HealthyGamerGG - You Are Burned Out And Don't Even Know It

Episode Date: March 29, 2022

Today Doctor K talks about where burnout comes from, how its different from depression, what you can do about it, its factors, and more! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Burnout is notoriously hard to treat. And that, I believe, is because people are trying to fix it, like sort of like in a medical way. We tend to devalue a lot of what we go through, and we tend to assume that if we have things to be grateful for, then we can't be burnt out. Be thoughtful about, okay, what's leading to the burnout, and then you can intervene on it.

Is this a me component? Is there something I can work on here? Or do I need to set boundaries with my boss and saying, hey, you're asking too much of me? So let's talk about burnout then. So, The first thing to understand is that like burnout is increasing. And the reason I wanted to talk about it today is because I think a lot of people are actually burnt out and don't even realize it.

And that's because the term has been tossed around so much that everyone will just sort of say like, oh my God, I'm so burnt out. But the World Health Organization has actually like looked into this a fair amount. There have been lots of researchers, a guy named I think Freudenberg and then Christina Moslock. there have been like lots of psychologists and stuff who've really looked into this. And burnout is absolutely like a real thing. And I think the real challenge is that we don't really understand what burnout looks like or feels like. And there tend to be a lot of things that we tell ourselves that invalidate our experiences of burnout. So the first thing is that so a lot of people who are actually on the cusp of burnt out or are burnt out will say to themselves things like,

like my life is pretty good. Like I have a stable job. I have a good relationship. You know, my boss is nice to me. I'm not taking advantage of or whatever. Like they look at their life and their life is objectively good. And when they look at their life and their life is objectively good, they sort of assume that if things are good, if I have stuff to be grateful for, then I must not be burnt out. So this is like the first thing that people run into, which is that what I see time and time and time again is that someone has like a situation that's actually pretty good. Like either they're doing, in school or they're going to work. This is a very common scenario where it's sort of like wake up. I go to work. I kind of like my job, right? Like it's pretty interesting and I get compensated pretty well.

And then I kind of come home and I have a little bit of time to myself. I maybe game a little bit. Maybe I exercise a little bit. And then it's like bedtime. And then it's kind of like rinse and repeat for like the next 30 years. And they kind of look at their life and they sort of feel like they don't have a right to complain. And what they sort of feel is not something that is overtly mental illness. So when we think a little bit about, oh, I'm really struggling at work or I'm stressed out at work. People think about, oh, my God, I'm losing my hair. My hair is turning gray. I have an ulcer.

I have trouble getting out of bed in the morning. Like, you know, I'm gaining weight. Like, I can't sleep. Like, people look at all these inflated symptoms is signs of problems. And once you get to that inflated symptom, like, oh, my God, I've gained 10 pounds. I've got an ulcer and I can't sleep at night. Now I need to go see a psychiatrist. Or now I need to go see a therapist.

stress is getting to be too much. And so we sort of have this picture about, you know, what is a problem? Like we have this kind of like idea of like, oh my God, right? And this is like the detective who drinks a little bit too much and is always popping antacids and stuff like that in the crime thriller movie sort of like that's what we sort of think of as someone who's burnt out, right? Wrinkled clothes and kind of like, you know, works way too hard and stuff like that. And a lot of people who are burnt out will sort of, they'll assume that because they work, maybe. 40 hours a week, maybe 45 hours a week. They're not working 80 hours a week. They don't have all these different problems. They must not be burnt out. And so this is like a huge problem because I actually

think that burnout is increasing, right? So we sort of see that globally. And part of the reason that it's increasing is because I don't think people truly understand what burnout is or how vulnerable you are to it. And furthermore, how you could be, you may not even realize what it looks like. So the first thing that I'm going to do is sort of share with you all a little bit about what burnout looks like. Then we're going to talk a little bit about how we discovered what burnout looks like. What burnout doesn't look like, sort of the debate between what is burnout, what is depression. And then we're going to kind of get into some more individual factors about what have we learned contributes to burnout. Because this is the tricky thing is that when we talk a little bit about how to fix burnout, some of the things are internal and some of the things are external.

And that's what makes it such a difficult problem to fix is because unlike other parts of mental health, you can't sort of put responsibility entirely on one side of that. So if I've got a toxic workplace environment, let's say it's discriminatory. That's not something that I have to deal with. That's something that, you know, I mean, I have to deal with it, but it's not something that's my responsibility as someone who works there to fix. That's like that's their job. So if we look at the way that mental health has been understood, it's either their job, like, oh, my God, this person is a toxic box who is sexually harassing people, that person needs to go, and that's how we fix it. It's the problems over there, which may be completely legitimate.

And then what we've got is stuff like depression, which is like all over here. And that's where the employer is like, oh, no, no, no, like we don't need to change anything at work. We're going to give you a nice referral source. We'll give you health insurance if you're in the U.S. You know, we're going to like give you all the stuff here. You take the stuff and you go fix it over there. And so we have this model where like we put 100% of responsibility on on either the person who's working or the person who's providing work. And the tricky thing about burnout is that it's actually an intersection of the two, which is part of the reason why the old systems that we have of addressing burnout are not really working. Because it's not like either or. It's a combination of both.

So let's start with sort of understanding a little bit about where the where burnout comes from and what it looks like. So the first thing to understand is that burnout, a lot of times when people feel burnt out, the first thing that they'll experience is a lack of energy. And this is a really common problem with people who are burnt out is that they tend to devalue or kind of don't make excuses for what they experience. So that's like kind of the first thing to understand about burnout. So when I feel like I have low energy, I don't think that this is workplace-related burnout. I may think because of, you know, the blowing up of the wellness industry, the explosion of the wellness industry. Oh, maybe I need to be like, so you'll have people say like, oh, I need to be meditating more. I need to start doing yoga.

I need to start taking B12. Oh, like I need to start drinking juice. Right. So we'll sort of look at all the, like, we'll kind of feel like low energy. Like I can get up, but it's not really a problem because I can go to work. I just feel kind of tired when I go to work. It's not like I'm getting bad performance reviews. You know, I'm doing okay at work.

