S4EP13: Exploring Leadership through a Woman's Lens with Dr. Kimberly Wilson

This week we are excited to share an eye-opening conversation with the exceptional Dr. Kimberly Wilson, a retired Marine who transitioned from the battlefield to the boardroom. With a unique blend of personal experiences and professional insights, she unravels the complexities surrounding trauma within the military, a subject that's often swept under the rug.

Dr. Wilson, also known as Dr. Burnout, takes us on a deep dive into the world of leadership, specifically from a woman's perspective. She provides a powerful narrative on the struggles women face in leadership roles, from being undervalued to dealing with societal pressures to be everything to everyone. As the conversation unfolds, we also delve into the impact of changing gender roles on men, discussing how they wrestle with societal and generational messages that can often lead to feelings of purposelessness and powerlessness.

Rounding off our discussion, we address the authoritarian nature of military culture and how it affects recruitment and retention, before touching on non-authoritarian parenting, and financial wellness for the entire family. Buckle up for a journey that promises to leave you enlightened and inspired.

Guest Bio: 

Dr. Kimberly L. Wilson aka Dr. Burnout supports banking and tech corporations to retain emerging women leaders, boost productivity, and increase happiness. She’s a speaker, streaming tv host, licensed therapist, and retired Marine.

Connect with Dr. Kimberly:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-kimberly-l-wilson

YouTube: https://youtube.com/@drkimberlylwilson?feature=sharec

TikTok: drkimberlylwilson

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kimberly.l.wilson.98

Facebook Business: https://www.facebook.com/DrKimberlyLWilson

Instagram: https://instagram.com/drkimberlylwilson?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA==

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

Hi and welcome to the Becoming Trauma-Informed podcast where we help you understand how your past painful experiences are affecting your current reality and how you can shift those so you can create your desired future. I'm Dr Lee, and both myself and our team at the Institute for Trauma and Psychological Safety are excited to support you on your journey. We talk about all the things on this podcast. No topic gets left uncovered. So extending a content warning to you before we get started if you notice yourself getting activated while listening, invitation to take care of yourself and to pause, skip ahead a bit or just check out another episode. Let's dive in. Hi everybody, welcome to this week's episode.

Speaker 1: 0:50

I am joined by the incredible Dr Kimberly Wilson. She is going to introduce herself in a second and I always like to start off kind of with how I connected with our guests, because it's fun to see where everybody comes from. And we actually connected online. Kimberly, you needed a guest like pronto, and I think someone tagged me in the comments in a podcast group that we were both in and from the second I saw what you were doing. I was like, oh, I'm so excited about this. And then we had a really great conversation on your show Leadership Beyond Burnout. So I was like, oh my gosh, you have to come on our podcast too, and so I'm so excited to have you here. Thank you for joining us.

Speaker 2: 1:33

Thank you so very much for having me. I'm really just can't wait to be able to share with your audience and they just have a conversation, like we did on my show. That's what I'm really excited about. I was so energized by just our relationship during that show, so ready to go.

Speaker 1: 1:54

Well, before we dive in, because I have a feeling, you and I, I have a feeling, at the end of this episode I'm going to be saying OK, there gets to be a part two. And before, we dive into wherever we end up going. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?

Speaker 2: 2:10

Yes, so my name is Dr Kimberly L Wilson, also known as Dr Burnout, and I am a retired Marine. I always like to mention that first Ra, for those of you out there. I am a mom of two, an international psychologist, author and executive coach. I work with corporations to help them to fill their pipeline of emerging women leaders and also to address burnout culture, so that we don't have to continue to do this. And presently I am in North Carolina oh my gosh. Transplanted from Detroit. I am from the D, and that is still exist for me. I am from the D.

Speaker 1: 2:50

Oh we actually we are familiar with Detroit. My husband grew up in Solido and so we a lot of times went to going to Windsor or some other places and so we, like we go through, we look at Detroit from the other side of the river.

Speaker 2: 3:07

Well, not exactly the same experience, but you get adjacent to it.

Speaker 1: 3:11

Yes, exactly yes. And also thank you for your service. I really always love to say that because I think that in my experience, you know, as a nurse practitioner and as a professor, I had the privilege of getting to work with a lot of veterans, a lot of active military members, and yeah, that experience it's not what I've gone through. So I can't, you know, I can't approach it from that perspective. And you know, you talk about leadership and you talk about burnout, you talk about trauma, you talk about a lot of things. The military is definitely a place where I mean, we've just been the whole episode probably talking about that.

Speaker 2: 3:48

Yes, absolutely, and it's someone who's experienced trauma in the military, and especially as a woman, that has a special place in our heart. There's a special call Invisible Wounds, and it talks about military sexual trauma and it's not just women, it's men as well and it's not talked about as much, and you can imagine as many incidents that they have in the military. That's just a fraction of what gets reported, because who, what male, wants to mention that he's been sexually violated by someone who's supposed to be his brother in arms? Yeah, there's a. There's a really powerful display that they had on Camp Lejeune and they had female shoes and male shoes displayed in the exchange for the incidents just reported that year and it was overwhelming to look at just what gets reported on.

