Alexis: Hey, I'm Alexis Booth and welcome to the breakout booth. I was a senior manager at Google. I'm a wife and a mother and I learned the hard way. If you're not fired up, you're on hold. I believe success is closer than you think. There's a set of skills and habits you can grow to unlock unbelievable outcomes. In this podcast, we'll explore them through real talk and bold conversation because I want to help you break out.
Alexis: Hello folks and welcome to the Breakout Booth. I am bringing my guest into the discussion all the way up top because he has actually been involved throughout the journey I've been on navigating burnout the past few years. And rather than wax and wane about all this stuff, let's cut to the chase. I would love to welcome Dr. John Mlinarcik to the Breakout Booth. Welcome.
Dr. John: Thank you very much, Alexis. Very nice.
Alexis: I hope you can get settled in the booth over there. Are you feeling comfortable?
Dr. John: Never more comfortable. This is exactly the way I wanted to be.
Alexis: That's great. We’ve kind of got a role reversal here. You're the actual therapist and coach. I'm just a podcast host. What do you normally tell people when they sit down in your office?
Dr. John: Welcome. Normally, it's a welcome and then it's actually trying to make a connection as best I can. So, offer them water or coffee.we have candy actually there in a box and then we kind of settle in and say I'm happy to meet you and thanks for being here and I'm looking forward to anything you want to tell me that you know will go to the grave with me.
Alexis: Well, this is going to be a little more public. Hope you're okay with that.
Dr. John: You bet I am.
Alexis: And I would offer you water and candy, but we're virtually doing this, so you know, I'm I'm seeing you, but I'm not like seeing you seeing you.
Dr. John: Thank you. I got my own already.
Alexis: All right. Well, good. Cool. Well, thank you so much for being here today. I know that this conversation is going to be incredibly valuable for our listeners. And I do think that there is a lot more awareness about burnout nowadays. I've been hearing lots more voices of people who have admitted to having gone through it. But I still feel like most of what I hear and I read is very much like a surface level. It's almost philosophical or a hypothetical description of it. And I mean, sure, there's a list of the signs you might notice in yourself or in someone else who's burned out. You'll see a list of the potential symptoms, but it's not really the story of what it feels like to go through it.
Alexis: Also, by the way, some of the words I'm using here are already moving me into a very yucky place. You know, I'm talking about symptoms and issues, and we're already talking about a disorder which is a literal judgment of me, you know. So, accepting that I'm symptomatic, it already is bringing me to this place that I'm thinking about how I'm going to fall into this pit of despair with this stigmatized thing. I mean, this is a mental health issue, right? And it has all sorts of of negative connotations. I mean, is this something that you hear from your clients or that you come across?
Dr. John: On a regular basis. In fact, we it's they consider this sort of like a syndrome and or a disorder to your point and that there are the three components that we're going to talk about in a little bit or the dimensions and you need all three to be clearly diagnosable and so you can't just have one and you can't have just two. You have to have all three at some level of distress and it's also talking about it's an occupational disorder. So it's not even something that's on a personal level. And actually to your point we've actually had two of the major organizations or associations that allow us to make diagnostic calendarization two don't recognize burnout as a diagnostic category. Only one does. And so it's just you're 100% right. It's just coming to the foreground. We will start to hear you're at the - you're “breaking booth” at the right time, because you're you're going to start to hear more about this. Because it's a literal thing that happens to people, both physical and psychological. So you're right.
Alexis: Well, so what I was saying up top here, I don't feel like I've heard a lot of stories. So that's really my intention with at least my part here in this episode. I really want to break down the barriers, have a real down-to-earth, honest conversation. I want to bring more color, more life to an experience that I've had. I've actually had it multiple times. I intend to focus on the first one, but you know, anything's fair game. But when I've gone through this, I have felt so incredibly lost and alone, but I also now understand that this is this extraordinarily commonplace thing in our world today.
Dr. John: It is, if I may, add to that. The irony of that is, that's one of the symptoms. That feeling of aloneness or detachment or depersonalization. And that's one of the one symptoms that we look at for a diagnostic, but it also exacerbates. So the idea is you feel alone and then now you feel alone.
Alexis: It's like a vicious cycle, right?
Dr. John: And then you feel alone, alone. So that's where it's really tough. And so what we know from a psychotherapeutic standpoint, what we do know is that one of the things that helps to be able to help individuals come out of that is community. So, it's like being willing, and we'll talk about that later, but the idea of community is one of the most important components both at home and at work. So, it manifests at work, but if we can find ways to help people to be able to reconnect with other human beings to be able to have their community of supporters, that is one of the best ways we watch people walking out of this particular syndrome.
Alexis: All right. Well, before we jump into all of this, I do want to share a little bit more background about you, doc, and how you got roped into this discussion. If you keep on chiming and if there's places that you have something you want to say but my pleasure. I am virtually now sitting here with you Dr. John Mlinarcik you have been a practicing psychologist for over 45 years right?
Dr. John: Yeah, I've been a practicing psychotherapist for 48 years.
Alexis: And not only are you a bonafide doctor of psychology Dr. John Deryl Mlinarcik is also my father-in-law. Would you agree with this statement?
Dr. John: Wait, oh now, that's - I recognize you now! Yes, I recognize that statement. I couldn't be more proud.
Alexis: Yeah. So, I I did want to make sure that we opened up with this because it's actually quite relevant to this conversation. And we'll get there, but basically, so the way that I first got to know you, Doc, and I'm going to try and keep Doc in here as much as I can just I don't know, you're you're a doctor. I feel like I want to call you that. But I first got to know you on the Mlinarcik version of the Christmas vacation trip. This was a little over 15 years ago, we were up in the upper peninsula of Michigan with your sister-in-law, Sharon. And I think you might even still have a carousel of the pictures and the slides that you'd created to memorialize this trip. Is this right?
Dr. John: That's right. You don't have to you don't have to point that out. I think it's not digital yet, but you're right. It was an - old fashioned slides. Thank you.
Alexis: Yes. This man loves his Kodak carousel. I have sat through many slideshows of all of your memories with your son.
Dr. John: I think plenty of you fell asleep during those if I'm not mistaken.
Alexis: We might have… there might have been a few signals of trying to to bring them to a close as quickly as we could.
Dr. John: Yeah, I'm pretty sure.
Alexis: But anyway, the deal is I mostly know you as a family member. You just happened to also be a very well seasoned expert in psychology who is, you know, shall we say, uniquely positioned to give me really good advice and connect my experience of burnout with PhD level knowledge, a constantly growing arsenal of research findings, and decades of practical experience helping patients and and your coaching clients. Does that sound about right?
Dr. John: Yeah, that sounds about right. It's hard to believe it's been that long. I think I just remember our trip up to the Christmas vacation like it was yesterday.
Alexis: I remember going across the bridge. Harley was with us. Anyway,
Dr. John: Yeah, our dog.
Alexis: So, I can't recall exactly when I told you about my experience of going through burnout, but I'm going to make a guess that it would have been probably on a 4th of July trip. And if it was that, it would have been in 2021 because on April 13th of that year, the date is burned in my memory. I was working with a coach at the time, Julie, and she looked me in my virtual eyes because this was in the middle of COVID. We were no one was getting together with one another. And she said something like, Alexis, I have something very hard to tell you and I don't think you're going to want to hear it. I think you're burned out and I think you need to take a serious break from work.
