Culture Focused Practice

Hey, hey. Welcome back, Dr. Tara Vossen kemper here, and you're listening to the Culture Focused Practice Podcast, where we talk all things, who knows anything I feel like, but basically leadership, EOS, culture, organizational health, organizational structure, all the things that light me up on the inside about business, basically.

So welcome, glad to see you here. We are doing a three part series today. Today kicks off part one of this three part series all about burnout. You are so welcome. I am sure that you at some point in your life have been in desperate need of this. I know for a fact that I absolutely have been in desperate need of this.

What's really ironic about all of this is that I hate talking about burnout. It's so I think that it's super important. But it's not one of those things that I really love talking about because I'm way more interested in the crafting and the doing and the creative positioning and that like there's something about burnout that is so much more, I'm gonna say like introspective and proactive and intentional in a way that I don't typically love.

With that said, this topic is just so fucking important to cover. And, um, again, because of having fallen prey to this and sort of being in this place where all of a sudden I am questioning everything about what I'm doing and why and how, wait, what, how did I get here? I, I just, I know how brutal that was. I know how brutal it can be for people to be there.

So my goal is that, okay, let's talk about this right now at the outset of this entire podcast. I'm sure it'll be peppered in at some point in the future. Because, well, let's talk about it right now because it is important to be proactive and preventive with this, with burnout related things.

So three part series, like I said, we will cover today, hidden burnout traps. So why practice owners are are exhausted and don't even see it. Tomorrow or the next episode if you're not listening the next day we're gonna talk about boundaries that actually work. How to stop being available 24 7 without feeling like a twat.

And then the third part in the series, the third day or whatever day you are listening, we are gonna talk leading like a CEO, how to run your practice without running yourself into the ground- not a pipe dream for the record. That is absolutely not a pipe dream in case you think it might be it's not. So let's do this.

Man burnout is a silent business killer. And so there's just a couple of let's talk misconceptions and also why, let's talk misconceptions. Let me just start there. There's just a couple. So burnout is not just about working too much. It might be related to having excess amounts of hours going in one direction, and your business would be that direction, but it's not exclusively just you're working too much, you're gonna get burned out.

It's really about the chronic stress that we carry from running, owning, operating, building, creating a business or group practice. This can be leadership too. So again, I, I talk about owning sometimes or operating a group practice. So much of this applies to leaders because there are higher stakes in leadership positions than there are in non-leadership roles at a practice.

So not always about working too much. It is really about the chronic stress, the chronic weight, and carrying this consistently. That's a huge part of burnout. That's a huge part of. it becoming a major player in your life. Second misconception, again, we're talking about like this isn't, burnout is not just about working too much.

It's about chronic stress. It's really about emotional exhaustion. I absolutely, I think I told you my history if I, if you've heard this or not, I'll tell you right now, my history, my tendency, my, my default modus operandi is emotional care taking. I care deeply about those close to me, and I wanna make sure that they're okay. I wanna make sure like, you good? You need me to, you know, it's sort of that. Are you okay? Are you good? And for a long time in my life, it would've been, I want you good at the expense of me, which is a recipe for emotional exhaustion. So chronic stress, emotional exhaustion. Exhaustion, excuse me.

And this third piece is a loss of control over your work, and its meaning that last part feels so important. I would say we're all meaning making creatures in a basically inherently meaningless world. That's my existential, you know, uh, my existential drift, if you will. When we don't have a sense of control over the work that we're doing, and also the impact or the meaning that is going to really feed that sense of burnout.

So just to recap quickly, burnout isn't just about working too much. It's really about that chronic stress, that emotional exhaustion, and a loss of control over your work and its meaning. Lack of meaning makes me sick. Like the idea of doing something and it not being tethered to something deeper internally, I, ugh, hate it, hate it, hate it.

Okay. Another thing just to briefly talk about burnout happens even if you love what you do. I love what I do. Burnout still happens. I always love what I do and I, regardless how many times I've been burned out in my life, it's still happens. It's emotional overload. So when you are really, really deeply invested in something, it's uh, you might be more inclined to absorb the stress of that thing. You're deeply invested, you really want it to work. You really wanna make sure everyone's good around you. You really want, whatever that might be, you might really be taking on the stress of, of ensuring or seeking to ensure that those things happen or that thing takes place instead. Emotional overload. That emotional exhaustion piece, like what we talked about.

Another is a lack of boundaries. Even if you love what you do, You gotta have boundaries. We'll talk about this. This is the entire next episode, is talking about boundaries, but not having boundaries in place can absolutely lead to overcommitment, over engagement, over overindulgence, over connectedness, overly concerned about whether something works in the exact way you want it to or not.

