The MILLENNIAL BURNOUT Crisis! (Part 1)

WE'RE BAAACK! After a bit of a hiatus the SEEING SIDEWAYS PODCAST returns with hosts Kyle and Jessica tackling the current epidemic that seems to be pervasive amongst the Millennial demographic of people being burnt the Hell out and fed up. Why are Millennials feeling the crash? We take a deep dive discussion on the epic return of your favorite podcast about LIFE!

Transcript

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Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Seeing Sideways Podcast. We are the podcast that shares tools, resources, and relatable stories to help you navigate this maze or mess that we love to call life. My name is Kyle, and I'm here with my co-host. Jessica. Jessica, what is up, my friend? Oh, there's a whole lot of. Yeah. Yeah. So let's start with this. It's been a while. To those of you who've been listening to us, we've taken a little bit of a break, break, uh, hiatus, if you will. Um there's no way, there's no way to sugarcoat it. Life has been life in, as we love to say. Yes, it has. Life has been life in the last few months, have been um just a lot. Um, work stuff, life stuff. You know, they say um when it rains, it pours. And I tell you, that saying is so true. And I think life just kind of just took a big old dump on all of us for the last several months. And um, and you know, it just unfortunately, it just kind of it made us feel stuck, and we got into a pattern where we had to just step away from the podcast a little bit, handle some business, pay some bills, so to speak, and then get our lives together. What didn't you say, Jess? Oh, yeah. I mean, the all three of us, I know Ray's not here today, but all three of us, just you know, just the fact of you know, it's it should be pretty obvious based off of our past conversations, we don't make any secret about the fact that we all work in the tax industry. And tax tax, depending on what you do in the tax world, but you know, anytime like January through May 15th, really, honestly, yeah, it's so busy, and depending on you know, your situation uh and what you have going on at work and how well built that situation is, uh, and then what you have going on in your personal life, um, it can become so much. So much. Yeah, no, I I couldn't agree. Um, I couldn't agree more. It it's it's actually kind of incredible how um how much of it, how much it just sucks at your life, you know, like how much time it sucks out of your life. And it's it's things. And you know, we've been in the tax industry a long time, so this is nothing new to us. We're kind of used to it at this point. You know, we you know, it's at the point where you know when January rolls around, right? Um you know, you celebrate the new year, and a lot of people are like, oh yeah, you know, new year, new meets, the start of a new year, a fresh start, and people are getting their goals um laid out and and mapped out, and you're excited to tackle uh the next 12 months of your life and start making changes. But I think for us, when the new year turn turns, it's like, oh boy, tax season's coming, you know? Yeah, and you know, so it just signals to us that okay, the next three and a half, four, maybe even five months of our lives are going to be incredibly hectic and we're gonna have little time for ourselves. And um it kind of stinks, man. You know, like it kind of sucks. It does, and it doesn't matter how well prepared you think you are for tax season. You're you're never prepared. You're never prepared, and it's like you walk out. I mean, I've had some good tax seasons, don't get me wrong, but yeah, it feels like the last at least five, six years, every tax season like it's like this was the worst tax season ever. This was the worst tax season ever. Hey, you know what? Actually, last year wasn't that bad. This was the tax the worst tax season ever. And I mean, uh there's it I think part of that really honestly is like were you able to just focus on work in that period? Because that's really what it requires. Um in the just in the industry. But then when you have life stuff going on, um that kind of dials up the treachery and chaos and uh overwhelmed feeling that you get because it's like I have all this stuff, like work could take up, you know, from sunup, some from sunup to sundown, but I have to set boundaries. Um but you never leave feeling like you're done, and then you have all this other stuff, life stuff, you know, that you have to deal with. And the more that you deal with the more stressed out and um traumatized you walk out, you walk out feeling. Yeah, uh traumatized is the right word. I feel pretty traumatized. Um, you know, my hands are shaking, my hands are shaking as we speak, but it is yeah, it's wild to me, you know. And it's it's funny how you were saying uh like every year tends to be, oh, this is the worst tax season ever. Oh no, this is the worst tax season ever, or though this is the worst tax season ever. Um that is so true. And you always and you're always like on a mission, you're always kind of determined to almost talk yourself into the uh believing that this year is gonna be different, right? You know, it's like the it's like the most toxic relationship ever. Okay, this time it's gonna be different. Okay, this time it's gonna be different. No, no, no, no, no. Okay, this time is gonna be different. We worked out our issues, you know, so it's like a you know, you're in like a toxic relationship with your career at this point, and um that's the thing, man. It it's it sucks you dry. You've almost got nothing left. And just I think honestly, this perfectly dovetails into what I wanted to talk about on this episode, and I think what we've experienced for the last several months perfectly correlates to what I want to talk about. Um the burnout crisis, um, specifically the millennial burnout crisis. And so I feel like okay, here's the thing. So, you know, we have the algorithm, right? Um you're on Instagram, you know, TikTok, whatever social media outlet you're on. Your algorithm tailors things towards you know what your interests are, what you search, etc. etc. So lately I've noticed my algorithm has been feeding me, like on Insta, has been feeding me a lot of videos of like these um the these Insta channels, uh these uh from millennials, people in our age bracket, Jess, you know, anywhere from mid-30s to mid-40s. Um people just talking about how millennials are just fed up, you know, we're all fed up, we're all burnt out, we're tired, we are exhausted from life. And I've just been getting a lot of these videos in our feeds, you know, a lot of them humorous, you know, a lot of them putting kind of like a comical spin on it, but a lot of it, but also really talking some truth. And it's funny because and and I'm watching these things, right? So the more I watch them, the more out their algorithm feeds me. And so at a certain point, I'm like, shit, man, you know, but I'm seeing a lot of these videos pop up. And and obviously, you know, this