Alexis: And in that session, she actually sat with me while I scheduled a week of vacation from work that I literally had… it felt so gluttonous and inappropriate. I mean, I have two kids and a husband and she was telling me I need to take time for me. Like, it's not for them. It's just for me. And this was like this alien idea. That session with her was the beginning of an extraordinarily difficult two-month stretch of my life. That was really the worst of that period. And I'm sure we're going to get into some of the messy details of it later. But I don't recall talking to you between when that happened and when we caught up with you over the 4th of July. Geoff might have… he probably shared a little bit of what was going on. I mean, he was in courtside seats, watching me try to piece myself back together after unraveling. And by the way, some of the unraveling was I literally had not cried in over a year. And this was over a year of when COVID hit and I was a manager trying to hold a team together, trying to hold my family together. There was a lot going on. And I was stuffing all of my emotions down, every negative emotion. And during those two months, there was a quite literal outpouring of all of it. It sucked. It was awful. I do not recommend. 100% do not recommend.
Dr. John: Yeah. Although I will tell you that your coach might have saved your life, but certainly improved your life. That's one of those things where it's hard because as coaches or therapists, our goal is to do our very best to help people kind of travel alongside them during the journey. But the journey is not the problem. It's the recognition that you need to take it. And so that your words are absolutely correct. It's stuffing. And when we stuff emotions - by the way, there's so many more issues that come from stuffing than just burnout. Burnout's big. I mean, we're talking about a huge amount of reasons why burnout is problematic. But the one thing that you've said that I think I want you to at least hear is my pride in what you did and how you did it is when you listen to somebody that says, "I have a concern for you." And had that person not have said that in a way that you could have heard it, you could have you could have stopped it more. So, the intent is to find a way to be able to communicate with a person so they can hear it and then they can assimilate it and then they can do something about it.
Alexis: I was stuffing it during that session. I mean it took us 45 minutes of this session of me saying what I'm not, I'm not burned out. I am not the person who gets burned out. There are other people who get burned out. Like that's not me. I'm managing my life. I'm doing all the things. What are you talking about?
Dr. John: Yeah, that's really that's exactly right. That's the person that's highly likely to be burned out. They're doers. I mean that the idea of being able to do is, to their credit, the ability to be able to take their foot off the gas and the brake at the same time. It's like right now what we see is people that stuff, have their foot on the gas and break. One of the concerns is like how can you go with your gas on? Sometimes you have to take it off of both. You have to slow down enough to be able to introspect to allow that to be able to have some space so that you can allow the healing to start to take place.
Alexis: Yeah. Talking about the journey. So if we did have a conversation that July 4th, it's also worth going into where I would have been then because I was past this acute awful place where I was, I mean like I couldn't get myself out of bed. There literally there was no joy in my life. I could not remember multiple conversations especially with a therapist and this coach of like what brings you joy? And I was like, huh? what? I don't, I don't get it. But so I'd gotten through that part and so I was in a better state. I could have joyful moments and I was, you know, doing better, but I still was in a very uncertain state.
Alexis: One of the things that actually would have happened right before that trip was I'd done a lot of work figuring out what I wanted to do next. I I decided that the job that I was in was not compatible with what I could do at that time. I mean, looking back in retrospect, I think there's actually a bunch of things I could have done, but at that time, I was not capable of doing them. And I just needed a clean slate. But I'd applied to this job that I was excited about. It aligned with all these ideas and I didn't get it. And so I was at this place where I was like, "Uh, okay." And I remember this at this moment. This was also and it was for the next two months. Every single day when I was waking up for work, it was, don't quit today. Just make it through the day. You can do this. Like you don't have something to jump to. And I needed to take care of my family. And anyway, that would have been where I was at if we had had a discussion at this point, which I think we must have.
Dr. John: It wasn't to the degree you were still, in my opinion, if I may speak plainly, you were still in some of the, what I would kind of call, the trying to grapple with it, some of the denial that it could be possible. But that's actually also one of the symptoms that we see. You know, the idea is that people who typically end up in a burned out state have had themselves as being so productive and capable and competent that they do things naturally. They're just reoccurring. It's like they don't take time necessarily to introspect their stuffing. And so then when it finally comes in, it comes in in like droves. And that's where once it happens and once we admit to it, it's like that's the best way we know how to go from it to another state is you got to rec don't have to. Most of the time you have to recognize though, own it and then you get the support of the people around you to be able to then allow you to be able to talk about it. And then all of a sudden you realize is that it's really not it's not a disease, it's a disorder, right? It's a symptom. It's the symptom of the things that are underneath it that are lying into the pit of the issues. So, I'm I'm actually again proud of you and thankful for the coach therapist that you were able to get some of that feedback from and do it in a way that was respectful.
Alexis: Yeah. I think one of the other parts of this whole story and part of why I actually wanted to bring you in too was had we had this discussion that July 4th, I also would expect it wouldn't have felt like it was coming out of of nowhere for you because we'd also spent the prior Christmas with you.that was 2020. So that was that was the year that co all knocked everything and it was during that trip that I actually made what I would call my first step into this whole process which I wasI was pulling myself aside in my room. I was working on my computer building a spreadsheet. And for listeners I don't know that we've got into the point yet that you know this about But I love me a good spreadsheet that you can put the formulas in and it pops out the answers. It is much better than a magic eight ball.
Alexis: So I was working on this spreadsheet and our son, he would have been 15 months old at the time. So he had to take these middle of the day naps. So I was spending, you know, an hour and a half, 2 hours clunking away on this. At night I was not sleeping very well. And so I'd wake up real early and just keep on plunking all this stuff out. Anyway, the purpose of the spreadsheet was to figure out how long I had to endure my job so that I could actually leave the workforce entirely because I knew I was miserable. But the goal was to not change our family's lifestyle. And the other goal was to do it by the time my daughter, she's the older of my two kids, by the time she was in sixth grade because I really felt like I needed to be there for her in a way by the time she was in middle school when you start having a lot more performances and athletics and all this stuff. I didn't feel like my job at the time was compatible with it. Again, there's actually more things that I could have been doing, but I did not feel capable of it. Anyway, I made the spreadsheet and the math mathed it became my seven-year plan and I figured it out.
Alexis: But what that also unlocked in the next few months was that I couldn't make it seven years. That sounded like an eternity. And that actually I think was where I started going into a deeper place of this because I realized I'd been holding on to hope for this thing and then I realized how far the end still was and it was like insurmountable.
Dr. John: Mhm. Yeah. That would be, in my opinion again, it's a process for most of the people that I've ever worked with as it relates to the recognition and ownership that they have a syndrome called you know burnout. And by the way I'm so thankful that we now have the ability to be able to help people to realize that it's a syndrome which means it's not only not a disease, it's fixable.
Alexis: Yeah.
Dr. John: But the best way I've ever learned in my clinical practice has been for an individual to come to the realization it's like there is something wrong with me. I don't have to live my life this way. At that point is when you start to be able to go, oh, there are things that I've been doing. By the way, they're called adaptations in my world. These adaptations that we've been following have lent to the way in which we have lived. But then it's like all of a sudden you wake up and you go, "Oh, this is no longer working for And that's where I think that the ability to have someone as an outsider or it could be an insider that loves you, but most of the time they're already inside.
Dr. John: It's hard to judge the picture when you're inside of the frame. So, if this outsider can take a look at you and say, "I have something that's tough for me to tell you, but I want you to know, I think it could be life-changing. Have you ever thought about the possibility that you may be suffering from burnout? Wait, no, me?" And then you go through some of the symptomatology and it makes it simpler to kind of go, "Oh, maybe I am." And so, it's a layered process. It's tiered. At least in my experience, it's been that way in our clinical practice, but also in our coaching work. So, our ability to be able to take a look at this and to realize it's something that - actually they say somewhere between 20 and 50% of people who leave their jobs today have left them because of burnout.
Alexis: Wow.
