Burnout & "Living At Work" In 2020 - Natalie Rachel

[01:34] Paul: Today I'm talking with Natalie Rachel. She is a behavioral economist and studies burnout, working with individuals and organizations, helping to unpack some of the mysteries around What's disconnected and why are so many people feeling so off about work? Welcome to the podcast, Natalie.

[02:01] Natalie Rachel: Thanks, Paul. Thank you very much for inviting me.

[02:05] Paul: I know you don't want to dwell too much on your own story, but I thought it'd be a good place to start. Just so you were headed in a very academic path. I'd love to hear where you were on that path and where you were headed when things started going off course for you?

[02:23] Natalie Rachel: Yes, certainly. I mean, so that's absolutely right. So I've been very much on the kind of academic, um, cliché high achiever, like, you know, went to Oxford, did philosophy, politics, economics. It's quite a high-pressure, prestigious degree in the, in the UK. Um, you know, didn't really have any problems with that, kind of at least superficially was enjoying it, went straight on to doing a master's in economics. And was all headed for a kind of academic career.

But really, I think I hadn't stopped even since school to do any kind of introspection on whether, you know, whether I was actually happy. I hadn't really considered any alternative, never mind career paths, I hadn't even considered any alternative ways of living and kind of organizing my time. And then found myself in couple of years into a PhD program. Finished my master's, ended up doing a PhD program, and they realized I was actually really struggling to motivate myself. It was much more self-directed, the PhD study, than the undergraduate degree or even the master's degree, which was mainly taught. And I actually found that I was kind of drawing on reserves that just weren't there to complete the work that I had for the day.

Didn't really like that feeling, didn't, you know, didn't really give me a very good feeling about myself and kind of where I was heading and so on. But pushed on because I did, partly because I didn't really know anything else, partly because I, I guess, wanted to avoid the awkward conversations with my supervisor and my parents and my friends and so on. But then ended up actually catching meningitis. And possibly I think you could make the case that it was because I was so run down with the constant repressed chronic stress. That's possibly how I managed to catch that and ended up going blind. To cut a long story short, I got really severely ill with the meningitis and lost my eyesight for— completely lost it for a year, and then it kind of started to come back gradually over the course of 2 years or so to a point where I could kind of see enough to read slowly and so on.

I mean, it's still not completely back. I thought, you know, I still can't drive, I still have quite poor peripheral vision, but it's, um, you know, I can see you now on the camera, which is good.

[04:52] Paul: That's pretty profound. I'd love to hear what were some of the scripts you grew up with. I mean, for me, it was— I look back, it's a little funny how naive I was about the world. It's just like I had these ideas like do good in school, get a job, and then something. I didn't really know what it was. What, what were the scripts for you?

[05:16] Natalie Rachel: Yeah, it's interesting. It was— it felt like autopilot. And I know that kind of sounds like I'm pushing responsibility on someone else for not writing my own script, like, you know. And part of me was, was actually angry with myself for a while because, you know, I actually didn't have super pushy parents. Like, they're, they're both quite academic, um, and I guess I was following them in that sense. But I can't sort of say like some people have, that their parents, you know, were kind of very prep— putting a lot of pressure on them and like, you know, fearing the shame of it and things like that.

My parents have always actually been very loving and supportive and laid back. It was more kind of failure of my own exploration, the fact that I, I guess in some ways I was fortunate in that I didn't struggle academically So I just kind of kept going on that path without ever really questioning it and without bumping into any sort of resistance. It just felt like, oh, this is what I'm good at. This is what I like. I get praised for doing this. This is what people I get on with also do.

Um, so it was more just a kind of self-neglect really of reflection.

[06:24] Paul: One thing I've realized is that you're, if you're on a path in which other people see as kind of a default path or a successful path, no one will ever ask you, why are you doing what you're doing?

[06:36] Natalie Rachel: Exactly.

