425: Burnout Leads to the Dark Side
Transcript from 425: Burnout Leads to the Dark Side with Keith Hildesheim, Chris White, and Elecia White.
EW (00:00:06):
Welcome to Embedded. I am Elecia White alongside Christopher White. I mentioned a few months back that I was having problems with burnout. A friend of the show saw a great presentation about avoiding burnout and recommended we talk with Keith Hildesheim.
CW (00:00:23):
Hey, Keith. Welcome. And I hope you can fix all my problems.
KH (00:00:28):
Let's just start there. We can just turn this into a little counseling session. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here.
EW (00:00:39):
Could you tell us about yourself as if we met in a professional setting?
KH (00:00:45):
Absolutely. Well, I'll start with, I'm a husband to an incredible wife and mother. I'm a father of a 16 month old baby boy. And I'm a Star Wars dork.
EW (00:00:59):
Oh, well we have plenty to talk about. We don't have to talk about burnout.
KH (00:01:04):
Let's just talk about Star Wars. Goodness gracious. I could talk a lot about some of the psychological nods in Star Wars but I'll do my best to focus on the topic at hand. In a work setting, I will self admit that I'm a total work addict. And Elecia, thanks for your transparency around having had gone through some burnout. I have also, which is what led me to this topic. I'm a massive work in progress I'd say. I love learning new things every day. So this topic is something that I've really leaned into and I get really excited about. And ultimately everything I strive to do in my work is to improve human wellbeing and performance, whether that's through immersive experiences, technology, team and leadership development or personal and self development.
EW (00:02:05):
We want to do a lightning round before we ask you more questions about what we've already mentioned. And for this we want short answers to our short questions. And if we're behaving ourselves we won't say are you sure and what about BB8?
CW (00:02:23):
All right. You said Star Wars so you only have yourself to blame. Ewan McGregor or Alec Guinness?
KH (00:02:29):
Ooh, Alec Guinness.
EW (00:02:30):
R2D2 or C3PO?
KH (00:02:33):
R2D2.
CW (00:02:34):
Have you seen the holiday special?
KH (00:02:37):
Yes.
CW (00:02:37):
Oh my God.
EW (00:02:38):
Oh wow.
CW (00:02:39):
Even I haven't seen that.
KH (00:02:42):
Fast answers. It's interesting. I'll just say that.
EW (00:02:47):
If you could teach a college course, what would you want to teach?
KH (00:02:50):
Human dynamics in digital ecosystems.
CW (00:02:54):
What's your preferred way to learn things? Reading, videos, trying stuff out without reading ahead?
KH (00:03:00):
Probably a combination of trying and reading.
EW (00:03:04):
Do you have a tip everyone should know?
KH (00:03:06):
Focus on progress over perfection.
CW (00:03:10):
Ooh.
EW (00:03:10):
Nice. That'd be a good t-shirt.
CW (00:03:14):
I think you might have fixed some of my problems with that.
KH (00:03:17):
We're on a good start Christopher. We got you.
EW (00:03:20):
So burnout. How do you define it?
KH (00:03:24):
Burnout is ... It's interesting because it started to get defined more broadly back in the '70s and it really became more recognized just a couple years ago. I want to say in 2019 the World Health Organization designated it to the international classification of diseases. What was hard for me when I read the definition is it's defined as an occupational phenomenon and not a medical condition. So it's just gotten a little too confusing in my mind. So I've tried to simplify it. And for me, burnout is the accumulative emotional and physical response to ongoing stress, internal and external pressures, and really conditions of the human existence that without our proper care lead to poor habit formation, interpersonal and behavioral issues, and really at its absolute worst, psychological breakdown.
EW (00:04:36):
You mentioned stress. Is burnout really different than being very stressed?
KH (00:04:44):
Burnout is an absolute outcome of unmanaged stress, but it's also the conditions that we exist in. It's also an output of our mindset. So it is interrelated with stress, but I wouldn't call it a one to one relationship. And if we really look at stress, stress can actually be a really good thing. Our brains are wired to lever stress to perform well. There's this really interesting law. It's called the Yerkes-Dodson law. And it shows that as our difficulty increases, our performance increases to a certain point, but can have diminishing returns if difficulty is compounded and we are not managing difficulty and our response to that difficulty. You can think about what's your favorite video game? I don't know if y'all play video games.
EW (00:05:49):
Threes.
CW (00:05:49):
Skyrim.
KH (00:05:56):
There's your lightning round. What's your favorite video game? Those are great examples. And Skyrim is an interesting one because when you start, you start learning how to navigate the world. Over the course of the game it becomes more and more complex. You have to solve more puzzles. And so it becomes more and more engaging. So just like a great, well designed video game, our performance at work can increase when there's the right levels of stress introduced. And sometimes when we push ourselves outside of some of our comfort zones or we try new things or we can't conquer a certain portion of a game, we want to work harder and we get better at it. So it's really important to recognize that stress is not a negative thing. It's the way we manage it and respond to stress that can become negative and lead to burnout.
EW (00:06:51):
I do understand that and I have always been a fan of, if you do a good job on something, you just get a harder job next. But then that does lead to the other part of that, which is at some point you get a job that is beyond your abilities and you start to fail at it. How do I stand here and look there and say, "No. That's too much."? Is there a way for me to figure out I'm on the precipice of that curve?
