Thriving Instead Of Burning Out

In this episode of "An Espresso Shot of Confidence" Podcast, host Ashley Griffiths chats with Zane McCormack, Founder of 'The Assured Man', about his real-life struggle with burnout, mental health, and building resilience.

During our chat, we discuss: 

• The five stages of burnout: what to look for to stop yourself from burning out
• The impact of burnout
• The importance of healthy habits ALL THE TIME
• The concept of work-life balance
• How to find the motivation and actions to make powerful and positive changes in your life. 
• How to set healthy boundaries when you are working from home
• The impact leadership has on the workforce

This episode is perfect for small business owners and leaders of teams looking to create healthier working patterns that enable them to thrive in the workplace and their life as a whole. 

Contact Zane

  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zane-mccormack-burnout-coach-resilience-trainer/   Contact Zane at: https://theassuredman.com/  

And, if you would like to connect with yours truly, you can find me at the links below:

Connect

Follow on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-griffiths-confidence-coach/ 

Website: https://www.loudlyproudly.com

Want to feel more confident in sharing your messages with the world? Then let's have a coffee and a chat - https://calendly.com/loudlyproudly/chat 

Resources

Download a video guide to create your first video here: for beginners at: https://subscribepage.io/Lm3DfV

 

Don't Forget To Be Awesome!

 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Music.

(00:15):
Greetings, one and all, wherever you are in the universe, and welcome to the
latest episode of An Espresso Shot of Confidence, the podcast that explores
all aspects of confidence,
challenges, taboos, and unhelpful narratives, and empowers you to be awesome, loudly and proudly.
It's time for you to grab a drink and settle in for the next however long this episode is.

(00:36):
I'm your host, the master of awesomeness, Ashley Griffiths, and today we're
going to be talking all about burnout.
Out and who better to talk to about this than
the awesome zane mccormack the founder of the
assured man who helps his clients look after themselves build
resilience and avoid burnout hey

(00:56):
zane how you doing hi morning mash hi great thanks for
having me on cool cool cool so burnout it's
something you know intimately so unfortunately yeah
a little bit of personal experience of it as well
so yeah absolutely so what what is it i mean can you just share a little bit

(01:17):
about your story and and why you're now helping people with this yeah that's
probably a great place to start ash so yeah so my background is i'm a kiwi i
come over the uk over 20 years ago now playing rugby,
after that sort of finished up i joined the police down in devon and cornwall i had 16 years policing.
And I left policing about a year ago to set up what I'm doing now.

(01:41):
And with burnout, my situation was that 2020 was.
Well, lockdown is a bit of a poignant time for a lot of people,
but for me, it was quite personal because when the world was locking down,
I was already locked down.
About a month before lockdown actually happened, I'd collapsed on the way into
work, had a physical collapse.

(02:01):
At the time, no one really knew what was going on. So I had the usual sort of
a couple of months off work with everything.
So when I came back, the world had changed. It was like one of those apocalyptic
movies where someone goes to sleep and wakes up and the meteors land and all
these zombies are taken over.
So I came back into a very, very different world than the one that I left and
obviously went back into policing as well. That's a whole other story.

(02:24):
But what happened was, so I collapsed. I had a moment where I lost probably
two hours and then had 10 days where I was particularly unwell.
And then what I came out of it, obviously, everything, services wrapped around.
I had put in front of people and spoke to people and the rest of it.
And at the time, PTSD-type symptoms were diagnosed and looked at just on the

(02:47):
back of a couple of particularly unpleasant jobs that I'd dealt with leading up to the incident.
And so I went through all that, came back, but it was only about six months
later that things started feeling a little bit off again.
But this time, I realised what it felt like, so I put my hand up to it and spoke to somebody else.
And that was the first time I'd heard the word birdhouse. It wasn't until I

(03:09):
sat down with a therapist, reviewed all my notes, went through everything,
and this time went through the last 10 years, not just the last sort of two
months leading up to the incident.
She just looked at everything, folded her notepad over and says,
Zane, you just burnt out. That was the first time I heard the word.
And when that happened, as soon as I had something I could hang a hook on, I got curious.

(03:33):
I wanted to know what this was, what it did. And the more I looked into it,
the more I realized I'd been an absolute walking cliche for the previous 10 years.
I'd quite happily sailed through all the stages, gone through from one to five quite happily.
And I could look back at key moments in my life and my career with stuff that I was dealing with.
I could see where I quite clearly stepped over into the next stage.

(03:55):
And the big thing that came from it, though, was the World Health Organization
sort of classified burnout as sort of poorly managed workplace stress.
But for me, the situation I had was, so for 16 years, I was policing,
and stress hadn't changed.
I was still doing the same jobs with the same incidences and everything else
with the shift work and everything else.
What had changed for me was my personal situation. So I was dealing with a lot

(04:17):
of stuff outside of work.
So what really hit home for me was that we talk about resilience and energy
levels and the rest of it.
So the areas of my life where I could have realistically expected to be recharging in, I just wasn't.
I was going from work to difficult situations at home, the difficult situations
living in the uk sort of away from from family and and friends as well and.