[06:38] Paul: And I, I only realized this after leaving the path, in which people ask me all the time now, why are you doing this? What's your goal? Don't you worry about this? And you realize when you're off these default paths, you worry about these questions all the time, but when I was like, quote unquote, successful on paper, I didn't even think about these things and nobody questioned me about it. It was like, oh, you got a promotion. Awesome.

Great job.

[07:03] Natalie Rachel: Exactly right. Yeah. And it's because, you know, it's until you kind of run up into these like problems. Like for me, it was kind of my first intimation that maybe something was wrong was when I was really struggling to motivate myself. Um, but then really I think I could have pushed through had it not been for the health crisis. Um, I, you know, I could easily have got through just on, on brute force willpower.

And now we'll probably be, you know, halfway through some sort of mediocre academic career.

[07:31] Paul: I think that's the thing too, is the demands of the type of paths that you were on. You couldn't act, you probably couldn't even have done it, right? Your body was literally saying you're done.

[07:45] Natalie Rachel: Exactly. Yeah.

[07:46] Paul: You're stopping here. Right. Except we're, we're still kind of going along these scripts. Did you have a concept of burnout at the time?

[07:54] Natalie Rachel: I didn't actually, no. I mean, I mean, this was quite a while ago now anyway, kind of 2010 and '12 kind of thing. But no, I really didn't, certainly not in those terms. I mean, I think if I maybe talked to someone about it, they might have suggested I was maybe getting depressed or something like that, but I really didn't. I didn't have any kind of concept of burnout. And if I did, I think I would've associated it more with kind of Silicon Valley executives rather than, you know, mild English academics who were just kind of repressing themselves.

Yeah.

[08:29] Paul: I think that was one of the blind spots for me too. I pictured burnout as basically working a ton of hours and I didn't work a lot of hours. So in my mind it was like, well, I, it was just something I never thought of, but I think since going through my own burnout experience and talking to so many other people about work, I realized there's kind of 3 buckets. And I'd be interested to know if you agree with these 3 buckets. So one is like pure exhaustion, right? And if the iBanker is working 90 hours for a couple of years, it's pretty predictable.

And they are, they're also like some of the most self-aware. But I think the second and third categories, the second one is basically a disconnect from who you want to be and where you're at. Like you kind of have this picture of like where kind of person you want to be or a path you were on. And there's a disconnect from that. And then you, you kind of feel stuck. Uh, this one's a little harder to, um, figure out.

And then the third one is really extended periods of doing stuff you're not actually motivated to do. Which I think is one of the trickiest ones because in organizations it's basically designed around motivating you to do things you don't want to do. So you can kind of do things you're 4 out of 10 or 6 out of 10 or 5 out of 10 excited about for years until you recognize, oh my God, I haven't been excited about anything I've worked on for 10 years.

[10:02] Natalie Rachel: I mean, that makes perfect sense to me. I mean, like when I speak to people about their burnout, what they've always got in common is some kind of— they've had to suppress and just everything's got pushed down. So they're in this kind of permanent state of depletion and suppression and all of their feelings and emotions are quite flattened. And, you know, that certainly makes sense with buckets 2 and 3. I mean, I think with exhaustion, it's certainly linked, but it doesn't have to be. I mean, with, I guess what you could call just straight exhaustion, simple exhaustion, like if you've run a marathon or just been working really, really hard at something, that tends to come with a sense of satisfaction and can be addressed with rest and, you know, nourishment and just kind of getting back to, getting back to a regular routine.

Whereas with burnout, rest doesn't touch it. Um, there's no sense of satisfaction. There's no sense of ever the task ever being completed. And as you say, with the other two buckets, it is, it's kind of, it is a fundamental disconnect where you're having to, where you're conscious of there being something else within you, if you want to think of it in those terms, but you're having to push it down and push it down and push yourself on regardless. And then the symptoms of burnout, kind of physical, cognitive, emotional, I think of what happens, it's what a human experiences. When they've— when everything is saying no but is being ignored and just pushed on regardless.