KH (00:07:21):
Yeah, absolutely. A lot of the studies are showing that there are some specific triggers and behaviors that are observable that are demonstrative of moving down the curve towards burnout or breakdown. And there's a few things I'll call out and then really the question then becomes, how do you identify that for yourself and then how do you look for that in others? So the first one is ... I think several of us, I would imagine are used to this concept of drive. Having excessive drive. But what happens is there's maybe some behavioral indicators. Working extra hours, taking on more and more, asking for more. And then prioritizing other things in your life that don't matter. That ultimately leads to degradation of quality of work, et cetera. That's an early indicator of potential burnout and breakdown. And so recognizing what are your own personal triggers that may lead you down that path of excessive drive, maybe negative behavior changes, detachment, angst, and then ultimately breakdown and burnout, is really important. And you may have several different triggers that show you that you're going there. It could be emotional. You're distracted, irritable.
EW (00:08:54):
Irritability.
KH (00:08:57):
When you find yourself frequently and regularly being irritable, that might be a good sign that you're in a bit of that burnout curve or heading towards that burnout.
EW (00:09:07):
Actually for me, it really is ... I move from doing things like origami or playing in the garden to reading novels. And not necessarily good novels, but all the novels. And so that form of escapism doesn't help me get things done, which then makes me feel like I'm not getting things done or doing them poorly and then that-
CW (00:09:31):
Well, why do feel like you have to get things done?
EW (00:09:35):
That is a societal question that I fear we are all going to be talking about for the next quarter century.
KH (00:09:47):
You're bringing up in a really interesting point though, because what's happening is we may have a stressor or a difficult situation in our life. This could be the circumstances we're in. Maybe a high priority deadline. Maybe this is an internal stress or pressure that we put on ourselves to do more, be more, be our best all the time. And then that leads to our reaction to that difficulty and that can compound and it's the cycle. The cycle continues until we put in high priority interrupts to stop it and say, how can I manage both the difficult situation that I'm in and my response to it? And what's really interesting is what a lot of the studies are starting to show is that how we manage our response to it needs to be right sized appropriate for the ways in which we're reacting. So if you are finding yourself in that detached or angsty and you're immersing into, for you, reading all of the books and moving outside of the world, some of the studies are showing that by engaging in charity work, for example, is a way to actually relieve some of the detachment and angst in a positive way. And so the type of emotion that you're experiencing in your time of burnout or on that curve needs to have the appropriate response.
EW (00:11:30):
Okay. So what are some of the other methods of handling and their appropriate responses?
KH (00:11:37):
So another thing to call out is to make sure that we're responding or managing both the response but also the difficult situation. So at the very baseline, it starts with cultivating a growth mindset. And this comes from Carol Dweck's work around growth and learner mindset.
EW (00:12:02):
This is the growth mindset versus the fixed mindset?
KH (00:12:05):
That's correct.
EW (00:12:06):
Okay. Could you explain that a little more?
KH (00:12:08):
Yeah. The growth mindset is how do I always look at the world as I can get better within it, I can grow within it, I can be better? Whereas the fixed mindset is I have the set of knowledge that I have, I have the skills that I have, and those were given to me innately and they will not change. So focusing on a growth mindset reframes the way we view the world and ourselves. As an example, if I say, "Ugh, I can't do that.", reframing ourselves to say, "I haven't learned that yet."
EW (00:12:49):
I don't know how to multiply five digit numbers in my head yet. Not I can't possibly because I'm dumb, bad at math, forgetful.
KH (00:13:02):
Right. I am terrible at math. I hear that one a lot. I'm bad at math. Especially in my industry.
EW (00:13:09):
But it is more of a, I have never been taught math in a way that makes sense to me.
KH (00:13:17):
Yes. That's absolutely right. And also you brought up the idea that culturally, we need to do more, be more, all these things and seek more. That comes from something slightly different, which is cognitive distortions or thinking errors. If only I had more. That is a very fixed mindset and it's a cognitive distortion based on some thinking patterns that we've developed. And so the growth mindset is really about how do I remove some of those cognitive distortions, those thinking habits that are negative and move into a reframe that actually views the world slightly different? And that's a really hard practice.
CW (00:14:18):
That's a really hard practice and it sounds like you need to apply the techniques of cognitive behavioral therapy and things where you have to be able to notice those thoughts and be able to see them for what they are before you can start addressing them. Because a lot of those thoughts, like other things, are just things that are moving around your head habitually and they have certain truth or value inherent in them that may not be accurate.
KH (00:14:45):
That's right. Well, and how easy is it to notice when someone else is doing it but difficult for you to recognize yourself? So I do think that it is finding an accountabili-buddy if you will, who can help me and call me out when I have those fixed mindset moments or there's cognitive distortions that are happening and I'm maybe thinking about things in a way that is unhealthy.
EW (00:15:15):
Going back to the definition of burnout. Because I think that is something that ... I don't know. People say, "I worked a 60 hour a week. I'm so burnt out." The way I did it was I signed up for too many things that I cared about and then spent six months overextending. And so is there a you have to be under stress for a period of time, a certain amount of stress? Is there a line that says here you're burned out and here you're just fine?
CW (00:15:48):
Is there a short-wave and long-wave burnout?
KH (00:15:53):
This is such a good question. Let me first address something that you started with around the, I worked 60 hours this week, I'm burnt out. That bums me out. I would hate to hear us use burnout as a catchall-
CW (00:16:10):
For tired.