Dr. John: 23 to 24% of our current population in the US at any given time are experiencing symptomaties of burnout. I mean, this is talking about like $125 to $190 billion dollars every year in health care costs. So it's like 8% of our national spending in terms of healthcare or 34% of the you know annual salary. So, it's huge. It's like finally though it's got the recognition that it's like it's a real syndrome. It's a genuine capacity that we can now diagnose and we can then put together a healthy treatment plan. And by the way everyone's treatment plan that I've ever worked with is individualized. You may have the same way that you got into the dilemma but you have to take a prescription on your own behaviors. your own states of mind to be able to walk out of it. That's been my experience at least. Like no magic pill.
Alexis: Yeah. Well, coming back to I guess, my experience before we get into some broader questions on it. Clearly, I don't remember exactly when and where we talked about things, but I do recall that and one of the things that I feel so lucky about is that you were a safe person for me to talk to about this.
Dr. John: Thank you.
Alexis: I had a coach, but actually our coaching arrangement wound up ending. It was a work sponsored thing and that came to an end. I had a therapist, but I really had gotten past the truly problematic place. I'd moved more into, at least from a mood standpoint, like a more stable place. Um, and obviously my husband knew about this. I don't think anyone else knew. Some of the people who were reporting into me knew I wasn't doing great, but I certainly did not use the word burnout with them. I was their manager. Like, why? That's - I'm supposed to be taking care of them and directing them like this is not a thing that is appropriate, I feel, to share with them until you actually have a plan of where you're going. But I'm so thankful and lucky to have had access to you. It was also part of why I so wanted us to have this conversation because the moments that we've had talking about it and in particular I also remember, it was like a year and a half ago that we were actually getting ready to do this episode. It only took us a year and a half to get here, but we were sitting on that porch in Traverse City.
Dr. John: That's right. That's right.
Alexis: I remember you talking then about the fact that it's quite common that you actually need an outside person to call you out on burnout.
Dr. John: Yes. It's it again like going back to that statement when you're it's hard to judge the quality of the picture when you're inside that frame. Well, similarly, it's been your life. You've adapted to it. We all have our stories. We all have our adaptations. And the good news is that it's here. So our job, which is hard to really in some ways put this into words, but our job as the owner of this body brain is to figure out how to be able to do the things that allow it to continue to resource and gain information. So personal growth and development, listening to podcasts, having a chance to have someone that can speak truth, but not so close to the situation that they see you every day because then they adapt to your adaptations. Right? So the good news is that that's why - right. Doesn't that make sense? And so therefore we unconsciously reinforce those things that are maybe a long-term disabling and that's where it's in some ways good for us to find, you know, again an objective.
Alexis: Maladaptive. Right.
Dr. John: That's exactly right. Well, and I want to add to that. That's really a good pickup on your part. It wasn't maladaptive to start with for most of us. It was adaptive. But what your point is when you do certain things for so much time and you grow and you're supposed to grow on, right? Grow out of that and you continue to do it, that's where they become mal-adaptiations. That ability to be able to have someone or somehow recognize it. I believe that we ought to be in groups of people in a community for the rest of our lives or have a coach or a counselor. And it's not because I am one. It's because I believe that what people do is that we are again with my best friends, I adapt, they adapt, we both maladapt. And so if I say something that they've heard me say before, they're going to go Yeah, that's just him. But if we have an outside lens that can allow us to be able to take a fresh look, they become aware. They can even ask just questions. I'm kind of curious. Why do you do this? You know, so the intent is to try to figure out the way to be able to understand it and then give yourself permission to do something about it.
Alexis: Well, so we are here today. It's 2025. Let's keep on having that Traverse City conversation. I'm glad to have you here to dig into this. Thank you for being here.
Dr. John: And thanks for being vulnerable. You know, it's like the one of the things that we've learned in my field is that Brenee Brown, Dr. Brenee Brown, when she opened up with the idea of vulnerable based trust and the power of vulnerability. She also unleashed, I think, sort of a permission that she says in a somewhat of a humorous way. She's got such a really cool way of doing it. But her first TED talk 14 years ago, in my opinion, was exceptionally brilliant. Just exceptionally brilliant. Allowed her to be able to be herself. But by the way, I don't know that this story has made it out, but after she was to talk about vulnerable based trust, she went off script.
Alexis: Oh, right. Right. No. Well, then her next TED talk was and her next book was all about shame and.
Dr. John: Yeah.
Alexis: Right. And she and it was actually the whole reaction to it was the world's reaction to her that she reacted to that was unexpected.
Dr. John: Right. So, that was like another adaptation. But why I find this fascinating, she gets off stage, she calls her best friend and says, "I really made a fool of myself." And she says, "What'd you do?" And she went off script. I started talking about my therapist. I had said, "You know, I told my friends about seeking out a therapist, and she said that they said, "Oh, I wouldn't want to be that therapist. You know, they were supportive in a weird way." Well, then she said, "Well, how many people are in the audience?" She says, "30." She says, "Well, that's not bad. You can make a fool in front of yourself in 300." And then the next morning she wakes up and 3,000 views. And today it's 22 million. So, it's like one of the highest views that we've seen on TED Talk because she's so real. She's so vulnerable with her willingness to talk about it. And that's when we move into that vulnerability. When we take a look at the why we stuff feelings. I mean, just if I may, you didn't learn to stuff feelings when you were 35. You learned to stuff feelings much earlier. In fact, this is to me this and this is this is just.
Alexis: We're unpacking all of it. Yes.
Dr. John: As well, we will, right? Until the day we put our heads down and go to heaven. But you think about this as it relates to our development. Children between the ages of birth and five learn somewhere between 7 and 12 times faster than adults. We have somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000 thoughts a day. I've got 40, you got 60. Way it works. So, let's call it 50 though on the average. So, 50,000 thoughts a day times that multiplier of seven for that child from birth to five. That means they'll have somewhere around 638 million thoughts up to a billion by the time they're five. And then you look at that and you go, well, how many of those thoughts do you have?
Alexis: Children - all the time, too?
Dr. John: Right. And that's where it starts.
Alexis: It's not the easiest thing to be a parent.
Dr. John: No, it's a parent is the right word. Apparent.
Alexis: Actually, I know. I'm going I'm taking you off topic here, but I was reading also it's - the height of questioning which I think we're about past with our son now who's the younger one, but it was talking about like on average children ask a hundred questions a day and the peak is at four years of age and I was like, no wonder! oh my god, help!
Dr. John: Well the best parenting that I believe I've ever observed is when we have children and then we actually reparent ourselves because we learn some of the things that we didn't do right the first time. And so when you start thinking about it, ask your friends and yourselves how many of those thoughts, how many of those 635 million to a billion thoughts do you recall? And you go, well, mostly they say three or four and maybe that's enhanced with pictures, videos or stories. Well, here's the irony. Learning specialists tell us 80% of our personality is locked in by the age of five.
Alexis: Wow.
Dr. John: And so now you kind of go, okay, so That means that those first five years are like indelible. I'm putting it in quotes, but they're indelible. And until you make a decision, a redecision, an intentional redecision, we tend to just follow, right? We continue to follow that process. It's good enough to get us here. And so therefore, we don't necessarily know that there's another way to drive this body brain until somebody says, "Hey, by the way, do you realize you're driving your body brain in a different direction?" So the intent is to have awareness in my opinion. And that to me is the real responsibility of any adult to do our very best to gain awareness about who we are, time and space. And by the way, of those 50,000 thoughts a day, yours are 60. Of those 50, 60,000 thoughts a day, how many of those thoughts do you think about thinking? And the average person says two. I mean, maybe. I mean, we don't think about having those thoughts. They're automatic.
