PodCrash with Matt Ebert
PodCrash with Matt Ebert
How to Prevent Burnout with Psychologist Guy Winch
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I'm Matt Evert. I turned one collision repair shop into a multi-billion dollar business called Crash Champions. Now I'm sitting down with people who have also built great things so you can build something of your own.
SPEAKER_00Hey Matt, thanks for having me back on the podcast. We got another one here for you. Very good.
SPEAKER_01What do we got today?
SPEAKER_00All right. So today's guest is Guy Winch. All right. So he's an internationally renowned psychologist and best-selling author. Just gonna get in your brain here. Okay. So his latest book is called Mind Over Grind and is all about how to get out of the common trap that working harder is always the answer. Interesting. This is uh this is an interesting one for me because when I think about who you are at the core, uh I feel like this goes against your grain.
SPEAKER_01A little bit, yeah, because I always say you can always win by outworking them, as you know what how what I've always felt. So it's probably gonna be some things that I need to hear and would help me to think about a little differently.
SPEAKER_00So if I was Guy Winch and I was telling you right now you're sitting in front of me, and I was like, Matt, in order to go faster, you have to slow down. What would you tell me? Okay. Is that really what you would say? Uh well, no, I wouldn't listen. Yeah, 100%. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I would say, well, you go on with that being slow, I'm moving on. Like I mean see in the rearview mirror.
SPEAKER_00I am a big believer if uh, like you say, if you walk slow, you work slow. And I think that's true in life. Yeah. So I'm looking forward to this because I again I think this is against your grain uh when you think about how you build this organization and how fast you move. Um so hopefully there's a key takeaway for you. Uh I like uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_01Let's see how this goes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, let's see.
SPEAKER_01All right, everyone. This is Podcrash. So, guy, I'm thrilled to spend some time with you here this morning, probably because of of the subject that we're going to talk about. I probably really need it. So I'm thrilled. Uh I'm definitely one where work or stress from work has uh dominated life a lot of times. And so I'm really excited to talk about a problem that you've put a lot of work in kind of addressing and handling.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and and went through. I mean, I talk about myself a lot in this book because you know I pretty much made all the mistakes that I talk about and learned from them.
SPEAKER_01Maybe that's a great starting point for for us. So how did you face the problem yourself? What triggered um you heading down this path?
SPEAKER_02So I start the book with a story. I was a year in to my career, and that was quite a while ago. But I was a year into my career and having a private practice, and I didn't realize that I was getting burnt out because you know, you can go to graduate school for many years as I did, not a word about burnout in graduate school. It's just not something that was taught, and I don't think it's taught really that much today either. So I didn't realize it until something happened. And what happened was I was coming home uh from work on a Friday. I was feeling apparently really depleted, got into the elevator with a neighbor, the elevator stalled between floors, and the and the neighbor went into a panic. And he started hitting all the buttons and saying, This is my nightmare, this is my nightmare. And what came out of my mouth was I like looked at him and said, And this is my nightmare. And it was so terrible, terrible, and so uncompassionate. You know, like I'm there, like I wasn't panicked. I was, but and I was like, when you do something that's really out of character, that was so out of character for me, I was like, what is going on? And that's when I realized, oh wow, I am so like, I feel like I've been doing this for 50 years, and I've been doing it for one. And that's when I realized I was burnt out, and that's when I started getting interesting. And how can that happen so quickly? What does it mean? How do you recover from it? You know, all of those things. So the interest has been going on literally since the year one.
SPEAKER_01It's great that you recognized it and realized that something was causing it, because I I think a lot of us wouldn't even recognize it. Um we would have recognized that we handled the situation wrong, but not really dug in the why or how.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but when you start thinking about it, and when I started thinking about it, I realized I was exhausted all of the time. I just, it felt like a grind, it felt like a slug. I wasn't enjoying what I was doing. Again, I'm a year in. I'm supposed to be at this point in my career where this is exciting, it's great. And I just I felt numb about anything. Just everything felt like a one more task. And those are the signs people need to pay attention to. If if if what you're doing just you're just trying to get through it, then there might be something wrong.
SPEAKER_01Understood. So you've got a new book out. Is that what this book addresses?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's it's called Mind Over Grind, uh, How to Break Free When Work Hijacks Your Life. And it's about the fact that we're all in the grind. We're in a hustle culture and grind culture. We're all working really, really hard. And when we do, we take our eye off the ball. The ball being us, the ball being whether we're thriving, whether we're happy, what's happening in our home life, you know, what sacrifices are we making? What's what's really uh you know getting chopped off and locked off in parts of our life uh because we're so devoted to the grind. And mind over grind is that there's a lot we can do in our psychology and how we manage ourselves in the situation. There are a lot of mistakes we make that we can correct that will reduce the grind without actually reducing the tasks that are before us. We can actually do much better because when we are really grinding, we are mismanaging stress, we are making things worse, we are self-sabotaging in all kinds of ways that we don't realize. And if we realize them and stop them, we can actually do much better.