You know, something will let you know that you've got to stop. Obviously, in my case, it was quite dramatic, but it can just be noticing changes in your emotional patterns and the way you're behaving with family and stuff. Yeah.

[11:49] Paul: And the first one too, the exhaustion. The original, I think the original work done on burnout was done in the 1970s, at least from an academic standpoint. And they were looking at healthcare workers and that was a very caring profession. Right. So a lot of emotional labor. And I think in a sense, a lot of knowledge work now has huge amounts of emotional labor as well.

So we, we have a hard time of saying, oh, there's actually all this, this work I'm doing. In my last job, I was basically just spending all my mental energy predicting how to not upset a very important senior person. Right. So trying to predict, predict their emotions, predict their swings, predict their reactions, try to like, and over time, like, this is incredibly exhausting. And in my case, I started becoming resentful and basically an unlikable version of myself. And that's when I had to like step back and say, who the hell am I?

Why am I behaving this way? I don't actually care about these things. Um, and I think that's one of the tricky things too, is you can kind of self-destruct, um, because you are not, um, You're just not in control anymore.

[13:15] Natalie Rachel: Yeah, I mean, that makes perfect sense. And, you know, I guess if you're managing someone else's emotions, you're not being authentic to yourself. And, you know, over a period of time, that's, that's devastating if you're like constantly having to suppress that authenticity and, you know, to make that bargain with not upsetting the, you know, the senior manager.

[13:37] Paul: Yeah. And that's a hard thing too. We have this idea of be your full self at work, which is equally as tricky. And I think sets people up for failure just as much. How do you see that play out in the kind of the disconnect between, um, be your, be your full self at work. Um, and also kind of succeed at work and don't burn out and all these things.

[14:07] Natalie Rachel: It's a tricky one. I, yeah, I mean, I think that there are, it's, our relationship with work is quite dysfunctional in a lot of ways. So some people say to me that, you know, they don't really want to bring their full self to work. What they want is a separation. They actually want to go to work, fulfill what needs to be done, and then forget about it. They're not interested in being their full self.

They don't want their work to be their spouse, their, you know, their parent, their lover, like what they just kind of want to do their job and forget about it. But then there's also this other sort of parallel argument that people suffer when they have to, when they do have to repress their full self at work, whether that's constantly watching what they say or having to prioritize things that really don't matter to them at all. So it's a good question because I don't really know where those parallel tracks meet, but certainly there does seem to be something kind of unhealthy in that work, work relationship.

[15:10] Paul: And I think part of it is a lot of our work has become abstracted from who we are. So what we're actually working on is, say we're putting together a report that's like dealing with metrics outside of our control, reporting on something else, reporting to another person and coordinating something that's halfway across the world. We're not really connected. To that. Um, so then at the same time, we're in a very outer mode while trying to be very inner and saying we're trying to be our best selves at work. So we have this conflict.

Um, it's really hard to grapple with. And I think one thing I heard you say in another podcast is how a lot of people get, like maybe younger people now say they're a little too narcissistic. But I'm, I'm not sure that's right. It's almost like people aren't reflecting at all, like we were talking about at the beginning, right? It's a very surface-level inner world.

[16:11] Natalie Rachel: Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, it's like it's a kind of self-obsession, but it's— but it's— but no knowledge comes from it. There's this— it's like obsession without curiosity, which is painful because you, you're kind of isolated by this excessive self-regard and like you're trying to protect your ego and trying to make everything meaningful. We've kind of got this idea that work ought to be meaningful for some reason, but you're not actually on a journey where you're getting to know yourself and your priorities any better. And maybe because we're sometimes scared of what we'll find and what we'll have to do as a result of that exploration.

[16:54] Paul: I think it is scary for people. I think what I realized in talking to people about work and their relationship, you probably find this, is that if you're really honest in some of these questions, you might risk basically blowing up your life.

[17:09] Natalie Rachel: Right.

