when I just walk out into myyard barefoot and look up at the
sun for, like, 2 minutes, butthat helps me from getting

(17:13):
burnout. I just need a minute.There's times where I usually
don't take, like, a long lunch,but there are days I'll
purposely take a lunch and gowatch something on Netflix for,
like, 45 minutes because I needa break from the thing or the
day. So if I roll that up into anice little sandwich, George
sucked at it.

(17:33):
George tries to be good at it.Sometimes he sucks at it, and
sometimes he doesn't.

I think that's a very human answer, to be
perfectly honest. And I likewhat you said there about, you
know, sometimes you need to justtake a moment. It reminds me of
a a piece of writing advice Ialways give people when they're
working on content, and it's oneI sometimes have to remind me.
My remind remind myself of.You're not bad at writing.
You probably just need a break.Staring at something harder and

(17:58):
longer is not going to makeresults go faster or make your
brain work better. Andparticularly, when it comes to
writing, for some reason, peoplethink you like, let's just
pretend it's a business blogarticle. Right? And for those
who listen to this who don'tknow what I do for a living, I'm
a content strategist and contentcreator.
Like, that's what I do. That'smy whole business.

Right? She's dope, by the way. Let's just
throw that in there.

But the thing about it is that people have
this expectation that you aregoing to sit down and you are
going to write in order start tofinish your piece of content.
No. One of my favorite quotes isfrom Ernest Hemingway, and his
quote, ham fisted man that hewas with his words is the first
draft of anything is shit.Hemingway wasn't Hemingway on

(18:41):
his first draft. And yousometimes write it in parts.
You sometimes will put words ona screen. And sometimes when I'm
writing, I will write a piecethat's good. I will know the
next thing I need to write, butI do not know how to get there.
And I will just write in allcaps, something smart goes here.
And sometimes kittens just needto walk away.
You just need to walk away andlet your brain subconsciously

(19:02):
solve the problem in front ofyou. It boggles my mind how much
we expect ourselves to justperform and not allow,
particularly when it comes tocreativity, which by the way
needs to be its own episode.When it comes to creativity,
when it comes to doing thingsthat we love, we assume that

(19:22):
because we love it or we havethat intersection of we love
what we do and we are very goodat it, that we are just, you
know, snap your fingers and weperform. And we forget a couple
of things. 1, the rest piece.
You can't constantly beperforming. And 2, the
subconscious processes that wedon't see that come with what we

(19:44):
do. So, for example, let's sayyou're listening to this and
you're not a creative. You'renot a creator. You don't write.
You don't do whatever. You stillare a creative. You create
strategies from nothing. Yousolve problem. You find
solutions to problems fromnothing.
The act of creating somethingfrom nothing are the visible
processes that you see and theinvisible processes that you
will never see. But that'sstored for a different time. I

(20:07):
would be curious to hear fromyou though. Going back
specifically to burnout, how canwe avoid burnout if we're super
passionate about what we do orare in situations where we feel
like we cannot step away?

I find myself digging more into the minutiae
of your questions the more we dothis because I love that you
positioned it like we feel likewe can't step away. Because I
think the key phrase in thatjust might be feel like. I've
been there too. Feeling like youjust can't step away from the

(20:41):
work because it's so importantand you're so important and the
person that you're helping is soimportant. Being honest, I bet
we've all been there at somepoint in time.
You love what you do. You'repassionate about it. You're
driven by responsibility, andthat makes it feel like stepping
away, like, isn't even anoption. So you oh, now you start
to almost feel like caged orstuck. Here's the kicker.

(21:04):
Like, most of the time, that'smore perception than reality,
and we have to live in reality.Listen. Another great quote is,
burnout doesn't have to meangiving up on your passions, but
it does mean adjusting how youapproach them. And this idea of
reality versus perception andapproach, I think there's
something interesting to dive inand kind of, like, segment or

(21:28):
navigate that. When I thinkabout this, it's like, how can
we reframe that mindset or airquotes again, this feeling and
and actually give ourselves thefreedom, dare I say, the grace
to just breathe a little bit, tonot feel stuck, to not feel
caged.
And, Liz, I've got 3 keystrategies for you and the

(21:50):
listeners on this topic thismorning.

Getting my pen and paper.

Yeah. There you go. Get ready to take those
notes.

Friend. Not for me. I'm fine. Right.

Of course. Not you. It's it's the it's the
person next door that lives.Okay. So Speak directly,

Mike, please.

So yeah. So there's 3 things that we're
gonna hit upon. Is it trulyimpossible? Break it down and
set boundaries and communicatethem. So is it truly impossible?
Like, I'm at, really? Like so sofirst things first. We've gotta
ask ourself, is it trulyimpossible to step away and

(22:24):
really think about it? Whatwould actually happen if you
took a break? Would the wholething come crashing down?
Would your world explode? Orwould things just maybe move a
little slower? Most of the time,it's the slower versus the
explosion or everything crashingdown around us, but we fear the
worst case scenario versusenabling maybe what needs or

(22:48):
would be the thing. And andhere's the thing. We hold
ourselves back because we feellike we're the only ones that
can handle the workload.
K? Maybe it's perfectionism.Again, probably talking about
somebody else, not myself.

Totally not us. We're like Yeah.

Maybe maybe I do have a little bit of
perfectionism. Maybe though it'syou don't trust others to step
in. But what if you gavesomebody else a shot?
Delegating, even just a littlebit, can free up time you, like,
didn't know that you had.Delegation for me has been a
crazy unlock in my life,allowing me to get everything or

(23:27):
almost everything done and havetime to actually live my life.
And the first part of thebusiness, I sucked at that, but
I keep getting better andbetter. And and so, BYD crew,
next time you're battling withthis, like, there's actually
some questions that you canstart to ask yourself. Like,
literally, look in a mirror ifyou have to, but ask yourself,

(23:48):
what would happen if I step awayfor an hour, a day, or a week?
By the way, you might wanna askyourself these questions before
you're in the middle of burnoutbecause then you can almost kind
of rehearse what the answerswill be when you get close or
into the burnout. Like, so whatwould happen if I stepped away
for an hour a day or week?
Would work stop entirely? Wouldit still continue, perhaps a bit