Speaker 1: 4:44

Yes, I got, I literally just got chills Like goosebumps, as you said, that there's something about putting numbers into that visualization for us as humans that just like really brings it to reality. You know, speaking of like military and war, I went to a school that was really highly, had a high population of Jewish students, and so one of the things that we did every year when we went to Washington DC as every eighth grade trip went, and we went to the Holocaust Museum there and same thing around shoes and seeing that brings it home in an entirely different way. And you know, I think that even your willingness to speak on this and more people's willingness to speak on this and actually put it into perspective for other people is it's such a crucial part of, I think, the work you're doing, the work I'm doing, and just like the psychological trauma, burnout and physical trauma, space as well. So what does that journey look like, from Marines to now tech and other business companies teaching about burnout, like they, like we skip some steps, so like, tell me about that.

Speaker 2: 5:58

Oh, wow, okay. So I probably wouldn't normally share this in any other space, but because you focus on psychological trauma and the workplace and all of that, I will say that my journey started with a trauma into the military. I was actually assaulted about a month before I joined the military because I really did not have the desire to join the military. But through that whole process of being accused by the police that I colluded, that it was just my boyfriend and we were in an argument, but keep in mind that we could have gone very wrong had I not pretended to like my attacker. And because I was not harmed, because I had the presence of mind to keep this person calm, they essentially attacked me and my mother worked at the phone company and we found out this guy lived very close to me, so I just wanted to get away from there. And so it's like okay, here's the military, and I left the day after my 19th birthday and went to school all while I was in there. And I'll say that I was assaulted twice while I was in the military and the process of reporting an assault in the way that you are looked at is interesting to say the least. Yeah, that was a yeah, and it was interesting, to say the least, the way that I'm looked at, and keep in mind that I was a person who I had been meritoriously promoted. Every promotion I got in the military was meritorious, which means for those of you who don't understand the military, it means that you have gone above and beyond and they said, hey, let's promote them early. So straight from boot camp I got a meritorious promotion and even went to officer candidate school.

Speaker 2: 7:54

But this was something that kind of plagued me throughout, just the inability to get past this. So eventually I worked on my bachelor's while I was active duty. I got my master's degree, went to officer candidate school just before I completed my master's, got injured. They said, oh, you can do this again. I said, no, ma'am, and then I went to community mental health. Even though I grew up in the city of Detroit, I didn't really grow up in poverty per se or a lot of the things that played under resource communities, and having the opportunity to be a county manager for community mental health, it gave me the opportunity to see how much people struggle and how much they really get trapped into these systems, as well as toxic workplace culture. We had a. Please interrupt me when you can. I know I can just start.

Speaker 1: 8:52

No, no, I'm over here like uh-huh, uh-huh, keep going, keep going.

Speaker 2: 8:57

So we had an executive director who was famous for coming in and firing people. He and yelling at people and screaming at people and I always thought to myself she better try that one, try the one or two or the three.

Speaker 1: 9:20

Of course, I chose that moment to like take a sip of my coffee and I'm like have I ever spit out coffee on a podcast before? I don't think so. This will be a first Right. Like, what we're not going to do is you bring that to me because you're going to have a different experience than you normally do.

Speaker 2: 9:38

Yes, yes, I was well prepared. Yeah, and I didn't even really have to get prepared. It's just who I am, by nature, just growing up in the city of Detroit.

Speaker 1: 9:48

Yeah, like it's the FAFO, right Like you can death and we'll see what happens after you do that.

Speaker 2: 9:56

Right, don't let the degrees fool you. And, interestingly enough, while I was there, I also had I thought I had this wonderful mentor and she would just try and bring me up and give me all this knowledge and how to navigate the system and how to just get promoted, because I still didn't understand. The shift from military to civilian culture was very different. Because I didn't understand why when I tell someone to do something, I didn't automatically just know it.

Speaker 1: 10:34

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:35

Yeah, my words did not hold the same weight and people had choices. How dare they have choices? Get it Right, no-transcript. So I had to understand this whole new culture and this whole new way of doing things and how I had to motivate and not just tell people who were indoctrinated into a certain way of being.

Speaker 2: 10:59

But essentially I learned as I was exiting that company that this person was sabotaging me behind the scenes and when I left the company I had the courage to ask the clinical director. I was like you know, I just don't understand why. You know you didn't really like the work I was doing and why I was so problematic. And I asked her about some specific things and she said what are you talking about? I was afraid to talk to my supervisors and I kind of use this person they greatly. She offered to be my liaison so that things could be smoothed over because I was such a problem, and to learn in the end that they had no negative thoughts or feelings toward me and that this person was just trying to keep me, make sure that I only rose so high. I mean that that when you talk about psychological work trauma that has kept me refusing to ever be someone's employee to where I can't leave. I have to have my independent. I am pathologically independent.