I kind of come home. It's not like I can't have fun. I do enjoy, you know, hanging out with my friends. I kind of like, kind of enjoy going for a walk. But life kind of feels like flat with people who are burnt out. So things aren't quite as exciting. There isn't quite as much energy. So that's like kind of the first thing to think about. So if you're like, if your primary experience is kind of just like, not that anything is broken, like, people think like, oh my God, I can't get out of bed because I'm so depressed. And since they're not there, they think like, oh, it's not really a problem, right? Because I'm not so bad.

So just the first thing to understand is it's sort of like a general lack of energy. The second thing, this is what's really fascinating about what research is revealed, is the first thing that happens, the first phase of burnout is actually a lack of empathy. So this is what we see is that like it's not that you can't take care of yourself. It's not that your function is impaired. It's that you stop caring about other people. So what this sort of leads to, what this manifests as is a bunch of cynicism. So people have sort of found that people who are burnt out.

Researchers have discovered that people who are burnt out tend to be very, very cynical about their job. Right? So like this is something that we see a lot with clients that we've had, especially like who were in the tech industry and stuff like that at HD. We've worked with a lot of people from, you know, major developers and things like that. And what we sort of see is that there's like this kind of like empathic lack of empathy that sort of results in kind of a negative view of the world. So it's kind of like, yeah, I can still do my job, but it's not going to go well,

stuff is going to get screwed, there are going to be delays, and all that stuff can be true, right, because that can still be true, but it's the cynicism with which you view it. It's sort of like this fatalistic, kind of hopeless, not quite like I'm suicidal and despairing, and I need to quit my job, but it's like everything is just going to go to shit no matter what I do kind of attitude. And when you sort of have that cynicism, it makes it very hard for you to be empathic towards other people, right? So when your colleague like drops the ball, it's very hard to sort of be empathic towards them because like you're just you have no bandwidth left, right? All your energy is already run out. You're kind of like low on energy to begin with.

If we really think about empathy, empathy requires energy for other people. So the first thing is a lack of energy. The second thing is a lack of empathy and cynicism. Okay. The third thing that we tend to see with burnout is a sort of lack of enjoyment or sense of fulfillment with your job. So this is where even though your performance may be okay, and there is research that shows that performance can be kind of problematic. But what I really look for when I'm looking for burnout is people who generally speaking

on paper like their job, but find it to be unfulfilling in some fundamental way. So this is the challenge here is that we start to see like some of the challenges, some of the things that we do to devalue our burnout, which is that, you know, when I don't enjoy my job, when I don't find it fulfilling, and I'm kind of, in this situation, what I tend to do is devalue my own experience. So this is where I'll say, but I'm lucky to have a job. Other people don't have a job as nice as I do. Oh, I'm lucky enough to be working for Amazon. I'm lucky enough to be working for Twitch. I'm lucky, right? So I get paid so much. Why am I complaining? Like, I have no right to complain. And so this is sort of what

happens is when we find sort of a lack of fulfillment or enjoyment or things like that, people who are burnt out, once again, remember there's a lack of empathy, right? So sometimes there can even be a lack of self-empathy. There can be a lack of compassion towards oneself. And we sort of do is like tell ourselves like, why are we complaining? So this is what I kind of think about these three things is like the classic occult burnout. And what I mean by occult is it's kind of hidden, right? It's sort of like you don't really realize that you're burnt out because you're not, you're

able to go to work every day, you're able to do okay. You know, you maybe have a short fuse. This is another thing that we tend to see a lot. is a short fuse is a very, very common sign of burnout. So it's not depression. It's not sadness. It's not like inability to do work, but I tend to have a short fuse. I tend to be a little bit cynical. We see this a lot in the medical profession where people stop caring about patients. What it starts to become is like, I need to get through this work. And so I can go home for the day and I feel kind of wiped. And then it's like, get up tomorrow and rinse and repeat. Right.

but like somewhere along the way like especially caregivers lose the capacity to care for patients. So it's, I got to give this medication. I have to write this order. I have to do this prescription. I have to go see this person. I have to call this person's family. And you lose sight of the patient. And that's what it looks like in medicine, but we see that in other fields as well where you just sort of like lose sight of the people involved.

You lose sight and you stop kind of caring about, you know, what actually matters. And so this is sort of what burnout looks like. So if you're someone who kind of experiences these three things, the first is a lack of energy, despite the ability to do work. And this is really tricky because it doesn't, a lot of people think like, oh, as long as I'm able to work, I'm fine, right? So that's why burnout is kind of like flying under the radar there. So it's a lack of energy.

The second thing is a lack of empathy, which tends to go first, actually, before you even run out energy, empathy is going to be the first thing that goes. Sort of a cynical attitude and a lack of fulfillment, despite on paper, oftentimes in your job. Okay? So this is what characterizes burnout. And when people were sort of looking into this, and the very early stages, I think maybe in the 80s or 90s when people were characterizing burnout, I may be wrong on the time there. What they sort of noticed is that this is a discrete thing from depression. So when someone first kind of came out with the term burnout, a lot of the academic community were like, oh, you're just describing depression, right? This is no different from depression.

And this is where the researchers on burnout actually took a step back and said, well, no, actually, we think this is a discrete entity. And the debate still goes on today. We'll kind of talk a little bit about that. And so what they sort of noticed, and this is what the World Health Organization ultimately decided on, is that burnout is specifically related to work stuff. So if we think about what's the difference between depression and burnout, depression is something that you carry with you. Right. So we tend to think about depression is more of an organic or biologic sort of thing. there's absolutely a psychological component. But for example, if you look at depression, people posit that there's a disturbance of the serotonergic system within our brain. We know that there are changes to our hormonal levels and things like that. There's evidence that there's increased inflammation in depression. So we sort of think, when I think about depression, I think about something that you carry with you. And even though depression can be triggered by external circumstances, is a clinician, when I really look for depression,

what I'm looking for is an independence of clinical stuff compared to circumstances. So even though a breakup may trigger a depressive episode, when I really think about depression, what I think of is even if that person starts dating again and they're still depressed, because now the circumstances have been fixed. That's when I really think about clinical depression. It may have been caused by a breakup, but then like, you know, a couple months later, I'm dating again and then like I'm still kind of depressed. like that sort of suggests that there's something independent, even though it can be triggered by something.