(24:11):
slower but still effectively? Isthere a specific reason I feel
like I can't step away? Forexample, are there tight
deadlines, client demands, or alack of trust in your team? So
identifying the root cause canhelp you address these
challenges more directly as youmove forward in the future, and,
again, tools that you can use.
Can someone else step in? Thiscould be outsourcing. This could

(24:34):
be automation. This could behiring if you're a solopreneur.
It could be training somebody upif you already have a team.
But if if delegating certaintasks could help free up some of
your time, there's literally,like, buy back your time by, Dan
Martell. Like, that go read thatbook or listen to it if you're
more of an audible person. Butoften, there's a reluctance to
delegate because, again, ofperfectionism or a belief that

(24:57):
no one else can handle the workthat you do because you're so
absolutely special, and you are.I believe you're special. But
let go of some control.
Anyway. Not looking at anybodyright now. But by letting go of
some control, interestingly,

I'm heartful. I just had a very tough week. I
just had a very tough week.

It's fair. It's I know.

It's fair. It's fair. I know. I'm fine. I'm
fine.

But by letting go of some control and trusting
others, you can reduce theburden. Right? So the second
thing is, like, break it down.Alright. Let's say stepping
away, completely isn't in thecards right now.
And trust me, no judgment. I getit. Ladies and gentlemen. Been
there, done that, got the tshirt, wore holes through it.

(25:40):
Like, I get it.
But here's a hack. Break yourwork into chunks. Like, you
don't have to do it all at once.So prioritize the high impact
stuff and handle it piece bypiece. One of the things that is
super dope is time blocking.
So time block your day so you'renot juggling 17 things at once,
but you're actually doing thethings that are prioritized in

(26:01):
the time that you allotted for.I love David Allen's quote. He
said, you can do anything, andI'm like, yes. I can. And then
he says, but not everything.
That's like, we can do anythingthat we want, but we can do
everything all at once, which issuper relevant in today's
conversation. When you chunkdown your work, it's easier to
manage, and suddenly, thatmountain of tasks, which all of

(26:26):
us as humans, when we see themountain, we're like, time to
check out. But that mountain oftasks looks like a series of
little hills that can actuallybe climbed and not, like, kill
you in the effort of trying toget over that mountain. The
third thing is set boundariesand communicate. Ladies and
gentlemen, this is a big one.
You have to set those boundariesand make sure people know about

(26:49):
them. We we actually did anentire podcast episode on
boundaries. And if you wanna doa a deep dive or dive deep into
that conversation, just listento the episode setting healthy
boundaries that fortify yourpath, foster growth, and create
peace. Because boundaries arehuge, but here's the deal. Let
your colleagues, employees,families, friends, clients know

(27:12):
when you're available, moreimportantly, when you're not.
Liz, I've gotten really good at,like, 5:15, 5:30 saying, done.
I'm gonna go live life nowbecause I've been working since
x y z time in the morning. I'mtrying to get better with that
on at least one day one day onthe weekends too. I'm definitely
still trying to make it a focalpoint on, like, vacations. When

(27:35):
I'm on vacation, it's done.
We're over. So so Lou Holt's,quotes, it's not the load that
breaks you down. It's the wayyou carry it. When I think about
that quote, I think about areyou carrying it alone? Are you
carrying too much of it?
You know, the mountains, thehills. So I don't know who I'm
talking to here, but if you'relistening to this and this

(27:57):
resonates, then please just takeit and run with it. It's okay to
say I'm offline after 6 PM. Theworld's not gonna end. It's okay
to say I don't respond toemails, Slack messages, or smoke
signals on the weekends.
It's okay. The world's not gonnaend. Trust me when I tell you,
when you set those boundaries,the people in your lives,

(28:19):
they'll adjust to the boundariesthat you set, and it helps you
create that breathing room thatyou need to avoid. Also, if I'm
being honest with myself and youare being honest with yourselves
as the listeners, the hardestperson to get to follow your
boundaries just might be you,not the other humans around you.

(28:40):
I I want you to take these threestrategies because I believe
that they can help you reframethat can't step away mindset by
remembering that stepping awaymight be easier than you think
because now you have the toolsto do it.
By setting boundaries, breakingdown your work, and delegating,
you can maintain your passionfor the purpose, for the work

(29:04):
that you love without puttingyourself at risk. Liz, what are
your thoughts?

Oh, I have so many. We're gonna talk about
science and data and research.

Oh, nice.

Because when I thought about this question for
myself, I realized if we need toavoid burnout, we first need to
be able to identify what it is.Oh, yeah. Historically, I have
quite frankly seen a lot ofpeople say, I'm so burned out.
No. You're stressed oroverworked, but a good night
sleep will take care of that.
And so this is where I want usto have a very structured

(29:35):
conversation of you don't knowhow to avoid something you don't
know how to define. Because inthe past few years, WHO, the
World Health Organization, hasactually documented what burnout
actually is. And there are 3pillars of it. Emotional
exhaustion, depersonalization orcynicism, and reduced personal

(29:55):
accomplishment. Because oftenwhat will happen is we'll just
be like tired and we'll saywe're burned out.
It's not that being tired isn'tas important. You need to sleep,
you need rest, but you don'twant to over diagnose what you
have because you begin to tellyourself a story that is
fundamentally untrue and youwill live as if you are burned

(30:16):
out. You need to look at theproblem in front of you and ask
yourself, are my feelings aboutthe situation and my facts about
the situation in the same room?Or are your feelings in Europe
while the facts are in SouthAmerica? And you need to squish
those things back together.
Right? So that's why I wannahave this conversation really
quickly. So when we sayemotional exhaustion, that is

(30:38):
different from, it's a very longday. I'm very tired for very
reasonable reasons. I use mybrain a lot.
But this is this kind of deepbone level sense of fatigue that
doesn't go away with a nap or agood night sleep. It's just like
there's some sort of energyvampire you cannot see

(31:00):
chronically siphoning off yourenergy. So you're constantly
feeling physically andemotionally tired. You have
trouble sleeping even if you aretired. Like, you are mentally
willing your body to go tosleep.
No matter how big or small thetask is in front of you, you
could be making a to do list andthat's a task. Or you could be