SPEAKER_01So are you thinking in contrary to then the theory of just outwork everyone? Is this an amount of work situation or is it more of a headspace conversation?
SPEAKER_02It's both. It's about working smart. I I talk about overworking in the book quite a bit, and I'm very much a realist. Overworking is expected in certain industries, it's necessary in many, for many people, or at least certain certain periods in their life. I have been through periods of overworking, and I will have to overwork. Say, for example, when I'm writing a book on top of my regular job, that's a recipe for needing to work. So I'm a realist about needing to overwork, but I'm also a realist about you need to do it in a way that's healthy. The the World Health Organization reports that 750,000 people a year die from overworking. Overworking when it's significant and prolonged will increase your risk of cardiovascular disease by 30%. Uh, you know, that the it can really compromise not just your quality of life, but your health and your longevity. So you need to pay attention to how you're doing it. Again, it's necessary, but it's not necessary to kill yourself in the process. You need to know how to do it safely. And I talk about that in the book from a very realistic perspective of yeah, it's gonna happen. Here's how you know you can do it safely.
SPEAKER_01So let's talk about that. That's great. So there is a way to do it safely. How do you go about it safely?
SPEAKER_02So, for example, I'm just gonna use this as an example. Um, Sam Altman, the founder of AI, uh, was in the press like quite a few years ago talking about the fact that when he was working on his previous startup, he developed scurvy. Scurvy is a disease sailors used to get in the 17th and 18th century because they were out at sea for two or three months at a time and they didn't have access to vitamin C. And when you don't take vitamin C regularly, you develop scurvy. That's a disease of your joints, of your ligaments. You can die from it. He only realized there was something wrong when his gum started bleeding and he started getting all these other really bad symptoms. Now, a flintstone vitamin would have prevented scurvy. But that's what happens when we overwork. We are so focused. The pizza boxes are uh amassing behind us or the or the or the takeout or whatever it is. We're not eating a balanced diet. We're not paying attention to our health, we're putting off doctor's appointments. We're putting, even if we have aches and pains, we ignore them because just need to get to that point, which keeps getting the can keeps getting pushed down the road, that point. We just need to get to this round of funding. Well, then we just need to get to that sales level, then the next thing, like that. There's always something, and we start to amputate aspects of ourselves like one by one, and our self-care gets goes to neglect. I work with people sometimes virtually, and even if they have a a blurred background, you know, sometimes when you move with a blur, you can see what's behind. And I'll see an array of dead plants on the windowsill. I'll see uh uh what looks like a stack, but it's like unopened mail and bills, because they this is the level of neglect. We start to neglect our bodies, our environment, and it can go on for a very long time. So in the book, I actually have a whole assessment that you can take that will help you find your canaries. I call them the canaries in the in the in the coal mine. In other words, what are the early warning signs that are personal to you that your self-care is starting to drop and starting to reach levels of self-neglect? Because there's some people, you know, that if a social worker came to your house and looked at the amount of self-neglect that you're that's going on, you would literally qualify for an aid from the state because apparently you can't function. Now you can, you might be a CEO, you might be a founder of a startup, but that's what's actually happening. You know what I mean? So you have to monitor. And so that I just want to say, like, yeah, do it, but monitor, and that way you know when you're starting to really head off the rails and make corrections accordingly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I appreciate this because I've done that throughout my life. There's all it's uh it's almost like something has to give. And so uh fast food would be a prime example, or not exercising. And and I when I was younger, was under the mindset of I'll I can fix that when I when I get some time. Like I'll catch up, you know, or get healthier when when I when I get to it from the whole something's gotta give concept. It sounds like what you're saying is not only is that literally killing me, but it it's also probably hindering my productivity anyway along the way. I'm not really helping myself.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, both of those points, that second point you made is so important. Because people think like, no, if I just keep grinding, if I just keep working fifteen hours a day, then I'll get more done. The quality of your work decreases dramatically after hour, eight, nine, ten. You're not gonna be as and actually truly before, but d dramatically from there, like you're not gonna be as creative, you're gonna make mistakes, you're not gonna think things correctly, your decision making, all your executive functioning starts to decline with fatigue. And so there's it's really diminishing returns, what you're doing. You're putting in more hours, you're grinding more, but you're not necessarily getting a better work product. And that's the other part about this overworking. It's like, let's keep going, number one, without breaks during the day. We don't need breaks, let's just keep, you know, pushing forward. And secondly, what you said is I'll get to it, I'll get to the taking care of myself. That vague horizon that keeps shifting. You know, like it's not I need to do it for a week, I can do it for a week, I need to do it for a month. It's like some unclear point in the future when some unclear goal is met, which is, and that's when it gets dangerous.
SPEAKER_01So it sounds like you get really practical. And I started reading the book last night. I think it's great. I spent a couple hours on it, can't wait to read the rest of it. But is it really just practical things like that? Like schedule a break?