KH (00:16:11):
For workplace stress. Yeah. And Elecia, it sounds like you've experienced burnout and having gone through it, you know that it's more than that. It's so much more than that. Soapbox, I'll step off of, but just like other mental conditions, we have to make sure that we're using that language really selectively because it is a very real thing and it can be very, very painful. As far as the line, so to speak, that's a hard one. There's no clear answer to this. But what I will say is that being well, it does not mean living in a perpetual state of safety and calm. That's a quote from Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski who wrote Burnout: The Secret To Unlocking The Stress Cycle. And their concept is wonderful. It's how do we learn to move more fluidly from a state of risk, adversity, difficulty back to a state of safety and calm and out again?
KH (00:17:26):
And what that tells us is that we can be in states of high stress or high difficulty and our responses to them could be potentially negative, but the right proper tools can move us back into a state of healthy tension, high and effective performance. But what you're getting at is when that excessive drive, that negative behavior change moves into detachment and angst and eventually breakdown and burnout, that's where that line starts to become evident that it's no longer enough to have a daily, typical practice to move back into that safety and calm. That's usually where we recommend it's time to get help. Especially when we start to see the consistency of the negative behavior change and/or detachment. So again, it's not a super clear cut and dry line, but the long wave, to use your word, the long wave burnout is usually when we see true burnout. The day to day is more about finding a healthy tension and moving in and out of states of wellbeing and adversity and risk. Does that help?
EW (00:18:47):
Yeah. So getting help. Is this just the normal self-care things? Pedicures and ice cream and sleep and exercise?
KH (00:19:00):
Pedicures would stress me out even-
CW (00:19:02):
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know about that one.
KH (00:19:04):
Pedicures lead to stress, stress leads to burnout, burnout leads to the dark side. So that one is no. No, just joking. That's for me. That's me personally. And it's funny. There is some validity to finding things that give you joy, that give you comfort and the occasional escapism. But it is more than that. There are a few strategies in addition to the mindset that you can put in place and consistently practice to manage both the difficult situation and the response to difficulty. And the science around this is actually really astonishing. The best way to manage our responses to difficulty is physical activity and breathing. It's so simple. It seems so simple. But it is the best way to manage in the moment stress response. And maybe we can unpack that a little bit more because our brains are hardwired through our evolutionary biology to see a difficult situation and our physiological response system kicks in.
KH (00:20:17):
And so if we saw a tiger in the jungle, we would have a burst of adrenaline. Our body would run. We would try to get away or be ready to fight, whatever we needed to do. And if that tiger left and went and chased some other animal, we're still heart beating really hard, dilated pupils, sweating, feeling the emotional stress. So that same response still exists even in the simplest of scenarios where we are feeling perceived threat. And in today's world, that is usually ... David Rock has this really great model. It's called SCARF. And it represents the social threats that can provoke our social response or our survival response and its status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, fairness. So all of these things can trigger this response. So the way we can respond to it ... I mean, maybe a pedicure is going to give you some relief, but physical activity and breathing, connectedness and expression are proving scientifically to be really powerful for those instances where you're still in the stress response or in that continual state of stress response.
CW (00:21:41):
And that's been additionally difficult in recent years. Achieving some of those things.
EW (00:21:46):
Connectedness.
CW (00:21:47):
Connectedness and expressiveness to a certain degree have been difficult things to achieve without extra work. Let's put it that way.
KH (00:21:55):
Yeah, absolutely. There's a ton of studies showing that during the pandemic, there was an increase ... I think something like 65% of employees were ... And this is a workplace study. Were concerned about their personal wellbeing and it increased their anxiety. I think something like 50% of employees were saying that they had a feeling of increased anxiety.
EW (00:22:21):
I want to talk to the people who didn't have increased anxiety due to the pandemic.
CW (00:22:27):
Well, for very idiosyncratic reasons, which I won't get into, my anxiety has improved about 60% since 2019.
EW (00:22:34):
I have seen that. Yes.
CW (00:22:38):
I had to delve into that a little bit, but that's another issue.
KH (00:22:43):
It's fascinating. We actually ran a workshop about burnout with a multinational tech company based out of the Seattle area. And the conversation was so fascinating. The folks who felt the best ... And this is slightly anecdotal. We didn't fully run this as a scientific study. But the folks that felt the best had a sense of connection with their team, they were able to openly and honestly share their feelings, concerns, anxieties with their leader, their peers, and/or their mentors. And the folks that weren't were in the exact opposite camp. And so there is something really powerful even in this digital world that we can do to create human connection and have expression of our emotions of our creative selves that lead to improved wellness. I'm super curious to hear some of the reasons why you feel like your anxiety has actually lessened over the pandemic. I maybe have some-
CW (00:24:01):
Well-
EW (00:24:03):
We don't go out to eat.
CW (00:24:04):
No, no, no. One of my theories early on was that I'm a very anxious person. I have anxiety disorder and other issues. But one of the things was that I had been dreading something like this happening for years and it finally happened. And it wasn't that I was proven right or anything. It was just like, okay, well a really terrible thing has happened and now I'm in it and it flipped a bit or something.
KH (00:24:39):
Wow.
CW (00:24:41):
And I'm not 100% better, but I'm definitely improved. I don't think that's the only reason. But early on I think I was less anxious than I expected to be when things first started happening and I think it's mostly because of a weird world mindset. Expecting catastrophe at all times and then once catastrophe happens, it's like, oh, there it is.