(31:20):
writing a big paper and eachfeels like you have to climb
Mount Kilimanjaro in order toaccomplish it. And then you
start getting grouchy andirritable and anxious. Now this
is where we go into the 2ndpillar. Right?
Depersonalization or cynicism.Mhmm. You start detaching from
your work, and you startdetaching from the people around

(31:40):
you. So you're negative. You'reoverly critical.
I remember when I used to manageteams. I managed teams at
LivingSocial. I managed teamswhen I was at Impact and and
other companies. One of thethings I always really watched
out for on my teams was thatmoment when somebody was showing
up with very negative or overlycritical attitudes. Because not

(32:02):
only do I have this problem withthis person where it's like, oh
gosh.
Okay. She needs help. He needshelp. I need to be there. I need
to figure out why I didn't seethis coming.
You know, there's there'ssolving the challenge of the
one, but that kind of stuff istoxic in a team. It just starts
leaking everywhere. But thenthere's also the apathy and
detachment. You're not justanxious or critical or negative.

(32:24):
You're just like, You know, thething that once brought you joy
is now the thing where you'rejust like, I don't care.
And you continue to getirritable and short-tempered
because you are in a situationthat you do not want to be in.
And so eventually, you're justlike, who cares? Why bother? The
man. And then there's finallyreduced personal accomplishment.
This isn't imposter syndrome.Right? This isn't like, I know

(32:46):
somebody gave me a seat at thetable, but do I really have a
seat at the table? This is youstart feeling chronically
incompetent. You are and feelchronically inefficient.
You don't feel good. You'reconstantly doubting everything
that you're doing and you have acomplete loss in your abilities
to do what it is that you'redoing. But the key
differentiator here is not onlydo all 3 need to be present, it

(33:07):
is chronic. This doesn't go awaywith a good night's sleep. This
doesn't go away with, hey, I'mjust gonna go stand outside and
touch grass.
But I like that you brought thatup because I have that as part
of my avoidance strategy. Right?Because our question here is not
what do you do once you'vealready burned out, once you're
already caught on fire. Thequestion is how do we avoid

(33:27):
getting there in the firstplace?

Yes.

So now that we have a good idea of what burnout
actually is, and to be clear,once again, I'm not diminishing
when you have a really long,shitty, tough day, and you
actually need a nap, and youneed to slam a couple doors and
scream into a couple pillows, ordo what I do, which is my best
friend called me the other day,and she said, how are you
feeling today? I said, about$300 worth feelings at Ulta. How
are you? You know, like

Oh my god.

There are benefits to having kids and
living by yourself. Like, thereare

Yeah.

But then that's also the double edged sword. No
one tells me no. So I've had tolearn how to do that. But that's
why we have a feelings budget inLiz's spreadsheet.

We have a

feelings budget. I'm allowed to have x number of
dollars of feelings per month.They do not roll over. No. I
should not be encouraged to useall of them.
Right?

I feel like there's a good girl math joke
here, but I'm just gonna leaveit late.

If you pay with cash, it's free. Yeah. Free
money. Yeah. I know.
I I have to train myself out ofthat because if my dad heard me
using girl bath, he would excuseme.

Oh, my daughters did it on purpose to
make my head explode one day,and I was like

I do like watching your girls do that to
you.

Yes. It's

a sport that I enjoy the most.

They're good at it.

So let's talk about how we avoid it, shall we?
Because I have notes and I havescience. So now that we
understand actually what burnoutis, it is this chronic, like,
you went from a solid 8 to 10all the time to just completely
cratering. Right? Just completeand it's chronic and it's not
going away.
That is the thing we do not wantto get to. You've brought up a
lot of good things already, butthere are a few things I want to

(34:58):
talk about and I wanna talkabout a scientific principle,
phenomena, a human quirk, if youwill, called the planning
fallacy. The reason why I wannatalk about this is because
often, how do we avoid burnout?Well, there's the stuff that we
talked about here. Right?
Talking with people, settingboundaries. But have we
architected a life from aworking perspective that is even

(35:23):
possible? Because us humans havea very hard time realistically
defining what we consider to bepossible. Now what I mean by
that is this. The planningfallacy essentially puts forward
that humans are really, reallycrappy at guessing or planning
how long it will take tocomplete a certain task.

(35:43):
So, for example, there was thisreally great study done in 1994
where they asked universitystudents to estimate how long it
would take to complete theirhonors thesis. Most students
estimated an average of 33.9days to finish. However, in
reality, it took 55.5 days whichis a whopping 64% longer. But
it's not just students. It'severyone.

(36:05):
There's another study byKahneman and Lovallo that was
done in 1993. That first study Imentioned was by Bueller.
Bueller? Bueller? I just I hadto do it.

I had Good movie. Good movie.

So in this next study, they observed corporate
projects also suffered fromthese same issues, and they
looked at everything fromconstruction projects to IT, and
we have the same over optimism.So, for example, the Sydney
Opera House was supposed to becompleted in 4 years with a cost
of $7,000,000 and it wascompleted in 14 years and cost

(36:40):
102,000,000. Wow. And that justslight miscalculation was 1300%.
There was another study where258 large infrastructure
projects found that at at 9 outof every 10 projects took 28%
over projections both in timeand budget.

(37:02):
So we do this all the time for alot of reasons. 1, sometimes
we're in situations where wewanna please, we wanna say yes,
we wanna give the best answer.But when I was applying this to
myself, because quite frankly,this was this thing I had to
wrestle with over the past week.What is the life that I want and
am I actually living the lifethat I want? And it made me

(37:23):
start thinking about limits.
When we plan our days, ourweeks, our months, our ability
to complete one specific task,We do that calculation from the
perspective of we will work atpeak performance the entire
time. We also tend to forgetthat creativity requires you to
step away. That is part of theprocess that is not not doing

(37:43):
work. Imagine you're gonna drivea car and you're going to take
that car to a grocery store thatis down the highway, maybe
about, I don't know, 20 miles.We really like this grocery
store.
So that's why we're going out ofour way to get there.

If I'm going that far, I I love what they got
on the shelves.