SPEAKER_02It's not just a schedule, yeah. Well, first of all, it's not simple because again, you and I, and I've been in this situation, yeah. You want to like, I don't know, yeah, I should take a break, but I I'm really going now. I'm in momentum, I'm in the zone, let me just keep pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing. And again, even I like I know the diminishing returns idea. It's not an idea, it's true. I know I'm less productive, and it's so tempting to keep going because I have the momentum, you know what I mean? And so and I have to fight it myself. But it's not just about taking a break, it's like being smart about the breaks that you're taking. Because most of us, when we take a break, will quickly go to our phones, social media. A lot of people will will go to they won't do something that actually gives them a a break. Like very few people will feel better after surfing social media for five minutes. It is a distraction, it's a numbing device or gaming or whatever the thing is. You're not actually recharging the battery that you need to recharge. What would is, and this I I do this now. I mean, again, writing the book kind of when you're writing a book like this and you're doing the wrong thing that you're saying you shouldn't do, it does force you to, you know, I can't be that much of a hypocrite. I actually have to do this. And so I've been forcing myself. I yeah, but you know what? It really helps. It's like I find out that, like, no, but I'm glad I forced myself. So I will get up and I will go up and downstairs, I'll do some push-ups, I'll I'll get some air. I live in New York City, so uh going out to nature is not necessarily helpful. Go walking around the block for some clean air, uh not necessarily in New York City. I mean, I don't it's a limitation of where I live. But but if I did live, then that would be a great solution. So like take smart breaks, and I go through there's a whole section there in the book about what kind of breaks are actually restorative in two minutes, even what you can do in five minutes. Like there's this whole literature on power napping. I used to thought power napping was just like bullshit. But there's actually this whole literature about power napping that shows like if 10 to 15 minutes, if you have a place to do it, by the way, if you're in an office cubicle, not so much, but if you have a place to do it, then it's actually restorative, but you can't go too long because then you get groggy and then you actually have to reset. So these brief, even brief naps. So if you know the kinds of breaks that work for you and and you really do schedule them, then you really get the most, and then go for 12 hours. But you took certain breaks during the day, you ate correctly, you're you're recovering from that at the end of the day, you're making sure you're not doing it for too long. So again, it's all these different strategies, and this is just about the part about overworking, all these different strategies to like do it in a way that's safe and that's actually more productive.
SPEAKER_01I think you know the word stress is used a lot, and that seems to be um what kind of affects us here too. Do you think stress is all bad? Do you think you've made a I've seen um you comment on stress really affecting you at home, even affecting your partner if you're under stress. Maybe we can head that direction a little bit and talk about some of the things that you know or or have found regarding that.
SPEAKER_02Sure. So, first of all, stress has a bad reputation, um, and part of it is undeserved. Chronic stress is bad for you, but small moments of acute stress are not, because that's our stress response. You know, like our stress response, if something difficult happens, alarming, we go into fight or flight, we get, you know, our body, you know, preps, gets activated, we take care of it, that goes down. I.e., if we worked like eight, nine, even ten hours a day, and we were in high activation because it's a stressful job and we have to deal with all the different things, but then we actually came home and de-stressed and allowed our body to come out of fight or flight mode, then that would be okay because we are actually allowing our systems, physical, psychological, physiological, to rest and to reset. When you're in fight or flight, uh, right, your body functions differently because it's literally in battle mode. That's what fight or flight means. And our workplace is the modern-day battlefield. So a lot of the time people say, Oh, my job's stressful from start to finish, which I'll quibble with, but but nonetheless, you are might be activated all day. Now, we did not evolve to do that. There is nothing in our evolution when not when we were hunter-gatherer in nomadic tribes, nor even in the most recent, you know, a few thousand years of our evolution. We're never at war all the time. If there were clashes between the tribes or you were at war, you fought it for like the battlefield went on for a few days, a few this, but then you were removed from it. R and R, even modern-day battlefields, soldiers are removed during the world, the world wars. Soldiers left the battlefield for R and R. The idea was you cannot be in that level of stress all the time, continually. It will break you, it'll break your body, it'll cause disease, it'll really take years off your life. And today, in the workplace, we are. We often work six, seven days a week, we're activated all the time, and then what happens is we come home and the stress follows us home. It does not stay at the office, it impacts us at home. We transfer it to our spouse. There's research that shows that if you're chronically stressed, your partner will start to develop symptoms of burnout. And they're not stressed, they're just what's transferred from you. And I would always say to people like, How much do you think your family is impacted by your stress? No, no, I try and keep it. You can try, but when you're terribly preoccupied, when you're worried, when you're very in it, like it's apparent. Moods are apparent and they're contagious. You know, we we infer.
SPEAKER_01So you don't even need to be talking about the problem, is what you're saying. So you can try and I feel like I shield the family from the problem, but what's going on in my head is is affecting them.