(04:38):
My energy levels were just depleted to a point where my body in the end just
said, you just need to stop.
And like I say, we talk about burnout with being out of cliches.
It doesn't sneak up on anybody. If you know what you're looking for,
warning signs are all there.
And it'll be sending me warning signs for years and years and years.
But I'd be discounting them. I had no idea what they were.
So all the ones we talk about, I was able to sort of, you know,

(04:59):
the feelings of the exhaustion, the overwhelm. Well, I'm getting old.
I'm not sort of 21 anymore.
I'm still working shifts. shifts. I've got a young family and you put it down to that.
A lot of physical issues as well, aches and pains and inflammatory issues.
But I played rugby for 15 years, so I should be getting up and having things
that hurt in the morning.

(05:19):
I had issues with gut health as well, but again, just wrote it off.
I worked shifts. I drank a lot of coffee.
That must be what it is. It really
wasn't until I sat down and started addressing a a few of the issues that
most of those symptoms vanished overnight and and
poor skin too i was 40 years old with the skin of an 18 year
old wow you know with um with stuff like that

(05:41):
and it's all to do with you know sort of stress but the other thing that it
does it also impacts your immunity as
well and your ability to you know to fight off these these sorts of things so
and there was a moment it was like overnight gut sort itself out skin sort itself
out a lot of the aches and pains that i had just were all of a sudden you know

(06:01):
the information inside of that were vanished overnight,
wow yeah that's powerful stuff i think the when you think about it like we live in a culture.
That really tells us that we need to be doing more we need to be working harder
we need to be hustling and a lot of people just kind of battle through yeah

(06:26):
like i ain't got time for this i I ain't got time to deal with this.
And at some point you will get a receipt. Yeah.
For sure. You know, you see it and you're hearing a lot, a lot more people talking
about the fact that they're burnt out.
Now yeah i'm solo business owners people that are employed um even like you

(06:50):
said on on on a personal level people are saying they just burnt out by life
we're seeing it and we're hearing it talked about a lot more but one of the
things you mentioned there was that there's different.
Stages to this so what what was it you meant by that okay so we talk about the
five stages the first two stages are just normal life you know sort of ups and

(07:12):
downs you sort of get to a point when you get a little bit worn out,
but nothing that a decent holiday doesn't sort out.
Or if you just take a step back and start doing a little bit of self-care,
taking care of yourself, that won't sort of pull you back to where you need to be.
But then we talk about when you're sort of tipping over from that into your
early stages of burnout.
So the three symptoms of burnout that many people need to be aware of is the

(07:35):
first one is sort of the exhaustion, overwhelm.
And if everything's in balance, you'll get those moments where you're a little
bit tired, a little bit exhausted, But like I say, a weekend just chilling out
and take care of yourself, Monday, you're fine.
That's when that exhaustion and overwhelm doesn't get sorted by a holiday or
doesn't get sorted if you start looking after your sleep. It takes a bit more than that.

(07:59):
Emotional dysregulation is another one as well because the big thing with burnout
is what happens to your body.
If you're overwhelmed, your body will start shutting down the non-essential
parts that it needs to be operating. It's like your car going into limp mode.
And the first few things that it shuts down is the frontal part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex.
And that's the part of your brain that looks after all your emotions,

(08:19):
your decision-making, your rationalizations and stuff like that.
So what you do find is you start getting irritable. You start getting a lot shorter with people.
And again, for me, I was able to discount that by saying, well, I'm a police officer.
I work with police officers and I deal with villains, two of probably the most
difficult people in the world.
So understandably, I'm going to be a little bit irritable with people.

(08:40):
So, you know, you've got that going on as well.
But then also feelings of distancing as well, sort of numbness.
You stop enjoying the things that you're used to.
So you stop looking forward to things. So if you had stuff you did in the weekends,
like if you regularly went to football matches with your mates,
if you're just not looking forward to that anymore, if you get in there and
it's just like all a bit blah, time with your family, feeling a little bit distanced.

(09:01):
And again, for me, I'd come off night shifts.
And that first day when you come off night shifts, you're always right off saying it's zombie time.
But yeah, with that zombie time, so it went on to the second and third day of
your rest days. That's when those were my warning signs that I was ignoring.
And then the third thing we need to be looking at is your professional capacity.
And that is just a consequence of the effects of the first two,

(09:23):
that exhaustion and the emotional dysregulation.
Because the big thing it does is it affects your ability to make decisions.
Decisions and and if you're in
a role if you're in a creative role you need to
be sitting down and you know creating making decisions and
working things out coming you know and reacting to things
all of a sudden you're unable to and so you all of a sudden your professional

(09:45):
sort of capacity is reduced and for me what i was finding is that i you know
because obviously policing i need to be going out there you've got very low
margin of error if you mess something up or you miss something There's a lot
of, some quite serious consequences for that.
And so for me, what I was finding, I was having to put all my energy in to keep
my professional face going and just had nothing left when it came to dealing

(10:06):
with anything else that was going on.
So the three things is that overwhelming exhaustion, that emotional dysregulation,
and the reduced professional capacity.
They're the three things that you need to be looking at as key indicators for it.
For sure. I mean, some of the stuff you were saying there, right there,
that sounded like there was a lot of crossover with depression.
You know, in terms of the distancing and the dysregulation, the irritability.