So originally there was debate about whether depression is similar or the same as burnout. Ultimately, the World Health Organization and other definitions have kind of come out that it's occupational-related. So this is where, you know, not necessarily changing your occupation because there are internal components, which we'll kind of get to. But that this is really something that's heavily influenced by your work. And that unlike depression, which affects every dimension of your life, burnout kind of has a focal point with being sort of occupational in nature. Now, I think that even today now that that's sort of changing, the way that I've sort of understood burnout is that it's more than just work. It's really the intersection of life with work.

And it does, it's not just work related. That's kind of one of the problems I was talking about earlier is that it's, I mean, it's sort of caused by work, sure, but there's like an individual component which I've come to appreciate. So this is where people sort of discover this thing called the burnout syndrome. There's now been research on it. There's actually a really interesting study. Some people, just to give you all a sense of the debate, some people still believe that burnout is essentially under the umbrella of depression so that we have depression. And then there can be like an occupational depression versus other kinds of depressions. The really interesting thing is that there are a couple of studies that have looked at hormonal levels. So we know that depression or clinical depression is a

stressful state physiologically. So, for example, our levels of ACTAH, adrenocorticoid, adrenocortocotropic hormone, I think is what ACTH is, our levels of cortisol are actually high in depression. So we're in sort of a high stress state, whereas our hormonal levels in burnout are actually neutral or low. So this is kind of interesting because if you look at the levels of stress hormones in a depressed person. They're elevated, whereas they're low or even completely normal or like not different from the average population in a burnout scenario. And so that's where it's kind of interesting because it sort of implies that physiologically things are less disturbed in a burnout state compared to a depressed state. So it's kind of interesting because

there's evidence that burnout and depression overlap in some, you know, situations and the people who believe that there's essentially the same thing or variants of each other, like have good data to support it. And the people who believe that burnout is a discrete syndrome from depression, there's actually physiologic evidence for that too. I personally believe I treat burnout as somewhat different from depression. And there's even some evidence that the hormonal profiles for burnout more overlap with something called atypical depression, which is in Dr. Kay's guide, we kind of talk about that, what I call congruent depression. The point here is that, you know, we're still figuring this stuff out.

There's probably some degree of overlap, but I sort of treat them as is quite discreet because I find that from a treatment perspective or even like a coaching perspective or a corporate consulting perspective, that treating burnout as its own thing with its own influences and causes is like far more effective than just assuming it's depression. The other way to just kind of simply put that is when someone comes into my office with burnout, I start thinking about acting from a burnout perspective as opposed to to prescribing antidepressant medication, which may or may not help, but depending on the situation. So that sort of touches on, you know, is depression, burnout, is a burnout depression?

It turns out that, in my opinion, they're actually quite different things, okay? So now, just to kind of recap, we've talked a little bit about what burnout is. We've talked a little bit about, you know, why burnout is so easy to miss if you are experiencing it. And the key things there are that we tend to devalue a lot of what we go through. and we tend to assume that if we have things to be grateful for, then we can't be burnt out. The other issue there is that when we think about burnout, we'll oftentimes think about what depression looks like.

So I have difficulty getting out of bed. I have no energy whatsoever, whereas a lot of times people who are burnt out are able to perform at a relatively normal level. The challenge is that they just don't feel a whole lot of energy on the inside. They have, they're cynical, they don't have empathy, they don't find any sense of fulfillment from their work, which on purpose. paper they like. And it's really that discrepancy, which I think really clues me into burnout. And just that on paper, if your life looks good, but you yourself don't seem to be enjoying it,

then you should definitely think about burnout. Also on the differential there could be something like depression, right? So we know that, for example, major depressive disorder, which is a clinical illness, is sort of marked by something called anhedonia. It's one of the most specific features of depression. So let's talk about this for a second. When we're talking about something like a clinical illness, there are some features which are common and some features which are specific. So what specific means is that it's more likely to be in depression than in anything else. And so Anhedonia is one of the specific features of depression, which means that people who are depressed are unable to enjoy or find pleasure in activities that normally would be pleasurable.

Right. So I normally love playing video games, but when I have a clinical depression, games just don't feel as fun to me. Whereas that's also somewhat of a difference between depression and burnout in terms of what I've seen is that people who are burnt out usually don't get to the level of an hedonic. They may be energetic, they may have low energy, but if you can actually like get somewhere, like if you can go to a party, if you can actually take a weekend off and like load up a video game, you can actually still have fun. But your motivation is sort of lacking. okay and then so so we dug into a little bit about the differences between depression and burnout so now kind of what I want to get to is a little bit about like okay so if I'm burnt out or if this describes me how do I sort of tackle it how do I understand how to fix this problem and this is what's kind of interesting about burnout is that it's one of these things that's an intersection between what you can do and what can

be done at the workplace and generally speaking I think the most common cause of burn is globally, and we'll kind of build up to this in a second. The most common cause of burnout is essentially someone who wants to work, enjoys working, but is somehow unable to or runs into obstacles when they try to work. Right. So what this means is that I like my job. I like working with patients. I enjoy doing what I do. I like being able to help people, right? So I can enjoy all of those things. So on paper, I really like my job, but something happens in my workplace that gets in the way of me being able to do that. And so usually when I think about burnout, what I really think about is an individual who's trying really hard against a system that doesn't let them. And so this

is where we can kind of get into some of the details of what are the specific features of burnout. Because if you find yourself to be in that situation, then how can you start to approach fixing things? And this is where at HG, you know, we have a very common saying, which is borrowed from the practice of clinical medicine, which is that good diagnosis precedes good treatment. And so in order to understand how to fix burnout, what we really need to do is understand what are the contributors to burn out. So remember, burnout is caused by an individual and their connection with a company or workplace usually. I think situation also applies here or environment. And why do I sort of expand it like that?

this, it's because we can look at things like caregiver burnout. So we know that, for example, like family members of people who have cancer oftentimes will experience burnout because that, once again, is a scenario where you care about your loved one. You're trying to do really right by them, right? You're trying to pick up their medication and you go with them to chemo and you do this and you do that and you're kind of trying to do everything that you can. But because of the nature of the cancer, because of the intensiveness of it, because of the mental health impact on them, you're, you have a bunch of effort, but there's a discrepancy between effort and yield. So what you sort of see is that, like, what you get out of it is down here.

