Burnout: I Wasn’t Myself, And It Wasn’t Just Work (Secret Podcast)

Speaker A: Welcome back to my secret podcast. It's been a long time since I've recorded, and, um, that's because I've had some things going on, and I wasn't really sure about how or why or even if I should share this stuff. Um, but, hey, this is a secret

Speaker B: podcast, so nobody should be listening, right?

Speaker A: Well, um, I think it is important, and I think maybe, uh, you can learn if you are listening to this or if I am listening to this, maybe one of us can learn something through this experience that I've had. So I'm actually coming out the other side of something that's been really difficult. And I was calling it burnout. That I wasn't calling it burnout. I was calling it early stage burnout. And then I decided it doesn't really matter what I'm calling it, because something was really, really off. Um, and this episode is going to be a bit of a reflection, and I'm going to have a few more episodes coming later about the lessons that we can learn from what I've experienced, because I think we're all going to go through some version of this at some point. Business isn't easy. It takes a lot from the business owner. And, uh, I'm on the other side. And I'm back. I'm back to 100%. I'm even better than I was before. And so if you're struggling with something like this, or if you might struggle with something like this in the future, maybe you can learn something to help that will help. So what's going on? Um, so for a few months, I felt.

Speaker B: Let me just describe to you how

Speaker A: I felt and where it came from.

Speaker B: Um, and maybe you can relate. I.

Speaker A: For a few months, I was excited. I was excited. I've been excited about this business that I have.

Speaker B: If you. If you've listened to my previous episodes, I love my business.

Speaker A: I'm excited about what we're doing. But

Speaker B: there are stresses that come with

Speaker A: growth, and so they built and built. And I got to a place where I felt constantly overwhelmed. I had too many things to do, not enough time, and I was trying to move faster and faster just to keep up with all that was coming to me. It was coming to me faster than I could, that I could get caught up. And so it was just this sense of pressure. And it's funny because it's pressure that I put on myself. It's my company, right. Well, I have a partner, right? But, um, nobody else is putting these pressures on me. It's me. Um, and I Just feel like I'm not. I just felt like I wasn't meeting my own expectations. Um, and there were just more and more responsibilities that, you know, people asking things of me and I. I felt like I was trying to dig myself out from under a mountain of work and that, like, I was saying that mountain was growing faster than I could dig.

Speaker B: Do you know what I mean?

Speaker A: Like, have you ever experienced anything like that?

Speaker B: So I kept waiting for, you know, like, I thought, like, I did see that something structural needed to change, but

Speaker A: I kept thinking that I'll make those changes after I clear my plate or after I dig myself out from under this mountain. Right? But every time I made progress, more

Speaker B: work showed up, right? And there was no moment to come up for air. No space to think or plan or reset. Um,

Speaker A: and again, it's all my fault, right?

Speaker B: Um,

Speaker A: so, yeah, if you've ever been there, like, you can probably relate. And if you haven't been there and

Speaker B: you run a business, I'm sure you'll

Speaker A: be there at some point.

Speaker B: Um, and that's not meant to be as a curse, but this is just

Speaker A: business in life, you know? Um, but there came a point where I realized I don't think I can actually get out from under this, so

Speaker B: something has to change.

Speaker A: And I was getting more exhausted and more beaten down and. And, um. Well, let me tell you what led to this.

Speaker B: So, um, without telling you a super long story as, ah, I sometimes am prone to do, uh, yeah, we were growing last year. So it was kind of the middle of last year. We're growing, it's exciting. And we've built out a recruiting team.

Speaker A: That's amazing.

Speaker B: But we still hadn't hired anybody to do anything else besides recruiting. Now we do have an accountant who is part time.

Speaker A: Um, but, you know, as far as anything else, we didn't have any other help.

Speaker B: And that all came to my partner.

Speaker A: And me and my partner came on

Speaker B: M, as I explained in a previous episode, as full co founder, in the middle of last year and in July, and she went into founder mode and

Speaker A: created a lot more of exciting things

Speaker B: and projects, and the doing of a

Speaker A: lot of that stuff ended up falling to me, which I was excited about. Right. The other thing that happened was I started traveling a lot in the second half of last year. Um, between personal trips, work trips, you

Speaker B: know, I go to conferences in, uh,

Speaker A: Thailand and Mexico, uh, for. With the community that I'm in. I go to the Philippines twice a year now. I went to six countries last year, which is awesome.