I mean, not having boundaries just feeds into over everything, which makes it very, very difficult to step back and, you know. Still like slicing a piece of cake, like create some of that disconnection. The healthy disconnection, I don't mean disengagement where you don't give a fuck, which is burnout, basically. I mean a healthy disengagement. A healthy disconnection.

Another thing about another way that burnout can happen, even if you love what you do is when you feel ineffective. If you're really fucking grinding, you are working super hard to try to get something off the ground or try to create a market or to try to appeal to the right people or to try to hire or whatever.

The harder that you try and the less effect you see, it can start to feel really futile and that futility can really feed into, I love what I'm doing and I'm really fucking struggling. That can really feed back into burnout. So feeling ineffective.

Oh, oh, I hate feeling stuck. I hate, I think most people hate it. I just had this conversation with my husband the other day, which is funny, where I said, you know, I think that most people don't like being stuck. And I think that my discomfort with it, my, like felt physical in my body sense of that stuckness is higher than average. It's like more, I really, ugh. It makes my whole body buzz.

And not in a good way. Like I'm just sort of, it's like, um, got electricity on the inside and there's no output. There's nowhere for it to, you know, discharge. God, why am I thinking of Pikachu now? I did learn just last night. My kids love well two. My sons, they love Pokemon and uh, we were reading about Pokemon last night. And the little red circles on Pikachu's cheeks. I could be getting this entirely wrong, so anybody that actually knows Pokemon and Pikachu, just correct me please, 'cause I'm, I'm hope I'm not spreading false information. Those little red things, that's where the electricity comes out of Pi ka, and it like shoots out of his cheeks.

My son was like, "is that why he touches his cheeks?" I was like, yeah, sure. I don't even ever watch the show, so I didn't even know that he touched his cheeks, but. Anyway, my point is, I feel like Pikachu all charged up and nowhere for the electricity to get displaced. Whenever that ineffectiveness like takes me over, I ugh, hate it, hate it, hate it.

So that can feed into burnout even if you love what you do and you're grinding, you're trying to get it done and inability to impact or affect the space around you or the outcome or what feels like an effectiveness has a, can have a big impact on burnout -feeding into burnout. One more thing. I almost said two more, but one more thing.

Another is decision fatigue. So if we're recapping quickly how burnout, even if you love what you do, why burnout can still happen. We've said emotional overload, which is being really invested and absorbing a lot of stress, lack of boundaries. Y'all know what that is. I'm not gonna go into more depth about it, feeling ineffective, whether or not you are.

It could also be for the record, feeling ineffective could be that your impact and the effect you're having is less than what you want it to be, and so you might be moving, but you could be moving at what feels like a snail space and you're trying to move like a cheetah or something, you know, that there's just a big discrepancy between what you want, the speed at which you want to move versus where you are.

So, fourth thing is decision fatigue. So like I said, emotional overload, lack of boundaries, feeling ineffective, which is different than being ineffective, but feeling ineffective and then the fourth one for why burnout can happen even when you love what you do- decision fatigue. Making decisions.

I don't care if you think that you're super good at it. Your brain's ability to make decisions is finite. It is a limited resource. This is why I'm almost positive I heard something once about, was it President Obama? One of the presidents has the exact same, exact same suit every single day. There's no decision around what to wear. It's just that's, that's a, that there's certain things, if you can take decision making out of the equation for low stakes things, it leaves you with much more for when you have to engage in high stakes decision making processes or just high stakes decision making, period.

So if you are constantly making high stakes or medium or low stakes decisions, that drains your mental faculties and energy and resources, it just does. This is very, very broadly speaking, for the vast majority of the population, this is gonna hold true. I'm sure there are exceptions as there are in, you know, every case.

So decision fatigue is another thing. If you're just constantly the one that has to pump out decisions, then that's gonna be something that you might love what you do, and it might still lead to burnout.

Again, we talk about that it's not just working too much. The real issue isn't just the amount of hours that are you're working, it's really the, the chronic, the unrelenting stress of carrying something that you hold dear. It's not really being able to share responsibilities yet, or maybe at all, and that could be internal or it's, it's just the weight of responsibility. Even when you have leadership in place the, the onus is on really the owner of the practice. There's a certain level of responsibility that falls on that one person or two people if you've co-owners, or three if you, you know, whatever, on those people who own the practice in a much different way than even high levels of leadership, you know, right below- there's just, there is a difference, you know.