Exactly. That's where up here, we will call that
a Wegmans. Down there, they'llprobably call it a Publix.

Oh, but I like Wegmans. So let's stick with it.
Yeah.

Wegmans is baller.

It's good. Maybe Trader Joe's. Anyway

We plan our days as if once we get in that car,
we are pushing that car to itslimit the entire time. We are
going a 140 miles per hour,never hitting a stoplight, never
stopping, which sounds activelystupid. Doesn't it? Let's set
that how cars work. Some streetshave street speed limits.
You're going to hit stop signs,stoplights. There will be

(38:32):
traffic. There are turns. Youcan't take a turn going a 140
because you're not DominicToretto, which is hurtful but
true. But that's how we plan ourdays, weeks, months.
Yeah. I can take a meeting everysingle morning at 7 AM. I can
have days where I start at 6 andhave to be on all day until
8:30. No. I now have a client inAustralia and 2 days a week, I'm

(38:56):
meeting with those guys at 7:30,which means my days because
we're Yeah.
Chatting and talk a lot. Thosedays might not end till 9.

Yeah.

Which means I've had to learn to take a break.
But here's my point. When wethink about what we're planning
and how we're structuring ourdays and our weeks and our
months, are we suffering fromour own planning fallacy? Are we
operating as if we will be ableto operate at peak performance?
Are we planning from our limitsinstead of what is realistic?

(39:26):
Because that's how something youlove grows into something you
hate. Mhmm. Because you nevergive yourself a chance to be
successful to begin with. Itreminds me of when I first
started working at Impact as theeditor in chief, one of the
things that they had me do and Iwasn't the editor in chief yet.
I was just, like, this ad hoccontent strategist who was
brought in because I was one ofthe first, like, real content
specialists there.
Right. And so they let peopleknow, hey. If you have a content

(39:48):
problem, just go to Liz. Youknow, she's experienced with
this stuff. And this one guycame up to me, and he said, hi.
I have this blog article, and Iknow it should only be, like, a
1000 words, but, like, it is solong. And I can't get out of
outlining. And I took a look atit and within 5 seconds, I was
like, oh, sweet pea, you need toyou need to pick an audience.
You're writing to everyone. Thisisn't a blog article.

(40:08):
This is a research paper. Likepick 1. They went, oh, holy
crap. You're right. Incrediblysmart guy.
Absolutely nothing wrong. Right?But incredibly smart people will
not see the forest for thetrees. Right? Like, have you
taken a step back and had yourown Liz moment and go, oh god,
the only thing I'm settingmyself up for is burnout.
And so that's where I think wehave a really critical

(40:30):
conversation that we need tohave. Like, burnout can appear
sometimes out of nowhere, and itcan be circumstantial. It can be
like an intersection, a perfectstorm of events of things. But
are you actually setting theconditions where the only thing
possible eventually is burnout?And so how do you fix that?
I love all of the stuff yousaid. The only other thing I
would say too, just a little bitmore explicitly, is ask for

(40:51):
help. Yeah. And if you feel likeyou can't ask for help, like,
genuinely can't ask for help,like, it will be crapped on, you
need to kinda take a hard lookabout where you are. Like, I'm
just gonna be honest.
If you don't feel like you're ina situation where you can
genuinely ask for help, like, Icould ask for you for help. I
know I could do that. I would belike I had to learn that the
hard way. But, you know, I wecan ask each other for help, and

(41:13):
we know that. If you feel likeyou can't, you need to take a
long hard look at why you feellike you can't.
Is it an actual feeling that isalso a fact?

Or the humans are around? Anyway yeah. Yeah.
It's cultural.

So those are my thoughts on that. Because I just
I like facts and I like science.But, of course, there are those
moments, George. There are thosemoments where literally in that
moment, you cannot step away.What does that look like?
What happens there?

Yeah. Those are fun. And again, I go to this
is less of the feeling, eventhough it feels like, but it's
less of the feeling where it'slike it's truly impossible.
Like, I have this high stakes,tight deadline, essential
responsibilities. Cool.
So you can't step away. Thething where my brain goes for

(41:58):
this list is I don't want peopleto feel stuck, because it's only
a moment in time. Like, you'reyou're gonna get past it. And
some things that have helped meand and again, Liz, I tried to I
tried to be a little succinct. Idon't know if I did a good job
or not on this episode.
But 3 things that I think Iwould tell myself and other

(42:20):
humans is that micro brakes areyour friend if you're, like,
stuck in it and you can't walkaway. I'll get into that.
Prioritizing ruthlesslyruthlessly. And then, also, just
if you have the ability and youstarted to lean into this,
communicate your workload. Allhands on deck could mean all

(42:41):
hands, not just your hands,because sometimes that's why we
feel like we're at where we'reat.
So when I talk about microbreaks, I'm not talking about
taking, like, an hour long lunchor booking a vacation, Although
that at that point, probably,you would feel like that is
nice. I'm literally talkingabout micro breaks, short

(43:01):
intentional moments where youjust hit pause. It might be for
a quick 5 minute walk to clearyour head, stretch, shake it
off, whatever, a deep breathingexercise right at your desk for
5 minutes. Trust me when I tellyou the impact that these will
have on your mind, your body,your brain to be able to, like,

(43:21):
rejuvenate or lightly refuel.It's almost like if I give it an
analogy, it's like you haverechargeable batteries and you
put it back in the charger for 5minutes.
It has more than it had before,and it may be just enough to
keep going. And so these littleresets can give your mind, your
body the break that you needwithout needing to feel like you

(43:42):
have to leave work entirely.Anne Lamont said this. I giggled
when I read this quote because Ithought about every IT guy or
gal out there. Almost everythingwill work again if you unplug it
for a few minutes, includingyou.
Okay. Just unplug for just a fewminutes. It's all about those

(44:02):
small but powerful moments torecharge so that you can keep
pushing forward without fryingyour brain. This next one, by
the way, is is huge. If youreally can't step away, meaning
it's less of a feeling, more ofa fact, you have to prioritize
ruthlessly.
In other words, you can't stepaway. You've got to get laser
focused on what really matters.Not everything on your to do