Dr. John: So, the point is when we are right, so when we slow down enough to be able to introspect and to take a look at wonder why I have that thought, where did that come from? And then again, when you have the privilege to have children and you look at them and you go, "Oh, Now I see where some of my current thoughts came from. Watching those hundred questions a day, by the way, those are crazy important questions, right? That they're showing that part of the frontal library, right.
Dr. John: And I love my grandson and I love my granddaughter. So just so you know, by golly, yeah, I actually love how you guys parent.
Alexis: Just for the record, right.
Dr. John: Well, that's just the truth. Parenting and grandparenting are the two most important things that have happened in my life. It's really the weirdest, coolest thing. For instance, when I was holding Geoffrey, your husband's brother, older brother. I remember where I was standing, what the nurse was wearing when she handed me him, what my wife was as I'm holding him was like I felt like this electric shock that went through him. It's like I would die for this child. This child that poops and pees and pukes right now. I would die for this kid. Now, I would die for my wife.
Alexis: You hadn't seen the poop and the pee yet. So,
Dr. John: Well, that's a good point. I had anticipated it. But the point is once I realized though that that life was more important than mine. It gave me reason to live because now I have the privilege of being able to provide a way that is a methodology or a road map for another human being and my response was like I would just. I couldn't even describe how important that was to me. I mean I was in my mid 20s and everything up to that point would have been you know school and baseball and eating and watching football. So then all of a sudden it's like I've got something that's so much more important that it was like that wakeup call for me that allowed me to start to develop a different part of my life, the feeling sensitive part. Because up to that point, people said, "Do you have feelings?" I said, "Sure, I get hungry." Right.
Alexis: Right.
Dr. John: And then it was like, well, the reality is that's not exactly what I'm talking about. I mean, like this thing called affect and sensitivity and care and compassion. Hey, wait, what's that? And then once it hits, to your point, when you're a parent, it's like it's like it's incredible. So, anyway, thanks for giving me the privilege of having a couple grandkids.
Alexis: Yeah. Well, so now that we're I think probably about halfway through our episode, can you give us a little bit more of your background? I've Introduced you as my father-in-law mainly. I'd love for our listeners to know a little bit more about you.
Dr. John: Sure. Born in rural Ohio.oldest sister by 6 years. Played every sport that was known to mankind at that time. and then rode my bicycle into the city which was 3 miles away and went out in the morning and came back at night and had no cell phones and had the ability to be able to get back and forth safely. So I was really fortunate. And then what happened really probably for me was that I realized that one of the things that We were relatively poor, and so one of the things I realized that if I was going to make a living, I wanted to do it in a way to make people's lives better. So the only thing I could think of was to go to college. One person had gone to college in my extended family. So I wasn't sure I could do it.
Dr. John: So when I went to Miami University, when I was able to go, I studied social psychology and then I was able to get into a master's degree for child and children therapy. And then they started to change the licensure law in Ohio. So then we moved to Michigan so that I could do it with a master's degree. I got a second master's degree in Michigan. They started to change the psychology licensure law in Michigan. So the point was that I founded an organization called MAP, Michigan Association of Professional Psychologists that then basically we ended up changing the psychology licensure law that allowed for dual level PhDs and master's degrees. But at that time I wasn't sure we were going to be successful. So I enrolled in my PhD program and so seven and a half years later then I you know I got my PhD. But the reason that that's I think an important story is because I've always appreciated people's struggles.
Alexis: Yeah.
Dr. John: I mean to me it's like it's not about having a problem. It's like what do you do with it? So if we can figure out how to like, paramount above my dad's eighth grade education, a pump erector loved the man but we didn't have intellectual conversations per se. Right he read the newspaper never read a book I don't think and was a hardworking honest guy and what I got was other mentors that helped me to realize that if I was going to do anything I needed to get an education so that's kind of where that started and then my my love for psychology I think really comes from my mom who was a professional listener, right?
Dr. John: She would like she would listen to anybody everything and she would always asked great questions. She was what we call a high gray green introverted but then caring and compassionate. So when people would talk to my mom, she would listen and I'd watch her and I like to walk back and forth from the kitchen table as she's listening to people and they'd come out just to talk to my mom. I didn't know that was I just they were just you know people that came out, relatives, whatever. So when I realized that there was a profession that you could learn to listen, but I learned to listen not to respond but to learn and so that's where the diagnostic process of a clinician is important is the idea that you want to listen to the story. Right. But you also want to listen to not what's not being said.
Alexis: Right.
Dr. John: Right. Because if in fact a person is telling you these things but they're not talking about them then you know that they're either hiding that unconsciously or from themselves or it's a tough area or they've never explored it. So part of the therapist like your coach that says to you hey Alexis there may be something that I want to talk to you about. You might be, you know, experiencing some burnout. So the point is that when I really put that together with my background in psychology in my opinion I wouldn't trade it for the world and I use it every day but I don't think it. I try my best not to think about it. I try to be it. I try to experience things like learning how to listen, learning how to respond, learning to be able to help guide. And part of that is learning to ask questions, maybe even provocative questions, but ask them in a way that a person could hear them.
Dr. John: And then one last piece of that is, you know, over the last 15 years, we've really transitioned into much more corporate coaching. We found now that, you know, I love working with individuals and couples and families. It's a passion. And that's one or two or three people, but if I can spend the same amount of time with a corporate executive with his or her responsibilities for 10 or 20 or 15,000 and one company we work with has 177,000 employees. If we can influence just one person who can influence 10 who has a responsibility for 100 and I thought that, to me, is really we start to see juice. So we start to build a common language that comes from psychology and background. It was a personality model that's now a behavioral styles model that now actually we identify states of mind.
Alexis: Mhm.
Dr. John: And so the psychology is now identifying states of mind that drive your behaviors that lock in your personality. So if someone says, "Can I change my personality?" I typically say no because it's the truth. I'm putting in quotes because you can't change your personality. But you can back up and change the behaviors that lead to your personality. And by the way, those behaviors are driven by the stories that we tell ourselves and these emotional states of mind that drive those behaviors. So for me, it's been a really wonderful transition to be able to watch now, from the individuals that were like the walking worried now to the individuals who technically have the ability to influence scores of people's lives. So that's how I used my background today.
Alexis: All right. Well, we've already talked about burnout, you know, throughout the beginning part of this episode, but can we come back to a definition? What is burnout?
Dr. John: I'm going to tell you what I think the real definition of burnout is after I tell you the one that I think is really important. I think that the one that's really important is called a reduction of fuel or substance that's burned down to either nothing or limited. So that's when you think of an empty tank.
Alexis: That's what I've thought about it as. Yeah.
Dr. John: Yeah. It just speaks to what I think is going on. It's like we're running on empty and that it's it's comes from the the traditional statement of burnout as you think about lighting a stick and you know it burns out. Then you look at the other which is like what it really is. It's a combination of something that's both physical and mental. So it takes the two to tango and that and it's caused by stress. I mean simply put so in a simplistic way of looking at it as we're running on empty. We have mental and physical psychological stress, perceived stress and that usually we don't see it coming. I mean we might see the problem at work. We might see the problem with the boss or co-workers but the reality is most of us don't go, oh you know I see that this is one of the three dimensions of stress quote unquote burnout. But when they finally get to the point where one at least one of the three has to be problematic enough to explore.
Alexis: Yeah.