KH (00:25:04):
There it is.
CW (00:25:05):
Okay. I can relax.
KH (00:25:07):
I knew it was here. Pandemic is here. I don't need to go buy all the toilet paper. I can let everyone else do that. First of all, it's amazing. And it's so fascinating. Go back to David Rock. He ran a study where he found that by reframing your mindset around stress and anxiety by simply viewing it as a more positive thing, that people actually experienced significantly less physical and emotional negativity as a response of stress. So it goes back to that mindset piece. And I think what you're bringing up is really fascinating. That your anticipation of catastrophe and being somewhat aware of the presence of it allowed you to manage it a little bit better. That's really cool.
CW (00:26:09):
There's other parts. Codifying my preferred way to work remotely and other things. There were a few things removed that generated anxiety for a while.
EW (00:26:24):
And then we all finally had to wash our hands just the way you wanted.
CW (00:26:27):
Exactly. Finally everybody was washing their hands as much as I thought they should be and that really fixed everything for me. People had to stay six feet away from me.
EW (00:26:39):
Which is preferred anyway.
KH (00:26:42):
See, this is wonderful for the pandemic. Us more introverted folks really have thrived. The other side of that is ... I had a conversation with a good friend and colleague who is quite the opposite of that. Needs and really thrives in being around people, having that connection at scale, which for us, it might be more about having it more intimately. And they went through a very deep depression during the pandemic. And we saw a ton of that. And so there is something to explore for us in how we talk about connection. For some of us, it doesn't mean that we're in a large group, we're going to parties, we're being within two feet of each other. And for others, it does. It absolutely does. And so recognizing what others may need is going to be very different than us is really critical.
CW (00:27:48):
And not to downplay connection. I think I do fine with minimal connection for long periods of time, but that doesn't mean I don't feel better than my average if I have some connection. My brother came up and visited a couple weeks ago and we played music for the first time in years and it was great. And I was riding high on that for a week.
KH (00:28:09):
That's awesome.
CW (00:28:10):
I got to interact with my brother and do stuff that was fun and hadn't done that in a while. But that was something that I wouldn't have considered normally because it's like, I don't need to talk to anybody. I'll be fine. But my baseline may not be as low for not being connected to people, but it still is something that is probably valuable.
KH (00:28:30):
Yeah. And the studies are absolutely showing that it is. It's just the types of interaction, the types of connectioness are going to be different for you than maybe my friend and colleague who needs that constant social interaction. And that's why it's so hard to answer the earlier question about what's the line of burnout because there's so many factors that play into this that your gauge for where you're at in no, low stress, really in that thriving wellbeing space to the high and extreme stress, it's pinning to the left or the right. I always imagine an audiometer just bouncing around at any given time.
CW (00:29:12):
One of the questions I have is like most mental health things or physical health things, a lot of us feel like, oh, I'm either healthy or I'm not. I either have this disease or I don't. I'm sick or I'm healthy. And there's more of a continuum. And I feel like when you're coming out of burnout, perhaps you dip back ... It's not a ramp, right?
EW (00:29:37):
No. It's so not a ramp.
CW (00:29:40):
There's dips and valleys so it can be very hard to say, "Oh, I'm over burnout," or, "I'm over whatever thing is bugging me at the moment." How can people get perspective about what might feel like retrenchments or regression? Like, "Oh, I was doing well this week, but now I'm feeling that way again and I'm never going to get out of this."
EW (00:30:06):
I read 10 novels this week instead of four. Clearly I'm feeling worse.
KH (00:30:13):
I'm impressed. If 10 novels is the consumption that you're seeing on a regular basis that is amazing.
CW (00:30:19):
Oh yes.
EW (00:30:24):
It's not good.
KH (00:30:25):
That is amazing.
EW (00:30:25):
It's not good.
CW (00:30:25):
How is that any worse than watching four episodes of Community back to back?
EW (00:30:29):
Because usually you're drumming or exercising while you're doing that.
CW (00:30:33):
Sometimes. I'm able to watch an extra afterward.
EW (00:30:36):
Well, it's dessert.
KH (00:30:42):
We've got to go back to the question.
CW (00:30:43):
Yeah, the question.
KH (00:30:48):
Remind me-
CW (00:30:49):
The path out of burnout is not likely to be a linear path and how can people feel like they're making progress in the face of weeks or days when maybe it feels like it's all coming back?
KH (00:31:06):
Yeah. Well, first let's normalize that stress, anxiety, the conditions that we exist in are ... It's normal. It is very normal to feel stress and anxiety and it is very normal to be at times on the curve towards a burnout. That happens. Something like 73% of adults have experienced physical and/or emotional negative reactions to stress. So this is a very normal phenomenon in our human experience.
KH (00:31:48):
The next thing is I'll go back to that quote that has just been sticking with me for years or a couple years now. It says, "To be well is not to live in a state of perpetual safety and calm, but to move fluidly from state of adversity, risk, adventure, or excitement, back to safety and calm again and out." So I think the first thing that we need to be cultivating in our mindset is that it is always going to be present. There's always going to be some level of stress, anxiety, circumstances that are difficult that could lead us to burnout. And it's similar to your experience with calamity and catastrophe might happen and then here it is. It can help us be in a state of mind that allows us to navigate it a little bit more effectively.