(10:30):
Yeah. And you know what? And that's the interesting thing.
The more I'm looking, okay, it's difficult because I'm not a therapist. I'm not a psychologist.
So I'm not qualified to offer any sort of opinion on it. But there are a lot
of similarities, which is why when I first came into it, the,
you know, C-PTSD was diagnosed.
And they were looking at taking it that way because there's a lot of crossover

(10:51):
with the symptoms. symptoms.
The difference, and for me, the only reason I was able to discount CPTSD was
the fact that when I started treating it as burnout, everything,
you know, it was really impactful.
And again, and with depression, obviously, the other things too is understand
the difference between mental health and mental illness.
And while looking after yourself, looking after your environment and everything

(11:13):
else, you can impact your mental health and making sure that you're keeping on top of things.
A mental illness is a whole other another kettle of fish and that's that
can be that can come on for anyone regardless of your situation so
making sure that we're understanding the difference between those two and not
not conflating them oh absolutely absolutely and
i think one of the things that you mentioned there when you're kind of in the
trenches with this when you get to that point when you're at that stage where

(11:37):
you are emotionally dysregulated when you're irritable when you've got the fog
when you're you end up getting stuck in a feedback loop right and and it can
be very difficult to get out of of that.
Yeah. Yeah. And like I said, with emotional dysregulation, it does remove your
ability to take a step back and look at it objectively.
You know, everything's subjective. And it affects your stress responses.

(12:00):
So you've obviously got your fight, flight, your freeze. What happens is once
your prefrontal cortex functions sort of go to pot, you're having to go back
and rely on your basic sort of operating systems.
And that's your caveman system. And that's how you, you know,
that's walking into the cave and reacting to what's coming at you.
You know and most of what comes at you you know what most of what was coming at
us 10 000 years ago were lethal threats you know

(12:21):
so you had to be you had to be quite sort of um you know on the
ball with that but the other thing is too is understanding about
about those so when we talk about you know your fight
your flight your freeze but the fourth one is one that
people don't talk about much and that's your form and that's
so if you think about someone running at you with a knife you
know your options are yeah fight them run from them um or

(12:42):
you know sort of try and plead with them so that's your that's your your
freeze but say your phone would be there you know
trying to sort of um you know plead with them and please them and
people please and where that sort of comes in is
when we talk about boundaries so especially at work
if you know people are starting to walk on you or you know you've got a few
issues around your performance so maybe hr getting involved you're in no position

(13:06):
to fight your corner and explain what's going on because you're just there trying
to avoid those stressful difficult conversations and so then you know it it
starts rolling on again.
So I'm doing a little bit of work with HR departments, just getting them to
understand that when you're dealing with someone whose performance may be impaired
because of the burnout, they're not in the best position to advocate for themselves
as well, which is, again, another function that's been shut down through the burnout.

(13:30):
That's a really powerful like angle to look at that i'd never
really heard about the form but i can see it now that now that you
explained it like that i was i think of
say certain situations in my life when when i was going through burnout where
i was exactly like that just it's almost kind of it's the word submissive you're
like when you look back at it you're like why didn't you fight your corner ash

(13:53):
it was like because there was nothing there yeah nothing having those Those
difficult conversations takes energy.
The whole point of burnout is you've got none. And if anything,
when you are burnt out, the analogy a lot of people like to use is the battery
analogy, when your battery were almost depleted.
But it's worse than that because when you're burnt out, if you switch it around
and start thinking about your energy levels as your finances,

(14:17):
and when you're fine, your bank account's in credit, and that's your resilience, so you've got that.
But when you're burnt out, that's the equivalent of going into overdraft.
And all of a sudden the money you're spending has an extra cost because you've
got interest that you're on for that.
It's like maxing out your credit card and what it does mean.
And then with your resilience, if you already maxed out on your credit card
and you deepened your overdraft, you don't have that resilience if the car fails

(14:40):
MOT or the boiler goes or you need to find some money quickly for something.
That's where your resilience is. And if you're in burnout, if you're in sort
of energy debt, you don't have it.
And it's those and those are the moments when i that's that's when people realize
they've got issues but it's already too late because and you need that energy
to be able to cope with it and if you haven't sort of taken care of yourself

(15:00):
and making sure that you're keeping yourself
fine when things are fine then it's too late
when things slip at the at the wall well i think that's an
interesting point isn't it i think in in life a lot
of humans what what they'll do is they take take
action when they hit that crisis point yeah
and even though like you
were saying earlier on your body's literally screaming at you yeah

(15:23):
you need to do something you need more sleep you need to take a break you need
to take whatever it is that the body's saying to you whatever symptoms are coming
out your body that's like look pay attention you don't like you said you got
the skin issues or the stomach issues or stuff so i mean what can people do
to prevent themselves from getting to that crisis point? What actions can they take to stop.