And then also not having any recovery strategies. When we are not aware of the ways in which burnout can manifest, we are also then unable to intentionally put in recovery strategies or again, proactive mechanisms that might alleviate or mitigate that burnout from happening. So here's how it sneaks up.

Let's talk about why burnout can sneak up on practice owners.

This is something that I notoriously struggle with. Burnout is not typically this major, like you're burned out, you know, like a light switch is on off. It's really more like that dimmer switch. It's really like a gradual, slow, gentle sort of creep where you're like, okay, like, man, I feel you might feel good initially doing some of the things, like some of the stress is like, oh yes, this is awesome. You know, you're like, you feel it in this almost like excitable way, like you're pumped to be like carrying this and like to be building something. Or it might be the decisions, like you're making them quickly and you feel again, invigorated and excited and like ready to go.

And then at some point it starts to shift where maybe you don't feel as good or you get home and you're like, "man, fuck, I'm tired, like I'm exhausted today." Or it just continues to sort of slowly shift. And then the things that used to light you up. Don't light you up anymore and the decisions where you used to be excited, you start feeling frustrated or you feel a little bit resentful or sort of like, "God damn, why is everyone coming to me to answer these questions. Just solve the problem." You know, it shifts. It's a slow shift. Usually. It's sort of a gradual shift. It's not a really quick, wah- bam, you're burned out, you know. It's something that's gonna take place over time. It might take years and it and slash or it might take months. I mean, sort of the, the time the time it takes is not really, I, I mean it's just gonna vary from person to person.

If you're wondering what are the ways in which you might sort of, uh, notice that you are feeling burned out, or what are the ways in which you might think that you could be struggling with feeling burned out?

One is that you might just be irritated all the time. I think this can be unique to the sort of the specific thing that you're doing, like the work that you're engaged in. This can also go beyond that. It might be where it started with work and now it's sort of morphed and evolved into you're annoyed with your friends, you're annoyed with your team, you're annoyed with your partner, you're annoyed with your kids, you're annoyed with your family, you're annoyed with your, you know, piano teacher.

You're, you're just annoyed. You're annoyed with everything. It could be that you're just irritable, you're just constantly sort of irritable.

It might be that you start procrastinating. All of a sudden these decisions, you just keep putting 'em off. Like, ugh, I don't, I can't think about that right now. I don't, I don't wanna think about that. I'm, I don't care. I don't care. Right now, I don't wanna deal with it. You sort of push it to the side. So procrastinating on pro, procrastinating on decisions. Excuse me. I, I mean it's obviously decision fatigue is one thing, but also I would say just pushing them out consistently could start to hint at, oh, you might be like starting to toy flirt with, you know, flirt with burnout.

Another is that you might feel just way more detached, could be emotionally numb. It could just be detached. It could be where you start to feel a little more apathetic or indifferent about what you used to feel very excited about, used to be really invested in. So there's a just a stark contrast between what used to be true for you and now where you currently are.

Another thing is that you might just really feel exhausted all the time. Like no matter how much you relax or how much you sleep, or you, you just can't, you can't recharge in the same way you're feeling sort of, um, I always think of sometimes like, um, a restless energy coupled with a physical exhaustion. Like you want to do something and you're trying to figure out, but nothing feels good and you're just exhausted. I would say also, um. I don't actually know the research on levels of burnout and depression, but if you are listening, I mean some of these things correlate positively with depressive symptomology.

So what I can't say, 'cause I don't know the research on this, is that burnout ties in with depression that they go hand in hand. Some of these symptoms do some of this criteria, sort of the irritability, especially in males. Irritability is, you know, anger is, um, not a hallmark, but pretty common if you're dealing with depression.

But irritability and procrastination and sort of the emotional numbness and the constantly exhausted no matter how much you sleep, for example. Those things have a little bit overlap with depression. So again, I will not say, 'cause I don't know that if you're burned out, you're also depressed. I can't imagine that's the case for every single person. It might be the case for you.

Depression is a whole different conversation, so I'm, I'm not going to try to distill that down to a paragraph in conversation form, you know, but I'm just saying maybe these things overlap and maybe they don't for you, just something to keep in mind.

Last thing about symptomology for burnout is that you might also feel some physical symptoms you might get might just like really hunch up in your shoulders, you might feel really tight in your neck, like, like you can't physically relax either. So it's not just the exhaustion, but also like the restlessness and sort of the keyed up and like the ugh, you know, I think if you make like claw hands with your, with your fingers, like your, your veins and your wrists and there's like a tightness in your body.