KH (00:32:37):
As far as the curve getting out of burnout, it is a journey. When I experienced one about five years ago, I went through mental health counseling. I found myself taking weeks, months at a time where things would be hard almost daily.
EW (00:33:04):
Mm-hmm.
KH (00:33:04):
Yeah. You've been there. And there's never going to be a single answer, especially once you've gotten to that point. So it really is a mindset. And what I did is ... I can only really speak for myself personally here. And I'd be curious to know your experience Elecia.
KH (00:33:26):
But having a person or two who knew what was going on with me and could help reshape my mindset when I needed to, to put me in a little bit more of check. And then I'm a sticky note person so I would have a couple sticky notes that were self affirmations and reminders that it's a journey. That really helped. And I know that when we look at a lot of the studies, the act of going through counseling is one of the best ways to navigate getting out of burnout.
KH (00:34:13):
Our hope and the work that I've been trying to do is to talk about it so we can start to prevent it from happening in the first place. To think about the tools that help us manage getting to that in the first place. But once you're there, it is critical to seek help in my opinion. Elecia, I'm curious what your thoughts are. You expressed that you've experienced this. What was your experience in getting yourself out of it and having those swings back and forth?
EW (00:34:46):
Chris is looking at me like, "How many books did you read this week?" It's definitely back and forth. I thought that not doing as much work would help me get out of it. And that hasn't been as true as I wanted it to be. I haven't seen any counselors because the few times that I've seen counselors, they've been terrible. So I'm one of those, I probably should see someone, but then when I go see someone they're like, "Why are you here? You're clearly highly functional." I'm like, "Yeah, I am highly functional and I'm not always happy about it."
EW (00:35:26):
So yeah, definitely goes back and forth. Just taking off isn't good enough. I will definitely retract from connections. Especially when I feel worse. So I don't have an accountability buddy that says, "Okay, clearly you feel terrible, now you have to talk to someone." That would be the worst. Now you have to talk to your friends. And I'm just like, "No. They'll know that I feel terrible still." So yeah, I guess I'm not handling it very well when it all comes down to it. And possibly I should. I do want to point out that burnout has been different from depression, which I've also experienced. And it is weird how it's different. Is that a common experience?
KH (00:36:29):
Yeah. I'll start by saying something I don't often say about myself. I was diagnosed with clinical depression in my early 20s and it's been something I've struggled with my whole life. So I think that has led to maybe more of a predilection to find myself in situations of burnout. And what is typically different ... And this is still part of the obscurity of the "medical condition" of burnout. Is that burnout is usually mental and physical collapse in its purest form. Whereas depression shows up in much different ways in addition to those things.
KH (00:37:20):
So usually depression is energy low. And this is for me. I want to speak very clearly for me. Energy low, difficulty wanting to get out of bed. Things like that. Whereas burnout for me has shown up in a lot more of the panic attack sometimes. Not able to even look at my computer screen because nothing makes sense on it. In those ways. So I agree that there is a difference. And a lot of what the studies and research are showing is that depression is showing up alongside burnout, but not as exactly the same. And sometimes depression ... Feeling lost, exhausted, future looks extremely bleak and dark, and those kind of experiences internally, can happen during the burnout curve. But ultimately burnout looks very different in the physical and the emotional state of being.
CW (00:38:36):
And certainly burnout could feed an existing other disorder. If I had serious burnout, I think it would make me extremely anxious for a lot of reasons. Other people might get depressed because they're not able to function as well as they think they should be able to. So yeah, a lot of these things seem to be fellow travelers.
KH (00:38:59):
Fellow travelers and they definitely influence one another. I think there is an inner relationship between them but they look different. A lot of the studies show that in burnout depersonalization, seeing others or yourself as no longer being valuable or perceived as valuable, is one of the ways that burnout can start to manifest. And that's a bit different than depression potentially.
EW (00:39:30):
Okay. So now we have fully defined it. We can stop asking those questions and go on to okay, change your mindset. That's not quite enough advice. Even for people who are like, "I'm not there, but I feel like I'm headed there," what advice can we give them?
KH (00:39:52):
When it comes to starting to recognize that burnout or behaviors that are leading to burnout, there are some really practical things that we can do. As I said earlier, managing the difficult situations as well as our response to those difficulty is critical. So when we talk about managing difficult situations, I've categorized what we can do into a few different ways. One is about preparedness and action taking. So often we may have something spinning in our mind or we have a deadline coming up or something. Even simply setting calendar blocks to commit to doing them can actually relieve the feeling of the difficult situation and prevent us from having negative responses. That simple action can actually help us manage our difficulty every day. So preparing and taking action. There's just one example. Even just writing and journaling and getting things out of ourselves can help us take action, especially when it's an internal type of difficult feeling or self-talk.
KH (00:41:10):
The second one is admittedly the hardest one for me personally. It's about filtering and setting boundaries. This is about defining and taking time for what matters most to you. I was lucky enough to have a really great counselor who helped me take time to define what are my values, what are the roles that I play or what roles do I prioritize in my life? And then take the time to outline. And for me, I need to get it out on paper, I need to see it in order to feel like it's starting to become real. And so writing out how do I really be in these roles? I'll give you an example. I led with it earlier when I introduced myself. First and foremost, I am a husband and I am a father. I value that and that is the most important thing for me in my life at this time.