And this is really where the burnout comes from. So this is the effort you put in. This is the yield you get. And what I tend to see in people who are burnt out is that they try way harder than what they get. And so this is, like, running into a system that doesn't allow your efforts to be seen. And this is sort of why you don't feel kind of inspired and stuff at work is because like, this is where your inspiration is. This is where your desire is. And yet, despite the fact that you're putting in all the effort, you're getting a low yield,

which means that this gap over here is where burnout kind of enters. Because you're trying really, really hard. And this is the other thing about burnout is people sort of assume for a moment, like sometimes, especially like the boom regeneration and stuff, will sort of assume that people who are burnt out are lazy. But I think what they don't really realize is it's not like, it's not that people are lazy, it's that there's a huge gap between the amount of effort that you put in and the yield that you get. So let's kind of look at what are the different things that result in this gap, okay? Where does this kind of gap come from?

And this is what's cool is that Maslock, who is one of the central researchers, developed a lot of the core research on burnout, sort of isolated six factors that result in burnout. Okay? Oh, hold on a second. I don't know if you guys can, if y'all can see that. Okay, yeah, you all can see. So let's talk a little bit about the six factors. And this is where that lead to burnout. This is where as we think about these factors,

we can sort of think a little bit about, is this a problem in my situation? And then we can target our solutions. Okay, so the first is workload. The second is control. Third is reward. Fourth is community. Fifth is fairness.

And the sixth is values. So when we're talking about burnout, what we tend to find is when there's a discrepancy between your workplace and you in these dimensions, this is where the gap of burnout comes from. Now, it's also important to remember for a moment that this is part of the reason why burnout is hard to fix because some of these things may be workplace related, but some of them are actually internal. And that's what I'd really like to go through today with y'all. So the first is that, you know, there's a workload related aspect of burnout. So the simplest is that people are overworked. Okay. So like, you know, very, very common contributor to burnout is like, you know, I'm

salaried at 40 hours. I used to be hourly. I used to get paid overtime. And now I'm salaried, But like my work, my work is increasing. So I'm not getting any bonuses. I'm not getting any overtime. Maybe that's reward. We'll get to that in a second. But oftentimes if people are overworked, you know, and there's a work, there's a discrepancy between how much you're willing to work and how much your employment overworks you.

And this can sort of contribute to burnout. Right. So a lot of people may say that, okay, the solution is that the workplace should decrease the amount that they make me work, which is a totally, valid solution. The point here is that there could be an individual component here as well. We had an interview a couple weeks ago with a software developer who was sort of saying, I'm incredibly burnt out. And this is where sometimes it's important to understand that if you're overworked at work, there's a workplace contribution and there could be an individual

contribution. And what does that mean? Well, sometimes the reason we're overworked is because we kind of like take on additional projects and stuff, right? So this is where we can even go a little bit beyond the workplace. We can think about your home situation, you know, how many things are you managing around the house? Do you have side projects? Do you have side hustles, gigs, you know, work in 24-7? Sometimes, for example, we'll also see internal emotional drives that lead to overwork. So this isn't the kind of thing where your boss is abusive or taking advantage of you, but you yourself really, really want your boss to like you. You want your boss to think that you're the best worker. You need to feel like the best worker. You want to be the best worker. And so since you want to be the best worker at work,

that emotional drive causes you to individually contribute to your own workload. So you volunteer for more projects. You show up early. You stay late. You do all this kind of stuff. And then that increases your workload. So this is where, this is, I think, a prime example of why burnout is so tricky is because what some people will do is they'll kind of say like, some people will say like, oh my God, my workplace is so toxic. They take advantage of me. But what I've oftentimes found is that when people are actually, when you're looking at burnout, that there's a workplace contribution and there's a you contribution. So this is where solutions could be boundary setting. Right. So you can let your boss know, hey, I'm actually not available to do overtime on short notice. It could be

sort of working on your emotional drives, but workload is absolutely a big piece of it. The other issue with burnout is that as we sort of look at these factors, oftentimes what makes it hard to deal with is people will say, oh, change your job, right? So that's what the solution they'll come to, because if you're at a place where you're overworked, you may change your job, but the tricky thing is that some of your individual emotional drives may follow you. This is why change your job doesn't necessarily fix all your problems because sometimes you take your problems with you. Okay? Second thing that leads to burnout is control and specifically a discrepancy between how much control you want and how much control you have. So in the workplace, this, for example,

can be someone who micromanages you. Right? So like you want to work your particular way and you're like, yeah, this is what I'm going to do. I don't want to do this. I want to do it this way. And then your boss is like, no, I want you to do it this way. And they're kind of breathing down your neck and stuff like that. So micro-managing can absolutely be a cause for, you know, discrepancy in control at work. But the flip side of this is also true where sometimes you'll have people who are kind of control freaks, right? So on the one hand, you've got a manager who's kind of like really into your business. And on the other hand, you're someone who is such a control freak that everything needs to happen a particular way. And you may want to do things your way, but there may be other

company considerations that make it so that actually you doing it your way is like not really appropriate. So when I work with people who are burnt out, what we generally try to do is try to understand, okay, what's the discrepancy in control? You know, what amount of this is really coming from them and what amount of this, this is really coming from you? Another big factor for burnout is reward. So this is where we were talking a little bit about, you know, moving from hourly and overtime to salaried, right? Or just kind of what kind of compensation you're kind of looking for. And why do I sort of list this as an individual problem? I'll give you guys kind of like an example. So, you know, if you're someone who wants to be the best at work, that's something where like if someone else, you know, gets paid potentially more than you do or gets a bigger, we see this a lot in finance where people will kind of get.

get paid bonuses. And then what matters to some people that I've worked with is not actually the amount of bonus that they get paid, but the amount of bonus they get paid in relation to other people. And so this is kind of tricky, but like even reward is not something so simple. This is where a lot of people like will say like, oh, what needs to happen is like my company just needs to pay me more. Like that's, I'm under, I'm underpaid, which could be true, right? And there definitely are companies that will sort of try to take advantage to people by moving them to salary, et cetera. The truth is that the way that you experience a reward for your work at work has an individual component as well. So like, this is where ego or being the best can kind of come in.