(15:45):
It getting to that point if i
if i could wave my magic wand and have one thing happen
it would be just to give people their understanding that
they need to be taking action when things are going well when things are
going well that's when you need to be building your foundations building your
healthy habits making sure and we talk about self-care rest
and the rest of it it's getting those habits built in now so that

(16:07):
you're building your resilience so that when you do those bumps in the road those
personal bumps those professional bumps you've got that resilience to
be able to go over it you sort of react sort of adapt and
and push on so they're not ones that throw you
off the um off the road and again because
the problem we have is the general advice for burnout is
self care and rest that's the generics of advice so whenever

(16:28):
people end up going off what i'm seeing all the time
i had it myself was you know go home just get yourself
away from work don't worry about what's going on just and
the rest of it rest look after yourself which is
what that's the advice you you need if you start to struggle a little bit when you're
first noticing but by the time you got to that point that point
is ineffective what's happened is you're not addressing your behaviors

(16:48):
and you're not addressing the fundamental problems that have got you to the
thing in the first place all you're doing is putting everything on hold and
when you go back if you've not done the work on yourself and you're not in the
work on what's going on you're heading for a fall again like i did and it's
very very common for a lot of people to have initial bit of time off feel fine
because Because, you know,
it's like you've got your hand under some boiling water, so you pull your hand

(17:11):
out, go away, things are fine.
So then you're going to put your hand back under the water again.
And if you haven't addressed the temperature of the water and what's going on,
all that's going to happen is you're going to burn your hand again. Absolutely. Yeah.
Absolutely. So in terms of your journey, so you mentioned, like,
for you, you had the realization it was burnout.
Yeah. That's what you'd got to, that you'd gone through all the stages and you

(17:34):
were suffering from severe burnout. out.
So what steps did you take to kind of bring yourself back from that and to help
build your resilience so you didn't go back to it?
Yeah, it was just a moment of sitting down.
At the time, everything had been such a whirlpool and it had been so tumultuous
with everything going on. I'd just been reacting to things that had been happening.

(17:56):
So it was a case of using the time off the second time properly to sit back and go, right.
What do I want? What does my next 10 years look like? Where do I want to be?
And start working back and sort of getting a bit of planning in place as well.
And the other thing to be remembering is that there's a guy I do a lot of time
for, a guy called Nick Petrie.
And if anyone can spend some time looking up his work, it's well worth a bit

(18:17):
of a stalk through what he's doing for two reasons.
First one, he's another Kiwi, so his accent is paying all the money.
So you've got that bonus of listening to the accent.
But also, the guy knows his onions. and he's probably one of the most impressive
guys I've come across with what he's doing.
So the one thing Nick talks about is the idea that what drove your success in

(18:38):
your 20s will burn you out in your 40s.
So understanding that for someone, for a lot of people that have got to where
they are, it's taken a lot of sacrifice, a lot of effort, a lot of energy.
And the energy that is required, coming through school with your grades,
getting into the course that you want to be doing, coming out from that,
getting into the roles that you want to be doing, so they're pushing on for

(18:58):
promotions and setting yourself up.
It's just not sustainable long-term. And it gets to a point where you've got
to stop and reassess where you're putting your energy and looking at where your
energy is flowing, what you're maintaining with that energy,
and sorting that out. And that was really what it was.
And it wasn't something I sat down overnight and went, right,
this is what I need to be doing.
This took me probably 18 months to work out.

(19:20):
You know, it wasn't like a Damacy moment where I went, right,
I need to be pulling them back together.
And it's only once I've started doing what I'm doing now that I come across,
you know, work from guys like Nick that I sort of saw, you know,
I got to those points, but the long way around.
So it's understanding that you need to be changing. He also talks about the
fact that rest isn't what sorts of burnout is. It's being able to adapt.

(19:42):
It's being able to adapt to your situation, adapt to who you are,
and adapt with what's happening.
You can't expect to sort of pile on for 40 years running on the same sort sort
of motivations and with what you had.
Sure, for sure, for sure. And you talk a lot about balance in your content online,

(20:03):
about achieving that balance.
And, you know, everybody's heard of things like the work-life balance,
to the point it almost became fairly cliched.
You'll see posts all around people talk about
it all the time yet so many people struggle
with that so many people struggle to juggle
their responsibilities and end up stressed and overwhelmed you mentioned earlier

(20:26):
on about how you know during your burnout you were struggling to kind of juggle
what was going on at work with what was going on at home so how can people bring
bring more calm and balance into their lives?
I think the first thing is to have a real understanding of what work-life balance actually means.
I think a lot of people look at it on a real micro level and look at,

(20:49):
you know, what do I do in a day? I need to be doing X amount of time, X size.
I need to be working for eight hours. I need to be doing this for my family.
And that isn't realistic. There are times in your life where you just need to
go all in with something.
You know, if a project comes into work, you need to be able to say,
look, I'm not going to be available for the next, whatever it is,
a couple of weeks, a couple of months, and understand that that's what's going
on, but have an end point and say, look, I'm going to be hammering it for this amount of time.

(21:13):
By the end of it, there's going to be a holiday or there's going to be,
well, I'm going to pull back. I'm going to consciously make sure I'm switching
back into what I need to be doing.
And it's taking that long view with work life.
But while you're doing that, making sure you're getting a few basic,
basic sort of things in place.
So looking at how you're moving, what you're consuming, and your relationships,
making sure that you're touching base with those.

(21:34):
Is every so often you don't have to making sure that every day you're sitting
down and having your your affirmations and the rest of it but just make sure
you're being intentional with keeping that and having a little a little check-in
every week or so to make sure you know how's the diet
how's my doom scrolling you know there's a lot of data coming out now around
sort of the impact on that with with our cognitive functions and how how we're
thinking but i think i think actually we could probably probably square off

(21:58):
another whole morning for that one but again it's just And it's about being
intentional and making sure that you're not sort of just drifting and going
back into your default mode.
The thing with people, half the things we do are habits.
You know, how you – when you wake in the morning, how you move around your house,
how you interact with your friends, the conversations you have.
Everything is all about sort of what we do and, you know, just by default.