KH (00:42:19):
And so I wrote down, what does that mean for me in that role and how do I take time, create my blocks to make sure I'm focused there in the right ways? And then it's about setting the boundaries around it. For me right now, I've actually completely removed notifications and set up some filters for what's coming in in my phone because that was starting to detract from some of the things that I was valuing most. Your book habit of voraciously consuming all of the books shows up for me in a slightly different way. It's news media. It's oftentimes all of the Star Wars content I can get my hands on. And what ends up happening is I find myself sucked into my phone when I should be sucked into my family and focused on them. So that's a really critical one and a really hard one personally. So preparing and taking action, filtering and setting boundaries, and consistently checking in with yourself around those.
KH (00:43:29):
And then when we shift ... And we kind of already touched on these. When we start shifting into how to manage our response when difficulty is happening and we can't necessarily manage it as well upfront, there's really three major things. One is practicing mindfulness. There's a lot of studies showing that by taking time to go through guided me meditations, doing simple breathing exercises, practicing gratitude, et cetera, can really help us manage the space in between what's happening between that difficult situation and our responses. And it helps us choose more intentionally what our response is to that difficulty.
KH (00:44:07):
And then I already mentioned a couple others. The physical activity and breathing. Simple 15 minute blocks of time to move uninterrupted. And this one's going to be hard. It sounds like this is maybe a habit for you all. But 15 minutes in nature with activities. So even just walking through a park with no music, no shows, no phone pulled up, has tremendous, tremendous scientific supporting research that shows that our brains change what's happening. And we move into a state of calm. Our hormones can start to shift and change. And it's a really, really incredibly simple way to help manage some of this.
KH (00:44:56):
And then the last one we already talked about was connectedness and expression. And sometimes that can be watching Community and having a good laugh. That's actually a really great way to release some of the pent up and built up emotional responses. So those are the five that I've categorized based on the research that's proving how to be more proactive in preventing burnout.
CW (00:45:25):
I think the values thing is really important. It's just something I've started working with in the last year. It comes down to me, well, why are you doing this? Or may maybe more accurately, why do you think you need to do this? And bringing things back to some core values and defining core values for your person and saying, what do I value in life? What's most meaningful? And then start asking questions about how you are supporting those values with what you do every day. And sometimes I look at some things I'm doing as like, well, I don't actually care about this, I just feel like I have to do it. This is not something that's important to me. And that can be a real mindset shift, I think. And like you said, you prioritize certain things ahead of others and that work is not first on the list. So I think that can be really important. But it's hard to do because it's like, okay, what do I think is important? I've never really thought about that before. A lot of people probably haven't.
EW (00:46:30):
What do you want to be when you grow up is a question that we stop asking ourselves and yet, I don't know the answer anymore. What I am is far exceeding what I thought I wanted to be when I grew up.
CW (00:46:45):
Didn't you want to marry a dolphin or something?
EW (00:46:47):
No. I was much younger.
CW (00:46:51):
Oh, sorry.
EW (00:46:56):
The values are part of it. I guess some of this comes back to my occasionally buying a lottery ticket just so I can dream about what if I won and then trying to figure out why I'm not doing that anyway.
KH (00:47:12):
That is such a profound statement. Why am I not doing that anyway? Part of the defining your why, your purpose, part of why it's so hard is because we're confronting some things that maybe feel impractical or feel counter to normative cultural behavior. And then there's the hard reality of confronting the fact that we are not doing the things that maybe we want to. And then you're looking at yourself going, "Ugh. Why am I spending so much of my time looking at Star Wars pop culture?"
CW (00:48:00):
Hey, now come on. Star Wars is important.
KH (00:48:02):
It is. There's a time and place. There's an amount of Star Wars that I should consume before it becomes unhealthy. The 10 book thing. There's a hard reality when you confront it, especially at first. And especially when you look at your roles that you're playing in your life and you go, where am I spending my time and does that align with what I value? It's a hard conversation to have. With yourself and with your partner and peers and whomever you have around you that you can connect with on these things.
EW (00:48:40):
It is a hard conversation to have because I've talked to people who want to write children's books. And then if you talk to them about what are they doing, and even if you can find somebody you know who might help them, the truth is what they wanted was to want to write children's books. They didn't actually-
CW (00:49:04):
Or to have written one.
EW (00:49:06):
They wanted people to view them as a children's book author. They didn't want to be one. They didn't want to put the work in.
CW (00:49:16):
But that might be distillable into a value that's not I want to be a children's book author.
EW (00:49:21):
Well, yeah. That was an example that came to mind.
CW (00:49:23):
Yeah. Yeah.
EW (00:49:26):
There's a lot of I want to want to be that person. Not a that is actually my value.
CW (00:49:31):
Yeah. Right.
KH (00:49:32):
Yeah. What's coming to mind for me is focusing more on the outcomes and the actual journey and what gives me joy and fulfillment versus the, what do I want to have said I have created, done, built. It's more about where do I want to spend my time every day? That's hard to define. It's really hard. It takes a lot of time. Sometimes I'll coach and mentor some folks who are earlier in their career. And the coaching that I typically give these folks is around focus less on the title that you want ... And this is really hard, especially for someone coming out of college. Focus less on the title you want and focus more on what gives you passion every day. Focus more on finding what is it that lights you up? Marcus Buckingham is a thought leader in focusing on our strengths. He worked on the strengths finder work out of Gallup several years ago. And he talks a lot about falling in love with what you do.