SPEAKER_02And they can tell, because they're trying to talk to you, and you're checked out, and you're sitting there and your body language is tense, right? And and so no one's really engaging you much because it's like, oh, he seems a little tense, so let's not let's not, you know, start a casual And it's very difficult for them to be in a happy go-lucky mood when there's somebody tense around you in the room. Like it's very difficult for you, it's difficult to ignore, like it radiates. So so yes, it it imp and even if you're trying so hard, but I don't want to talk about it, or I don't want to complain, or great, but you can't hide it. So you actually do need to do something to shift your mindset for two reasons. One, them, and be you, you are still in fight or flight. And I tell people, if you're thinking and if you're preoccupied about work, when you're home, you're still at work. It doesn't matter where you are but physically, your mind is at work, you're working. And that's extra work that you're not getting anything done, you're not getting paid for, so you have to do something about that.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's great advice, but honestly, seems impossible. Like, how do you get out of your own head? Okay.
SPEAKER_02So there are systems to do it, and I talk about them in the book. I'll give you one example. And and this and again, there are psychological exercises, and there's a lot of research about this. And again, it it's my lament that we don't, you know, that we don't teach people this in schools or in colleges or in you know, in MBA programs, or whatever the thing is, like because sh if people knew this, they would be able to do it, but no one's teaching it. So that's why I write these things and talk to people, because I want people to know that there are tools they can use. When you're preoccupied at when you're sitting there home and you're tense, you're preoccupied, you're worried, it is something specific that's preoccupying you. It is a worry, it is something that happened during the day, it was a conflict you had with your co-worker, it was something that didn't go well that you're upset about. It is about something specific. So what you need to do in that moment is identify, well, what am I ruminating about? What am I obsessing about? What am I preoccupied with? Catch what that is. And then what that means is your brain is identifying that as an unresolved problem. So that's why it's spinning, because it's unresolved. And you need to trick your brain or let your brain think that it's resolved. Now you can't probably resolve it then, but you can turn it into a problem and figure out what you will do about it the next day or the next week. You can have a strategy. So example, take the part like that, you know, this client wants to leave and they're such an important client, and what am I gonna do, etc. Like you can't Okay, you can't do anything about that in that moment. I'm just giving an example. But but what you can do is you can say, I'm gonna take 15 minutes, 20 minutes, and strategize what my approach will be. Well, tomorrow I'm gonna start doing some business development to see if I can find new clients and I and I'll do that just as an action item for the next day. And then I'm gonna like look back on all the correspondence with this client and see where the issues were, what they really are upset about, whether we can salvage this, etc., etc. I'll consult with my friend who's actually really good at client relations, and da da da. It doesn't matter what the plan is, but as long as there's a plan that you write down or you put it in your calendar for the next day, here's how I'm gonna approach it, your brain now thinks that you've you've figured something out. You've actually gone from spinning to resolving, to action items, to takeaways. You now have a plan. And once you have a plan, which you're thought-out one, it's got to be real, then your brain is much more likely to let you let go of this and trouble you with it because, okay, but I figured it out. I know what I'm gonna do. Step one. And then step two is to take the emotional sting out of it. So, like, you know, like find a way to think about it that's not as activating. Oh, this is the most important client. Terrible things will happen if they leave. So you have to find ways like, yeah, they were the most important client, but they're also the most demanding in terms of the resources that they're taking up. It's possible that two smaller clients will have, you know, require fewer resources and actually there'll be a net gain for me. Even if you don't know that yet, but just thinking about it in that way, reframing it so it's less terrible, again, allows you to calm. And and then you're coming out of fight or flight because you've resolved something. You're not in a battle right now. Now you're strategizing for something that'll happen tomorrow. And then you can let go of it and try and re engage with whatever's happening around you at home.
SPEAKER_01Very interesting. Um so you know, I don't want to keep making this about me, but I feel like I'm not that abnormal in the way my my my brain works. Maybe I'm way different, I don't know. But um an example, you mentioned ruminating quickly. Like I literally my whole life have replayed conversations, um, have replayed situations, and I felt like it's constructive because it helps me to handle it better or different next time. But it sounds like you don't think that ruminating is a healthy thing to do.