is nothing new, you know, and I'm sure we've even talked about it on this podcast before. I'm I'm sure we have. But but I want to kind of really take a deep dive. I'm gonna have a little bit of a conversation with you about our age demographic, Jess, and we all seem to be burnt out, we all seem to be going through an existential crisis of sorts of where we're we're all we're all tired and we're all struggling to find, I don't know, kind of meaning in life. And I know that sounds really heavy, but do you think I am overstating that or like what like what do you what do you what are your thoughts? Or are you seeing these same things on your algorithm timeline? Uh I'm definitely seeing that um on my on my Instagram and and Facebook timelines, just post by people, you know, that I know. Um and I don't even think burnout is even the right word for it at this point. I think we're all in survival mode. Oh shit. Okay, more and more people have like in the last five, seven years have switched to survival mode. Everything's costing more. Cost of living goes up, you know, five percent, and your paycheck goes up two percent or three percent if you're like busting your ass. Yeah, you know, and so you're in survival mode and you've got all these things that you want to do, and all the stuff that you have to do in your regular life, um, on top of it, and it's just like we're beyond burnout. That's a good wow, that was that was heavy, but I think it's true. You're right. We are maybe we were burnt out five years ago, six, seven years ago, but now in this post-pandemic, post-apocalyptic world that we are currently in, you're right. I think we are a lot of us are in survival mode. We are just trying to make it day by day and navigate through these times. Um, the cost of living, man. It's what is going on with the cost of living? What is going on with grocery prices? What is going on with just uh rent prices, mortgage, people struggling to get a home? I mean, it is it's all working against us. And and I know it's easy for maybe people, um, maybe both, I guess, in and outside of our age demographic to listen to this and just say, oh my God, you guys, all you do is complain. But I don't think it's the case. I don't think we're just I don't think it's just a case of just we're just complaining, oh why, why why we don't have things the way we like it. I think what you said is correct, Jess. I think we are in a legitimate crisis where we're trying to, yeah, we are in survival mode, right? Yeah, well, I mean, back in like 2015, 16, 17, 18, 19, maybe into the pandemic, I was really into uh personal development. I was uh joining groups, I was working on myself, uh putting myself some self in places that I was always like, yeah, that's not me. I don't do those things, but wanting to grow. I was, you know, spiritually connecting. I was I meditated, I would do uh like breathing techniques, I would do all kinds of different things. I would go out and like I would write, like at the the full moon, new moon, one of the moons, I would like write a little note of all the things that I was like releasing, and we had like a little fire in the backyard, and I would like burn it in the fire, and I did all of these things to just keep myself grounded and connected. I would go outside in the morning when the sun was rising and put my bare feet into the dirt and like you know, just like get my vitamin D, Zen out, and I I did those things. I really did a lot of uh self-care type things, and now I don't have time for that. I have to pay these bills, you know. I get up in the morning and if I get up before the sun rises, like I need to get onto my computer and either log into my full-time job and get ahead of the game for the day or I need to work on, you know, the podcast or my bookkeeping business. These are things that have gone by the wayside because I'm just trying to survive. Yeah. And you feel like you feel like it's so and I'm so I'm assuming you you feel like you just don't have the time for your own self-development, which is sounds like a crazy statement, but it's true. Like we don't have time to dedicate to ourselves to make ourselves better. We don't have time to go outside and put our feet on the ground, uh put our feet on the grass, you know, um, just take walks. It's and it's like you almost guilt yourself when you do do those like you guilt yourself, like, okay, I'm taking this nice peaceful walk in the park, but I could be doing all these other things, right? I have to prepare myself for work and this and that and the third. So we don't have time for these things anymore. And you get into like a guilt cycle of it. And um, but that's so backwards, where there should never, we should never not have time for ourselves, you know. That that that should be our primary investment is in ourselves, it in our self, um, you know, in our mental health and our physical health or our overall well-being. If we can't invest, if we don't have time to invest in our well-being, what are we doing here, man? And I and yeah, I agree a hundred percent. But any any woman out there, I can't speak for men, but for any woman out there, um, I my children are 15 and 24. But I have two grandchildren that are three and seven. And they're at my house. Uh, we help, you know, we do what grandparents do. Uh we help in the mornings and we help in the afternoons because you know, the parents are working. And for anybody with littles out there, it's a joke. If you think that I could get up, unless I get up at 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. And then I have to like tiptoe through the house for me to get outside without uh letting a child know that I'm walking through. Because as soon as one of them hears you, or if you get up later and they've woken up first, then like you start your day on the go. You start your day meeting the needs of other people. Because like the three-year-old, like, I have to go to the bathroom, or I peed on the couch, or I'm hungry, or you turn on my show, like, and so then like immediately your your nervous system, your you're you don't have time for that. Like, once that happens, you're like, I'm fucked, basically. Like, there will be no going outside for a peaceful moment because it was ruined before I even made it to the door. Yeah, you're starting the day on a chaotic note, right? So And there's no controlling that. Correct. And and I think a lot of people would agree that the way you start the day sets a tone for how your day is gonna play uh pan out, right? So if you can start the day peacefully with a meditation, with a with a walk, like me, for example, you know, I'm not not trying to brag, Jess. I, you know, but it is what it is. I I'm a single guy and um I don't have kids or anything like that. So I do have the luxury of picking those walks, and I and I, and that's become a ritual for myself, like for over the last over the last year, I've been I've made it a point to do that. Just even for 20 minutes, first thing in the morning, get up, drink a tall