Speaker 1: 12:13

Right yeah, you are at this point unemployable, both by choice and by experience.

Speaker 2: 12:19

Yes.

Speaker 1: 12:20

Yeah, I feel that. I feel that a lot I'd like so much of your story I'm listening to and I just it resonates with my story. You know, around the assault and that really shifting how you moved afterwards. You know the decision you made to both move professionally and like psychologically right, and that whole work experience I, I cannot tell you just myself family members, outspoken, really smart, kind, educated women who get labeled as, quote, unquote, problematic, Hmm, Like that word that's probably one of my least favorite words and because it's like we're characterizing somebody as a problem and even that is, you know, from a trauma sensitivity perspective is probably not the most inclusive thing we can do or sensitive thing we can do, and like you want to cut off a powerful woman at her knees, Make her feel problematic.

Speaker 2: 13:25

Right, right.

Speaker 1: 13:27

I feel like it's it kind of scrambles your brain a little bit.

Speaker 2: 13:30

Yeah, because, because we do want to internalize first and you need to get quite like, is it me Right? And at the time of this recording, you know we have this incident with Coco golf in the tennis world and we ref making her feel like, well, essentially gaslighting her, that it's not problematic with this I mean what her tennis player is doing and being made to be at like she's the problem. And even the young lady going to a press conference and chatting her tears.

Speaker 1: 14:01

Yeah, yeah. I think that there's just so much masking and so much internal manipulation that we are required to do. And then there's this other part of you that's like wait, I shouldn't have to internally manipulate myself. You externally feel better about what's happening, right? So then it just creates like a lot of dissonance inside of you and then also in your relationships, because I almost found myself when I was in a similar situation, like half the time I was in fight mode and half the time I was in fun mode, and neither of those was who I was. It was just how I was trying to survive the situation.

Speaker 2: 14:46

Right, right, and we talk about burnout. We talk about, you know, one of the key factors is that lack of self efficacy, the inability to be able to change your circumstances. And once you get labeled as the problem, like you said, or get gaslit into believing that you are the problem, then you do begin to experience burnout because it doesn't matter what I do. You all have already characterized me.

Speaker 1: 15:14

Yeah, and that word characterized. You just said like there's a tendency to characterize women and a lot of times what I'll see is we habitualize men. So we say, okay, well, them just being. Them coming in and yelling or screaming or like firing people at the drop of a hat, that's just their behavior, right, like they're really a nice guy, they really care about the organization, so like there's this.

Speaker 2: 15:43

They're very passionate.

Speaker 1: 15:46

There's this willingness to overlook this behavior, like a bit like look at it as a habit or behavior rather than character, and then, with women, to look at it as character rather than no. You have programmed us to respond like this because of how we have been treated in this workplace over and over and over. And I want to be really clear here because, like, obviously it's not all women and it's not no men, and I don't believe in generalizing to the extreme like that.

Speaker 2: 16:15

Correct.

Speaker 1: 16:17

And the kind of overarching themes that I see and that I've just heard from people all the time is like really there's a lot more. Am I the problem happening in the brains of women in these especially, especially in leadership? So are some of the most common things that you see or coach people through when you're helping them with burnout from a leadership or like a corporate perspective.

Speaker 2: 16:47

Well, ironically and it's not just leadership, because it also bleeds a lot of guilt about how to and I want to stay away from the word balance with how to negotiate the work and the home life and this overwhelming, overarching guilt on both ends that they're not giving their all to their employees, to their job, they're not giving their all to their family, to their children, to their partners, and how do they blend these together to be whole and to be perfect?

Speaker 2: 17:26

That's always been quite a challenge and the questioning, being in their position and feeling attacks, not only the internal attacks about this, this inner critic that they have, but being questioned by peers and sometimes being mistaken for junior person rather than who they are, seniors, and I'm not sure if it was McKinsey and Deloitte or Deloitte that study that talked about. That's one of the big frustrations of women in leadership being questioned and being mistaken for peers and their experience and training not being weighted as heavily as especially women tend to do a lot more DEI training and sufficiency and not being given the same weight as some of the other training that is available and sort of being dismissed. And a lot of the depression as well, just feeling empty from some of the choices, because when you try to be everything to all people, you end up being nothing, including that to yourself. So this constant feeling of failure, yeah, yeah, it's so fascinating.

Speaker 1: 18:46

you took the words right out of my mouth because I was thinking everything to everyone all the time, and that, really, I think a lot of us have been conditioned for. That is, you know, women can have it all, or humans can have it all, and it's like, okay, but what is all? Do you mean everything I want, or do you mean everything I need? Do you mean everything you expect me to want?

Speaker 2: 19:05

Right.

Speaker 1: 19:06

What does that statement even mean? And I think a lot of humans. When you ask them, like what is all that? They say they're like I should be performing at an A level in every area of my life and I'm like, I love that journey for you. And also like, please tell me how you're going to do that on four hours sleep and six cups of coffee, and you haven't even looked at a drink of water and you're, you know, taking this failing right, right, health is failing. Taking kids every which way, finances, meetings, all the things.