SPEAKER_02Look, first of all, you that's very typical. So I know it's I've done that, we all do that. Now here's here's where I'm gonna push back on something. Um Okay. If like sometimes it can feel constructive because you're replaying it, you know. But did you really have takeaways? Did it really what was were there really specific items that you realize, okay, so this is what I need to do differently next time? Or was it just aha, if I would have said this, I would have won the argument, but that's not a generalizable thing. In other words, we can replay those arguments for hours. Like how many on how many replays do you have to have to figure out what the takeaway is? That's very different. And actually catching, but that's that's a rumination, right? So you catch it, you go, okay, I've been replaying this now for five, you know, this is the fifth time, then I'm going through that argument and thinking of what else I could have said. Let me do this in a structured problem-solving way. A structured problem-solving way is what can I learn about that argument that would help me in another situation? What is a mistake that I made, or what is an opportunity that I missed, or what can I have done differently that's actually generalizable rather than just giving me the mental satisfaction of I could have won the argument. What is actually something that's applicable, that's useful, that I can take out of that? If you're asking yourself a targeted question, then you replay it once or twice. And if you if there's nothing useful about it, then you go, well, nothing. That was just unfortunate. They were just belligerent and you know, it couldn't soot them. Or yeah, I was just very irritable. So one takeaway is take two minutes to kind of take some deep breaths before I go into an important meeting, because if I go in irritable, I'm gonna cause a you know an argument. Like the minute you have that, then you can let it go. But most people don't actually do it in a structured way. It feels like you're figuring something out, but that was two hours of replaying a five-minute argument. And by the way, during those two hours, you got stressed out, you got pissed off again, you got angry again, because when you're replaying it, all those same emotions are coming up. So it's like you're taking the the crappy moments of the day and expanding them into hours of rumination in the evening, like the the greatest bad hits of the day, over and over and again. It's like a playlist you don't want to be playing. It's an upsetting, distressing playlist. So it always that's the thing about rumination. It feels like you're doing something important, but you're not most of the time.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Another one I'm curious about is the old saying, morning's wiser than the night. You know, you you talked about having a plan so that your mind can rest. But I feel like a lot of advice out there is let your subconscious work on things uh overnight. Like I wake up in the morning with a fresh perspective on things. So that seems like a completely different strategy. So thinking long and hard about the plan, sleeping on the plan, how is that your advice contrary to that or or do they exist together? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think my advice is contrary. If you're gonna if if you're gonna like let me think long and hard before bed about this, so that my unconscious, the elves in my head will will, you know, like make the shoes overnight kind of you know thing, and then I'll I'll I'll wake up with this magical solution. Um, first of all, good luck falling asleep if you're gonna be thinking about that before you go to bed, because now you're actually activating your face when I do that, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so so it's gonna be, you know, not gonna get great sleep. What is useful in the morning is if you actually got good rest and good sleep, and you actually then you are refreshed and then your mental capacities are refreshed so you can think about it anew. In other words, you just taking a break from it is useful. But to take a break from it, you don't need to tee it up by thinking about it before you go to bed. There's nothing magical that's happening overnight in your head. The only magical thing that should be happening in your head is getting restorative sleep. So I'm completely against that. I mean, I think that's that's it's just incorrect.
SPEAKER_01A lot of people out there that think wrongly about it that um need to read the book, huh? Um You talk about rest and recovery, and there's a distinction between the two. What what is the big difference?
SPEAKER_02So what happens when we get home after a very difficult day and we feel wiped out, say, you know, and and we've all been there, like we feel like, okay, I am wiped out. I I don't have the strength to do anything, I don't have the energy to do anything. I'm just gonna sit here and veg. And for some people, like let's just like three hours of screens or four hours of screens a day can be for some people. Or I'll just sit on the couch, you know, like semi-passed out and just like I don't want to do anything. Now, that is resting and relaxing. It turns out resting and relaxing is only part of what will help you recover from the workday. The research says two things. Number one, the more demanding, the more difficult, the more challenging your workday was, the more important it is for you to actually recover from those stresses in the after hours. Thing number one. Thing number two, the more demanding and stressful and challenging the workday was, uh the more you're going to choose very ineffective ways to recover because you're going to over-index on resting. You're going to think, I just need to rest. Our brain confuses mental exhaustion with physical exhaustion. Most of us sit all day. You weren't running a marathon, you weren't, you know, in a it's not the Industrial Revolution, you weren't standing over a divet, mixing chemicals, like that's not what you were doing. You weren't working in a coal mine, most people. So you're not physically tired, you're mentally tired. But we confuse the two. You are not drained physically, you're drained mentally. So resting won't deplete your batteries, but it won't recharge them. Recharging activities, A, don't happen on the couch. You actually have to do something that feels recharging to you. If you're an athletic person, you need to work out a little bit. If you're a creative person, you need to do something creative. If you're an extrovert, you need to engage socially. If you're an organizer, you need to feel like you're organizing. Whatever the thing is that you need to be in a garage and make some stuff. You need to tinker with the car, you need to like write your novel, do the painting. Those are recharging activities. And we all know what those are for us because those are the activities that when we do them, we come back with a second wind. When we do them, when we get ourselves off the couch, we're like, oh, I feel wiped out. But I told my friend I'd go and meet up with them, and I really like seeing them. And then you you force yourself to do it. And when you come back, you're like, I'm super energized. I just spent all this energy. Or when I go to the gym in the evening, like, I feel it's a battle to get myself there, but it's a battle to get off the couch. Once I'm off the couch, I can go. When I come back, I just worked out for an hour. I should be more tired than before I left, and I'm less tired than before I left. I have a second wind. I feel like, all right, ready to go now, you know. So those are recharging activities. We need both. We need rest and recharge. I'm not saying like every day, but we need a balance of that over the week. We need to recharge because the recharging activities are also recharging to us because they address parts of ourselves that we don't get to express at work. Most of us aren't, you know, working out as part of our job, or we're not painting as part of our job. We're not socializing in a certain way. We're not expressing parts of ourselves that we can express in recharging activities. So, but the challenge is your brain's going to tell you, no, no, no, no, you're too wiped out. You have to overcome that. You have to overrule.