(44:25):
list is a priority. Even if itfeels like it is, it isn't. So
you have to identify the highimpact tasks that absolutely
need your attention right now,like, the next best thing, the
stuff that's truly going to, asthe cool kids say, move the
needle.
I hate that saying, but itdoesn't matter. If it's gonna

(44:45):
move the needle, then prioritizethat to be the thing that you're
actually doing. Everything else,get your notepad ready. Either
delegate it, defer it, or dropit. Please use this matrix to
make your life better movingforward.
It is simply delegate it, deferit, or drop it if it is not in
the priority list. You don'tneed to be doing everything

(45:08):
right now. Focus on what'scritical and let the rest go at
least for the moment. I will becompletely honest here. This is
how I make it through most of mydays because I feel like I was
being personally attacked whenLiz was talking about calendars
and hours and, like, I have toprioritize what's the next thing
that I have to do and then get acouple minutes and then what's

(45:32):
the next thing that I have todo.
But, again, it's in an effort tonot get to burnout, in an effort
to manage where I'm at and whatwe're doing. See, it's not about
doing more. It's about doingwhat matters most. And we have
to definitely talk about justthe ability to communicate
because this is one thatsometimes we as humans overlook,

(45:56):
especially when we'reoverwhelmed. Because we start to
you even started to talk aboutit.
Like, we start to, like, sink intowards and, like, cut off the
rest of the world. But if you'recarrying a heavy workload and
stepping away isn't an option,you've gotta be upfront with the
people around you. Whether it'syour boss, your clients, your
colleagues, your friends, yourfamily, like, let them know that

(46:17):
you are at full capacity. Thisis not about complaining, by the
way, because there's a wholething about, like, well, I'm
optimistic and cheerful, and Idon't wanna complain. No.
No. No. No. You're communicatingat this point. You're not
complaining.
It it's about settingexpectations. When people around
you know that you're maxed out,they're more likely to offer

(46:39):
help, push back on deadlines, orat least understand if you can't
take on more. Because if theydon't know, they might keep
feeding the machine. Guess what?At least communicating, that
reduces some of the pressurethat you're putting on yourself.
Sometimes just letting othersknow what you're dealing with
can make a world of difference.So, like, take those micro

(47:02):
breaks, ruthlessly prioritizewhat's most important, and
communicate your workload withthose around you. Trust me. Even
in the busiest times, just thosethree things, keeping them in
mind and using them as, like, aa set of tools to manage, The
small changes can help you keepthings balanced and avoid
burnout. And I want you toremember that just because

(47:23):
you're locked into the work, itdoesn't mean that you can't
manage that work that you'relocked into in a smart way.

I love what you brought up there, particularly
how when we feel like we can'tstep away, even though if it
feels like in the I can't stepaway. I have too much going on.
Usually, there's actually only 1or 2 things in front of you that
you actually cannot step awayfrom. Getting really clear on,
okay. When I say I can't stepaway, what specifically do I

(47:53):
mean?
What specifically am I talkingabout? Or who am I specifically
talking about? Because thatbrings you that clarity to
triage. Because if you cannotstep away, but you in front of
you have everything in front ofyou, right, and you can't
possibly do everything, thenguess what? Something's gotta
go.
Something's gotta move. Peopleare often a lot more

(48:14):
understanding than what youthink. Reality is is that when
you show up to somebody, youknow, to be like, I am on the
brink of complete selfdestruction. This must move or I
will die. No.
Just say, hey. I'm taking a lookat in order to complete this
well into the quality that Ilike, could we move this
deadline from Wednesday toThursday? You know, something
That

was difficult.

Yeah. And we were just like, fine. Because you
know what? All of us suffer fromplanning fallacy. All of us have
said, hey.

This is

gonna take a day. Just kidding. It's gonna take 3.
Like, it happens. Or, hey.
I thought I was gonna be able tohandle this on my own. Can you
tag in? Need a little extralift? If you can't, do you know
who someone who can? Or, one ofmy favorite things to do is to
delegate parts of the process,not the whole thing.
Oh. Can someone just take a lookat this? Not just me waiting and
then editing it myself, gettinga second, third pair of eyes.

(49:02):
There are a lot of things thatyou can do. What you have to get
clear on when you say you can'tstep away, what do you actually
mean?
What are you actually not ableto step away from? And then plan
your attack accordingly. Whatare the consequences of not
stepping away, George? Not thatnot that we've ever experienced
this.

Finally, we get to the easy question. I have
a master class in answeringthis. Like, what are the
consequences? Decline in mentalhealth. I mean, increased stress
and anxiety, risk of depression.
Right? Physical health issues.You're gonna have a weakened
immune system. You're gonna befatigued. It's gonna lead to
illness.

(49:41):
It could be long term healthproblems. We've talked about on
this podcast before thatsometimes I wonder if, my high
blood pressure, my rheumatoidarthritis, any type of heart
disease or chronic pain might berelated to the fact that
stressed out, burnt out, like,over time, over time, hustle,
hustle, hustle, work your faceoff. Strained relationships.
Right? Personal relationshipswill suffer.

(50:02):
Family, friends, significantother workplace relationships
are gonna be deteriorated andsuck. Decrease creativity and
problem solving ability, likeloss of innovation and new
ideas, diminished focus andconcentration. Career
stagnation. Wow. You're gonnaplateau at your career.
You're gonna hate what you doinstead of love what you do.
You're gonna have a limitedability to pursue new

(50:23):
opportunities because you burntthe freak out. Loss of passion.
This might be the worst oneever. Like losing enthusiasm for
the work, feeling dissatisfiedor disconnected from your
career.
But, Liz, Liz, this podcast isabout burnout, and that's
actually one of the side effectsor consequences of not stepping
away. That's why we're havingthis conversation today. And you

(50:44):
started to lean into, like, thepillars and burnout. What does
it truly mean? And what's funnyis, like, yes, mental and
physical exhaustion are the mostobvious signs.
Right? You talked about this. Itmight look a little bit like
I'll rest after this project, orI'll slow down once things calm
down.

What are you talking about? There's always a
new project. What are youtalking about?