Speaker 1: 19:38

I remember when I left academia and left the bedside which it's funny because at first I wouldn't have said oh yeah, healthcare is corporate, but it's totally corporate, like it really is.

Speaker 1: 19:48

It's, it's just slightly different. Take on it, but a lot of the structural system I was at first left and I went from working like 60 to 80 hours a week down to 30, maybe 40. Like, oh, oh, like I could if I'm rested and I'm hydrated and my basic needs are taken care of. And I'm choosing to surround myself with people who don't see me as problematic or who aren't taking away my choice in my agency right, who I feel psychologically safe with, like I belong with them, like they actually care about me. Yeah, it's so fascinating how much easier it is to quote unquote have it all when your three core needs are met of agency, psychological safety and, like those physical safety resources. I felt like I had been. You know we use the word gaslight, but I felt like I had really been conditioned to look at that high prestige, academic like leadership role, as this is what having it all is.

Speaker 2: 20:50

That's the coveted position right.

Speaker 1: 20:51

Right and in reality I was like no, having it all means I have the physical resources, the time, the money, the energy, and I also have like. I get to take my kids to school, I get to see my husband for more than five minutes, I get to not be so chronically exhausted that I'm snapping at everyone because I just can't, like I can't, emotionally regulate. There's nothing to nothing to regulate with.

Speaker 2: 21:17

Right, right Friday I did a seminar with Kate Corral, chamber of Commerce, with women in leadership, and somewhere in the presentation I shared a commercial. I'm really going to date myself here, but it was. I can bring home the bacon, the bacon, right. Okay, I got it, karen. Yes, I'll never, ever, ever let you forget your old man. And they talked about the 24 hour woman, right, and that's what's permeating our society. That small little, I mean how many? That's the 80s and I clearly remember the visual of the commercial. I remember the lines and that's what I'm I'm hearing. Yeah, that was just a little 30 second commercial.

Speaker 1: 22:06

Yes, and it's interesting because this has been a touchy topic, because I feel like so many of us women were like indoctrinated and conditioned around that you don't need a man, you can do it all on your own right. Like, oh gosh, the Barbie movie, like Ken is an accessory, right, the man is an accessory, it's he's nice to have, but I don't need him. All he does is beach, like his job is to beach. But I'm watching that movie and I was like whoa, you know, I'm having all these realizations and I think that that's also a huge, hugely dangerous message for men.

Speaker 1: 22:45

Because when men don't feel needed, like when men, a lot of men don't have a purpose, that level of aimlessness and that level of not feeling psychologically safe, not feeling like they belong or they're important, that is where so much violence comes from. Because if you don't value me, why should I value you? Right? If you don't need me, then that means you don't need my devotion, you don't need my care, you don't need my love, you don't need my protection, you don't need any of like what I would like to to bring to this relationship. So like, okay, cool, yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:23

And I completely missed that. When you just said that, I was like, oh my goodness, you are completely right. I was kind of irritated that I had to be at the Barbie movie.

Speaker 1: 23:33

I was so excited from, like the psychological study perspective, I was like, oh, let me see what the writers did here and I'm like, did they need to do that? Was that intentional or is this kind of? My kid was like just bopping along with the Ken song, you know. The other woman I went with was like I don't get that. I'm like like I just went down the rabbit hole.

Speaker 2: 23:51

Oh, my, yeah, I, I, I really, I really love that. And there's so very interesting when you talk about when men don't feel needed and they don't feel valued, then they don't have to protect women. And I don't know if you recently saw that there was a young lady I don't know her name, but she said that she told a man no about giving her his, giving him her number. Have you seen her? Uh-uh, uh-uh. She was. There were a group of men around her. She's outside. The man hit her in the head repeatedly with a brick and none of the men did anything and they let him go off in a Uber and I just thought, oh, my goodness.

Speaker 1: 24:36

Yeah, again, this is like one of those topics where I've I've touched on this in a few places and the level of what's the word I'd like to use argument back or resistance to the idea is really high. Like just also, if you're hearing this and you're having resistance to what I'm saying, that's cool. You don't have to see it the way I see it and like I'm just witnessing you and that because I had a lot of resistance when I was introduced to this. Really, you know the burnout thing and a lot of men right now, it's not the working any hours a week, it's not that. It's like what, why? Why am I doing this? What is the point? And so, because if you don't need me, if my family doesn't need me, if no one needs me, then we'll like part, you know, plug it. I'm just going to do whatever I want and it's.

Speaker 1: 25:25

It's a really interesting trend that I've seen in a lot of the men that I've worked with, the partners of humans that I've worked with, where, when they shift and really start creating psychological safety for their partners who are having these burnout symptoms, and part of that is like telling them like, hey, I really need you, I really I really appreciate having you here. You shift my life so that it's so much better and even like workplace relationships, same thing. It's interesting how much that dynamic shifts. You know you talk about that self advocacy piece. I think that that's a big piece of it.