Dr. John: For most people. Two out of the three often can put people into a tailspin. But three out of the three and by the way I would like to clarify something. My model for burnout is a little different than maybe what you're going to see in the World Health Organization or the ICD10. Mine is because I do believe that this is on a spectrum. I think each of the three dimensions that we're going to talk about are on a spectrum. Meaning I would invite you to take a look at mentally take a picture of the insignia or the emblem for a Mercedes-Benz and that you take the top spike and the two lower ones. The top spike would be let's call that one the one of the scale we'll call that the neuroticism or the high energy concerned perfectionistic one. Then the other ones might be cynicism right and the other one's professional ineffectiveness or deficiency. So therefore you start looking at how you juggle those three and if you kind of draw a circle let's call a second circle inside a parallel circle, a concentric circle when we hit just just over the limit for any one of those three, that's when you start to notice the wobble. But then when three out of the three go out of the limit, out of that center circle, that's when you start to realize that, oh, there's something really not I can't shake it off. It's not like I wake up in the morning and I'm refreshed and I can go at it again because you've depleted the energy, your fuel, psychological fuel and physical fuel, to be able to endure it and go back and, you know, into the fray.
Alexis: I've used the word depleted. I've mentally thought about the idea of a gas tank and I I know one of the things I do now is when I notice myself having less and less energy, I actually think about the gas tank and I realize, oh wait, I need to do some things to fill it back up or some people talk about filling your cup, too.
Dr. John: It's just such a great example, though. I mean, it's such a simplistic, but I think it's such an appropo way of looking at it because again, it's really important that I hope our listeners understand this is a syndrome. It is fixable. It is something that once you recognize it, you and you get someone to help you guide through it. You can go back and look at how the adaptations in your life led to the inability to deal with those three components that we're going to talk about. And that those are the three components that oh by the way if I had someone coming into my office that's not in an occupational situation they can still have we're going to put it in quotes burnout but it would be depression it would be anxiety. So and you would start to see some of the same things that you see occupationally but it would usually be unilateral. It would be one of the things whereas in a work environment your earlier point. How could I tell my how could I tell my people that directly reported me I'm in burnout?
Alexis: Yeah.
Dr. John: it would be a double whammy. Right.
Alexis: Actually, I did the second time. I don't think I did the first time or if I did, it was only a very few specific people who I thought could handle it, I guess. Or.
Dr. John: Such a great example.
Alexis: I actually talked about that experience a little bit in a previous episode. Linda Moss was my boss at the time. My Moss Boss, she was actually acknowledging that the team was actually incredibly supportive. Both of us were shocked by the experience. We did not expect it to be that way, but people really actually do want to do good and be good people. We're all hiding behind all this stuff.
Dr. John: But that's a state of mind, what you just said. And I want you to know that that to me, when a person says that, I now know that they're distant from burnout. When someone says to me, I believe people want to do good, it's an indicator that they're on the other end of the continuum, right? I mean, it's just kind of cool. Yeah, it's again, listen for what's said, but also listen for what's not said.
Dr. John: And I think what you just told me though with that is like when you came to the point where it's like, yeah, all frogs have warts. I mean, they're great frogs, but they still have warts. Like, so every one of us has our story. Every one of us, none of us learn I I I mean this with all due respect, none of us have learned how to have a perfect life. There's no such thing. We all had parents that or if we grew up in a family with parents, one or both of them had their own issues. Probably both.
Alexis: Yeah, totally.
Dr. John: Right. I mean, they're just human. And then You end up having the complications layered where you have, you know, two children and then you have a job and then you have a spouse and you have a house and you have your parents. It's like you start looking at those things and it's pretty easy to get a wobble.
Alexis: Oh, totally.
Dr. John: Right. Especially for certain people that have a I would call it a presupposition for that or predisposition.
Alexis: Talk to me about predisposition. What would predispose someone to?
Dr. John: May I talk about you as in this case? Sure. Because I think it's
Alexis: I'm pretty - I feel like I'm an open book here. So, let's go.
Dr. John: I'm - and what I mean by that is I think it'll make sense when I start to look at the three these three dimensions. I think that the first dimension that, in my opinion, that you had grown up with was your ability to be perfectionistic. I mean your conscientiousness. I remember the very first time I met you. I remember watching you walk into this party where Geoffrey invited me and I watched you walk in how you were dressed. I watched how you carried yourself. Sorry!
Alexis: I remember this. It was in someone's backyard.
Dr. John: It was. Yes, it was.
Alexis: I was not… this was like years before Geoff and I were dating too.
Dr. John: It was. Yeah, before you went out to Washington and discovered each other. But so when I saw that it would be and and by the way, your speech is impeccable. That's a perfectionistic way that people talk. Well, congratulations. That means you could be, you know, an orator. You could do a podcast. So anyway, the good news with that is that you have the ability to do things in a perfectionistic way and nobody has to tell you how to do that. I mean, the point is like no one says do this perfectly. No, that's It's already internal. That's your story. A job worth doing is worth doing.
Alexis: Yeah.
Dr. John: So, the point is when you start looking at that, that's one of the predispositions when you look for perfectionism and that, you know, and in some ways they refer to that as being overly conscientious, right? Or that conscientiousness scale, right? That's one of the areas though that we look at. There's several people that have different scales, but this is the one I think that's the most likely to hit.
Dr. John: The second one is what they refer to as introversion. Now, introversion by itself is fine and dandy. I mean people have a healthy capacity to be able to and we call that gray by the way introvert introspect introversion. The ability to be able to understand that you are your own best friend. If a person says that they are having trouble being by themselves then they have a lot of need to be by themselves because it's like you have to go introspective. You have to a long time. It's been my experience that when we have the ability to introspect, introversion is what they refer to it as, right? Or you don't have to talk. You can just think or you can go for a walk. soccer, you can do yoga or go swimming. But the point is you also have that quiet nature that in my opinion is a healthy quiet nature where you don't have to be the person that's the upfront speaker. You have the ability to share the stage. You don't have to be like, it's about me. My opinion and I think I know you well enough to tell you that. So that's one of your charming components is that high high perfectionism means you don't have to speak to every audience, you're willing to take in to participate.
Dr. John: And then the third area tends to be more of what we call neuroticism. It's a term we're no longer allowed to use when we diagnose. But it's a great word.
Alexis: It’s not a great sounding word.
Dr. John: Well, it's actually, it was a great word because it was not diagnosable as a syndrome, but it was like that person's neurotic. Well, we're no longer allowed to use that.
Alexis: You can describe something very well with it.
Dr. John: You can, right? Well, anyway, the neuroticism, what they're referring to is over worry. In other words, it's like when you say, "Oh, why did I say that?" Or, "Oh my gosh, why did I do that?" Or, "You think that person's going to take this well?" Or, "Is it okay?" We start to second guess. start to re-evaluate ourselves and that are we doing okay? Did I do it in a way that was kind etc etc. So like earlier today when I was talking with the person that gave us some feedback on some materials that we created he apologized. I want to exaggerate but I think in the email that he sent apologized six times, started off and ended and four in the middle about the feedback they were giving us. Well he has a high we call high green compassion sensitivity but worries about offending and so now I know that if In fact, I'm going to talk with that person. This is a guy. He's a company owner actually. If I talk with him, I need to be careful not to offend him.
Alexis: Yeah.
Dr. John: But I also need to model that it's okay to give people feedback that's truthful. Okay, back to the point. So, on those three components, right, we look at that kind of conscientiousness, that introversion, and that neuroticism, depending upon again, think about.
Alexis: Tell me how neurotic I am. By the way, John. I will self-profess, I'm pretty high on that meter
Dr. John: To your credit, that would be the exact point. Like, take a look and introspect. It's like it's a charming trade. By the way, my mom was the ultimate neurotic. I mean, like she would like when she'd pack my lunch for school. I mean, she would put whatever I had from the - cheese, usually, and then she would take the lettuce that she had washed and put it in like a ziplock baggie thing so that it wouldn't make the soggy bread. And I look at other kids and they get their sandwiches without that. And I never thought about the fact that my mom was a neurotic. Yeah. sandwich and you didn't I well I would also say too
Alexis: I think naturally I'm quite neurotic but I've done a lot of work to try to dial that back but quite honestly the point at which I realized I had to do a hell of a lot of work on this was when I hit burnout it was that what I had become was not doable like it wasn't okay.