(22:21):
So it's about making sure that a few things you're doing by default are healthy habits.
So that when we're getting up in the morning, we've got a little routine around
how we're eating, what we're consuming.
Making sure that we're on our way to work, that we've got a few little mental
drills that we're doing to making sure that we're switching in for work.
When we're at work, making sure that we're switching with that.
But also when we leave work, we're leaving work.

(22:42):
And the big thing, I talk a little bit about bringing work home and having that
sort of coming into your personal life.
It's about making sure that you've got effective strategies in place,
which is a bit of work that I do with guys, is making sure you're coming home
and work staying at home and you're coming home and it's not coming into the
house with you, including your home life as well.

(23:03):
Yeah, that's an important. But I just want to kind of take that further a little
bit. but so there's a lot of people now that are working at home and we've got hybrid working as well.
So, I mean, what strategies can people put into place with that?
So if their work is at home, there is that temptation.
I know I've done it. I know you've probably done it, everyone.
I'll just check my emails or I'll just do a little bit. I'll just get on the

(23:26):
LinkedIn and just type a few messages or stuff.
I mean, what strategies can people put into place?
I'd say you need to start getting quite deliberate with your boundaries.
Boundaries so when you finish work the laptop closes and gets
and gets put away it's not left out on the desk or on
the kitchen table or wherever it is as a case you
have to switch the phone off making sure that you're then able to make that

(23:46):
good like i say before driving to work driving home
you had that sort of demarcation and that that yeah that
bit i'll do that shift it's about getting a few sort of um tricks
and places to make sure that you're able to make that switch when you're at home.
As well so that making that mental switch packing
everything away having a routine you go through just to sort of
pack things down and say right that's it that done

(24:07):
for the day and switching into the you know the
mode you need to be for your family or the mode you need to be for your
friends if you're going down to play by the five or five or you know
and not sort of putting that off making sure that you're being quite deliberate with
it and you like say lockdown changed everything
for everybody and i think a lot
of people like the idea of working from home but

(24:27):
i think after a couple of months of it the realities of it really started hitting
back with a lot with a lot of people and that's something
i'm doing a bit of work now at the moment with a couple of businesses just how
they're managing their staff with with that because a
lot some people loved it and were able to able to
cope quite well with it and struggled with it you know in an office environment you
know just being a little bit more introverted and having that space
to be able to sit down and do that deep work i found the home

(24:50):
was a lot easier so i was also understanding what you
need as well and taking it from there
that's an important one yeah totally totally with you on
that for me with home working there's certain things i love about it
there's certain things that i don't i mean the introvert
in me loves it but the extrovert in me hates it yeah
it really does i think

(25:11):
yeah and we need that social connection on some level and whether we're getting
that from at work and if we're not getting it from work we need to making sure
that we're being a lot more deliberate with it with our other social connections
because because we're social animals and we're not wired to live in isolation.
To live in our own little silos.
Oh, absolutely. I mean, and that isolation as well, I think that that can kind

(25:35):
of contribute as well, doesn't it, too?
If you're in that burnout cycle, if you're going with mental ill health,
it doesn't, you know, maybe you need to take that step back initially,
but ultimately, in the long term, it doesn't do you well. No,
no, and never underestimate the power of that social connection.
Like I say, I talk a lot about basic wiring system, human 101,

(25:57):
the operating system we were issued 100,000 years ago.
And we were designed to live in tribes and family groups and to be able to run
each other for security, for comfort.
And that's still hard-baked into our psyche. So what happens is 100,000 years
ago, if you found yourself isolated and alone, those were stressful times.
You weren't able to relax. you know a lot of threats and your body was

(26:18):
constantly on on edge we still see
that now if you you know if you if you're alone
and you don't have those social connections your body never really
is able to properly relax and so you have
the issues around sort of all the stress markers that come in with
that even though you may not feel it on a real basic
level your body just isn't anywhere near as relaxed
and able to recharge to anywhere near as well as it

(26:41):
can do if you're maintaining those social connections oh totally that totally
that i can totally resonate resonate with that i think i think what's up i don't
know well i can't quote it but i think i saw a um study the other day of talking
about the fact that you know chronic loneliness is as,
carcinogenic to your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

(27:04):
There's a lot of studies on the dangers of it and
the health the health implications of isolation huge it's
yeah i've read quite a few studies now on
that it's just kind of scary really the
impact it has on on all sorts of levels be it on the immune system on your cognitive
functions even your lung and your heart health it's yeah no exactly that and

(27:27):
that's that it stems from just that body and that constant state of you know
just low level stress it's not not something that you're probably even aware
of, but your body is aware of it.
And, you know, there's a lot of stuff that your body does that you're not aware
of, but it just does. Yeah.
Oh, for sure, for sure. Talking about social connections, a lot of the stuff

(27:48):
I see regarding kind of burnout talks about the impact on an individual level.
But burnout can actually, as mentioned, can impact groups.
It can impact businesses. Businesses, it can impact social groups,
family groups, can impact everyone.
But let's focus more on the business side of things for a minute.
So what can leaders do? You mentioned earlier on you've been talking to HR departments,

(28:13):
but what can companies do?
What can leaders do to ensure that their staff aren't heading headfirst into a burnout?
Okay, the first thing any leader can do, any founder, anyone running a team, is invest in yourself.
Self right comes back to the old adage they need to put your own auction mask on first.
And we talk you know we do a little bit work around leadership and we talk about sort of um,

(28:37):
the the shadow that leaders cast and there's four things that people notice
about leaders what they say what they do what they reward and what they ignore
so if you talk about leaders are stepping up and sort of talking the talk and
saying you need to be doing this you need to be doing that,
that's only you know one part of the other three things that they need to be
thinking about so the thing with burnout is that.