Do you get paid the most, right? So I'm kind of recalling a joke from the office where Michael Scott, in lieu of a raise, got two plaques for employee of the year, right? So they're like, you're such an employee of the year that you were going to give you two plaques instead of a raise. So this is where the reward. that you may be looking for may not be entirely appropriate, which I know is like shocking in the anti-work era. But this is where when I work with people in finance, like we start to ask like serious questions about what is the, what is the reward you actually want to? What's important? Is it,

is it a particular dollar value? Does it just need to be bigger than it was before? Is it just never enough? What would be enough? And as we start to look into this, we also run into things like, you know, do you need to be better than your peers? So, Sometimes I'll talk to people and I'll be like, well, how happy are you with your compensation? It'll be like, it's terrible. And it's like, okay, well, how much is it? And they'll toss out a number. And I'm like, oh, okay, what's the problem with it?

Well, so-and-so gets paid more. And so that's really the problem. And so if we're thinking a little bit about why you're burnt out related to reward, is there a company component? Absolutely. Is it possible that you're being underpaid? Absolutely. And at the same time, there may be a certain amount of lack of contentment.

There may be a certain amount of ego. There may be a certain amount of, like, you losing sight of actually what's important in terms of reward, right? Maybe it doesn't matter that you're better than your peers. Maybe the most important thing is the dollar value. And this is where a lot of people may assume, oh yeah, the most important thing is the dollar value. But when it actually comes to human beings and compensation and psychology, the truth is we're not all just robots making financial transactions, right? We want to be liked. We want to be revered. We want to be successful. We want to be viewed by our peers as intelligent. I saw a study recently that showed that the most important thing is not what your boss thinks of your

competence, but what your peers think of your competence. So if there's a discrepancy in reward between what you're looking for and what your company is providing, that could also lead to burnout. So another important thing is community. So this is where sometimes, you know, we live in our workplace. You know, some people will sort of say like, oh, you know, this, we really think of our employees as family members and things like that. That can be both a good thing or a bad thing. Sometimes increasingly so, unfortunately, that is viewed as, that is language that's used to

tell people we're going to try to take advantage of you in the same way that family members don't set good boundaries and take advantage of each other. But the truth is that isolation leads to burnout. So depending on your job, like what kind of community there is, right? Like, that could contribute to your sense of burnout. This is where it's kind of a double-edged sword because it's not just your job, but oftentimes like joining professional organizations and things like that can help alleviate that. But human beings are fundamentally, we're community organisms, right? We're like tribal in nature.

We're not designed to be on our own. Now, what about the individual contribution? So let's say that your company, you know, does do a lot for community, does. doesn't do a whole lot for community. But is there an individual contribution or not? Absolutely. So there are all kinds of things like social anxiety, comparisons, the desire to isolate. So I see this a lot in terms of individual contributions of burnout where I feel isolated. Do you want to be isolated? No, I don't want to be isolated. I hate being isolated. Well, why don't you go to work events? Because I don't want to. Because I don't know if people I'm going to talk to anyone.

I don't know if people are going to like me there. I don't know. Like this other person is so much funnier than I am. Right. So when it comes to isolation, like sure, your community may be able, I mean, your company may be able to do things like happy hours and things like that. But at the end of day, there's an individual contribution to community as well. How do you participate in the community? And in drastic situations, I've even seen some people who will sort of take the lead in this kind of thing, right, where they sort of recognize that community is something that I can contribute to as well. So they'll host a barbecue or they'll invite people over, they'll start a book club, or they'll start playing D&D with co-workers and things like that. Got to be careful about

that sort of thing. So, you know, be careful about boundaries. So the next thing that we sort of have to consider in terms of burnout is fairness. This one is huge. Probably in my sense, like even the biggest one, even more important than workload in terms of my personal experience with people that I've worked with, is that there has to be a culture of fairness at work. So if someone feels like they're being treated unfairly, it's going to spike their burnout through the roof. Now, this is what's kind of interesting is that, you know, work should be fair. This is what's really fascinating. We've seen this a lot in our coaching program. But there could be perceptions of a lack of fairness. This is critical. So unfortunately, I hate to say this. I hate to admit this. But just because

you think things are unfair doesn't mean that things are actually unfair, right? So the human mind is super tricky in the sense that, like, I'll give you guys like one of my favorite examples of roommates and dishes. So every time one of your roommates does one of your dishes, it doesn't register 100%. But every time that you do one of your roommates' dishes, it registers a thousand percent. So human beings have an internal bias. where they tend to overestimate their extra contributions and underestimate other people's contributions. So this is where feeling taken for granted can sometimes come from, right?

Like you're doing a bunch of stuff that no one else at work is doing. You're the one who always gets coffee in the morning. And no one else ever does that. That's unfair. This is going to cause, I guarantee you, a disproportionate sense of burnout if you feel like you're being treated unfairly. Now, the challenge is that there is actual unfair treatment at work, right? Like, this is the kind of thing where it's like, of course there's unfair treatment at work.

I mean, no one's perfect. Everyone's human. So there could be people playing politics. There could be nepotism. Right? There could be like favoritism. There could be like, oh, like, I play this game. I'm a Dota player and my boss is a Dota player. And this other person is a league player. Therefore, the league player feels like they're left out because we're playing Dota and et cetera, et cetera. So there are going to be issues of fairness in the workplace. The challenge is that sometimes, especially depending on how egotistical or if you think about a narcissist at work, the perception of unfairness is going to be through the roof, even though things may not be unfair. So even in the situation of fairness, ideally your workplace is fair. It's not going to be 100%. But you have an individual contribution to that as well. And this is something that we've worked on a lot in terms of coaching where we've even taught our coaches how to. discern and what questions to ask to gauge whether the perception of fairness is within the mind of the person or at the workplace, right? Because these are two very different things. And if we think about fixing this problem, do you advocate at work for more fair conditions? Because the problem here is that if stuff is actually fair and you make a claim that it's unfair because you're egotistical and narcissistic and can't see other people's perspectives,

it's going to actually backfire and you'll do worse at work, because then everyone's going to be like this person is complaining about something that is completely inappropriate. Versus if you feel like things are, you know, maybe you're, we've seen the opposite of this as well, where you're willing to be a dormant at work. So you don't advocate for yourself. You don't, you know, you don't stand up for yourself. And your actual workplace is unfair, but you're not able to advocate for yourself because of internal emotional drive. So are things that work fair well? Not really, but I don't want people to think that I'm whiny.