Speaker 2: 26:01

So help me with this a little bit. So you're saying that when, when men feel as if they are not needed, that they, they just have apathy about their relationships, their position, their role in the world. Yeah, everybody gets to this me, me, me.

Speaker 1: 26:21

Right it's. It's either apathy, where it's like, well, I'm not going to do anything. One of the key pieces I see is when women tell me that their husband or their partner acts like one of their kids, I'm like great, he's purposeless, Cool, he doesn't feel needed or valued and so that's why he's not taking initiative, which it's not. I'm not to say the same thing. Right Again, these are generalizations, so I am not seeing this on every man and I'm not not putting this on women or not. You know, I have a non-binary kiddo like at this. Conversation gets to be. It's more nuanced than for the purpose of a 45 minute podcast I'm talking about it.

Speaker 1: 26:59

And just this idea of if your husband or your, your male partner feels like a kid in your relationship, he's purposeless a lot of times and so bringing that choice and agency and empowerment and masculine peace back of actually I do need you, because I need you to help me protect the kids I need you to help provide. And, by the way, y'all this is also just like very evolutionary Right. I mean the other pieces is like our society has shifted so much psychologically and from a gender role and all those pieces so much in the last 100 years, and I always have to remind myself that evolution and like biology versus society they're two very different things.

Speaker 1: 27:47

You know, we don't know who we're supposed to be, right? Right, there's just been so much shift in our like. Our biology hasn't necessarily caught up with that, and so our brains are in one place and our bodies are in a very different place, and that can create a lot of trauma and a lot of again not burnout, because I think for for women, socially, societally, on that opposite spectrum, we are like providing and working, and like we're taking care of the kids and we're taking care of the house, and we're doing this and we're doing that, we're doing all that, we're trying to be bring home the bacon fried in the pan, and you're like I want to throw this pan out the window and tell you all to go order pizza, because I don't want to do this anymore.

Speaker 2: 28:29

I am subscribed.

Speaker 1: 28:31

Right. The funny thing for me, as I really left corporate and left some of these other structures where they were saying this is how it has to be, I was able to kind of like look at the other areas of my life and go, okay, well, just because I was taught it was supposed to be like this, I was taught I'm the one who's supposed to like be in charge of everything. And I mean, I think I'm a bit younger than you, I'm 36.

Speaker 2: 28:55

And you're significantly younger than me. I was like I don't know, but you know I'm 56.

Speaker 1: 29:01

Okay so, yeah, so we got a couple, we got a generation difference in there. You know, generationally, I wasn't just taught like you, bring it home, bring home the bacon and put in the pan. I was also taught men are trash, men are dangerous, they're not needed.

Speaker 2: 29:16

Wow.

Speaker 1: 29:16

Like that's the level of messaging I got was you can't trust them, they're not safe, like boys will be boys and so like that, I think for a lot of us you know, I'm older millennial, older millennial onward, that's been a lot, and my husband and I have had conversations around this where he's like yeah, I, he's like I'm a white, blue-eyed male, like I'm, I'm the most dangerous thing in the in the United States. I don't get to have an opinion, I don't get to talk about anything. If I come out and say anything, people are going to be like your opinion doesn't matter, men are trash. I'm like, yeah, and, and he's an incredible human. He's been on the podcast a couple of times. Anyone who's ever met him. He's like, he's amazing. And so to hear those words come out of his mouth like just really hurts my heart because it's like wow, if you feel like talk, what have we done? Like what are we? What are we doing?

Speaker 2: 30:11

Right, right.

Speaker 1: 30:13

I love that little side quest we just took there. So you talked about the have it all piece. What else do you see? You said depression is a. Is it different? You said the depression is kind of coming from this sense of like I'm not able to keep up with all of it.

Speaker 2: 30:30

Right, right, and this overwhelming sense of failure that you know you missed your kids play or you see a drawing that your kid makes of you at the computer. I actually, when I was working on my doctorate in, I got my kid involved in counseling and one of the things that I get told is well, mommy's always busy. You know that that. That absolutely killed me and it wasn't at all my perception. Right, because when you are trying to do all the things, you're like, okay, got it done. Not looking at the quality of that experience in, I think, just the sense of, and especially like I'm in the generation where parents are getting older, right.

Speaker 2: 31:23

And so I had children late. So I'm just coming out of my kids are just beginning to need to get out into the world, and you have relationships and you're still trying to be all the things to everyone and you can't, you just absolutely can't. And I think that that absolutely contributes to this cognitive like you said, this cognitive dissonance of who you have been indoctrinated about, who you're supposed to be and who you actually are. And the Twain's don't always meet, they rarely meet.