(29:01):
The biggest indicator for staff burning out is their boss burning out.
If you are struggling yourself, your staff are 80% more likely to burn out as
well just because of the environment that you're setting.
So it really is about really taking care of yourself and being a little bit
selfish about it and making sure that not only are you talking a good game,
but you're also exhibiting a good game as well.

(29:23):
So when you are coming in, I've dealt with managers that come in and they're
always roaring and shouting, and it's really uncomfortable in the office because
of their behavior, and it impacts on teams.
When you've got teams that walk around eggshells or shift, it's difficult to get anything done.
But when you've got that proverbial swan sat in the corner who may be struggling
himself, but on the face of it, is able to keep it together,

(29:45):
the impact it has on the rest of the team is immeasurable.
And the other thing as well is even within larger organizations,
if you've got an issue with culture that's struggling, a good leader will act
as an umbrella and will shelter their team from that.
And so if you have two teams in an organization and the one team that's got

(30:06):
a half-decent manager shielding their team from all that issues,
their productivity levels are going to be a lot more enhanced than the team
that's got a leader that's struggling themselves.
So it's those real simple little things getting in there and working with them.
Yeah, I think that looking after yourself, it kind of comes back to that.
I think there's a narrative for the longest time that that was almost selfish

(30:28):
to kind of put yourself first.
But you use the adage there of you put your oxygen mask on.
So for anybody who's thinking, well, no, no, I can't do that.
I've got this, I've got these responsibilities or they're from whatever excuses
they're using because they don't think that, you know, it would be selfish to put yourself first.
What would you say to them? No, absolutely not. You're looking to exhibit best practice.

(30:52):
You can't stand there and tell your team to not respond to emails in the evening,
make sure that you're taking breaks during the day and all the other little
bits and pieces you can do to ensure that your staff are able to pull into the
optimal if you're not doing it.
Because as a leader, you just never know when people are watching,
and that's where you're most impactful, leading by example.

(31:16):
So it's not selfish, it's just good business practice.
Oh absolutely, and all the benefits that come from looking after yourself as well, right?
Yeah, and again, and the other things too that businesses need to be aware of
is if your staff are burning out, they are nearly three times more likely to
be looking for other work.

(31:37):
And when I say three times, I'm talking about actively setting up resumes and
applying for roles, of not just, you know, doom-scrolling sort of job sites
actively looking for other work.
And then for every person that's leaving, you've obviously got issues around
retention, recruitment, you know, the financial implications of that.
But then for every one person that actually takes action and leaves,
you've got countless others that are slipping into the quiet quitting,

(31:59):
which is a whole other sort of topic.
You know, with the impact on productivity levels and sort of how things are with that.
Oh, absolutely. But it's taken a long time to get to the point.
And I know with the work that you're doing, you're still kind of fighting that fight with this.
But it's taken a long time for organizations to actually take this seriously.

(32:21):
You know, the things that you're talking about, there's nothing new here,
you know, in terms of the issues, in terms of the productivity stuff.
You know, the management theorists, the motivational theorists were talking
about some of this stuff, best part of 100 years ago.
Go you know so why do you think
it's taking people so long to like really

(32:42):
get on board with this i just think it's been the
perfect storm with um covid really threw stuff into
really sharp contrast a lot of people and any anyone that was creaking any little
cracks that may have been there that are able to cover up just ran a massive
wedge and opened them right up so i think it's been that probably combined with
the tough sort of business conditions that are out at the moment everyone's

(33:02):
looking now to making sure they're optimising their performance.
So everyone's always looking for that hack, that quick fix to try and pull things around.
Like I say, 20 years ago, I talk to guys now that are my age and they'll say,
during their 20s and 30s, it was all about the hustle.
They were there, they were working long hours, they were affecting their health,

(33:22):
work hard, play hard and then unsurprisingly hit 40 and blew up.
So they realised that the whole hustle culture was all a bit of a But a bit of nonsense really.
And I talk about a little bit too about the, you know, we're all sort of business athletes.
You know, we're not, you know, it's effectively, it's not a sprint. It's a marathon.
And if we're going to go out, you know, if we're going to approach a marathon

(33:44):
like a sprint, then we are just going to blow up.
And so making sure you're able to pace yourself, you know, keep an eye on what's
going on, know when to push, but also know when to pull back as well.
So, yeah, there's a whole other study of work that I talk about around understanding
your rhythms, how you operate.
It's all about bursts of activity knowing when
to put the foot down and and get on but also knowing when

(34:05):
to pull back rest recover before you can
push on again and and by doing that over the length of the time you need to
be operating you're going to be you know you optimize you're optimizing your
your productivity with that no absolutely absolutely but it takes time right
i think you mentioned just a minute ago that we live in a culture that are constantly
looking for quick quick fixes.