Yeah. Things never calm down. So without
breaks, your body and your mindeventually hit a wall. It's like
trying to drive a car with nogas. What happens?
Well, nothing. You go nowhereand you as a human end up
feeling like constant fatigue.It can get so bad. You can be so
in a place that getting out ofbed feels like a chore. You even

(51:32):
get to the point where you haveinsomnia.
You're so burnt out. You're sowired from stress that even when
you have time to sleep, thatbreak for your brain, your brain
won't shut off. And you're lyingthere wide awake thinking about
all the things that you stillneed to do. It's not just a
feeling or I feel tired. It'sfreaking total exhaustion.

(51:53):
And mentally, emotionally,physically, you're drained.
Like, it's that feeling whereyou just can't recharge no
matter what you try. Like,you're in bad shape, bad form.
You talked about cynicism anddetachment. These are not places
that when you're on a journey ofbeyond your default that you're
trying to get to.
The passion that you once had,gone. The relationships that you

(52:15):
want to be positive, negative.You start thinking things. It
might look a little bit likethis. Why am I even doing this?
What's the point? And that'stough because you used to love
what you do. You used to loveyour job, and now it just feels
like work, a grind with no endin sight. Liz, this is why I'm

(52:35):
so adamant about I play trickswith my mind about I'm going to
play. I'm not going to work.
Because when you play, youactually can take time and relax
and not feel guilty becauseyou're not on the grind of what
is work. What's worse though isthis detachment, that cynicism
that you were talking aboutearlier, it doesn't just affect

(52:55):
your job. It spills intoeverything, your life, your
family, your friends. You startto feel disconnected. It's hard
to find meaning in what you do.
Even tasks that used to excitethe crap out of you feel like
burdens. It's like you're onautopilot just trying to get
through the day. Burnout justdoesn't make you feel bad. It

(53:15):
also makes you less productive.That's where this is the holy
crap.
Like, this you know, you'veyou've we've all used that,
like, analogy or metaphor orwhatever it is of, like, the
snowball effect. Like, once itgets started, it just rolls
down. Listen. Burnout is thesnowball effect to you being
less productive. You're workingharder, putting in longer hours,

(53:36):
and somehow, you're getting lessdone.
But that's what happens whenyou're in this constant survival
mode. The quality of your workdrops. You start making
mistakes. You miss details.People start to get mad at you.
You're just moving through tasksslowly that what used to take
you an hour now takes you 3 ordays. To me, it's super ironic

(54:02):
that by not stepping away, youend up losing the very thing
that you're trying to hold onto, productivity. Instead of
thriving, you're just barelygetting by and trust me. I I
should say been there, donethat, have the t shirt, whirl
holes through it. But that's notthe way to live or work.
If you've ever dealt withburnout or you're dealing with

(54:24):
burnout right now, I want you toknow that it is more than just
feeling tired. It is full body,full mind exhaustion. It is the
oil light coming on your car. Itis the steam coming out of your
radiator. It is the flat tiresto the journey that you're

(54:45):
trying to make.
In other words, it's importantthat you focus on this, not end
up there, and find these ways tomanage your way through life
without reaching these blow upburnout moments.

I love the picture you painted there
because the reality is that whenwe feel like we can't step away,
when we allow ourselves tocontinue down this path because
we've told ourselves some sortof story about like, well, we
have to be here, we have to dothis. You basically manifest the
precise worst case scenario youare trying to avoid. Your work

(55:20):
product and output will suffer.The quality of your work will
suffer. The relationships youare desperately trying to
protect will suffer.
You will let people down. I hatesaying it from this particular
level of tone, particularly ifpeople right now are listening
and they are burned out. This isthe reality. This is the cycle

(55:42):
we get stuck in. We tell ourselfa story that if we keep going,
if we just get to the otherside, we will avoid all of that.
And that's simply not the case.You are allowing your feelings
to cloud your judgment.

Yeah.

You are allowing your fear to get in the way of
smart decision making. You areallowing your fear to tell you a
wildly different story aboutwhat is actually true about your
relationships, your were yourwork, your ability to actually
step away. More is possiblelikely than what you were
telling yourself right now. Andthat's where we get into like

(56:18):
really tricky stuff. Everythingyou become the very energy
vampire that you think isattached to you.

Yeah.

Because if you start operating without energy,
you are gonna go try to find itfrom other people. It's just
gonna happen. This is somethingwhere, like, the the
consequences of this is that youare working so hard to build
something you love, to lead alife of purpose, to help other
people. But you can't help otherpeople keep the lights on if you
can't keep your own lights on.It just does not work.

(56:48):
Facts. And for me as a creative,like one of my favorite things
that I ever read somewhere bysomeone smart who is not me and
I cannot remember who you are. Ilove you so much. When I start
running into chronic blockaround my ability to write. I
ask myself, is it because I'mspending too much time working
and not enough time living?
If you don't live, you havenothing to create from. Your

(57:08):
creative well, your creativeinspiration well runs dry. So I
think about, like, have I justbecome an output machine? But
what where are my new inputs?And sometimes it's as simple as
go touch grass.
Go read a book. Like, go go livelife worth talking about. And
it's not necessarily that, youknow, for example, like,
recently, I went just for fun. Ifinally took a trip just for

(57:31):
fun, George. You'd be so proudbecause normally every time I
take a trip it's because I'mhouse sitting or, like, you
know, moving.
Yeah. I went to New York to seeone of my friends. Went to New
York. We had a great weekend. Idid a whole Pilate.
I'm not sure I will ever do itagain. It was terrifying and I
worked muscle groups that Ididn't know exist. And this is
from a girl who works out 5 daysa week and does strength
training. So like, it's not thatI'm suddenly gonna come back and

(57:54):
write novels and essays. NewYork, you know, and the asphalt
and the dreams and no.
I met weird people that made methink of things and gave me new
ideas. And I got new sources ofinspiration. You know? And this
is where you have to rememberthat the problem of burnout is
not as impossible to solve asyou're making it out to be, but,

(58:15):
also, the way to avoid burnoutis a lot more fun than you
probably think it is. Usuallyjust means you need to remind
yourself that you're a human whoneeds to go human.
You need to spend time with yourfriends and have fun. You need
to spend time with your familyand have fun. You need to take a
nap and napping is awesome. Youneed to go experience new things
and put more new experiencesinto your body and into your

(58:37):
mind. You need to go see theworld even if quote unquote the
world is just your backyard oryour neighborhood or having a
new conversation with somebodyyou haven't met before.
That's fun. Consequences. Theysuck. Just hate everything. Burn
it all down.
Because that's the thing. If youdo not consciously address it,
subconsciously, you willsabotage it because you do not
want to be doing what you'redoing anymore. You will burn

(58:59):
your own kingdom to the groundand then tell yourself a story
one day of I just couldn't doit. I'm not good enough. Not
true.
That's not where we wanna be.