SPEAKER_01For those that do physical work, though, is it different for them? They don't have the same, they don't have the same issue mentally. Is that is this is more for those that work more with their head and not do physical work all day. Those that do physical work all day rest inactivity is rest and recovery for them.
SPEAKER_02They might need more of the rest than somebody who's just sitting in an office, but they also need to recharge. And and here's the thing, what I say to people like that, like if you do have a very difficult demanding job, like I work with somebody, you know, who who I know somebody who works in a in a in a um baseball um stadium.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02Um, they tell me that they're, you know, they they have uh the step counter. It's 35,000 steps a day. That's a lot. Yep. So they're they are because these are big places to get from here to there. That's a lot. But what I say to them, and people who, again, who do physical labor during the day, is you don't need to spend an hour working out if you've just done that. But sometimes 15 minutes of getting off the couch and doing the active thing that gardening for 15 minutes, you know, like cooking is a, you know, as a passion, not just to prepare dinner, uh, for 15 minutes or doing a video call with somebody. It doesn't have to be a lot. You don't have to do it for an hour to feel recharged by it. You just have to feel that you got to give oxygen to parts of yourself that don't get oxygen during the workday. That part of your personality, you call this friend, you can be silly and goofy with this friend, but you can't really do that at work. You can you can call this friend and you can, you know, like they're always happy to listen to you complain in every possible way, but you can't really do that at work or do this creative pursuit, because 15 minutes of you know, some work with one person who was an executive, but they used to play violin in in in high school. And they're, oh, I can't do that now. I don't have time. I'm like, you have time for 15 minutes, because 15 minutes of playing a violin activates those different areas of your brain that music does. It's enough. So it's like it you don't have to do it that much. You just have to give yourself a taste again, to give some, you know, oxygen, some stage time to those different aspects of yourself that are nourishing, and that and that will make you feel recharged.
SPEAKER_01In doing that throughout the workday, is it say the you know, what the government requires from a legal perspective for you need to provide a meal break, you need to give a 15 minute break in the morning or afternoon. Is that truly what is that enough? Is that how you do it? Or are you recommending like how often would you take a like a timeout, so to speak, uh, during the day, and how long how long should it be?
SPEAKER_02So, okay, but the thing I suggested about the recharging stuff, that's for the after hours. During the day, um the government might require that we get, you know, but but let's be realistic. Like most of the people I know don't get an hour. And if you said to them, don't you get an hour for lunch, they would look at you like, no. Did you have meetings? I I I have to struggle to go to the bathroom. Or do you talk about an hour for lunch? I'm eating eating on the go. I'm doing everything. So it it's it's much smaller uh uh breaks. But here's what you need to do. When you have a very demanding schedule like that, again, our tendency is just head down, get through it, right? You need to look at, you need to be much, you have to curate. Like in other words, you you have to make decisions about what your day is like. If you know, like I have this very difficult morning, because I have like three meetings in a row or one big meeting in a row with my boss, and it's always such a nightmare to have meetings with my boss because they're so critical, I get so stressed out. But then I have 10 minutes between that and the next thing, then think carefully about what you need in those 10 minutes. If it just was about conflict, you probably need to come down from that. So that's the 10 minutes that you decide to call your grandmother or your mother or the friend that makes you smile. That, you know, like I I need, or you take a walk around, if it's irritating, take a walk around the block, you know, sit in nature for 10 minutes, do a meditation. Like, be thoughtful about what's the counter to what this was. Like, look at what your day is like. Not everything is the same. And then, so what's a break I can take? Look, ideally, every hour you should have like a five-minute break, ideally. And there are companies in which the the screens go dark every hour for five minutes for that reason. Really? Yeah, but the employees just turn them back on. Most of the employees is like, ah, and they turn yeah, but then they turn it back on. They they can't keep it dark. So they're like, I was in the middle, you know, they turn it back on. So it's like fine, but take the hint, you know, like in other words, that's that's actually useful. But be thoughtful, again, you can't do it all the time, but be thoughtful about look at your day and and take a few minutes to be the manager and decide, okay, this will be helpful for me. Like, sometimes people say, Well, I have just some days which are just terrible. All I have is 20 minutes for lunch. And I'm like, great. That's when you should prepare and bring the lunch you like the most. Because it's one thing to look forward to during the ah, I get to have that for lunch. I'm gonna treat myself and do that thing because otherwise, you know, that'll be one thing to look forward to. And it breaks it up, it makes a terrible day feel less terrible and feel less stressful for that reason. So be thoughtful, you know, like you know, be be intentional about how you craft your day.
SPEAKER_01I love this conversation because it's full of a lot of what I would call like practical hacks. That's what they seem like, right? Yep. Um is it is some of it tricking your own mind? Like, I always couldn't believe how do I trick myself? That seems like a crazy concept because the mind that created the trick knows the trick. So how is it actually working?