(34:27):
And you know what? There are some really basic hacks. You know,
the quick fixes are out there.
They're not the imaginary sort of rainbows that people chase and never find.
They are actually out there. But what it does take is that ability to also to
step back as well and get comfortable stepping back and get comfortable understanding
that you need to be doing that in order to be able to push back on again.

(34:49):
So there's nothing that I'm doing. I haven't invented any sort of a miracle,
you know, steak oil or anything like that.
It's just really taking it back to basics and applying some real common sense.
For sure. And you talk a lot about that in your content on LinkedIn,
about you take those myths or those thoughts that people have and these beliefs

(35:13):
or misconceptions they have about things and literally go in one sentence, no, do this instead.
And it can be like you talked a lot about habits, but it's really making the
time and actually making the time to actually make them happen though, right? Yeah.
And again, and with anything, any habit forming, there is always that initial

(35:35):
period of uncomfortableness where you just need to be able to do it,
which is why the whole science around sort of how to implement and maintain habits is there.
And it's not about, and again, there'll be a few more posts coming out as we come into the new year.
It's going to be everyone hitting sort of January 1st, right?
This is the year I run Ironman or I'm going to lose this, I'm going to do that.

(35:55):
That and you know and everyone anyone has got any idea about how this works
it's just going to sit there and ride that that initial wave out and then sort
of come back at people in favor and say right now you know you've had a crack
at you know all that how about we start doing it properly,
you know and just taking it back down to little bite-sized achievable sort of
um things but also we talk about motivation my little i saw your post this morning

(36:17):
down mash around sort of um you know have to and want to you know people are
eyeing up january 1st you know i have to lose x amount I have to start running
every morning or I have to start ice baths.
But again, and it's understanding that it's when you get to a point where you
want to do something and that's when it becomes easy. You do it because you
want to, not because you have to.

(36:37):
Because have to means that it's going to fall over and you're going to get back to where you were.
And also, when you want to do something, you'll just start doing it.
You won't have a January 1st, I'm going to do it or I'm going to start doing
it. When I get to this point that I'm going to start doing it,
if you want to do something, you'll just start it.
You don't, you know, the motivation. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
Oh, I'm totally with you on that. I think the example I gave,

(36:59):
like on your post today about the smoking.
Oh, I quit so many times because of family pressure, because I felt like, well, no, I have to.
I've heard it's really bad for me, so I've got to quit. But I didn't want to.
And then the one day I literally didn't associate any sort of pleasure.
I did not get any pleasure from it anymore.

(37:20):
It was making me feel physically sick. And I literally quit like that. Yeah.
Okay. It took time to get to that point of my butt, actually listening to my
body. It wasn't like an overnight thing, but,
On the outside, it looked that way, that it was an overnight thing.
But it was like, nah, I don't want to do this anymore.

(37:41):
And I'd literally bought a pack of cigarettes that night, that day.
And the next day, I went up to see my girlfriend. We lived in the same apartment
block. I literally go, there you go.
What? You're not having one? No, you have them. I've quit. She went, shut up.
I haven't smoked since. That was like 20 years ago now.
And you talk to anyone that gave up anything like that, that's what they'll tell you.

(38:02):
One day they woke up and were actually I'm done I'm just done with it and that's
what and those are the ones that you know it stuck.
The people that are saying right you know this is my last packet after this
packet I'm going to finish or this is my last time I go to the pub this is the
last pint I have or this is the you know the last whatever it is my last chocolate bar that I eat or,

(38:23):
they're not the ones that ever you know the manager it's the ones that just
wake up one day and are just done,
yeah man it's It's the same happened with me becoming a vegetarian.
I never meant to become a vegetarian. I just didn't eat meat for a week and
I just never ate meat again after that.
It was just one of those things. I wasn't on any sort of moral crusade.

(38:47):
I literally just decided to take a detox and that was it.
But I think just kind of coming back to that, though, the whole new year thing.
This this time of the year you it usually
starts around now and then the
the diet ads and stuff they'll start on boxing day

(39:07):
you'll have loads of guilt
loads of like what what are you doing what
do you mean you enjoyed yourself over christmas how dare you
all of that stuff will start throwing be thrown around
and like you said people will
commit to these things because it's some kind of like
arbitrary day and some tradition and it's

(39:28):
a new day it's a new time we've got to start it's q1
2024 gotta get it done and i'm
just getting i mean i'm just talking about it my my pitch and my get anxious
just thinking about it and people end up feeling overwhelmed by it i mean so
you know what what can they do to kind of avoid all that white noise i think

(39:51):
as you take take Take stock.
If you're not prepared to do it now, if you're listening or going up,
appreciate this being recorded sort of a couple of weeks out,
but if it's something that you're putting off, it's probably not something you're motivated to do.
If you've put an end date, if you're saying next week I'm going to start or
you're not motivated to start doing it now, then –.

(40:12):
It's probably not going to come to something that you're realistically going to be looking at doing.
If you're not motivated to put down what you're doing now and start taking action
now, then it's not there.
Yeah, I hear you with that. I saw a post, I think it was yesterday, about this.
It's like somebody literally kind of quantified in the fact that you're more

(40:33):
than happy to spend, I don't know, 500 quid on coffee a year,
1,500 quid on gym membership or, you know, there'll be all these kind of like
general examples, but you're not willing to invest in 1,500 quid in life-changing coaching.
What is that all about? But again, it comes down to priorities,
right? Yeah. No, exactly that.