No. Not at all.

So how can someone reduce or rebalance
their workload if they suspectburnout is imminent without
feeling like they're steppingback from their passion. I know
we've touched on this already.Since we have a a a special
awesome group of people, I wannacome at it from two directions.
Right? There are those listeningwho work for themselves and then
there are those who work forothers.

(59:29):
Yeah. So what does that looklike?

Yeah. And I wanna start with because, by the
way, I love that you segmentedthis out because it's as you'll
see, it's, like, kind ofcompletely different, the things
that we kind of should be payingattention to or could be
thinking about. And I wannastart this rebalancing
conversation that you're kickingoff with if you work for someone
else. Because I know a lot ofpeople that do, and, also, I

(59:53):
have more experience working forothers than working for myself.
But here's the thing.
Sometimes when you're anemployee, you feel like you
don't have any control, and Iwant you to realize you actually
have more control than youthink. The key is to
strategically communicate andadjust without feeling like
you're stepping away from whatyou love. You have to have, and

(01:00:15):
I mentioned this earlier, openconversations with your manager,
your boss, your the owner.Whatever world you live in, the
the person that's in charge,you've gotta communicate what's
going on. And I know, becauseI've been there, it can feel
intimidating, especially whenyou're passionate about your
work and you don't wanna seemlike you're not keeping up, but

(01:00:35):
burnout doesn't help anyoneincluding your boss.
Like, it's not helping you. It'snot helping your boss. So set up
a meeting, and instead offraming it as I can't handle
this, approach it with, like, asolution based mindset. Maybe,
like, I've noticed my workloadis growing, and I wanna make
sure I'm delivering the highestquality work. Can we look at

(01:00:56):
what's on my plate and see if wecan prioritize or adjust some
deadlines?
Listen. You might hear me saythat and be like, yeah. Right.
If I was your boss, this type ofconversation would excite the
crap out of me because it showsme a level of self awareness to
yourself, your abilities, andthat timing thing, that planning

(01:01:16):
thing that Liz is talking about.The other thing is if somebody
came to me and they're, like,negotiate deadlines or being
able to even delegate.
Like, there's been conversationsinside our organization of when
do I get an assistant forcertain people so that they can
get more out of themselves.Again, you don't have to do, and
we talked about this earlier,the everything at once thing. So

(01:01:39):
can the deadlines be moved? Canthe priorities be made? A lot of
times, your boss might not evenrealize how much is on your
plate until you bring it up.
So be clear about what's mostimportant and suggest realistic
timelines for the rest. Highvalue tasks. Employees, high
value tasks. High value tasks.Don't let other stuff creep in

(01:02:00):
because if other things creepin, that's when burnout creeps
in.
You've gotta stay focused on thehigh priority tasks and not
spreading yourself too thin. Ihope that you work in an
organization where you canactually ask to let go of some
of the tasks that don't alignwith your core strengths or
suggest that someone else on theteam can take them over. I hope,

(01:02:22):
I pray that you live in anorganization where that's an
okay thing to do because thatwould be something I would
suggest. And and, again, thisalmost ties into, like, the
setting boundaries things thatwe talked about earlier. You can
set boundaries with your bossjust like your boss can set
boundaries with you.
After hour working, late nightemails, weekends, like, create

(01:02:44):
healthy boundaries to protecttheir time and your time. For
this one, it's about findingbalance without feeling like
you're stepping away from thework or stepping away from the
relationship. Now if you workfor yourself, you're your own
boss, news flash, it can feeleven harder to step back or step

(01:03:05):
away. I found it quite easier asan employee in my younger years.
I found it harder as an employeewho had embraced a owner's
mentality, and I find itextremely difficult now as an
owner of an organization.
Because it's this thing of,like, it's all on you. But

(01:03:25):
still, there are ways torebalance the this feeling of of
this. Reevaluate and refocus,business owners. As an
entrepreneur, a freelancer,you're probably juggling a ton
of responsibilities, so take amoment to step back and
reevaluate what's truly drivingyour business forward. I've had
to do this very recently withall the possibilities, all the

(01:03:50):
opportunities, and asked myself,are there things that I love
that I should be killing and notdoing anymore?
Meaning, are you spending time?Am I spending time on tasks that
don't really move the needle? Isthere a way that I can trim the
fat by cutting out, like,certain things, or can I trim
the fat by then outsourcing lowimpact activities? Or can I

(01:04:13):
focus on the work that mattersmost and aligns with my passion?
What am I passionate about?
What do I feel like my purposeis on this planet? Again, I'm
not stepping away. You're notstepping away. I and you are
focusing in. There's a bigdifference from focusing in

(01:04:34):
versus stepping away.
This one, for me, is huge,automate. Automate and
outsource. A lot of smallbusiness owners think that they
need to handle every detail, butthere are so many tools out
there now. The amount of stuffthat we can do with automation,
and I'll even throw in AI,assistance, bots, copilots, like

(01:04:56):
repetitive tasks. You should bereimagining and repurposing your
processes when it comes toemail, scheduling, invoicing.
What can you outsource fromadministrative work? How can
automation or AI copilots helpin content creation or social
media management? Like, thethings that are the fringe items

(01:05:16):
that make you feel like you'redrowning, how can you rethink
process around those? Again,this way, you're not stepping
back from your passion. You'rejust freeing yourself up to
focus on what truly drives you.
And here's the biggest one forme. I am preaching to the choir
when I talk about this one. Weall need to and, Liz, you
alluded to this, by the way,with data and all sorts of

(01:05:36):
stuff, but we need to setrealistic expectations. It's so
easy.