glass of water, go take a walk, go see, get some sun, even when the sun's not out, even if it's uh cloudy or dark or cold during the winter time, I just get out, I get fresh air into my lungs, and I feel like that helps me to it. Doesn't guarantee that I'm gonna have a great day, but believe me, that but it at least puts me in a position where I feel ready to tackle the day. I feel like if I don't do that, I feel like if I just wake up and open my laptop and start working, I I it's it's it's all downhill, you know. Like if I if that's the first thing I expose myself to is chaos, you know, uh, which is what you're saying essentially, right? So yeah. And then on the days that there is not chaos, I'm like, I'm sleeping in for an extra 30 minutes. Fuck the sun, fuck the outdoors. I'm just gonna lay here quietly in my bed and not make waves and pray that nobody comes to my room with any drama of any sort. And I say that, and I I say that a little bit tongue-in-cheek because again, my children are older and I have my grandchildren. Um and I know that it's a short period of time, but it seems like eternity when you're going through it. Uh, and they do get to an age where that it's it's not like that. And I did have periods of my life where I would get up in the morning and I the first thing I did was like get myself together and go for a walk. And like my daughter, my my both of my daughters would go with me, they would go walking with me. Um, I happen to have a a neurodivergent grandson, my seven-year-old grandson, and he is um oppositional defiance disorder. Uh, and he has some anger issues. And so I if even if I took him on a walk with me, it wouldn't be peaceful. Okay. So my girls weren't like that. They would go on walks with me, and you know, they would do like regular kids, like kind of messing with your piece. I made it very clear like if you want to go with me, then you're gonna go with me and you're gonna do this and leave me the fuck alone. Okay, because this is this is my moment, you know. Um but I can't do that with my grandson so much, and again, it's a choice, and I love him, so I'm not complaining about it. I am just saying that whenever we're having these conversations, I always want to put a little bit of like realism into the conversation because it would be fucking fantastic if I could wake up for the first hour of my day and nobody spoke to me at all. And I just gotta like get up and do whatever my agenda is. You know, I know people have like morning rituals. I tried that for a while. Um, yeah, I can't stick to it because there's just too much chaos in my house. Yeah. Yes. To be able to do that. I get that, man. You know, like I I can sympathize with that notion of, you know, in a perfect world, you wake up and you wake up to calmness, right? When you wake up uh startled, you know, it it's it literally when you wake up with your nervous system bothered, it again, it's just all downhill from there. Um, I'm gonna share a little, I don't know if I ever told you this, uh, but I'll share a little uh quirk of mine that's always been the way I was uh for my whole life. I'm probably one of the one percent weirdos who I I actually don't ever use an alarm clock, Jess. I don't know if I've ever told you this. Um I don't know. Yeah, I don't ever use an alarm clock, and weirdly enough, I don't have to. So um bear with us, listeners. This just is tying into what we're talking about. Uh but uh but yeah, my whole life, um my subconscious just seems to have this uncanny ability to just wake me up when I need to wake up. If I had school at a certain time, I just I got I my body just would wake me up at 7 a.m. because I knew I had to wake up at 7 a.m. to get up, take a shower, get myself ready, whatever. Um, same with work. And that that that trait in me, my my my subconscious just knows to wake me up. And I've always refused, and I and and didn't need to, but I've always refused to use an alarm clock. But there have been a handful of times throughout my life where I've definitely used it because I needed to make sure, like absolute sure, that I was awake for something, whether it's maybe like a final in college that I stayed up all night studying for, or something um super important at work, or even a flight that I had to catch like really early the next day. So I've used an alarm clock before, used it a definitely a handful of times throughout my life. But the thing is when you use an alarm clock, right? It jolts you awake, you know. And I always hate that feeling of being jolted awake, you know, uh, because you wake up startled, you wake up, you know, frazzled, you wake up with your nervous system already in fight or flight mode, you know. And yes, I know before people comment, I know, I know there's plenty of alarms that you could set that are nice and easy that ease you into a lull. You like alarms aren't like necessarily like I know, I know there's plenty of alarms that you could use that ease you into uh awakeness. I know that's not a word, but a little ease you ease you into being awake. But even then, I still I like waking up of my own accord. My my nervous system just prefers that than something making me awake. Uh and I feel like if I do that, I feel like when my when I wake up with my nervous system kind of in in in in that mode, yeah, again, it sets a tone for the day. So yeah, it's a little thing about myself. I don't ever use alarm clocks and I don't have to, I just know when to wake up. It's a weird thing. I I'm probably I wake up by a certain time every day. I always I I do set an alarm, but it's my my alarms were suggestions. So I have an alarm. I used to have an alarm that went off at five, but one that went off at seven. And then I had my phone alarm that went off at six. So like for three hours, it's kind of a suggestion, and then like after the third one goes off, it's like I I'm like, nope, stay awake, or I something is going to make me get up in the next few minutes. Anyways. Uh, but alarms are a suggestion for me. I'm a very deep sleeper though. So Yeah, yeah. If I want to, if I want to start my day at 5 a.m., sometimes I wake up at 5 a.m. If I sleep past like 7:30, 8 o'clock, something's wrong. Like I'm set. I and I know there's people that can sleep until 12, 1, 2 o'clock in the afternoon. I know those people. And I'm like, what? What? Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I I I feel you on that. Like, and it's, I don't know. It's um, it's just a weird thing. And like you said, you're a deep sleeper. I'm actually a light sleeper, so I can be easily nudged awake. Um, so that's probably so that and that probably contributes to the whole thing, but but yeah, but but you know, I just have to tell you this. This is again, it's you know, as we always go on little tangents, but yeah, there there are some people, uh, you know, Trent who's been on the podcast, he has told me about this alarm that he has because he's such a deep sleeper that an alarm doesn't do jack shit for him. So what does he do? And so he has this alarm that has like this Bluetooth component to it, and there's like this little egg that he puts under his pillow. And so the alarm will go off and it goes off. I think now don't give me lying about it, but I think it goes off for a minute, or when it goes off, one of the two, then this egg starts vibrating under his pillow to get his attention. And I like that would put me into fight or flight mode. Yeah, oh my for for oh for oh, forget about it. We I'm fighting somebody if there's a if there's an egg under my pillow. Oh my god. Oh my god, no, I can't do that. That would I would a vibrating egg under my pillow. Yeah, it's just asking for that's asking for trouble. That's asking for a bad day to happen. Nah, man. Yeah, he said it freaks his dog out. I don't blame I don't blame the dog. That's thank you as it should. Yeah. That's crazy, man. Oh man, I gotta next time we have Trent on the podcast, I gotta I gotta um you know mental note to bring that up to him. I want to hear him talk about that. Yeah, but uh, but but but kind of just to rewind back a little bit though, um so just going back to the whole sense of you know, starting the day, uh being able to start the day on a on a on a on a good note and proceed throughout the day. But then tying back to burnouts, right? You know, so we have these um careers that we that take up the majority of our day. And you know, we're in these careers, you know, we chose accounting, and this is the career path we've chosen to pay our bills and essentially keep us alive so that we can buy food and stuff like that. But what's been happening is you know, these jobs they take up so much of our bandwidth, our mental bandwidth, and we go through it for eight, nine, ten hours a day, maybe even more. And then my time is done, Jess. It's just like all you want to do is just veg out on the couch, right? Yeah, and you don't have time, or you feel like you don't have time or for anything else, or energy, and I tell you. Yeah, they're gonna be really doing a whole lot of nothing. Yeah, man. Like that's the that's the fucked up thing, is that on average, so on average, I'm done at work between five and six, you know, um, every single day. And I normally on average, I'm I'm a night owl, I like to go to bed around midnight, sometimes one o'clock, two. So when you when you think about it that way, when I finish work, I have six hours to myself. Now saying that out loud, six hours to myself sounds like a lot of time, right? A lot of time to eat dinner and to um watch TV, you know, relax a little bit, and then clean your house, do what you gotta do, um, you know, talk to your friends, whatever. And you should still have a decent amount of time to dedicate towards your extracurricular activities that you know make you happy or that are focusing on the career that you really want to do. Like, for example, uh, I know I've mentioned this on the podcast before, but I'm a writer and um I am currently working on a couple of books and book projects. And every single day, Jessica, I am in this kind of groundhog day-esque cycle of thinking, okay, I'm gonna get through work. Um when I'm done with work, I'm gonna take a break, and then from seven to seven to ten o'clock, I'm gonna work on my books, you know, I'm gonna work on my projects, I'm gonna work on uh the podcasts, all the this, all these ideas that I have in my head that I want to build and and and and and move forward with. Every single day I have this in my head that I'm going to do this and I and I tell myself I'm going to do it. And don't get me wrong, a lot of days it does happen, but a lot of days it doesn't. And a lot and a lot more recently, I'm finding it's harder to just do that because when I'm done with work, the last thing I want to do is just use more brain power because a lot of this, you know, these are our passions, but it still requires brain power, it still requires focus, it requires energy, it requires attention, you know, it requires work, you know. Um, this podcast is work, you know. We have to plan these out. You know, we got we write notes for these things. Um uh right, Jess, and we have to we want to have conversations, yeah. We plan out. We want to have conversations. We yeah, we want we want to we want to be thoughtful on as to what we're gonna talk about, you know. Um, I feel you know, so I want this podcast to be somewhat coherent, you know. So, you know, but we're good at tangents, but we are very good at tangents, but we don't want it to just be tangents. Um, we want there to be somewhat of a through line and a character arc to what we're talking about in these episodes. So look at the writer, the author, and you coming out. There, yeah, there you go, right? It's see, see, now it comes out, right? Not when I need it to. No, I'm just kidding. But um, but nah man, but like I I just feeling so feeling burnt, you know, after work. And that's the thing. I feel burnt. All I want to do is just turn on Netflix or just watch um watch a watch a series on Netflix or just or just listen to some music and just lay on the couch. And then the worst part about it, Jess, the worst part about it is I go through I I do that, right? So I end up doing that. So I'll go through these patterns where I will at a certain point in the night, I'm like, okay, Kyle, you know what? It's not gonna happen. And that's okay. I tell myself that's okay, and it is okay. Yeah, it absolutely is okay. So I tell myself it's okay. Rest tonight. You earned it, you worked hard, you're stressed throughout the day, your nervous system is in fight or flight mode. You just need to rest. So rest, listen to some music, watch the Netflix show, um, just do nothing, allow yourself to rest and recover. I tell myself that, but there's always that other voice in my back of my head that feels like I wasted the night. Yeah, you know, I could have done, I should have done that. I could have did I could have did this, I should have done this, I should have done that. And then, you know, so I'm a big YouTube watcher. I love YouTube. YouTube for me, I YouTube is my television. I actually don't have like actual television. I don't know if I told you this just I don't I actually don't have actual television, like like channels and stuff like that. I just I just pay for internet and I use streaming apps, I don't need regular TV, you know. I use YouTube, I use Netflix. You know, that's your trick, right? Yeah, it's pretty nice actually. Like, I know I've I've been like this. If we're for my mom, yeah. If I if it weren't for my mom, I would have did it a long time ago when we're slowly coaching her. But I feel like we're moving into it. You know, old people they have their shows that come on at this time. I heard her yelling at my grandson's last night. Go ask your grandfather Jessica, you're getting on my nerves. I can't even hear my fucking show. Yeah, I need to listen to my story. I need to watch my stories, right? She has her shows and she don't play about her shows, and it's like a certain time on a certain