(40:55):
And I speak to a lot of people that have turned up because they feel they have to.
And when you're speaking to them,
you get a feeling pretty straight away whether they're serious or not.
And it's when they come to you and say, look, I've already committed to doing it.
What I need is some help to get an effective roadmap sorted out.
That's when coaching is really effective for what I do.

(41:17):
People are coming and saying, look, I know I've got a few issues,
but I don't really know what I want to be doing. And I don't really know if I need to be doing it.
Then it's probably not going to be a starter.
But if it is something you want to be doing and you've already committed to
making a few changes, then coaching can be really effective.
Because what it does, it will give you a real structure for what you're doing.

(41:38):
And a big part for me is this is much about giving people the information they
need to make the decisions as well.
You know, for me, and again, we talk about difference between sort of men and
women when they're trying to sort problems out.
Really sort of I'm trying to journalise too much here because I do appreciate,
you know, not all men, not all women. but on a whole what I've found especially
with policing going in and you know spending as much time as I did going in

(41:58):
sorting out some quite sort of um we're trying to sort out some quite sort of an,
complex sort of unpersonal situations, men on a whole are looking for solutions,
whereas women on a whole tend to be looking for sympathy.
And that's how they cope.
By talking about stuff, they can work through what's going on,
whereas men are looking to understand what's going on and how do I fix it.

(42:20):
And for me, that's what is very effective with the coaching.
So what I'm looking to do is give them as much information as well so they can
work out a lot of stuff for themselves as well.
They're not just relying on me to sort of supply the answers.
Because the reality is for everyone with burnout, it's a very,
very, very personal situation as well. I mean, I've got my whiteboard up there.
You can't see it, but I've got listing all the difference, the things that cause the burnout,

(42:44):
you know, split between individual circumstances and professional circumstances
and between the two of them, you know, I've managed to, it results in adding
another one to it and I'm up to 35 different things that can cause issues with it.
And then for each of those, you know, you can rank each
of those mild moderate severe so you
got you know you know 30 odd times three so you're

(43:05):
touching on nearly 100 different issues and combinations of
all those so everyone is it is personal
to them so by sitting down and working out what it is you can
then start working out how to move forward with it oh absolutely
and i think it's an important point you kind of touched upon there
the kind of difference between say the cognitive
and emotional support that having

(43:28):
a coach or somebody that's not maybe emotionally
attached to the situation or to
you can provide because i
think sometimes maybe from a family point of view you'll be
trying to cure them or wrap someone up in cotton.
Wool when that's maybe not what actually they need no and
again it's you know this coaching is no difference to going

(43:50):
to a gym for a pt you know they'll sit
there they'll give you all information but you are the
one that needs to do the reps you know you still need to be you know to lift the weight
you still need to do the exercise they can show you how and they
can explain why you're doing it but if you're
not motivated go and do the work yourself and like i say put yourself into
that out of your comfort zone is this that's

(44:11):
the um that's the thing okay awesome
speaking of uh people that are motivated to make
those changes and they were interested in working with you how could you support
them right so yeah obviously get in touch the first thing i I do with everyone
is just have a proper sit down one-to-one ideally face-to-face but you know

(44:32):
geographically with everything with the way it is it's normally over a zoom and we sit down and I,
typically sort of book between sort of 60 90 minutes and just go through everything
that's going on and what I try and do for that first session it's always free
it's always a complimentary sort of one-to-one is offer a few sort of you know
tips and sort of strategies just to help sort of in the meantime.

(44:53):
But then also talk a little bit more about what I could do moving forward as well. So...
If anyone's got any issues and just want to run some stuff past me,
I'm more than happy to sit down and just go through things.
Awesome. Awesome. And how can I get in touch with you? Okay.
So either through website, theassuredman.com,
or email, zaneattheassuredman.com, and through LinkedIn.

(45:15):
Luckily, my mother was quite switched on when she named me back in the 70s.
So Zane McCormack is a very searchable name.
So you type that into the search bar on LinkedIn and I'm there.
So don't worry too much about about that awesome awesome
and all the links will be in the show notes
so that you can get in touch with zane um awesome

(45:36):
so before we ride off into the sunset i
have one final question for you and that is what is your expresso shot of confidence
for our listeners okay one one shot i'll give you is two things actually if
you are looking at making any sort of change in what you're doing two things
you'd be doing is get curious you know Don't accept the status quo.

(45:57):
Don't accept that your situation can't be changed.
Get curious. Start looking into what's going on there.
Podcasts, there's so much information out there if you really want to go down that rabbit hole.
So get curious and get intentional. Things aren't just going to happen.
You need to step up and take action yourself.
So get curious, get intentional.
Boom. Love it, man. Love it. Love that.

(46:19):
I love just curious is my favorite word and favorite concept in the whole wide world.
So uh i'm with you on that i'm with you on that so thank you so much for uh
coming on today and being so generous with your time and and your thoughts no
and thank you for having me ash,
that's been awesome being awesome and thank you to you our awesome listeners

(46:40):
wherever you are in the universe don't forget to subscribe wherever you're watching
or listening to this to get notifications of when the next episode drops and as always don't forget.
Music.