Speaker 1: 31:59

Yeah, and that was one of the things that I think like just crushed me when I was a mom was when, like I'd be home at night because I used to work night shift and when I'd actually be home at night and my kids wake up in my own night, they call for daddy. Yeah, and I'm like I hate this and also I love that he's able to be home, I love that they have that connection with him. Like you know he's, he is an incredible father and I want them to call for mommy. You know that really was a burnout source, especially when you're you're trading that for work and then work does not recognize your accomplishments or doesn't love you bad.

Speaker 1: 32:44

Right, they don't love you back like like I remember. You know, as a nurse you've got to really kind of probably military thing too. Right, you're either early or you're late. You know there's no such thing as on time and you have six minutes to clock in before your shift started. And if it was seven am your shift started and you were clocked in at 701. Doesn't matter if you've been there since 650. You're like I'm like, I'm clocked in 701, you're late.

Speaker 1: 33:10

And I remember on one of my annual reports they were like yeah, you know you, you page for report between like zero and five minutes after the shift starts. And I'm like well, yeah, because I'm getting there, I'm setting my stuff down, I'm logging into my computer and then I'm paging you to get report, like, get get to know all my patients.

Speaker 1: 33:30

they're like no, you like you should be getting report at on the hour. You want me to get here 10 minutes early and do these things and be completely ready at that time, but you're not going to pay me for that time.

Speaker 2: 33:44

Yes, no.

Speaker 1: 33:47

I'm like I'm here for a 19 hour shift and you are arguing with me over two minutes, Like like that kind of thing was stressful. Yeah, she got to be kidding me.

Speaker 2: 34:00

I can't even imagine really think something. You know, I'm only, I've only been adjacent to experiences of people in the medical profession and it is just mind boggling that people in charge of others anatomy and well being, and whether or not they live and they die that the whole foundation is let's overwork and overwhelm them to see how good they are, rather than having people who are well rested and clear thinking. And then you wonder why there are mistakes or there's medical malpractice. That you're, I think, the candle at all ends Right.

Speaker 1: 34:42

I think there's some. I can't even remember the statistic because it is so bananas like it. It's something like a full. If you took a 747 plane and loaded it up, every seat filled and crashed it into the ocean every day. That's how many people die of medical errors every day In the aviation world. If one person dies on a plane, if nobody dies on the plane, even if there's just a malfunction or there's an issue, like half the time those pilots never fly again.

Speaker 1: 35:17

Because that industry is, you know, and I know like a lot of people had some drama for people around last year when they're all of those planes, especially the Southwest, got grounded and and I don't think what people realized is is that was also because they have very strict standards on how long somebody can fly, how long someone can work without a break, right, and in so many healthcare settings there is no such thing. When I was a baby nurse, they had just put the rule. I get a brand new baby nurse. They just put a rule in for the residents that they couldn't work more than 80 hours a week and the residents were mad Because they were like, well, how am I supposed to get on my training. How am I supposed to learn how to do these things, especially the surgeons?

Speaker 1: 36:04

But that was only for the residents, it's not for the fellows, it's not for the attendings. Like the more senior physicians, they could work as much as they wanted. So you have people working 100, 120 hours a week, like 50 hour calls, like on call shifts, all of these things, and then we're like this is so weird that people are burning out. This is so weird that our patients aren't doing well. This is so weird that and you know we're all just like screaming this is not weird at all. Like any logical person can look at this and go this is a bad idea.

Speaker 2: 36:38

Yeah, absolutely. I remember during the pandemic, I think I was working 19 hours and I just I quickly, it was about a month of that and I was just like, okay, I'm done that we go ahead and turn some people away.

Speaker 1: 36:53

Yeah, because you want to help and that's and that's it. You've been conditioned in the role you're in. You're in the role I'm in. I have to help people. If I'm not here, then people get hurt. No, if you're here and like you work 20 hours and on hour 19, you hurt someone. Guess what People get hurt and you get. You can lose your livelihood, you can get like all the bad things can happen to you and the system's counting on that when that bad thing happens, they will put the blame on you.

Speaker 2: 37:29

Right, because there's somebody else coming behind. What you won't do, somebody else will do.

Speaker 1: 37:34

Right. If you say I refuse to do this, they have no problem filling your job like that. And if you say I will do this and a mistake happens, then they're like well, you said you'd do it, so it's your fault. I actually had a question for you because I saw another statistic the other day that was talking about how you know, recruitment numbers for the military this year were significantly lower than what they were saying like they needed. And again, feel free to like skirt around this in whatever way you need to, but I'm wondering if there's some similar things happening, like some deconstruction thoughts happening around how the military is structured or how burnout or how, like just the job loving you is structured, that are similar to what's happening in the healthcare industry.

Speaker 2: 38:23

Well, I think I have to start more from beginning, more so with the societal. I think the, the respect and the reverence for military service and the community has changed significantly. Yeah, especially with with the pandemic, with the civil unrest, with the questioning of authority, and I know my children are both diametrically opposed to the whole concept of military and they have two military parents and that's really. That's really interesting. And I think the same thing is happening with them when you talk about recruitment and retention of service members is that the whole structure of the military is authoritarian.