I want to be seen as a team player. I want to get promoted. I want my boss to like me. There are all kinds of internal things that will allow you to tolerate and even positively reinforce an unfair work environment. So there's absolutely an individual contribution when it comes to fairness and burnout. And that individual contribution can go either way. Either it can create unfair situations out of fair situations, right? Because you're not level-headed up here. You're maybe jealous or you're maybe insecure. Or it can do the opposite where your inability to set boundaries propagates an unfair situation at work. Right. So this is tricky, but this absolutely leads to burnout. So what we sort of know is that when employees feel like they're being treated

unfairly, they're much more likely to burn out, right? Because this is where, if we kind of go back to our yield graph, right, this is where you are. This is the effort that you're putting in. And then this is like the yield that someone else gets for the same effort. And then this gap right here is going to burn people out even more, if that kind of makes sense. You'll get that? So when you're putting in a certain amount of work and someone else is putting in the same amount of work and they get twice the yield and you get half the yield, that is much more likely for you to burnout. And remember, what are going to be the signs of burnout? Like, let's kind of think through this a little bit, right? It's a lack of

of empathy. Like, of course, I'm not going to care about my coworker who's working half as hard as I am, and they're getting, like, you know, they're getting rewarded just as much as I am. Like, screw them. It's going to make me cynical about the workplace. Like, why would I be excited to work at a place where some people are doing half the work and getting paid the same? And I'm doing twice the work and I'm getting paid the same. Like, why would I do that? So that leads to cynicism. Would it lead to a sense of fulfillment with your work? Of course not. Because even if you're doing work, that's amazing. If you're like, you know, performing surgery on people who have cancer and you're like saving lives day in and day out.

Like that work is impactful, but your mind is so caught up on this discrepancy between how much you work and how much they work that you're not able to appreciate the aspects of your job. And then if someone asks you, hey, do you like your job? And you can say like, yeah, I actually like, maybe not this one in particular, but I love what I do. I love saving lives. I love doing surgery.

It's exciting and blah, blah, blah, blah, yada, yada. And that's what happens is people love what they do. And yet they can still feel burnt out. And that's really internally confusing for them. So what they kind of conclude is like, I must not be burnt out. It's just, it'll get better eventually. Okay. So last thing, arguably the most important thing is a discrepancy in values.

So in my experience of working with consulting with corporations, you know, having worked with people myself, what people want is to be challenged and want to be valued. That's what I try to do. would like in terms of the the guidance that I try to provide for people people don't I mean maybe people do want this but in my experience people actually want to work right so like people want to make an impact on the world like they want to do something that's challenging they don't just don't want to sit sit around an afk all day we have tons of people in our community who are sitting around an afking all day and they post all the time about hey I'm tired of afking I want

to do something with my life so people want to do something impactful so people want to be They want to be challenged and they want to be valued. So when you are challenged and you succeed, this leads to a sense of fulfillment. When you are challenged and you succeed and someone notices that when someone says, damn, you did awesome today, like strong work, right? When people appreciate what you do, they appreciate the effort that you put in, whether it's your clients or your, you know, whatever. Like if you're making burgers, like it doesn't matter.

Like if you make a really good burger and someone comes up to you and is like, man, that burger was awesome, right? That's going to make you feel fulfilled. So in terms of values, what I tend to advocate for in terms of when I work with, you know, a company is like to try to help them understand that like if you want to get the best out of your employees, like you need to actually challenge them in a way that they're okay with, right? Not just like make life hard for them. But like, you know, push them. Like let them, let them grow as people, let them do better. You know, let the challenge them to do more. and also value them appropriately.

So if they do excel, like reward them, right? It's not just a plaque, give them a bonus, give them a raise, whatever, right? This is what people want, is to be valued and challenged. The challenge lies where when we are talking about kind of the company versus the individual, if there's a discrepancy in values, this can lead to a huge amount of burnout. So we're going to talk about medicine here. So what does a doctor care about helping a patient? What is like a hospital system care about?

Billing. Right? So we'll see this especially with like for-profit medical institutions, right? So there's a guy who's got an MBA who's like CEO of the hospital system and he's like, he's never taken care of a patient in his life. He's interested in maximizing money. Because that's what they're hired to do, right? He's not a bad person.

It's just like that's what the system is designed for, right? So when you see a discrepancy in these kinds of values, because sometimes these come into conflict where, you know, and this is what kind of leads to burnout. So like when physicians are sort of told to emphasize billing over patient care, because physicians are okay billing, like it's fine to bill for your services. But when there's a discrepancy between, you know, sacrificing actually helping a person for the sake of making money, this is what burns people way out in medicine. So this is where like as a doctor, I'll just share my own experience.

I can work a 30-hour shift like helping human beings. I can do that, no problem. You can come and get me at 23 hours, at 23 hours and 59 minutes, and you can say, Dr. Konoja, I know you're about to clock out of your shift in 60 seconds, but someone has just come into the emergency room after a suicide attempt. Would you please be willing to see them before you leave? So-and-so is running late and we really need, this person needs your help. And I'd be like, absolutely, because that's what I'm there to do.

What am I not there to do? Dr. Konoja, it's one minute, you have one minute of your shift left. We need you to call the insurance companies so that we can get paid for this service that we're providing. And they're saying they're not going to cover it. Will you call them? And that's when I kind of say politely, go fuck yourself. Right? So it's like it's dealing with insurance companies in that moment, which is not something that I want to do.