Dr. John: But for a while, you can actually get away with it because for a while you're only going to have one of those three spokes where you typically don't have all three spokes strike at once. We typically grow our first one worst and then the second, then comes the third. It's like you can still have the idea of the spinning plates and the platters that are on top of the sticks. You can run around and keep them going, but eventually if you have so many things that are going on like you did with your work and you're managing a team, etc., and a family.
Alexis: Well, and I also had had my second kid and COVID hit and all of these other things were going on simultaneously. I mean, the world was literally on fire
Dr. John: That's exactly right. And Therefore, it's not only not possible, it's not realistic and it's not healthy to keep all those things going. And that's the hard part because many people that we work with, like we have a staff of 20 therapists. Many of the people that we work with that are referred to us for issues that are burnout or that have the symptomatology of that. When we look at the behaviors, we go, "Oh, now I understand why they're in this dilemma because they are either single parents and working and they're concerned about how they can keep up. been worried about finances and their children's lives. You start looking at the way that they spread themselves so thin that you it's like they're just an accident waiting to happen.
Dr. John: So some of the time just talking about it helps. They call it the window of tolerance. Like the ability to tolerate something can often be aided, ameliorated if we talk about it. There's something magical about talking that communicates with the brain or releases, especially if we connect. However, at some point talking about it is not the only thing that you need to do. You have to, you have to act, right? There's a part where you just have to, for instance, take charge and do the things that will require and and by the way, that's where a coach or counselor can help because at a minimum, you can go through and you can start to look at a prioritization of the things and and a trained clinician, right, will go through and identify which of those three dimensions are the one that's the most out of balance. Sometimes that's not the one you try to fix.
Alexis: Right? Because that one may be harder.
Dr. John: It's too hard.
Alexis: Yeah. All of what you're talking about here I think about in terms of trade offs.
Dr. John: Oh, that's good. I like that word.
Alexis: A lot of the work, and this is really work that I've done, especially with the coach I've been working with more recently, Kori, but it's making active choices rather than things falling apart and choices being made for you almost, or things getting so bad that like it there's no more choice involved because things have gotten to a point where it's like, oh, okay, well, let's just let go of that. Even if that would have been a thing you might have actually chosen.
Dr. John: It's actually a really good point. It's the essence of control. You know, there's no such thing as control, by the way. In my opinion, there's no such thing. There's the essence of it, which means you can move in the direction that you believe that's going to get you what you need to get. And often it will, but the truth is there could be a lightning strike. You could have a tornado. I mean, I know it sounds a little weird, but when you realize that control is an illusion, and that you realize that you think you have it, it's like the old concept, it's like if you think you do, you do. And if you think you don't, you don't. I want to share with you that the earliest I learned this was wasthrough a guy named Victor Frankle who wrote a book called Man's Search for Meaning. I recommend it highly. It's an old book now.
Alexis: I feel like we gave that to you for Christmas a couple years ago and you're like, I know this. I actually haven't read it. I should read it.
Dr. John: I have it literally right here. Thank you. Yeah, I would encourage you to, but high level it's like his comment was this. He was in the Nazi concentration camp, he was a psychiatrist, lost his practice, lost his family, parents, kid, wife, gone. And his comment, the one thing that just amazed me was he said, "You can take it all. You can strip all my wealth." He says, "The one thing you can't have is my attitude."
Dr. John: And when I heard that, I thought of anybody I've ever heard of who has gone through horrific things that says you can't have my attitude. I thought, man, that guy has something to teach us. And then he came up with this concept called A plus B equals C. And it's so simple, but I do think it's the secret to life. A is the activating event plus B are our beliefs or our interpretations equals C the consequences.
Dr. John: So, We use this as an example and and it's not about politics, but I just like to use it as it relates to the fact that we started this podcast, you know, an hour ago and and that let's pretend that none of us have any other connected devices and that we stopped this, you know, podcast in 10 minutes and then we get off and our loved ones or friends say to us, "Did you hear what happened?" And we go, "No, what happened?" They said, "There was an explosion at the White House." And then so of the three of the three people that are there, they go, um, did they get him? Sorry, this is not to be political. Did they get him? Another one's going to say, "Is he safe?" And the other one says, "Are we at war? Now, here's why I think that's important. Three distinctly very different outcomes or interpretations or bees. And if it was the actual event that created that response, the activating event, the explosion at the White House, again, made up story, but the explosion at the White House would have felt if it happened 10 minutes after we started this podcast, then we'd have felt something. We'd had that experience, but it wasn't the actual event. It was our interpretation of the event when we found out about it.
Dr. John: My point, that is my opinion, is the secret to life that says you have the ability for freedom of choice. The difference between the A through to C is like that stimulus and response. There's this huge space in the middle and that's the space where I believe healing and health takes place when we realize that we have the capacity to be able to control or at least influence those interpretations. But the person in burnout, by the way, doesn't experience the fact that they've got choice or control because they're in a situ. It's like.
Alexis: They're literally just trying to make it through the moment.
Dr. John: The moment, right? You know, Alexis I think another analogy which speaks to me to this is that there's a you probably heard it but there's this like scientist that has two frogs and he walks into his laboratory and there's a vat of water that's boiling and another vat of water that's tepid and that the burner underneath it is on and it's going to go up to boil. So he puts a frog in each of the kettles and he walks out. He comes back in an hour and one frog's jumping around and the other one's like floating dead. Sorry. Anyway, it's the one that was put into the hot water that goes, "Whoa, this is hot water and jumps out. Whereas the one that was in it a little at a time where the thermostat goes up, they boil to death.
Dr. John: In my opinion, that's burnout. In other words, it's the person who's in a situation where they don't seem to feel like they've got much control. They're not even aware that there's such a thing, that what they're doing is something that they control. And then finally, they wake up and they go, "Oh." So, I think that that's where I hope that your listeners or our listeners would have the hope that if they're experiencing any of these three-dimensional issues that they take a look and say, "Okay, Maybe it's time to talk with somebody or go online and to look or to go online and take one of the there's plenty of quizzes and assessments that are you know free and there's the mass lock one that's the - that's kind of like the most prevalent one M A S L A C H and it gives you some of the areas that you can take a look at to maybe self assess but also it talks about some of the things that it gives you information in each of the three dimensions on what you may want to take a look at.
Alexis: Yeah, I'll try to put a link to that in the show notes. So talking about burnout here, what is the treatment for burnout and what shortcuts can I take?
Dr. John: Um, okay, let me go backwards. Let me take the second one first because I actually -that's darling - because it's such a great example of your conscientiousness. Let's figure it out or not, say okay, let's just get to the cliff notes version. Let's get this thing done. Get ‘er done. That's actually cute. You know, that reminds me of the person that says they have to bake a cake and they put their oven at 350 for 30 minutes. They go, I only have 15 minutes. So, they crank it up to 700° and it doesn't make a good cake. there's a couple things that I do think that's important like the assessment in my opinion the self assessment you don't need to take an evaluation to do it but here are like some steps that I would think would be important to consider like the first thing is a person typically when they are under a burnout set of circumstances they lack the perception of job control.
Alexis: Yeah.
Dr. John: Or the resources to effectively do their job. It's kind of like one of those typical things we typically hear like the first one right the second one is that they experience work overload. Again I want to make sure that I'm careful here. That doesn't mean that the average person doesn't have a lot to do. It's again in these three dimensions when all of them start to hit it feels overwhelming. It's just an exhausting kind of feeling. All right. Another one is they have and we hear this pretty regularly. They have unclear job expectations. In other words, that they don't know that there's a way for them to be able to clarify it or that their set of circumstances is new or different or that their supervisor or boss is not clear about what he or she should be doing. So, we would encourage people to speak up, right?