KH (00:50:49):
And it's such a simple exercise. Spend a week just writing down every time you find yourself getting lost in something that was absolutely exciting at work. Specifically in his work. And write down on that same paper ... Have two columns. One love, one loath. What did I absolutely loathe about today or this week? Leave the stuff out that's in the middle. And going through that exercise can really help you start to identify like, "Oh my gosh, I really was immersed in this creative activity." I did this for a week for myself. And one of the things I didn't really realize about myself is I would get lost in just creating a visual element for this one silly presentation. And I was like, wow, that gave me a lot of joy. And I saw several other examples of that. And so spending time in a creative space for me is something I have to make sure that's a part of my daily life otherwise I will move inevitably towards this burnout if I don't have enough of that. And so spent ... He calls it spending a week falling in love with work again. I thought that was a really powerful and simple tool to start to unpack some of what we're talking about here of what do I really want to be in life.
EW (00:52:07):
For most engineers, we get into it because we love the puzzles and we love the learning. And for many of us it's about liking the play of making the compiler do what we want. And it is really easy to forget all that.
CW (00:52:26):
Yeah. I'm sitting here thinking I don't want to do that exercise. Just going to be three feet of loathe. I'm going to do that exercise, but I'm not sure it's going to come out in a way that I would want it to.
EW (00:52:40):
See, I still occasionally find flow.
CW (00:52:42):
I do, but not often. But I've been doing this a very long time. So there's not a lot of novelty lately, I guess.
EW (00:52:54):
I mean, that's some of which client group we have right now.
CW (00:52:57):
That's fair.
EW (00:52:58):
If you want to take one of my other clients, they have some novelty.
CW (00:53:00):
I don't want any clients. Anyway.
KH (00:53:03):
There's that six feet. Stay six feet away.
CW (00:53:08):
But yeah, no. When I heard you describe that exercise, I'm like, that scares me. Because what if I don't have anything in the love column? But that's not to say there aren't things I don't get into, but there aren't things that I can make money doing.
EW (00:53:24):
I mean, maybe that's something we ... Instead of just doing it for work, do it for life. That might be useful.
CW (00:53:30):
Yeah.
KH (00:53:32):
That is exactly it. This is the hard work of preventing and avoiding burnout is taking a really hard look at yourself. And that's why so many people burn out is because we don't do this. It is scary. You're absolutely right. It's scary. And I'm not suggesting that suddenly you will look at this list and be like, "Oh my gosh, that's it. I've solved it." It's an ongoing-
CW (00:53:59):
Time to walk up and down the beach for the rest of my life. Throw my computer into the sea.
KH (00:54:06):
I just had this really beautiful cinematic image of that sun setting and the computer splash and then credits role.
EW (00:54:19):
Okay. How do I prevent burnout for other people? What can I do to help other folks?
CW (00:54:24):
Okay. Can I add on to that a little bit? How do you recognize when burnout is approaching? Are there warning signs you can notice for yourself or other people?
EW (00:54:35):
I'm curious more about the other people part.
CW (00:54:37):
Yeah.
KH (00:54:38):
Yes. The short answer is yes. I said this earlier. It is far easier to recognize burnout in others than it is ourselves. What I will say, and I'll start by saying, is the thing not to do is to approach said person and say, "I think you're burning out. You're being a jerk lately. I think you might be on burnout." That's not the right answer. The first thing I'll say is this is about approaching things and people who may be experiencing this from a place of care and empathy and seeking to understand, which is very hard to do always, but especially when you're in a conversation about someone's physical and mental health.
KH (00:55:34):
I'll start with what the indicators are when we're moving towards burnout in that high and extreme stress of constant high and extreme stress. And that's what really we're talking about here. There might be flashes in a stressful situation that might come out, but it may not be an indicator of a deeper issue. So that's something to be aware of is this could be a daily thing where it's like all of a sudden, my gosh, I had a stressful situation. I'm frustrated. That's maybe not a sign of burnout.
KH (00:56:05):
And then the other, I guess, caveat I'll give to what I'm about to say is every person, every team that you work with, every situation is going to be different. And so it should be handled as such. But the first early indicator is excessive drive. And what I mean by that is when you're seeing someone push themselves to perform and improve that is damaging their emotional state. And when that stress that they're putting on themselves or being put on them is not being released. So there's behavioral indicators and there's performance indicators.
KH (00:56:50):
As an example of this one, consistently taking on more and more and asking for more is a sign of excessive drive and an indicator that it is becoming a negative behavior. Because it's not always a negative behavior. It's good to push ourselves outside of our comfort zones from time to time. But when we start seeing degrading quality of work, simple tasks and simple deadlines are being missed or feel or seem more challenging than they should. So this takes a level of awareness of someone's ability when you're looking at it in someone else. You're like, "Normally you're great at that. I'm noticing a lot of stuff slipping. What's going on?" That is a different level of conversation.
KH (00:57:43):
The next one is when we start to see the negative behavior change. This is when emotions are starting to become taken out on others in a negative way, or we're displacing our emotions onto others and those around us. This might behaviorally look like impatience, anger, changes in attitude. And you may see it show up especially in a team dynamic where team morale is starting to become affected. There's maybe a strained relationship dynamic that's happening between two people. Things like that. Or others are coming to you. Especially if you're a leader in this space and others are coming to you and saying, "Hey, so and so is starting to act really weird. I'm noticing a lot that they're frustrated more often. They're really triggered. They're defensive more than usual." That's a negative behavior change that has some impact. Detachment and angst. We talked a little bit about this. This is when someone feels like and is expressing that they're no longer able to control their life. This is usually when we start to recommend seeking some sort of professional help. And the behavior indicators are unhealthy coping mechanisms.