[17:10] Paul: Because if you, if you follow the answers that are true to what you think about yourself, it might not be good for you financially. Or for stability-wise or things like that. How do you handle that when you're talking to people about burnout?

[17:27] Natalie Rachel: It's definitely, I mean, that's definitely at the core of what people are trying to deflect from. I think when they avoid getting to that root, I know Schopenhauer wrote about force of habit seems like it's coming from the authentic self, but it's actually a way of protecting us from the kind of, or protecting the will and the intellect from the danger and the work. Of actually genuinely making a fresh choice because it is dangerous. Like you say, you know, we risk social status and relationships, economic risk, you know, and just psychological risk of making a genuinely fresh choice. And then there's also that it's incredibly painful to realize that you've been on the wrong path for however long. And that takes a period of grieving, sometimes kind of anger at yourself.

'cause ultimately you've, to a greater or lesser degree, got yourself into that situation. So there is a lot of resistance to get through, but when I'm working with clients and talking to people, it's that getting to the root is a necessary first step. So I think that's kind of the first thing to recognize is that it is not pleasant, but it is the only way. Superficial, responses to burnout rarely have any impact at all and can actually end up being even more demoralizing because you kind of feel like, oh, this is— I've tried this and this is another thing that's failed and I'm sort of still stuck where I, where I am. So I think you do have to get, get to the root of, of your burnout. And, and I mean, as you say, like really go back to what, what is your core desire?

Like, it's something that we, I think is a chronically underdeveloped, neglected muscle in us. Like, what is our genuine desire? What matters to us? What are our priorities? What are our true strengths? Because I mean, mine, thinking of myself, like when I was in that kind of academic career, I didn't really know that that was the best thing.

It was just the kind of rails that I was on from school and I hadn't crashed into anything yet. So, you know, it would've carried on indefinitely, I guess.

[19:42] Paul: Yeah. I mean, nobody's ever going to criticize or question somebody that's like going to Oxford, right?

[19:49] Natalie Rachel: That's the thing. I mean, and I'm glad that I did. I mean, up until that point, I think that I was actually engaged and enjoying my subject, but it was once it got to kind of career and I realized that I was— what an academic career is, is essentially zooming in on a smaller and smaller area of study and you've, you know, obviously your expertise becomes deeper and deeper, but you are, you are digging yourself further and further into that, that, that world. And it, there was certainly a moment of panic.

[20:17] Paul: The research I found, I, it's a guy, Herbert Frodenberger. Have you run across his research?

[20:24] Natalie Rachel: Yeah.

[20:24] Paul: It's, it's like one of the, one of the first papers written on this, but I was reading his quote earlier today and he was saying, if burnout comes as a consequence of a loss of an ideal, then you, most certainly need sympathy and support. And the very motivation that leads you to come into an institution as a volunteer has been lost. And the burnout has also within it the dynamics of mourning. So it's like, you're all— you're also like disconnecting from a story that helped you make sense of your life. Um, for me, I, I left my job, but I didn't have a story to reorient it. So the, the story I first attached to was a freelance consultant and it was very flimsy and it just took a really long time to— I still don't really have a story, but yeah, it's, it's a really hard thing to navigate.

How, how has like story and narrative played a role in your path?

[21:24] Natalie Rachel: I think that, yeah, I mean, that's such an interesting question. I mean, it's quite interesting to reflect how much we kind of make the choices we make just because we want to avoid someone asking us what we do and we don't want to have a kind of confusing answer to it. I mean, and I mean, for me, certainly it was simpler when I was kind of on the academic path. Now, I mean, it kind of comes up less, I suppose. One thing that I've noticed actually is people are more open to discussions about like, you know, fuller sort of portfolio of a career and what people's interests are. And what they're passionate about rather than that sort of desperation, just put people in these narrow, narrow categories.

So I've tried not to, for myself, not really to be particularly influenced by a story that adds up in a simple way and try to kind of have conversations about more interesting things, but certainly it is a huge inhibiting factor for people. Uh, when they want to change direction. Um, but that, but that's such a prison, like to, to be in like just that kind of avoiding that awkwardness. It's such a personal cost.