It's okay to deal with insurance companies. But it's like when, like, you know, I'm here. to help people not talk to someone in an insurance company to get compensated. That's not what excites me about my job. And so even then, I'm happy to do that at times, right? Like, I understand it's part of the process, and it's not all bad by any means. But in terms of like the value discrepancy between why I show up and why my job wants me there, the more that that value discrepancy changes, the more likely I am to burn out. Right? And so this is. is kind of what is crucial is that when you're thinking a little bit about your burnout,

how do your values align with the job that you're doing? And for a lot of people who are especially in entry-level positions, it's like it's hard to really align your values with what you're supposed to be doing because you're kind of learning. You're kind of like a peon. You're kind of like an intro person. You know, you're an analyst and an investment bank, and that's, it's hard because it's a lot of grunt work. So think a little bit about your values and think a little bit about, you know, what needs to be kind of fixed here. This is absolutely where, you know, sometimes if the values of the organization, if the culture of the organization is really just not a good fit, I do think it's actually a good idea to move jobs. But sometimes this is also where you can kind of like

do some internal work and try to figure out a little bit about, okay, what do I care about? Should I be caring about different things? What's my Dharma in this situation? Right. And so you can kind of work on your values some as well. But this is the kind of thing where I think that it's very, very, very hard to internally fix this problem, especially when it comes to values. You can advocate for some kind of change in your company. And that absolutely can happen. But like this one, I think, is the biggest one where ideally the job that you have aligns with the values that you have. And if these two things are in alignment, you're in a really, really good situation. So let's kind of summarize. So if we look at these, if we look at burnout, burnout is characterized by a couple of things.

lack of energy, lack of empathy, lack of fulfillment. These three things, in turn, will lead to cynicism. And when a lot of people think about burnout, they don't think about cynicism as like the primary experience. But as we sort of look at the cynicism, we can see where this comes from, right? Because there's an unfair environment. Our values aren't aligned. I'm not getting rewarded. I'm isolated. Right? We've got these different factors. I'm overworked.

And there's a lack of control. So we can see that this is where it ends up. Now, the interesting thing is that a lot of people struggle with burnout. So burnout is notoriously hard to treat. Okay? People have been trying for decades. And it's notoriously hard to fix. And that, I believe, is because people are trying to try.

to fix it, sort of like in a medical way. It's sort of like, here's the work environment. And what we're really good at with Western science is I'm going to take, you know, a pair of a scalpel and I'm going to cut here. I'm going to cut here and I'm going to excise the tumor. And then it'll be fine, right? So if I, if you're depressed, I'm going to, let's fix that with an SSRI. It's like a medical intervention. It's like we're going to go and we're going to fix this thing. Okay. We've got sexual harassment problems at the workplace. we're going to call in this expert who's going to do a training, and then we're going to give everyone a test,

and then it's going to be fixed. This is how corporations function. They're like, oh, we've got a problem. Let's hire someone to just like, just take care of it right here. And then the rest of this is going to stay the same. We're not going to fix any of that. That's too much work.

Fixed. We like these surgical interventions. Now, the challenge with burnout is that, like, it's not just here, right? Because it's all these different things. it's are you rewarded? Do you have control? Are you egotistical?

You know, what part of this is coming from you? Because now this is the thing that companies don't usually work like very highly individually with people to manage their burnout, right? It's like, oh, we're going to fix some things in the company, and then we're going to outsource some of the stuff. But there's no integration of the two. And so when it comes to fixing burnout, I think it ultimately results in kind of this table. So you have to go through if you find yourself in this situation, if you find yourself being cynical. And this is the real problem is that you may change jobs and it could fix some of it. But then like even if you change jobs, are you intentionally realizing what about the new job fixes it?

Because most people don't. This is why they kind of like move around randomly without sort of like, I'm not happy here. Let me apply somewhere else. Maybe the grass is greener on the other side. Grass is greener on the other side, grass is greener on the other side. until they find a company that does align with their values. And they're like, okay, this company's great. But even in that process, they're not thinking intentionally about, okay, what is it about this company that I dislike?

So what I'd recommend to you if you're burnt out is go through this list and address each one of these issues. What's the issue here? Is my environment unfair? Is this a value discrepancy? Am I being inappropriately or other people being inappropriately rewarded? Do I feel like I should be getting more money? do I feel isolated? Is it a lack of control? What is going on? And then for each of these dimensions, think a little bit about, because this is the other thing that's tending to happen nowadays, right?

So when you have some of these echo chambers forming, especially around work stuff, like if you go on LinkedIn, you'll get all kinds of like tone-deaf posts from managers talking about how employees need to learn how to work more and things like that. So they're completely missing the point. And then you'll also see things like the anti-work subreddit where people I think are also missing the point. where there's no understanding that there could be individual contributions to this, right? It's always the company's fault. And so on LinkedIn, it's always the employees' fault, these whiny little employees. And then on some of the anarcho subreddits, it's always the evil corporation. And in my experience, like working with actual humans, it's both, right?

That's why this is so hard to fix. It's because you can't solve half of the problem. So this is where, like, if you have issues with control, how much of this is, like, you need to surrender your control? Or, like, you know, you need to really be like, you need to set limits around micromanaging. Because the other thing is, remember that the boss could be burnt out, too. So why is the boss burnt out? Because the boss micromanages too damn much. You all get that?

And so it's like, oh, my God, like, I can't relax. Why can't you relax? Well, I have 14 employees, and I have to spell check every. every single one of their reports because they could make a mistake. And it's like, well, then you need to take a step back, right? And so what I recommend to people who are burnt out is to recognize that there are, you know, first of all, it's a real thing. Recognize that there are six major contributors to it.

And then be like specific with your approach to it. Start to really think a little bit about, okay, which one of these things is the problem. And then once you sort of start to figure out, okay, I really, do feel like I'm unfairly compensated. Or maybe the reason is because you don't have, you're not good at setting limits because you want your boss to like you. Your boss went out on a limb and got you this job. And they recommended you for promotion above all of your colleagues.

And you don't want to disappoint them. And since you don't want to disappoint them, you can't say no to them. Right? And then you feel like you're unfairly compensated because you're never saying no. And you're getting paid the same amount. It's like, what's the solution there? Is it to get a raise?