Speaker B: And I love it. And I went to a bunch of

Speaker A: conferences, you know, domestic, domestically, and it

Speaker B: just was too much. And so the last, uh, third of the year or so, I was going on a big trip for a week or two. Coming home, had a week, had two weeks at home, then leaving on another big trip. And of course, I'm not doing any real, you know, quote unquote work while I'm on my big trips.

Speaker A: And you know, when I'm at home

Speaker B: in between trips, first I have to reorient myself to the time zone and jet lag and whatever, but then do all the work that accumulated while I was gone. But I never got caught up.

Speaker A: Um, and after the last big trip,

Speaker B: I had some scheduling constraints. Constraints. So I squeezed a whole bunch of things into a very short period. So I went to the conference in Bangkok that I always go to for like six days or something. And then I had no, you know, that's very high energy time, right? Social, uh, energy, which I love, but it's still very high energy. Then I went straight to Manila and spent like five days with my team, four days. So something like that. Again, no breaks. And then I went straight from there, uh, to a conference in Miami. Um, again, no breaks. And, um, these are all very high

Speaker A: things that I love to do, but very high energy, uh, consumption. So that was two and a half

Speaker B: weeks of this sustained high energy output, social energy output, and no recovery time at all.

Speaker A: And then I got home and for some stupid reason, I scheduled, you know, um, I thought, well, as soon as I get home, I better get back

Speaker B: to sales calls because, you know, two and a half weeks without me taking a sales call, I need to get back on this. Even though I do have somebody fill in for me. Um, I just felt that need. And so the day after I got home from that trip, I was on a couple sales calls and I just. I just melted down. I just. I was nearly non functional. And for, I think about eight days. Um, I just. This is the first time in my life ever that I have.

Speaker A: And I'm, um.

Speaker B: I was. I GUESS I was 44 at that point. I turned 45 in February. So this was like in November or December of last year. And yeah, I didn't feel like myself for the first time ever. It was the weirdest feeling.

Speaker A: I can't even describe what that's like. And I was just kind of in a fog. I couldn't respond normally to normal things. My wife told me I was there was. She noticed there was something off. Of course she knew what was happening, but, you know, she was noticing. And then after about eight days, I thought, okay, you know, I'm kind of getting back. Um, but even then, I was having discussions with my wife about, you know, this experience and, um, you know, the causes and all of this. And she told me then, well, you're still not back.

Speaker B: You're still not normal. And I was like, whoa. I. I didn't even know that. Um, so that.

Speaker A: That's what it was like. So, yeah, pretty crazy experience. And so I think it took some

Speaker B: time to where after about a week and a half or two weeks, I was back to maybe like 75%, but still, I was just. And I don't even know how to describe. How can I even describe what I was like? I just didn't feel right. I didn't have the energy to do any of the things I normally like to do in interact with the people I like to interact with. Um, putting good energy into my work, which is normally I'm very passionate and high energy about. I just had nothing.

Speaker A: And, um, I remember talking to my partner Meryl about, like, well, I just

Speaker B: don't know how to get out from under this. And she said, uh, you know, we talked a little bit about different things that we could do. Do we need to hire somebody?

Speaker A: And at one point I said, well, I just don't know. And she said, I think we were planning on hiring an executive assistant for me. And I was like, yeah, but do

Speaker B: we really need that? Do I really have enough work for somebody? You know, those. You know, that won't be super cheap. Um, and she said, listen, we have to get you back.

Speaker A: She said something like, it seems like

Speaker B: we're not using your. We haven't been using you to your strengths and you're not yourself, and we need to do whatever, whatever it takes to get you back. And if that means hiring somebody who's going to be underutilized, it'll be worth it.

Speaker A: And, um, so anyway, I'll tell you

Speaker B: in future in the next episodes what we actually did.

Speaker A: But that was a moment where I

Speaker B: was like, okay, well, she's right.

Speaker A: I need to get back.

Speaker B: And this is.

Speaker A: This is kind of.

Speaker B: This is not okay where we are right now. So let me tell you what it was like going through this.

Speaker A: So in my body, I could feel it. I would get tension in my body.

Speaker B: I had really hard trouble.

Speaker A: I had a hard time sleeping.

Speaker B: Over the Christmas break, I actually took

Speaker A: three weeks off, which I've never done

Speaker B: before, and we went to visit My in laws.