Alexis: Or they have given themselves all sorts of additional expectations that their manager actually would not hold them to? That might have been what I did, I just didn't ask
Dr. John: Would you raise your right hand please? But that's right because you feel such a responsibility, and to your credit that I would hire you all day long but I'd also want you to know that we would want to protect you because I would try to help you have better work life balance. We'll get to that. Another one is ask yourself: does the office or the culture where I work, do they really have the dynamics that foster a positive work environment? I mean, is it something where they allow me to have my moments? Like in our offices, people are not only allowed, we encourage them to use their cell phones. Like I mean, call your kids, have them call you. I mean, like, please, because I'd rather have the person take five phone calls at three or four or five minutes even, and then when they can get settled in, then they can focus on their job. So, their work. And so, my point is it's like being careful to care. Like people don't care how much you know until you know they know how much you care.
Dr. John: Another one would be lack of physical exercise. There's strong correlations now in research. This doesn't mean you have to go to the gym. You don't have to press metal, but you do probably ought to shoot for that typical 5, six to 10,000 steps a day. There's something about that that's again, it's not the magical number. Could be less for some, but it doesn't have to be walking either. But doing something, moving muscles, especially large, sorry, I didn't say this earlier. Large muscles, not just doing crocheting or knitting. That might be helpful, but what we've learned is that people who like to walk or run or swim, right, or play a sport are better able at managing the things that help them in terms of burnout.
Alexis: Arguably, you're having people go through a fight response and actually complete the stress cycle in that. We talked about it in my first episode.
Dr. John: That's really good. Yeah, we've identified the behavioral styles that go through fight, flight, and fight, flight, and freeze. We've also seen flex, fawn, and fix. So, we have a model for that. But another one would be, you know, just too much work and too little play. And this is why this is so important that it's individualized because if you said to me that I had to take off work and I don't get a chance to do my work, it would be terribly stressful for me because I juggle and I actually feel good about that. At the end of the day, I've earned my oxygen so I could put my head in a pillow and sleep. But if in fact you said to me that I had to work for, you know, 20 days straight without a little bit of playtime or get a chance to do a podcast, right? Do something different that intrigues me, it's like, yeah, that's really a good way to like I'm off. It's like not always on. I'm now able to tip.
Alexis: I actually want to throw in my own experience with that. And I probably should have let you finish, but I am very good at interrupting. It's apparently one of my skills. When I took that week off that Julie - I mean Julie literally sat with me and had me click the buttons to request the time off while we were in that session. I don't think I would have done it otherwise. I think I would have been like whatever. But I spent the week gardening. And it was literally I was yanking up sod in my yard and creating. I mean, it was intense. I remember Julie saying, "Well, what's a hobby? What's something that you can just immerse yourself in?" And I also remember later on seeing there was an article Adam Grant had written that he was talking about languishing. It was one of the most profound articles that I'd seen. It's short. I'll try to find it and put it in the show notes. It was an article he had written in the middle of it and it was talking about, you know, you're either thriving or I don't remember what the one is on the other end of it, but you're you're like falling apart. You're not doing well, but languishing sits in the middle. And one of the best things that you can do is actually do something. You can get into deep work or hobbies or even watching a TV show if you're really getting immersed into the characters and whatnot, but like being able to get out of yourself and get into a state of focus and attention on something.
Dr. John: Yeah. Because again, when I told you about my son when he was my first son when he was born, by the way, the same thing happened for the second one. But when the first son was born, would I recognize that feeling? I anticipated the second time, but the first time was such an awakening for me that it was like when I realized there was something truly more important to live for than myself, it made life precious. It's it's it sounds backwards, but I swear it was such be Well, you know, you're as a parent, I agree with you. Um, let me digress also for a second because what you just said in my opinion is so interesting that we see a lack of burnout diagnostics with farmers.
Alexis: Interesting. People that say they say the most satisfying job is being a building contractor because the same thing
Dr. John: exactly right.
Alexis: You see the building being built, you see the actual production of your.
Dr. John: I mean it just because those of us that are ethereal I mean think about it this is a digital world now so the ethereal part of that you know that That's it's digital. You it is and it isn't. So the idea is when you start thinking about working with your hands, gardening, by the way, again, a very very healthy thing to do. There I mean there may even actually be healing elements in the good dirt. There's a theory on that too. But nonetheless, just watching something grow, feeling optimism, it's like you can't be depressed and plant a carrot seed and wait for the next three or four or five or six weeks for the little top to come off. You it's just like it's it's contraindicated. And then the other thing when you talked about watching a TV program. We also know that laughter.
Alexis: Yes.
Dr. John: Genuine laughter also is a healing element for a lot of things.
Alexis: Yeah. Emotional connection.
Dr. John: That's it. That's really, really good. So, I'll go through a couple more and then I'd like to have another thought I'd like to give. So, another one of the things that I'd look at would be the lack of reward or recognition. Almost never I mean this will sound and I hope that doesn't offend people, but almost never do we work for money. Of course, we work for money, but that's not the reason we work. I mean, if you told me that somewhere somehow, and I don't buy lottery tickets, but let's say that somebody bought me a lottery ticket and I won $30 million. I'm going to get up tomorrow. I promise I'm going to give you guys the money, but some of it, I mean, most of it, but I'm going to get up the next day and I'm going to do what I do. That's my why. I'm on purpose.
Dr. John: So, when we have the personal recognition for the work that we do, it's like you don't work a day in your life. So, the ability to get your recognition through your work and through connecting with people and being able to really feel like you're part of a team and that you can get that recognition or that of community by the way which now it's one of the three factors for longevity is having your in your in crowd your your community along with being grateful and you know and and also with you know forgiveness but anyway so you start looking at some of those components you got to go they're so simple but they're super hard because when you when you think about finding your why your purpose it's like again that's that's tough and it takes some time to be able to do that. couple more and then I' I' I'd like to do a couple other little things. U lack of fairness and equity. So that there's a feeling that I'm working and beside me I have a co-worker that is getting special treatment than I am or that there's not some sense of fairness about something that's going on. That that feels like a again it's one of those characteristics of like the burnout the person starts to feel exhausted. Yeah.
Alexis: Yeah.
Dr. John: And then two more. you ask yourself does the values that my employer and my team have, do they align with my values? And again that's where we start looking at one of the fun things about corporate work is when we start to do a corporate why mission vision val Why? Then we identify the values, mission, vision, values of the individuals. And what's fascinating is people that have the highest productivity and the highest positivity and that they don't turn over in the business are those that, their missions align. Like you couldn't pay me enough money to work for a tobacco company, right?
Alexis: Right.
Dr. John: It just, I mean it would be incomprehensive for me. I just couldn't do it. And then last is like a lack of friendship at work, which we've kind of hinted at all along. It's like one of the things that we know is if you hire a person that was your best friend and or becomes your best friend, you're much more likely to be able to not only enjoy your work and continue to do it, but to do it with a smile on your face.
Alexis: Right.
Dr. John: So, those are some of the things that I would say that, you know, that we can do. Um, but I guess the point would be do what you need to do to be able to take a self-reflection or take these one of these online questionnaires that allow you to be able to say, okay, I'm okay in these one area or these two, but this area is a little out of whack. And then start to work on that. I think it's goal oriented that allows people to be able to put a stake in the ground and say, I'm moving in this direction which helps people.
Alexis: Yep. Is there anything else, John, that you really want to get in here?