Might have weird like gi shit happening all of a sudden and, and, and it different from baseline I should say that. So maybe your baseline is pretty healthy. GI track, a pretty healthy GI situation, and all of a sudden you're up, got this weird poo schedule or you can't go or you're going all the time or you're stomach is constantly upset and you've got this like tight body and your head is just you getting tension headaches.

I mean all of that stuff can be early warning signs of burnout. And so it's worth it if you're experiencing physical issues or you're really like noticing that you're showing up differently with regard to your work or in life. Just start thinking about, okay, is this related to burnout? Is this the chronic stress, the emotional overwhelm, et cetera.

So real quick, let's talk about some false beliefs keeping you stuck in burnout. We're gonna close out with the final stage of burnout, and then I'm gonna prep you for next, next two, episode two and three of this three part series. False beliefs, keeping you stuck in burnout. I need you to listen to these, tell me if you're guilty of them. I can tell you which ones I tend towards. I trend towards, tend towards same thing. You know what I'm talking about?

Number one, this is just a busy season. This is just a busy season. That's it. Just a busy season. It's just busy. How long does that busy season get to last For?

A season is what? Four months? Three months. How long does your busy season of emotional overwhelm, chronic stress, decision making fatigue, how long does that get to last? So this is just a busy season. That is a false belief.

Number two, once I hire this person, things are gonna get better. Bro, I love you. But this is so, oh my god, what's the word I'm looking for? This is so dependent on having the right systems. And when you have those right systems in place and you bring somebody on, if your tendency is to take on a lot, so that lack of boundaries, I'm, I'm starting to tease episode two right now, that lack of boundaries, you're still gonna do the same thing, even with the right person in place.

So this isn't just, once you hire this person, you know, once I hire this person, things will get better. Maybe. But that also is dependent on if you have legit systems in place and if you can set boundaries and if you have clear roles and responsibilities for those roles. So that is like possibly, and that's not a given.

So that's number two.

Number three, there's five false beliefs. Number three, false belief. I just need to push through. This kind of ties in with the busy season, doesn't it? Like I just need to push through this. I can just get through it. It's not, I can just, I can just, you know. Gr I can do it. I'm in, I'm in work mode.

I can, I can get this done. That's the shit that I fall prey to. My husband is very, very good at anticipating when something becomes too much. I am not, I will give you a big old hint. I am not good at that. It's not even a hint. It's just telling you what's up. I'm bad at it. I'm notoriously bad at it.

Did you ever see the Saturday Night Live, the old school SNL episode with mike Myers, I'm talking like years and years ago. You know Mike Myers and he was this, he was Philip the chocolate boy, and he, I forget who was, he was, I think he was like a, a sort of a main character. He wasn't a guest star. I forget who was guesting that episode, but he's this little boy and he's got this like harness on and he's hooked up to a jungle gym. One of those old school stationary jungle gyms, like the metal ones, you know, I'm talking back in like the nineties and this little girl's like comes over and she wants to play with him, and he's like talking with her and I'm, I'm Philip, you know, and "I I love you, you know, I love you, you know." Like he was talking to her and she offered him chocolate, I think, and he was like, no, my mom says like, I can't have chocolate. Like I can't have chocolate. And then he, she gives him the chocolate anyway, and he eats it. And then the, the scene cuts to him like sprinting off and like running away and he's just dragging the jungle gym behind him. First of all, love that skit. I think it's hilarious. Second of all, definitely relate to Philip in that skit. I am Philip and my husband, his name is Steve. He is not Philip, and so he knows where he is like, nope. Tara, you need to stop. Like that's not, you're not gonna be able to push through.

You have three kids. We have a house, we have the, you know, like a rig technically, you know, we full-time rv so we, but we have move dates, we have all this other stuff and I'm just like, I can do it. I got it, I got it. I can do it. So this is the one that I consistently fall prey to. And thank God I know at this point that I need to just trust him and trust his judgment 'cause he's, he's better at calling that than I am 'cause he's not Philip and I am. So I just need to push through. Maybe, but you can't really get yourself out of burnout by pushing through more and more. It just sort of digs yourself deeper in.

Number four, I'm the only one who can handle this. No the fuck you aren't. Like if you have gotten yourself into situation where you, you're the only one doing this, that's a bigger problem, that's a different problem. And there's a little bit overlap with these. Once I hire this person, things will get better. I'm the only one who can handle this. Okay? So theoretically, if you hire the right person, and again, you have the right systems in place and the right people who are there and the right roles and responsibilities, you become not, not the only person who can do this, which is great, and you can hire the right person to get yourself outta that mix.