channel, you know. And I'm like, Well, I mean, you might not be able to watch it at that day in time, but you might go see no spoilers because you're not, she don't have a cell phone, she's she's on Facebook, but it's she's not she's not gonna see the spoilers, trust me. Yeah, I always feel bad because um, whenever my parents come to visit me in my apartment, I I I room with my little brother. So whenever my parents come to visit me, my younger brother, um, I always feel bad because they like to watch regular TV also, they like to watch sports, and I just don't have anything to put on for them, you know. Like, sorry, we just have yeah, sorry, we just have the apps. I always I'm always trying to find things to put on for them uh to watch. But but but anyway, that that tangent aside, yeah, yeah. Um all that to say that yeah, I feel yeah, but I just feel tired and that's all I want to do. And and I watch YouTube a lot. And one and and I follow several channels of people who are like entrepreneurs or just kind of like self-made people, people who have made YouTube channels and become successful off of it, and and I find myself spending time watching other people live out their dreams, right? While I am on the couch watching them do this, right? And then that that makes me feel bad too. Like, oh, here I am, I'm watching other people live out their dreams, and here I am. What am I doing? I I could have I could have used this thing doing, yeah. I'm watching it instead of doing, and then I just and then I feel bad, you know, and then and I and I know, you know, I know all of this is okay, and I we know this, right, Jess. We know that this is okay, we know that there's nothing wrong with that, but that fire inside of us, right? That wants to escape from our nine to five, that wants to escape from this career, uh, these careers that we're in that are not really leaving us fulfilled. We want to escape, but we then get into this stuck in this holding pattern of well, what am I actively doing to get out of this thing if I want it that bad? You know what I mean, Jess? Does that make sense? You know, that makes total sense. I just want to like rewind back a little bit because like yeah, yeah, that was a lot of fine. Let's no, let's let's let's stage it though, to to get up to the point that we're at. Why, why if people want to say that we're whining and complaining and not doing, like, call it what you want to. But you if you think about it, like what what we were sold was a bill of fucking goods. Like, we were sold, like you and I did these things, right? Yeah, we went out there, went to college, busted our asses, earned our degrees, you know, graduate, go to college, y'all go further. Right. Yeah. And then we built careers and and there was no roadmap to it. I don't I you know, I came from a blue-collar family, so I was taking conjecture from things that people said in, you know, my educational and my like my youth and shaping it into okay, well, so here's the things that I need to do to be able to be like the people over there, like the people who have made it, right? And so I went out and built a career. I was very loosey-goosy in the very beginning. I was like, okay, I have my academy degree, life's good. That wasn't the case. Uh I had a a director in a meeting with me who said, Well Jessica, I just I'm just trying to get an idea of like where you're trying to go. Because you seem all over the place. And I was all over the place because I was like 25 maybe at that time. I had no clue. Like I'm just following the steps that people told me that when I was young, that if I did these things, like then, you know, if you if you build it, they will come, which is bullshit. And I I did watch Phil of Dreams, but I didn't make the connection because I was young. Okay. But we built our careers, we worked the overtime, uh, we took the promotions, we like we delayed things in our life because we were like, okay, I need to do these things to focus on this, this will follow. But I just continue to do these things, and I'm as I like get more and more into it, I feel like you know, I understand that I'm getting fucked over and fucked over and fucked over. Um you know, like the people, a lot of people, the majority of the people that are millennials, um like home ownership is a joke, it's out of reach unless they were really smart and like set up for success, right? Um retirement feels really uncertain. I'm not over here like set for life with my retirement. Health care costs just get more and more outrageous because you pay more and more a month out of your paycheck, and then you get more and more in doctor's bills after you go to the doctor with your insurance. Uh, for people who have kids out there, childcare costs are a fucking bitch. You know, and then and then childcare. I we can have a whole episode about childcare, like things I experience and things that are out there, but you're trusting these people with your children, and not everybody is trustworthy, as I found out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't have kids, but I hear I hear not just from you. I have several I have several friends that are married and have to go through this. So I've yes, I've heard this. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, we were we were told, you know, go to college, yeah, go to college, work hard, build a career, buy a house, save for retirement. But what have we gotten? I'll tell you what I've gone through. Uh well 9-11 happened my freshman or sophomore year, sophomore year of college. Uh multiple recessions. I got my master's degree, and I said for years that my master's degree was the most expensive piece of paper that I ever earned. Um we have the housing crisis prices. I I don't even know how many wars. Inflation has been a fucking issue. The pandemic happened. Yes, the drug epidemic, yes, the homeless epidemic. Yes. Uh and that's not like nobody warned us about any of that bullshit. Yep, yep, yep. And so, yeah, we're burnt out. Damn right, we're burnt out. We had all of that happen to us and work against us, and it it almost seemed unrelenting. And it's like, like, I remember I uh I'm a little younger than you, Jess. So yeah, 9-11 happened during my sophomore year of high school. Um I graduated college 09, and I believe that was literally the year of the of the housing crash. Or you know, so you were right um and of the or or the the recession, right? It was the it was the it was the general recession they went, yeah, they went hand in hand. They went hand in hand. So um it was just we we we just came into this, you know, we it where it's like okay, go through this, spend all these thousands of dollars, you know, on education, and then boom, here we are. Now, luckily, you know, we despite this adversity, Jess, like right, we we we were able to make careers for ourselves. We went through the ranks, you know. Eventually you find we found jobs and we we we did what you're supposed to do, we worked them. Um fact, I would say I okay, so I'm an I I