Like maybe? but that's also where there could be an individual component. So if you really want to understand how to approach burnout, it's like be scientific about it, be clinical about it, like look at your situation, which one of these applies to me. And then even if you want to change jobs, now at least you know what to look for. Right?

So like, oh, like if your situation is that you're isolated at work, can you tell me a little bit now in the interview when they ask that question, do you have any questions for us? Yeah. What is the work culture like? What is the work community like? people hang out together or people friends, like, what's that like? So now you can start making directed decisions about finding a work environment that's more conducive

to you. Right? And it can even be questions like for people who are willing to work extra hard and go the extra mile, what kind of, how does the company reward people who do that? And that's where they say, you get a plaque. If you work extra, extra hard, you get two plaques. Or is it like we have an aggressive bonus structure? based on quality metrics and the people who do a better job get paid more.

Like, what's the answer that you get? Right? So once you understand why you're burnt out, instead of just like going and seeing a psychiatrist and getting an SSRI, which could be an appropriate thing to do, by the way, because you could have major depressive disorder, right? So it's not a bad idea to get clinically evaluated. But be thoughtful about, okay, what's leading to the burnout? And then you can intervene on it.

Is this a me component? Is there something I can work on here? Or is this something that I need to set boundaries with myself for not taking work and learning how to say no, or do I need to set boundaries with my boss and saying, hey, you're asking too much of me. And that's ultimately like what leads to the best results, is an understanding of both the individual components and the work contributors, because that's what happens with burnout. It's an intersectional problem, so we have to look at both pieces of the puzzle. I think part of the reason that people are struggling so much is because everyone is usually looking at only one

piece of the puzzle, and they're kind of ignoring the other part. And it's really an intersection of those two, that's how you make two puzzle pieces fit together, right? So hopefully that's helpful. Questions. I feel just like the left plant. Yeah. I hear you. It's calculated to demonstrate, to illustrate the point. So this is a good question. Can burnout last really long? Yes. So here's one thing that we have to say about burnout. So burn out implies a sense of permanence, right? So like, this. this log is burnt out. Like, you can't get any more fire out of it, is what it implies.

So burnout can absolutely be repaired, like 100%. Like, you can go from completely burnt out to not burnt out at all in loving life. I've seen it happen time and time and time again. The thing is burnout can also last for a while. But the biggest thing about the propagation of burnout is I don't want you all to think about burnout like a binary thing, which is even how our terminology is, right? It's like binary. Are you burnt out or are you not burnt out? Burnout is a condition that is propagated. So it's sort of like, you know, saying, does thirst last forever? And it's kind of like, well, like, are you thirsty? Yes or no?

Well, that sort of depends on how much water you drink and how much you exercise. Right. So in the same way, burnout is going to propagate unless you address these factors. And this is why it feels like it lasts so damn long is because people don't really. realize what is the contributing factor to burnout. They haven't figured out, okay, these are the two or three things that really burn me out. So in my case, dealing with insurance company, and this is what we'll see, is that it's not the hours that you work. It's the quality of the hour that you work. That having to deal with this crap for two hours a day is way worse than having to do work that you enjoy for 10 hours a day. And so everyone sort of focuses on the quantifiable aspects without sort of focusing on the quantity, I mean the quality. So if you're burnt out, for a long time, can it last for a while? Yes, but if it's lasting for a while, you've got to be careful

because how much of this is residual and how much of it is ongoing because of your daily influences. And generally speaking, fixing it involves really fixing the daily influences, then you kind of got to ride out the residual burnout, and then you should be good. Can you be burned out from life? Absolutely. So this is where I think the definition of burnout needs to expand a little bit. But I think when you look at all these different factors, right? So can you be cynical about life? Can you lack empathy? Can you have a low level of energy and lack fulfillment in life? Absolutely. Can those things also relate to a sense of community, fairness, reward, control? Absolutely. Right? So I think the label fits on pretty well. This is why in our coaching program,

we don't just look at improvements in like depression and anxiety, which I recognize it's not a clinical program, but you can still get improvements, right? This is just the same way that I can go out. exercising every day and I can get an improvement in my cholesterol, even though exercise is not a treatment for cholesterol. Like, it's not like a medical intervention for cholesterol, right? So in the same way, what we try to emphasize that HG is like life purpose, figuring out who you are, learning to introspect. How do you answer those internal questions about yourself? And as you answer those internal questions about what you want in the world, then you can start intentionally crafting it. Because right now, what happens is we live.

based on R&G. It's like loot boxes right and left. We never use the crafting menu in life. We just go grind and try to open up random-ass loot. And we hope that one day will land in a situation that we enjoy. So instead, what you need to do is like craft, right? It requires more intention, but it's actually like easier from an effort standpoint. Just craft the life that you want to.

But that starts with understanding, okay, what is it that I want? Yeah, that's how people live. Seriously. It's like RNG. I don't like this work. Let me just move. I've seen this in e-sports, too. If you look at it, like, people just, you know, they just shift around teams until they find something that clicks because there isn't an intentional process of like diagnosis and understanding.

I mean, there is, actually, but I think you can be much more sophisticated. Right? Thoughts on burnout for people being fulfilled by their work and what research or other information are you basing your model off of? Great question. So let's talk about burnout for people being fulfilled. So this is common, actually, is that oftentimes the people who are burnt out

are the ones who get fulfilled from their work. But then what happens is all these other factors start to interfere with that crap, right? So I enjoy working with patients, but it's the insurance stuff that burns me out. So even though you love the work, in fact, that's common, right? So at the very beginning, I sort of said

the weird thing about burnout, the reason that so many people miss it, is because they do enjoy their job. But other factors get in the way that prevent you from enjoying it. And the research that I'm drawing on is like varied, right? But it starts with people like Freudenberg and, you know, Maslock is central to this. I think Loiter, I don't know how to pronounce the name, you know, the spelling. You know, their work is very central to this. It's a lot of the work that I've seen. I mean, different papers and stuff like that.

you can also look at, you know, some of the validated instruments like the Well-Being Index, the Moslock Burnout Inventory, the Oldenburg is kind of dated. So you can, that's where a lot of this stuff is coming from in terms of when people, when people develop instruments, they look at, okay, what are the things that we should ask about? Okay, these are the things that correlate with burnout.