Speaker A: And, um, I just. I had such trouble sleeping. Um, I was kind of a zombie.

Speaker B: Um, and then when we came home, that just continued.

Speaker A: Um, so I had tension in my. In my jaw, in my stomach.

Speaker B: Um,

Speaker A: and strangely, this thought kept coming to me. And there was.

Speaker B: People talk. Like there was a voice in my head. It wasn't a voice, but I just.

Speaker A: I kept having this thought that said. It said, you're. You're burned out. And when I had that thought, I would, uh, immediately think, no, that's not

Speaker B: true, because I have had burnout before in previous businesses. Um, and this felt similar enough to

Speaker A: that that I kind of recognized it, but still quite different, because that was a different business. It was a different time in life.

Speaker B: I actually didn't like that business, but

Speaker A: I love this business. And I feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be. But, you know, recognizing that thought, you know, it's. Pay attention to your thoughts. So, like, even if it's not the same, it's worth paying attention to. And between that and my conversations with Meryl, we finally decided that I needed to do something. Um, but there's more to it than

Speaker B: just that, of course.

Speaker A: Uh, I've been talking about work, right? Well, you know, your body, your human, Your being is more than just work. And other things in life, of course, impact who. Who we are and our experience and impact our work. And so there's a. There's another layer to all of this. And this is where I'm at in my phase of life. Like I said, I was 44 at the time. I turned 45 in February. And I don't know how to say this, but. Except that, um, I. I'm going through something of a midlife crisis. I think midlife crisis is the wrong term, but something like it, right? This is a phase of life where family, you know, my daughter. My daughter just turned 16 last month.

Speaker B: We got a car.

Speaker A: She's driving, right?

Speaker B: So this is all changing. She's going to be out of the

Speaker A: house maybe in a couple of years. Um, my wife's work is intense. Um, she works from home also, but her job is very, very demanding. And it's. She went through a super intense year, and I don't like that. Right. That wears on me. I want time with her.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Um, and, you know. You know, like I said, I'm getting a little older and I'm starting to notice. I'm just starting to notice, like, you

Speaker B: know, this life that I. This could be half over, you know, 45 times two, I could be beyond half over.

Speaker A: Right? Um, I've just been starting to think about those things and, and don't get

Speaker B: me wrong, I'm happy with where, with

Speaker A: the life that I've chosen. But still I can't help but to think like, what if I had done things differently? You know, I don't know why, but

Speaker B: this is the phase of, this is

Speaker A: the time when I'm having these thoughts. Um, and of course there's some, some health related things, right? Um, aging related things. I'm in pretty good health, but you know, I'm starting to notice a few things and um, you know, energy levels and I don't want to over dramatize that because I still do feel very good. But some things, you know what I mean? So it's interesting, you know, this middle age, I suppose this is, this is a phase of life where people, you know, responsibility gets stacked up. Like usually people are entering their most, you know, their highest, they're entering the later stages of their careers, right? They have more and more responsibility at work, they have more responsibility at home. Like, parents are aging, right? Both my parents and my in laws, my dad had a heart attack last year.

Speaker B: You know, that was the first real major health scare with one of our parents.

Speaker A: So it's like, uh, this is the time of life when those things get compressed.

Speaker B: And so when you combine all of

Speaker A: that with what I was going through with my business, you know, it just kind of came to a head. So I don't know if you've ever experienced something like that, but it's not easy, right? Um, so now I can tell you

Speaker B: that thankfully, like I said, I'm on

Speaker A: the other side and I'm doing even

Speaker B: better than I was before all of this.

Speaker A: And I'm really, really grateful for where I am, the people I'm with, um, my home life, my business, the people I work with. And so, um, if this is you, um, you know, hey, I can relate to that. Um, and so in the next couple of episodes, I'm going to break down, you know, some of the things that,

Speaker B: that we did to help bring me out of this. And hopefully if you're going through something like this or if you do go something like through, like, if you do go through something like this, maybe this, maybe those, uh, steps, maybe learning about what we did can help you too.

Speaker A: So. All right, uh,

Speaker B: I'm curious if you've, if you've ever gone through anything like this or if you are, um, please

Speaker A: hit me up, let me know. You can send me an email. Isaac I s a a cireteamup.com h I r e T e a m m u p.com all right, talk to you in the next one.