SPEAKER_02No, it doesn't, because we have an unconscious mind. And our unconscious mind is not a self-organized thing that is aware, it's just like these heuristics of automatic coping mechanisms that kind of go on. So, for example, I know that you know, if I were to work out in the evening, I am gonna get there to the evening and I'm gonna feel like quote unquote, I'm wiped out, I don't have the I know that's not true. So I will trick myself in the following way. I will say to myself, all right, you do not have to work out. But here's what you do have to do you have to get to the gym and change into workout clothes. If at that point you want to switch back into street clothes and come back home, go ahead. So you're not committing to work out, but by the time you get to the gym and switch into workout clothes, of course I'm gonna work out. Yeah. Do you know now I know that in my head, but I will do it because it's an easier threshold to commit to. I'm not saying I'm gonna paint. This is not me, I'm just saying as an example, because I don't paint. I'm not saying I'm gonna paint, but I'm gonna put up the easel, I'm gonna take out the paints, I'm gonna like open everything and set it all up. And at that point, well, since I've set it up, I might as well paint for a bit. You know what I mean? So, like, yes, it is a lot of it is about tricking your mind into you know doing the thing that you need it to do.
SPEAKER_01So take the action towards it, and your mind will then get on board with it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, like that, you know, set it all up so that now there's much less friction. It's there's much fewer barriers to actually doing it. Because you're ready in the situation, everything's already there for you. Don't actually have to get up, get into the car, get to the gym, or change clothes, or set up the whole thing, or open the garage, and make sure the station's ready for you. Like, you don't have to do any of that. It's all now we've done that, which is much easier to commit to, now you might as well go and utilize it.
SPEAKER_01Work-life balance is a subject or or a catchword out there a lot. Um is that I've heard you've said that it's not all about the hours. So work-life balance doesn't come down to time. What does it come down to?
SPEAKER_02Well, people always say to me, like, yeah, I'm improving my work life balance, I'm I'm adding an hour of yoga to my week. And I'm like, well, okay, fine. Good. But that's no I mean it's fine, but that's not the solution. That's no the thing about the work-life balance is people don't define what the life part means for them. What is the life part? The life part is when you get home after work, for some people, it's having quality time with your family. Even if you're, you know, feeding the kids, putting them to bed, doing their doing your homework with them, going to games with them, whatever the thing. That's what the life part is. But we often don't define it that way. We don't, you know, those are blank spaces in our calendars. Like our calendars can have meetings all day and then and then it comes the evening, and then if unless we're doing something outside the house, it's blank. As if the message is nothing important is happening there. Well, actually, life is happening there. That's what the work stuff is for. It's for the life part. So we actually have to define for ourselves a little bit more clearly what that life part is. One of the ways that you kind of re-engage, we talk about ruminating and how to stop doing that. One of the ways you re-engage in what is going on around you is you remind yourself, this is the life part. My goal in this time is to have quality time with my kids, is to have a date night with my partner. That's my goal. That's what I'm actually trying to do. Or to meet up with a friend, or if you're doing something recharging that's just personal for you, to have these few minutes to do something that's meaningful to me. And so that's the being present.
SPEAKER_01Kind of like the conversation around being present, being where your feet are.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Being present and being intentional in the presence. Because being present is just like when I'm and this is one of the things that bothers me. People always say, like, be present. And it's a the command is clear. How to be present is not necessarily. Well, I'd like to be present, I'm just preoccupied. So what then? So one of the things is remind yourself what the goal of that presence is. Remind yourself, I am here to connect to my partner. For example, I'll just give you one example. There is a lot of research that shows that if one person is stressed out, their partner's sex drive will be compromised. A, because it's not very appealing to, you know, and when somebody's sitting there and they're so tense you can roast a marshmallow on them, that's not attractive to most people. But secondly, it causes a disconnect. And so the research shows that when people's sex drive suffers because of work stress, the one thing that buffers it, that prevents it to suffer is emotional connection. If the two partners are connected emotionally, then that overcomes those stresses. So that can should be a goal. Like if you're having a date night, it's not just go through the emotions of going to a restaurant or watching a movie at home. It's like our goal is actually to connect emotionally, is actually to talk, to listen to one another, to feel something. That is a much clearer instruction for being present. Feel something, feel the thing you want to feel. If you're having quality time with your kids or you're going to the kids' game, feel the pride, feel the excitement, feel, you know, the the the thing. You know what I mean? And so so, like, yes, you you want to even instruct yourself. And I say to some people, take that white space in the evening and write what the instruction is. Feel emotionally connected to, you know, my wife or my husband, boyfriend, whatever, girlfriend. Like, you know, uh, enjoy quality time with the kids. They're gonna not gonna be young forever. Enjoy this moment, you know, like put reminders there that keep you on point of what the life part of work-life balance is about. That's why I'm saying it's not about the activity as much as it's a mindset and the intentionality of reaping the rewards of it.