Liz Moorehead (01:05:41):
To yourself, George, right

George B. Thomas (01:05:42):
now? I feel like I'm about to preach to
myself. It's so easy to overcommit when you're your own
boss. Why did I speak 5 times atinbound? Because I could.
Because I was bad at saying no?

Well, wait. Because I Wait. Not not not not
not not. Hold on.

Go ahead. Go ahead.

I wanna chime in here because this is where,
particularly when you get verygood at saying no to things, it
enables you to say yes to stufflike that. So you might be
sitting here saying, for a week,I spoke 5 times, but would you
really take that back? Andaren't you glad you were able to
say yes to those things? Becauseyou had said no to a lot of

(01:06:20):
stuff in the 2 weeks leading upto that. We canceled like crazy.

Yes. Yes. No. I do not want to not speak 5
times.

Thank you.

Yes. We had to say no to a lot of things. But
even that is a master class forsome because for me to say no
historically has been justincredibly difficult.

What I'm really go if you will.

What I'm that's well played. What I'm
really trying to get at is focuson creating a realistic workload
and understand that it's okayfor you as a human to pace
yourself. If burnout is looming,then look at your current
commitments and don't be afraidto say no to some that might be

(01:07:04):
already in progress anddefinitely no to new projects on
the horizon until you feel likeyou're back on solid ground,
refueled, ready to reengage, youcan still grow your business
without burning out. I'mteaching myself that every day.
Trust me.
You'll have more energy andcreativity when you realize you

(01:07:28):
can grow your business withoutburning out. Build time for
rest. I said something when Iwas speaking at inbound. I said,
schedule AI playtime because wewere talking about AI. How about
we just switch that a littlebit?
Schedule playtime. Schedule resttime. Figure out when in your
week you're gonna hit the offswitch. If you block it out, it

(01:07:52):
becomes important, the breaks,the downtime, activities that
aren't related to your business,by the way, because you could be
like me and be like, but I loveit so much. Downtime is creating
a 197 draft blog articles on aSaturday.
No. It's not. Really? Again, youhave to realize by giving those
down times, by scheduling theplay time, by having the breaks,

(01:08:16):
you're not stepping away fromyour passion. You're making sure
that you have the energy andclarity to sustain it long term.
Because trust me, all of uslistening to this podcast should
be focused on long term success,long term significance.

Can I give you an example of my AI playtime? Yeah.
So I do the same thing. I haveGregBot, as you know, which is
the chat GPT I built. He is asassy British butler who
sometimes quotes movies to melike Godfather and Fast and
Furious.

Gotta love that.

I had him one time do a theoretical fight
between 1 duck sized Ethan Hawkeand 15 duck sized Ethan Hawkes.
But here's what was fun. Itfirst just did that and I said,
okay. Well, what if the duckshad weaponized the bread all the
humans had fed them? It's, like,well, ciabatta grenades get very
difficult.
I'm, like, this is amazing.Alright. What happens if Ethan

(01:09:09):
Hawke all the baby Ethan Hawkeshow up as his worst version of
himself in every nineties moviewhere he just waxed poetic and
philosophically about the girlhe never chased after, and so he
let his whole life explode.Right? And weaponized flannel.
Like, that's fun. I'll share itwith you. It's really great.

I'm just trying to get past the ciabatta
bread grenades.

Hey. That's what Greg Bot came up with. I didn't
ask for that. I said weaponizedbread, and it gave me flat bread
boomerangs

Oh.

Ciabatta grenades, and then there was
something about, like, Frenchbread, I think, like, trebuchets
or something like that. Wow. Itwas really it it was like, wow.
Okay.

It's dangerous out there. It really is. Liz,
what's what's your one takeaway?Your your one thing from this
episode on burnout?

It is better than you think it is. The parts that
you think are the hardest areprobably gonna be the easiest
parts of addressing this. On theflip side of that, I've gotta be
honest, particularly if you arean army of 1, if you work for
yourself, you may end up in asituation where you have to
learn this the hard way. That'sjust the reality. But if I'm

(01:10:18):
looking back, you know, I'vebeen now on my own for a little
over 2 years.
When I look back on this journeyand the moments where I've
learned this very much the hardway, I'm really grateful for
those because the hard waybecomes worth it if you allow
yourself to see the lessons thatyou needed to learn. And the
reason why I was able to show upand have a conversation today

(01:10:38):
about limits and structures ofyour days, weeks, and months is
because that was a lesson I hadto learn. That was a lesson I
had to learn for myself and Ilearned it the hard way. Allow
these moments to be instructive,but they do not have to be
destructive. You don't have todestroy yourself in order to get

(01:10:58):
to the other side, but you haveto be honest with yourself about
what am I telling myself is hardwhen it's easy and what am I
saying is easy that's actuallyhard.
You have to get clear on what isactually happening in front of
you. But I guarantee you, goingback to my one thing, a lot more
is possible than you think itis. May get scrappy, may get
bloody. It's easier than youthink it is. More is possible

(01:11:23):
than you think it is.
George, take us home. What aboutyou?

I don't wanna be a Debbie downer, but my one
thing from this episode is it'scloser than you think it is.
Meaning, you could feel likeyou're a okay right now, and by
5 PM this evening, you're like,and I'm burnt out. Like, it is
it is a ninja that creeps up onyou. It is like silence in the

(01:11:49):
middle of the day. And so what Iwould say is start to plan
before you arrive at thedestination that you're not
trying to get to.
Think about all the things thatwe've talked about. Think about
the notes that you've taken.Think about the places that your
brain went even if we didn't saythem, but it unlocked something.
And start to put together arhythm, a rhyme, a set of hacks,

(01:12:14):
tips, tricks, whatever it is foryou, because this is a
definitely a personal journey ofhow do you focus more now on
managing it so you never getthere instead of trying to dig
yourself out of it. Becausemanaging to not get there is a
lot easier than migrating out ofthe deep pit of burnout.

(01:12:37):
Trust me. Staying out of the pitis definitely where you want to
be when you're on this journeyof a life beyond your default.

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