am an abnormal case, right? I actually worked the same for the same company for well over a decade. Um, and I know a lot of my peers, and I believe you're one of them, a lot of my peers tended to jump from company to company to company to company. No, not me. Okay, so oh did you did you more or less stay? Well, I know like again, I know obviously you and I met at this at the company that we worked at, and I know you were there for a little while, but prior to that, were you at the same place for a while, or did you jump to like oh yeah, so I by thing I jumped from sh shit to shit whenever I was in college, right? Of course. Um but then once I graduated from college, I got a my first job out of college. I worked for it for two years, but it was kind of like a thing that like once you were in there past two years, you were like pigeonholed and you couldn't get other types of jobs. Okay. I hated it. So I was like, nope, don't want to do this. Uh but then when I went to a place and I was at that place for six years. Then I was at the next place for almost 10 years, and then I was at the next place, which was where I worked at with you, for seven years in different capacities. Okay. So I bounced a little bit here recently, but up until then, I'm I don't like change. I think I've said that plenty of times. Um and the work landscape has changed tremendously, which leads to a lot. I in my heart, I believe, a lot of the burnout that we're experiencing. Um I mean it's always process shifting. Yeah, I mean, it's always been kind of like an underlying theme and which kind of makes sense, but it used to be handled differently. But the most tenured people have the the higher workload. Higher expectation. But in this really the capital the cap is I my whole life we've lived in a capitalistic society. But capitalism is running a little bit rampant right now, and it is what it is. I mean, you know, I can't harness that beast, but at the same time, it really does have big trickle-down effects into you know, us and our work environments because we've experienced it, you and I I don't know, speak for you without hesitation, um, have have been in the recent years in situations where you know, we take responsibility, we step up, we get rewarded for that, and then we have a uh expectation set, and then things happen in the background and people leave, whether by choice or not. Uh, and then leadership makes the decision not to replace those people. Well, the work doesn't go away. And if you're a top performer, what are you rewarded with? More work, and you gotta you gotta just keep up with it, you know. It that's that's it. You're not getting more PTO, you're just getting more work so that you can take less PTO. Yeah, and and then you and you know, and the the you know, I don't know, I I get emails uh from the Reddit, some Reddit threads, and some of them are like really talking about like losing their jobs, like just getting a raise and you know, receiving a stellar performance review, and then boom, they're fired with two weeks' severance, you know. So there's just like part of the burnout is like even if I'm like I can't keep up with this, I have to stop. If I stop and don't keep taking on more, then they're just gonna fire me and replace me. And so everybody's operating with that as the reality in the background because exceptional performance is not rewarded, it's expected. That's right. And and now said, and that leads into another thing, Jess. Don't you also feel like what ties in also ties into the larger burnout is, and I think with our generation too, don't you feel like a lot of us are feeling like we're now waking up to go to work, right? And obviously, we work to earn money, but I think a lot of us are asking the existential question of what am I doing this for? What's you know, what is the purpose? Like, what am I doing this for? Yes, I'm doing this so I can earn money so I could buy food and buy clothes and pay my rent and uh go out on fancy dates and whatever your uh vices are, but what am I doing this for? I am going in, I'm logging in every day, I'm going to the office every day, and I am making money for somebody else. And but what is this doing for me? What do I want to do with my life? And that ties into what I think we were talking about earlier, and you know, and you had said, like, you know, let's kind of work up to that to uh to that prior point that I made about working on yourself, right? And working on your what you want to do with your life. What do you actually want your career to be? What makes you feel fulfilled? But you're spending your days and your energy, you're spending your life force towards somebody else's end. Rather than your own. Well, yeah. Yeah, well, you think about it. Some people work uh let's say a 10-hour day here in the US. That's typical. Yeah. You get lunches, quote unquote, but people are punished for taking lunches, or they're like, I would rather not take a lunch because I need to get this shit done. Um, and between working and commuting, let's say that's 12 hours of their day. And then you're supposed to sleep six to eight hours a day. So 16 to 18 hours of your day. So you have six hours of your day, and then you have to manage your household responsibilities, pay your bills, clean your house, you know, make sure everything's ordered and and good. So you have all the uh amenities and you know, toiletries and all that type of stuff. Um, and then you have to care for children, you have to care for aging parents, or like am I in a situation right now of a spouse that's ill. Um, and so then I have maybe four to six hours a day to like sit down and take a fucking breath. Yeah, or focus on things like create creativity, self-reflection, self-care, relationships, and building relationships and and and my purpose of why I'm actually here. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's hard to it's it's hard to figure out what your purpose is when all you're spending all of your energy just maintaining and trying to recover from your day or your week. Yes, and um and and to add on to your point, I was thinking about that. I was thinking about this just this morning on my morning walk. You know, these things that you don't get to do, Jess. I'm just kidding. So yeah, right. You're not kidding. You're right. So uh I was thinking about I was thinking about this on my uh just this morning on my morning walk, was that you know, we you know, when we think about exhaustion, right? I think it's natural for natural for us to think about exhaustion in a physical sense, you know. Um, you know, you go you go take a run, right? You go for a run and your body gets exhausted, naturally, you're tired, right? Or even if you're just out about doing a bunch of things, running a bunch of errands, right? And just doing a bunch of stuff, you come back and you're exhausted, you're tired, you feel like you need a nap, right? Yep. So we we think about though we think about exhaustion, I think, a lot in those literal terms, but let me tell