SPEAKER_01That's great advice. As the CEO of Crash Champions, like, what can I do to help the team? This seems like an individual mind strategy, game, whatever, whatever we would label it. Is there anything as a company that we can do to to help? Like not creating too stressful or toxic of a workplace, can that really be done um when people operate within their between their own two ears anyway?
SPEAKER_02Yes, and I'm so glad you're asking that question, because there's a lot that you can do, and I wanted to make just a few suggestions about something you can do. First of all, to the extent that you, any leader in any company can avoid the after-hour emails, um that would be useful. That's something that really takes people, you know, because they keep checking because they don't know when an email is coming in. Or as some people say to me, I only have to respond to one or two, but I've got to read a couple of hundred to figure out which one that is. So, like if you can avoid that, that would be useful, number one. But number two, the one thing that leaders can do that is extremely effective and completely free to do, is exhibit caring by checking with people and saying, How are you doing? How are you feeling with things? Do you feel stress? Now, for example, and don't know any of this, so I'm just speculating. But if you said, let's say it's a very stressful period in your company, and people are feeling stressed for a good reason. It's a stressful period. There's a lot that needs to be done, or new demands came in, or something happened that now everyone's you know scrambling for something. That can happen. If during that time you can't stop the stress, nor do you need to. If you can say, let's have an all hands, and I want to hear how people are doing, how are people managing the stress? Do people have tips they want to share that other That people can use. If you exhibit caring, if you show that I actually care about this, this this matters to me how you guys are doing, even if I can't do anything about it, that does a ton for people. That really lowers stress. There's studies that show, for example, that in companies where they're looming layoffs, and you know, unfortunately, those got announced months in advance, so it keeps people in horrible dread for months. Um, managers who don't have any further information, by re by regularly checking in with their teams and saying, I just want to hear how you guys are doing, how are you managing it? I'm sorry, as I don't have more information. The minute I do, I'll let you know, but I just wanted to see how you that alone reduces stress, literally reduces stress and dread among the employees because they feel cared for. So caring is extremely potent and quite free. And if it's authentic, then it's very powerful. And that's something you can always do.
SPEAKER_01Gotten some great um insight and great advice from you today, guy, both personal and even as a company, as to some things that maybe can be done to help this. If if you were gonna sum up, you know, what in total you would love, besides talking about um your book, which is Mind Over Grind, and where can where we can get that anywhere?
SPEAKER_02Anywhere, everywhere books are sold, ebook, audiobook, and hardcover.
SPEAKER_01But what would be the one thing that you would say that you would hope everybody could take from this conversation if they were to do one thing, what would it be?
SPEAKER_02So to me, the most important takeaway here is that you know the work culture is tricky right now. It's it's a grind for many people that's not changing anytime soon. The lowest lying fruit, the the the place we can have the most impact is the one thing that we can control, and that is ourselves and how we react to these pressures and and how we manage ourselves uh during the day and and after hours. Like that is something that's in our control. We can all do so much better than we're doing, and we can all feel so much better than we're feeling if we address that one aspect of things. And so I I wrote this book because it could be empowering for people to realize, yes, you might not be able to change your workplace or your circumstance, but there's a lot you can change, or there's a lot you can make different, and you can feel much better about it by understanding first and then and then doing things that really help you manage and grind less. You know, use your mind to reduce the grind and actually even do better than you might have been doing before.
SPEAKER_01I really appreciated this. Like I said, it's something that I think I needed. So can't wait to finish the book and apply some of the practical things that that we talked about today. You know, on Podcrash, we're all about championing people, and we always close with a question and ask our guest if if you were to champion someone right now, who would it be and and why?
SPEAKER_02All right. So this is, I mean, obviously it's biased, right? Because so it's gonna sound very biased, but I'm I'm telling you right now. So for me, who I champion is my identical twin brother. Uh my identical twin brother also happens to be a psychologist, because you know, twins. But um the same thing. Interesting. Yeah. Well, we don't do the same thing. That that's the thing. He's not a clinical psychologist. He he started a company uh that because he wanted to prove that people with severe disabilities who are not in the workplace for whatever reasons, um, if they were given the right managerial model, then they could come to full productivity in the workplace. And he started a company to prove that. And what he started was a call center, because in call centers everything is measured. So you can do apples to apples comparisons between his team of severely disabled employees and a team of able-bodied employees. And he has shown that you can absolutely take people who have never worked before, have been marginalized by society their entire lives, and bring them back. And they can have, you know, these are severe uh physical disabilities, even mental disabilities, emotional disabilities, and and bring them back to full productivity. And is and and it's been a marvel. Is this company's been visited by people from 60 countries and the UN wrote about it? He's truly an inspirational leader, and he leads with caring. That was the last thing that we spoke about. The like that as a leader, if you exhibit caring, you get so much more um out of the people who work for you. And and and my brother is just a model of that. How awesome is that.
SPEAKER_01So I'm championing him. How awesome is that. That's great. Guy, I really appreciate the time. Thanks so much for spending it with me this morning. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. If you want more podcast in your life, which of course you do, make sure to like, follow, and subscribe to us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. Catch you next time.