Speaker 2: 39:14

And there are so many more ideas and free thinkers that I see people who are coming in and I often wonder they are so homesick they are. They have this wrong idea of what the military was going to be and they're falling apart because I don't know what they thought it was, but it definitely they believe that they have a lot more choice and a lot more. There'll be a lot more accommodation to what they their needs are and what would make them happy and healthy workplace culture. And that doesn't always apply because it's a system that's been around for a very long time that is very resistant to change and to change and not saying that they. It hasn't shifted. I mean, the Marine Corps I was in in the 80s and 90s is very different than the military that is here now, and there's some things that have changed and things that haven't Now that was probably a very long winded way to say what you asked me, but no, I really appreciate you bringing in that silo piece because I think that's huge.

Speaker 1: 40:26

you know, it's probably the same as police recruitment and, you know, nurse recruitment is really fascinating because they've actually been loosening the standards for what's required to become a nurse and many areas, yes, which a lot of people who are already in the profession have a lot of feelings about, because, let me tell you, becoming a nurse when I became a nurse was not an easy thing to do, right. So I think there's like there's a lot of structural, big structural things that are happening. You know we didn't even have a chance to touch on like politics or religion or anything like that and burnout, but like there's a lot of deconstruction in the younger generations occurring.

Speaker 2: 41:08

I love it.

Speaker 1: 41:10

I do too, oh my gosh, I. I love having conversations with my kids around some of this stuff and really like encouraging them to think independently and I. And so for my husband and I, we are both the first generation to not be raised by military parents. Well, that's not even true. My husband's father was in the Air Force for a brief time. My dad was in ROTC, so we're the first generation to not have any connection to the military whatsoever. And the way we're raising our kids is so different because we're not using that authoritarian like. You follow your parents because they. You do what your parents said, because they told you to do it.

Speaker 2: 41:52

Right.

Speaker 1: 41:53

And it's a wild ride. It's a wild ride to lead your children in that way, because what we're doing is really trying to help them learn how to lead themselves and like, in whatever way they think is best as they grow up. Now, obviously, when they're 11 and 13, you know I'm an avid bowler that there's some bumpers on the lanes with them, right, I get to put, get to be put down in places as they grow, but like Okay, a bowler, there.

Speaker 1: 42:23

Yeah, I was. Oh yeah, I was the captain live only team in high school. No big deal. It's such a random fact that I love when I get to pull out.

Speaker 1: 42:33

But it's been a really interesting process of you know, when they come to us and are like, oh well, you know, the president did this or this happened and like so I'm really upset because that shouldn't have happened. And we're like, okay, why Talk to us? And like we start talking through it, and almost every time at the end of every conversation they're like that was more complicated than I thought it was. I'm like, yeah, it was, it's more nuanced. It's always more complicated. There's never just black and white, and so that is one of the ways that I see things shifting with the younger generation and I really hope that that that decreases their propensity for burnout, because I hope that as they grow up and start being the ones that make the rules and the standards and and operate within that, they feel more comfortable. I don't want to say challenging, but they feel more comfortable just going like what we're not going to do is that.

Speaker 2: 43:27

Yeah, it's so difficult generationally because neither one of my children have, even though they have between their mother and father okay, we've got five degrees and neither one of them want to do school. Right, want to go to college, and I have been was like, okay, this is their journey, is not mine. I'll help guide them right with whatever direction they want to go, I will support them. But seeing the reaction of their grandparents and their dad and people around them and just what it means to not follow this, you know prescribed path that they're supposed to be on has been really interesting. But I don't have to live their life Right. I want them to be happy and to be able to create a life that they're going to love, not the, I mean that's. That's another thing.

Speaker 2: 44:23

When we talk about women and burnout following a path that they was given to them or that they were expected to have, because they are the ones so many of them are the ones who are assigned to create a new life for the family, we're not going to go. That's what my five steps to the financial foolishness is about. Really, is that that burnout met overwhelm for being responsible responsible for creating new financial wellness and a new standard of living for the whole family and you've got to help out everybody.

Speaker 1: 44:59

Yes, you always have to go further than the generation before you went, and that's that's something we've tried to. I felt the pressure of that too. That's something with our kids. I'm like, look you, short of you getting to doctorates, you can't go further. So like let's just not do that, because I know the pressure of that. It's a lot and you know, as somebody who two masters doctorate, then left and started a business, one of the most common questions I got from family was when are you going to use those letters after your name? And I was like I'm using them, right, right. My husband has to walk out of the room whenever anybody says that because he's like I don't want to go to prison today. So, um, you know it really it cracks me up because I'm like I am, I'm like I talk about operationalizing research and like all of the like I use so much of my doctor. I think I use it more now than I did ever at the bedside.

Speaker 2: 46:01

Right, because you don't. You're not in a box.