Dr. John: Yeah, I would like to say just kind of a little thing. I really want to encourage folks to know that if you're experiencing, you know, anxiety or depression or that this aloneness or this, you know, this you're feeling exhausted, so to speak, or you you feel like you don't have the same like a feeling of accomplishment for work or you feel a detachment or a cynicism. Those are signs that are probably on one of the three spectrums or the dimensions. So, I would encourage people to realize, you know, life is short and if you can open up to the idea that there are things that you can do to improve it, help you to get through it, share it. I mean, a story about a problem shared is like halved - h a l f. It's like if you can find a way to be able to connect with a person in your community, I would strongly urge you to do that because I think that's the first step in being able to realize that, you know, life is precious. It's a gift and do your very best to enjoy it a little bit every day.
Alexis: Yeah, I agree with that. Part of what I really wanted to do, I mean, the topic of burnout and trying to have this discussion. It is the reason that I actually pushed to do this podcast because when I went through it, you were probably the third or the fourth person that I'd actually talked to about this. It was something I kept hidden. And eventually when I started talking to people about it, 95% of the people that I talked to said, "Oh, I've been burned out, too." But I'd never heard them say this until I offered this first. It wasn't just, oh, I was burned out. It was like, oh man, I went through this thing, you know, and I was leading with vulnerability. So, you know, to the Brenee Brown comment, she's amazing and I love her. But this is a topic that people are not talking about or if they're talking about it, it's surface. No one's exploring and sharing with other people in a deep way. It can feel really hard. I think we need to change it. It makes it that much harder to get through to the other side because there is another side and I'm with you as to life's short - life is also really long.
Dr. John: It's hopefully it's.
Alexis: Oh my gosh. Yeah, that's good. So, you know, I you know I and and in my whole story I was talking about how awful it was to go through that period. It sucked and I am on the other side and there you know it's not like it's been perfect all along. There's been plenty of other stuff that I've had to work through. But I'm so thankful that I did make it through that I was able to go through the process and I'm much happier with the way that my life is now than I was then.
Dr. John: Good for you. You know, those are stories that I hear that are like wisdom. When I first realized what you just said to be accurate was when my mom passed away and I remember talking with several complete strangers. I can't even remember. I was getting my oil changed in one place and I was in a store in another and I'm sure I was just glum and somebody said something and I go, "I'm sorry. My mom just passed away." First of all, the first thing people said was, "Well, I'm sorry."
Alexis: Right.
Dr. John: And then they go, "I know what it feels like." And then their story comes out.
Alexis: Always.
Dr. John: It's I mean, it was uncanny when I said I was just in my own vulnerable state and I told them and they go, "I'm sorry. Oh, by the way, I remember what it was like when my mom died or when my dad died or when my dog died." I mean, you start to hear that people can connect to that.
Alexis: Yeah, I agree with that. Do you have any final thoughts that you would like to share with our listeners?
Dr. John: I do, actually. When I said to you that the World Health Organization has finally started to own the fact that this is a diagnosable condition, not all have like for instance the DSM5 is not diagnosing this and I believe and by the way there's lots of research now that to their credit they're they're reviewing it to the point where I do believe in very short order that this will become part of the diagnostic categories because when I started psychology it was under the covers you didn't talk about it when we had therapists people were hiding it now it's like at a at a cocktail party it's like my therapist says or my coach says so it's come out of the of the closet my prediction is same it's going to be with burnout it's going to come into a into an okay discussion It's not a weakness and frankly it's the opposite. It's actually being strong and carrying all this on that stoicism if you will. So finally learning to be able to express it, not hold it in, I think is super healthy.
Alexis: All right. Well, it is about time for us to say goodbye here. Parting is such sweet sorrow. And of course, Connie does not like goodbyes, so we'll say so long. But John, thank you so much. Or or Doc perhaps. Thank you so much for being here with me today and for sharing so many pearls of wisdom with our listeners. This has been just a fantastic conversation. Thank you.
Dr. John: Thank you. And you're very welcome. My pleasure.
Alexis: Thank you also for the help that you have offered me personally.not just this conversation but over years of helping me through this. Kind of nice to have a father-in-law who does happen to be a psychologist. So anyway,
Dr. John: Thank you, honey.
Alexis: Listeners, I have a little bonus surprise in today's episode if you want to stick around for. I will be ending the episode with a Break of art. How's that for a catchy title? I will be sharing with you a spoken word poem that I wrote a couple of weeks ago. It is called I am a doer. John, you've been talking about the doing. I actually have never written a spoken word before. This was something that sort of poured out of me and it felt very fitting for this episode because it's really the doing that actually wound up being the problem. so feel free to stick around. I also wanted to invite you to get in touch with me. I have set up fan mail for the podcast. You can find a link to it in the show notes. And if you click on it, you can send me a text message there. So, share any thoughts or reactions or if you have ideas for future episodes, I would love your input for that.
Alexis: And as always, I'll share links to notable references in our show notes. I'll also make sure to include a couple links for Dr. John and his company PCS Global. They're based in Michigan. They have clinical practice. They have a consulting arm as well that does leadership and change management services. Right?
Dr. John: That's right. Exactly. Very well done.
Alexis: All right. Cool. But with that, I wish you a very fond farewell and I will move into our break of art.
Alexis: [reciting a poem]
I am a doer.
I am a jump on it right here, right now
Make the impossible happen, somehow
I pull rabbits out of hats
Do the things, grind the axe
Get it done, and I never relax
Till there’s nothing that’s bad
For you to worry at
Yes, I am a doer.
I am a let’s not let this mess fester
Lest it’ll put the best to rest
And we’ll digress
Being less for it
I suppress all the stress
And when I do, I progress
I see the need, I follow through
I do the things I know I must do
Yes, I am a doer.
I am a doer.
I want to fix the mixed up litany of hits
And I don’t want to risk me feeling the pits
But I don’t dare to settle and feel misunderstood
By a bunch of dumb misfits
Who don’t do me good
And no, I am not the sorry kind
Who just sits back, waiting for a sign
That is waiting for disappointment
It is waiting to be left behind
You see, I am a doer.
What I am not is a be-er
In fact, I’d rather sit back and have a beer
And make all the feelings of bad disappear
Put a veil on my hurt, cover up all my fears
Pretend my rearview is less sad than it appears
Then I’ll sink in the couch with my trusty TV
As the characters drown in an ocean of need
I’d rather watch suffering than feel it in here
So I put on a slick, let’s get it done veneer
And I act full of fire, yeah I play cavalier
Because I am a doer
Always saving the day, always moving and busy
No time for bad feelings when I’m in a tizzy
And I put up defenses to make you feel dizzy
Who sits by still waters?
I take my water fizzy
And don’t you get all melodramatic with this
This is not a woe is me
Is she ok? moment we’re in the midst
I am not telling you to cease and desist
But I am telling you
Yes, in fact I insist
That you don’t even know what I’ve got going on
I am dripping in doing
I’m above and beyond
Cuz it's all up to me to sing my own song
And I have been holding it together for so long
Yet there’s so many things that I do carry on
Sometimes I really do feel… overdrawn
Some days I don’t know where I even belong
All this doing, you see, it muffles what's wrong
When I do what I do
I pretend to move on
I am a doer, yes that’s right
And I will go on doing what needs doing tonight
I will do all the undone things in my sight
Give a smile and a nod in my undoing plight
And if you should try to shine a light
Tell me I misunderstand my power, my might
I will shoot you an unnerving stare
That will make you want to take flight
When really, I’m the one who’s hurting
I’m the one who’s empty inside
I am a doer
I pull rabbits out of hats
Don't know how to relax
I am a doer
With so many to-do’s
That I’m starting to crack
I am a doer
And I think it's a trap
What if I got me, and not just your back?
I am a doer
And I don't want my doing
To be my undoing act