you, mental exhaustion is a real thing, and it's just as exhausting as physical exhaustion. Oh, sure. When you are working a job, a career that you are unhappy with, unfulfilled with, that really is not serving you in any way, and you walk into it stressed every day, and you go through eight hours of stress and frustration, your nervous system is on it's it's it's you're you're you're burning it, even though you're just sitting at your desk and you're not really physically doing anything, you're burning through a lot of adrenaline in your, you know, in your in your nervous system. You're burning through a lot of adrenaline, your your stress hormones are are are working hard. You know, it you a lot is happening internally, so that when you finally do clock out and six o'clock comes around, and then you do just sit on the couch and you get away from your computer, you feel like you just ran a marathon, right? You feel exhausted, and then you guilt yourself and say, Why am I exhausted? I just sat at my desk all day, or like if you work from home, I just sat at my desk in my room or my or my um in my office. My recliner, exactly. In your case of your recliner or my office space, you know. I just sat down. Why do I feel so exhausted? You know, I'm working from the comfort of my own home. Why do I feel exhausted? And you guilt yourself. You feel exhausted because it doesn't matter, you're still going through a consecutive hour stress session because you're because you're doing this thing that you don't really want to do. So your your mind and your body is still in this protective mode. Um, and you're just not and you're not, you're not you're not at peace, you're not happy, you know, and your mind's trying to protect you. And so when you are finally resting, your mind's like, finally, we can rest, finally, we are out of this stressful situation, and you're exhausted. And then unfortunately, the last thing you want to do is expend more brain power into something else, even if it's something that you like to do, like writing, like focusing on your business or your entrepreneurial goal or whatnot, because again, that also costs energy, you know, and you need and you need to be and you need your focus and your energy to be able to do that. But I think a lot of us millennials, so many of us millennials are now in this, I keep using this word, a holding pattern of this is not I'm not fulfilled with this, I don't feel fulfilled, and I want to do something else. And maybe a lot of us, like you and I, Jess, we have an idea, like we know what we want to do, we have that outline of what we want to do with our lives, right? But because we are spending nine to five or nine to seven or whatever, um, focusing our mental energy on something else, that mental energy is gone by the time the day pans out, you know. So what I hear you saying, what I hear you saying, though, Kyle, is that like the reality, at least for our generation, the millennials, right? A lot of us are working on multiple jobs. Yes, trying to build side businesses, yes, parenting or caregiving and or caregiving. Um managing financial stress, which is a fucking bitch right now. Um we're constantly connected through technology, which is another thing because there's a whole slew of people. Oh, it's a whole rabbit hole there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like who get if I don't respond to your text message, you're gonna be over here thinking I'm mad at you or I don't like you, or you know, so then I like fill all the, you know, so that's that's that. And so the issue isn't our willingness, our wantingness, you know, it's depletion. We're depleted. Yes, 100%. It's an energy issue. And we like it's I would love and I plan to mentally, and which you know, causes anxiety and stress and self-judgment and all of that on my part because I have these big dreams of the things that I want to do, but at the end of the day, like, you know, there aren't enough hours in the day. Right. There are not enough hours in a day, and oh man, listen, I I've seen again going back to rewinding back, I going back to the algorithm, right? How the algorithm feeds you things, uh how just like how it's feeding me a lot of videos about millennials talking about this very same thing that we're talking about. Um, I I've seen a lot of YouTube videos titled, you know, paraphrasing titled essentially you're not lazy, you're just tired, you know. And I just like you just said, Jess, depletion. I think that's I think that's it. We're not lazy, we're tired, but we con ourselves into thinking that we're lazy, you know? And just even like sometimes, you know, again, you are, you know, you're a parent, you know, so you obviously just just objectively, you have a lot more going on than I do, and a lot more responsibilities than I do um on a day-to-day basis. So sometimes I also I I I add that onto my guilt factor of, oh man, you know, like I have friends like Jess who are, you know, who've got who's got a family to manage, and I have other friends too who are married. So I say to myself, yeah, Jess has a reason to be tired, but what do I have a reason to be tired for? Oh yeah, that's the comparison trap, you know, which is a whole rabbit hole in itself. But I but it's I'm just I'm just keeping it real, which is what we do on this podcast. Um, which uh, you know, but I'm just keeping it real, though. You know, like that is I'm like, I don't have a reason to be burned out. What do I have to be burned out for? I'm a single guy that can do whatever I want, so to speak. I mean, I have a job too that I have responsibilities too, but like what do I have to be burned out for? And I'm sure there are a lot of I'm sure a lot of my married friends would probably say that to me as well. They'd be like, Kyle, I don't want to hear you complain. I don't want to hear you say shit. Okay, like you have the world at your oyster. You know, like I just I just came from Spain, I just took a vacation in Spain a couple of weeks ago. Super jelly over here, yeah. Yeah, see, and I and and I admit, I I fully admit I had the luxury of doing that. There was nothing tying me down from being able to do that, so I have uh that is not lost on me that I have those luxuries, but that also asks to why do I still feel burnt out? Why do I still feel burnt out? And the simple answer is because I am, you know, whether you are single, whether you're married with kids, um, if there is an unfulfilling component that is taking up the majority of your day, of your life, really, then just your word, depletion, you feel depleted. And that is a crisis that we are experiencing to sum up a lot of your points, Jess, you know, because you you very aptly summarized the journey that a lot of us millennial, well, a lot of all of us millennials went through of 9-11, the housing crash, um, the endless wars, the pandemic, the the inflation crisis. Um I forgot to mention Trump as president. I'm not political, but I'm just saying that's this has been a journey. It is a thing. No, but