Speaker 1: 46:04

No, I'm not in a box, I can use it however I want. So it's just been so fascinating to me to kind of shift a lot of those generational patterns and I got to say I think that that's something that, particularly for black culture, is, is, is a, and black military is a big thing. I mean, my grandfather was a lieutenant colonel in the army, so like, wow, yeah, so that was education, education, education, education. That's how you get ahead, that's how you do it. But you're right, that burnout really can come from. How do I, how do I step off the path that was designed for me as an extension of my family and shift to the path that I really feel like you know I'm a spiritual person, like I feel like God has really called me to and remind myself this is going to be uncomfortable, because it's kind of supposed to be uncomfortable, because you are shifting Right.

Speaker 2: 47:00

Thank you.

Speaker 1: 47:03

So last thing I want to ask you about is you've got a book coming out Leadership Beyond Burnout, same title as your show. Yes, you said a little something at the beginning, but I didn't. You're like oh, it's supposed to be coming out at the end of the month.

Speaker 2: 47:20

yes, yes, it's supposed to be coming out on 92323.

Speaker 2: 47:26

And I am, I really want to hold to that just because I like the numbers 92323.

Speaker 2: 47:34

Of course we're trying I need to not be as picky with artwork and some of the other things but we really focus on deconstructing the current narratives there are around what it means to be a woman into today's society, what it means to be a leader and workplace culture, as well as doing all the things it's like who are you to your family and what does that look like?

Speaker 2: 47:57

So I'm really excited to see what the reception to this look is going to be, because it really comes from a heart of service and wanting to see us to do things differently. Because I've seen for the past 23 years the result of when you try to hold to narratives that don't necessarily fit who you are in your lifestyle and what you want, when you pursue things that you are supposed to want or supposed to do, and rather than what is really intrinsic and valuable in the fiber of your being or what you said, oh God, god is calling you to be and what, how you're supposed to serve in this world, because everybody has a purpose right, and sometimes your purpose and the way you lead doesn't look like everybody else leads, but it can be equally as effective.

Speaker 1: 48:53

Yeah, I'm really excited to read it. It sounds phenomenal and I love how it's just so innate, like it so innately ties to so many other things that we talked about today. Around, like, everyone has a purpose and you know, one of the fundamental ways we survive as humans is by needing help, needing other humans. And you talking about how there's really this, it's coming from this place of service, helping people really get what they need. That's gorgeous. I feel really I feel grateful that you wrote it, because I think we need more messages like that out there in the world. See how it's received. I'm sure we phenomenal. We'll make sure that we have a link to it in the show notes so people can check it out. And also this other book If you're not watching on the video recording, you have this lovely book behind you. Five steps to and financial foolishness. I just love that title. It's so good.

Speaker 2: 49:51

That seems like the checkout to right as well as unlocking me the key to your authentic self. That's a guided journal that is based upon the ecological model of health promotion, where we look at who you are and interpersonally interpersonally in the community, in the society and really ask you to ask some of those critical questions. One of the questions that I absolutely love and I'm fangirling on myself, so excuse me, but one of the questions that I love is when did you learn to accept shit? When did you learn it was okay?

Speaker 1: 50:32

But I was shit I'm. My brain was like I don't know three, four, okay, that's something unpacked.

Speaker 2: 50:41

Yeah, and that's, that's Mitchell, because there is some point when we had learned that we need to put who we are aside.

Speaker 1: 50:49

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 50:50

And get into these uncomfortable situations to make everyone else comfortable.

Speaker 1: 50:56

Yeah, be everything to everyone all the time. Okay, well, I said I was going to say at the beginning, I was right, part two at some point. Thank you for joining us, thank you for having me. You are wonderful and if anyone's listening and you would like to connect with Dr Burnout, kimberly L Wilson yes, I got the L right. Okay, I have the same thing of like the C Cornell, so I was just like, let me make sure I get that middle initial this time.

Speaker 2: 51:25

But there are so many Kimberly Wilson's.

Speaker 1: 51:27

Oh, yeah, okay, yeah, I do the least C Cornell. So people know I'm not talking about my husband because he has the same name.

Speaker 1: 51:33

So oh they know it's a full thing. Talk about you know you talked about people confusing you. People always I won't say always, people who have not met me and just see Dr Lee Cornell. When we go places, they talk to my husband on me and he's like no, she's Dr Lee, I'm Mr Lee.

Speaker 1: 51:52

So but at any rate, if they want to connect with you, we'll also make sure we've got your contact info so they can reach out, and we love to hear from you all when you listen, if there's anything that particularly resonates with you, because we want to make sure that we give you more of that. So if you would like to share with us, make sure you reach out and we will see you next time. Bye, thank you so much for listening to today's episode. Invitation to head to our show notes to check out the offers and connections we mentioned, or you can just head straight over to Institute for Traumacom and hop in our email list so that you never miss any of the cool things that we're doing over at the Institute. Invitation to be well and to take care of yourself this week and we'll see you next time.