That doesn't get rid of all the other burnout tendencies, of course, but I'm the only one who can handle this is not accurate. You're not. You're not the only person who can handle this thing. Whatever this thing is, you're not gonna be the only person who can handle it.

Last, false belief. If I take a break, everything will fall apart. If you are in a situation where you take a break and everything falls apart, you don't own a business, you are the business. That is a straight up hostage situation right there. I hate feeling stuck. I fucking hate it. I hate feeling stuck. I absolutely would say if you take a break and everything falls apart, that is a much bigger issue.

So those are the five things. I'll say them one more time. Five false beliefs that keep you stuck in burnout. One, this is just a busy season. Two, once I hire this person, things will get better. Three, I just need to push through. I just need to push through. I can do it. Keep on pushing. Keep on trucking. Four, I'm the only one who can handle this. Five, if I take a break, everything will fall apart.

Okay. Final stage to burnout. This is when you're officially done. When you mentally check out, when you go from, I got it. I have to handle this. I'm the only one that can, I can handle this. I can do it. I got it, to, I don't care. I don't care anymore. I, I don't give a fuck. This also can turn into resentment. So it might be, again, that like complete detachment where you're like, I don't know. I don't care. I don't know why I'm doing this. I don't care at all. I'm ready to be done. Or it can also be resentment where you are just frustrated.

Why is nobody doing what they should be? You're mad at your team. You're mad at your clients. You're mad at your, your consumers for all. I'm not gonna get into that. Sorry. You're mad at your. Business. You're mad you have this business. Why did I fucking do this in the first place? You're just resentful about everything.

All the things that you've built and all the people who are part of it. You're just salty. You're burned out, you're done. Once you get to this point of burnout, all of it feels like you're pushing a boulder. All of it feels like your Atlas holding up the sky. That's what it feels like. You are the one holding the sky up. You are the sole person standing there holding it up. Even tiny little decisions. Even something as small as cake or cupcakes for your, the party coming up. It feels like you're Atlas, you're back in that Atlas position holding up the sky.

Every single thing feels more difficult when you are in this stage of burnout. When you finally hit that, like, I'm so over this. I'm so tired, I'm so depleted, I'm so fucking angry and resentful. I'm done. All of it feels impossible. Here's what we need to do. Sell our business. No, I'm just kidding. Sorry. Bad timing. Bad timing. Poor joke, Tara.

Here's what we need to do. We need to listen to the next episode, first of all, because we're gonna talk about how do we start to fix burnout. So today is, I really wanted to talk more about all of it, but there is, there's just so much to talk about with burnout that to fit it all in one is just way, way too long of an episode.

For me, honestly, I get tired of talking, which sounds weird, probably 'cause I, I like to talk, but I reach a point where I'm like, God damn, I need to shut myself up, you know? Um, that we have to figure out how to set boundaries. So I love talking about boundaries. I will say that much. I think that people often misinterpret them as, you know, I said that I want something in place, so everybody needs to respect it.

And that's, that's not a boundary, like, kind of like it's the start of a boundary, but that's not how we enforce boundaries. So our first, our real like non-negotiables for getting out of burnout and for staving it off from taking over our lives in the future. Boundaries. We will talk about that. So that is, there's no prep work.

I don't need you to prep for tomorrow. Well, I, you know, you really wanted to think about it. You could just be thinking about where do I have very lax boundaries? You know, how, how available am I? How much emotionally, how much do I take on from my team? What level of stress do I feel on a daily basis or on a weekly basis related to my business?

You might start thinking about some of the things we talked about today, but you have no, I have no real like, you don't need to prep for tomorrow. Just bring yourself, bring an open mind or a closed mind. I don't know, a narrow mind. Just bring yourself in your mind and hang out with me.

If you are in need of more support, join me in my community. I have a culture focused practice membership. You get me twice a month live for a q and a and a training, an active Facebook group, an active private group, so nobody gets to join if they're not a member and nobody gets to stay unless they are a member, and a portal full of resources at your demand. For the record, anything I have, I'm willing to share and some that have just been there. All our previous recordings, everything that's in there.

So if you are wanting more help around boundaries and making sure to establish around burnout, excuse me, and making sure to set up a practice that's culture focused and protective of your wellbeing, join me in my membership.

You can find me at taravossenkemper.com and then click on work with me and the membership. So. That's it. I'm pumped about this. It's part one of a three part series. Again, next episodes are boundaries that actually work. That's episode number two. Number three is leading like a CEO. How to run your practice without running yourself into the ground.

Godspeed to us all. It's great seeing and you. Thank you for being here, making this awesome. I will see you next time. Bye.