it is whatever, whatever side of the fence you're on, you know, it's it's like it's it's caused a lot of tension, you know. It has, it's caused a divide, whatever side of the fence, you know. So um, so we're all feeling the tension of that divide that's happening, you know what I'm saying? And so there is there's just a general sense of unease happening, you know, and we I think we millennials just feel like my god, like it just you know, like we're gonna be able to do that. We've spent decades, we've spent decades going from crisis to crisis, yeah, and call and we called it normal. This is normal, like this is what you do, you know, and like you know, big, big stuff in the world, but there's always big stuff in the world, but all it also affects everybody in the world, you know. Um we w we just call that normal and you know, get grit. Grit, I hate the world, I hate the word grit, but you know, just you know, grind, work harder, work smarter, wake up earlier, sleep less. Yeah, yeah, it's turns passion into profit, blah blah blah. Yeah, you know, uh, but you know, eventually the strongest people we just run out of gas. We get our case go on e and we're you know past the 40 mile grace period mark before we figure it out, and now here we are stuck on the side of the road. Like, what the fuck? What do I do? Who's gonna come and bring me, you know, a canister of gas so I can putt- putt along, hopefully, to make it where I need to go. Like, that's where we're at. That's just where we're at. Yeah, it's just where we're at. And and you touched on this the um social media information age that we live in, because everything is so easily accessible, it is so easy to see other people doing what you want to do and living out their dreams, quote unquote. I'm putting big quotation marks around that, right? Um I like I mentioned, I watch these YouTubers who are the self-made people who are traveling and they have freedom and they could do whatever they want to do and they turn, they turn their passions into careers. And there is that um primal part of my brain that's just like, man, look at these guys. That's that's what I want to do. That is, you know, not exactly what they want to do, but like they're following a trajectory that I would like to follow. I want independence, I want to be able to travel freely. That's one of my biggest dreams. I want to be able to just travel the world um if I see fit. If I want to go to Paris tomorrow, I want to be able to just be able to do that. I want to have the means to be able to do that if I want to, you know, and I see that. But, you know, we compare ourselves, but we have no idea what their lives are like. I'm sure these very same YouTubers that I follow, I have no idea what their struggles are, what they have to go through to get to that point, what they're still what they're experiencing now to maintain that lifestyle, what kind of new challenges that they have to go through. Nobody's life is perfect, everyone's struggling with something, yeah. Right, you know, so the the intellectual part of my brain knows that the conscious part of my brain knows that. But it's so easy to compare yourself um with all this stuff available, and it contributes to that feeling of well shit, what am I doing? I'm not working hard enough. Oh no, I'm just lazy. You know, here I am vegging out on the couch. I'm just vegging out on the couch after work today, instead of putting in work in my book or my side business or my entrepreneurial career or my coaching business, whatever the case may be. Here I am, I'm watching other people make it, and here I am being lazy. But we're not lazy, we're just exhausted, right? So 100% agree with that. It's um it sucks, man. And uh it's it's it's I just think it's fascinating that millennials seem to be the oh, what's the word I'm looking for here? I guess we seem to be the most vocal about this, but uh I actually want to We're the pioneers. We're the pioneers, yes, pioneers. Thank you. That that was actually exactly the word I was looking for. We seem to be the pioneers of this movement, and I actually wanna I actually want to end here for this episode, Jess, and I want to continue this conversation. I mean, we could there's so much to talk about because I wanna I want to talk about this more in the next episode, but I want to expand it to is this I want to expand it beyond millennials because we because we I think we've kind of centralized it to our age demographic, and I think we could speak to that the most, but I don't think it's just us experiencing it. I think Gen Z is very much in this same crisis too, maybe even there's a to a different degree or a different angle. And I want to expand this burnout crisis to Gen Z uh to Gen Z, and is Gen Alpha in trouble, you know. Uh you because so I want to touch on that a little bit too. So I want to end here um and pick up this conversation on the next episode with you. But this, you know, even though this was a lot of heavy stuff we were talking about, it felt good to get a lot a lot of it off my chest, so to speak. You know, I don't know how you felt, but uh it felt good to speak it into the ether. And I know we're not we're far from the only people's voicing this, but um, we obviously have our own perspective on this, and I feel like we added a nice personal touch to you know how we're feeling burnt out, and maybe a lot of you listeners can relate, but we're gonna continue this conversation, so bear with us, and we're gonna see you on the next episode. And listeners, listen, we took we took a break, but we're back at it, all right? We're here and we have some exciting developments we're gonna be sharing in the next few episodes on uh where you can contact us, where you can reach us, the community we're going to build, all of that stuff. So stay tuned. Uh, we're going to be expanding the scene sideways uh podcast in a several exciting ways that we are actively building out to. But I want to thank all of you who have been with us thus far on this journey this far. It's been a lot of fun. And uh, Jess, thank you for uh this conversation and just tagging along on this crazy idea and this crazy road so far. I am so excited to have you here. You've been such a help along the journey of all the crazy things that are going on. So I really appreciate you, guy. I don't say it enough. Uh no, no worries, man. No, no worries. Right back at you. And we're gonna get Ray back, and we have some exciting, we have other guests that we're gonna bring back on the podcast as well. Uh, that we're going to we have a lot, we have a lot to talk about. Okay. We got we're we're very, I don't know if you guys notice it. Jessica and I are very verbose people, so we like to talk shit a lot. That is kind of the central uh raise on death of this podcast is just to talk shit about life things, all right? Uh that hopefully you find relatable. Um, so until the next episode, guys, we're gonna talk more about this crisis on the next episode. So we will see you all next week. Bye everybody,