KH (00:59:14):
Maybe some of this detachment is reading too many books, but when we're really talking about unhealthy coping mechanisms we're of course talking about things like alcohol abuse, drug abuse, things like that. But then I think more evident is typically a general sense of aloofness that doesn't exist prior. Again, every human's different. Sometimes aloofness is just part of a personality trait. But that can be a clear indicator.
KH (00:59:46):
And again, this will start showing up as work taking long, team cohesion issues. And then when we really start to see full on burnout and breakdown, that's where it's that physical and emotional collapse like I was talking about earlier. Apathy and mobility. Everything appears difficult. Inability to manage day to day things. And this is where seeking help, whether from a professional or somebody who can coach through life coaching and things like that is really critical.
KH (01:00:22):
So the first thing to do is to start looking out for some of those behaviors and performance indicators that show this person's maybe on a path of burnout and breakdown. The second thing is to never just approach it with a, "I think you're burning out. I need you to stop." And it's to seek to understand. So, hey, I'm noticing blank. "I'm noticing that it seems like there's some impatience that you're feeling with me or someone else. What's going on? What's happening?" And then approach it from a place of curiosity before making any recommendations. It is very hard, very hard to not just say, I think you need to do something different.
KH (01:01:08):
The question then becomes in what ways are we, maybe as a team, or you as an individual lacking the conditions that you need to really live in wellbeing? How can I help you? And then we can start asking the questions around, okay, do you have the right boundaries in place? Are you taking action to prevent taking on too much? What's your mindset around this? But starting with that general, what is happening is the first step.
EW (01:01:43):
We talked earlier about how detachment has a solution, has a recommended counter of being more involved and charity work. Are there other ... I don't want to say symptoms. Other things we do, other dealing mechanisms that have acknowledged suggested solutions?
KH (01:02:18):
Yeah. And we've already talked a little bit about them. The other thing I'll say is when detachment is happening, what the research is saying is that maybe focusing on yourself and if there is a state of detachment, focusing on yourself, doing these value type of conversations, that's actually not a helpful tool at that moment. So there is also this other way to look at some of this where in some of these excessive drive, as an example, the right thing to do isn't to sit down and make a bunch of lists of all the things you want to accomplish. That's just going to perpetuate the problem.
KH (01:03:00):
So taking action is maybe not the right approach there. But in excessive drive, what is recommended is to focus on the side of managing stress that is more about physical activity, breathing, connectedness and expression, finding things outside of yourself. So those are a couple examples. When the negative behavior change happens, this is a mindset and this is where the recommendation is to focus primarily on the mindset and the mindfulness pillars, if you will.
KH (01:03:43):
And then the other one. We already talked about detachment in angst. And then when burnout has happened, what does not work is trying to then go back and retroactively take these actions. That becomes more of the need for conversations to identify, uncover what is the true trigger that led to it and then address that root cause which I will not pretend to be a mental health counselor or psychologist focused on that space. So I won't even pretend like there's a clear and clean answer that I could give you on that one.
EW (01:04:31):
So like the question of "what if I'm not good enough, unless I put in this much effort?" Isn't the one you want to answer?
KH (01:04:41):
The question of ... The question of when someone is burnt out. I will not pretend that I'm going to be able to give you a clean answer because every person's situation is different and there's never been a clear answer of when burnout happens, do X, Y, or Z. When burnout happens, it's happened for a reason and it's going to be different for everybody.
EW (01:05:09):
Although I do want to flow chart of the dealing mechanisms and how to deal with them. If you're detached here, you go there. If you have excessive drive, you go there and not there. It would make a good flow chart. Let me know when you're done with the infographic.
KH (01:05:28):
Yeah. I do have a couple actually. I will send them your way.
EW (01:05:31):
Cool. Keith, it's been really great to talk to you. Do you have any thoughts you'd like to leave us with?
KH (01:05:40):
I'll say that these are really hard, difficult conversations and there's no easy answers to any of this. The most important thing that I've learned in the research I've done and the work I've done with myself and some folks I've partnered with to help work through this is to really focus on the space of prevention as much as possible. And if we're really intentional about putting daily habits and practices in that help us manage difficult situations, as well as our response to that difficulty, it becomes much easier to manage the inevitability of feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and frustrated at work or in life. And so focusing as much as we can on those activities is really what I've seen and what I've learned is the best way we can address burnout in the workplace and build a bit more resiliency.
EW (01:06:46):
Our guest has been Keith Hildesheim. Director of learning and development at Slolam. We'll have some links for the books in the show notes and hopefully a few infographics.
CW (01:06:58):
Thanks Keith. It was a good conversation.
KH (01:07:00):
Thank you. Really appreciate you both and the time.
EW (01:07:03):
Thank you to Christopher for producing and co-hosting. Thank you to Peter Griffin for the introduction and thank you for listening. You can always contact us at show@embedded.fm or hit the contacts link on Embedded FM. And now a quote to leave you with that gives you entirely the wrong advice from Edna St. Vincent Millay. "My candle burns at both ends. It will not last night. But oh, my foes and my friends, it gives a lovely light."