[22:43] Paul: I think that's some evidence that things are getting better. Like the fact that more people are talking about burnout and more people are, um, talking about it and overcoming it. Previous generations just sucked it up and internalized that pain and basically made that pain permanent. Um, and it's really painful to see some people, I think, in previous generations who know like, wow, there was like a real cost there, but that was the honorable thing to do. Um, and shifting now, so many more people, I think, have— I think work has gotten better, but people's expectations are actually higher.

[23:23] Natalie Rachel: Exactly.

[23:25] Paul: Then work has gotten better. So it's this weird disconnect where it's, um, people just aren't accepting like years of being, uh, verbally abused or, um, trying to please other people, uh, as much as they used to in the past. And I think organizations are really struggling to adapt to this.

[23:47] Natalie Rachel: Yeah. I mean, and I think people want more from their work now as well. I mean, they have, like you say, the expectations are so much higher and how we expect work to make us feel and like what role we want it to play in our life story. That's, I think, changed from previous generations when possibly it was not necessarily less important, but it was, you know, people were more satisfied, I guess, for it to have a simpler relationship.

[24:17] Paul: Yeah. I mean, I saw that change even from when I graduated and when I left the workforce, I entered the workforce in '07 or probably '03 when I was interning, but I'd never had this idea that work should be meaningful. The first time I had a different idea of what work could be, I saw graduating senior year. I saw Google is number one on the best places to work. And they just described like this playground. It really was just an extension of college.

But when I left in 2017, every young person I met entering the workforce was like, I want to do something I'm passionate about. I want to be happy about my work. And that's just really hard.

[25:09] Natalie Rachel: I mean, it's a lot to ask for anything like, you know, even, even just for any aspect of life, it's, it's a lot to demand from it. And particularly if you've not spent the time to, you know, to really examine what it is that you want and how you are going to derive that meaning and purpose.

[25:27] Paul: Have you noticed any trends in certain types of professions or backgrounds that end up the most disconnected? I think a couple I've noticed that keep reaching out to me are people who do social responsibility. Where like the reality is not matching what they're hoping for. And then also just people who have this idea of impact, I need to have an impact in my career, end up just really struggling to find it. Have you noticed any trends in terms of people's expectations or backgrounds?

[26:05] Natalie Rachel: Yeah, certainly. I mean, those two areas that you mentioned definitely chime with, with, with what I've seen, because it is, it's It's in some ways, it's the mirror of what you mentioned about where you're spending a lot of time doing something that you deep down feel doesn't matter. That can burn you out. But equally, you can be burnt out when you actually, you care a lot about what you're doing, but you just don't feel like you've got the resources of either financial or just kind of organizational to actually do what the job that you have in your mind requires you to do. And I mean, that was a big, that's a big factor in physician burnout. You know, it's not that they don't care, but it's, you know, it's that they want to spend this extra time with patients or whatever, but they either don't have the time because of the other demands on them, or they don't have the resources.

And that's a component of the psychological burnout, and obviously as well as the kind of sleep deprivation and the long hours and all the rest of it. But yeah, so I think that whether there are jobs where a big factor in choosing that career path is that you, you care very deeply, but for whatever reason, you're kind of undermined by the organization, um, in actually achieving that. That's a big, that's a big trend and, you know, incredibly psychologically painful for people. Um, also, I mean, burnout is pretty consistent among entrepreneurs, I think, um, in a particularly in the kind of startup space as well, like where you're very closely identified with your company's mission. You sacrifice a lot in terms of sleep, relationships. And again, like you say, it's very, very tightly linked with your self-image.

You can't really separate your, you know, your company from yourself. It's almost an extension. So that obviously feeds into a loop that can become very unhealthy and you, impossible to draw healthy boundaries between yourself and your work. So that's a big factor in burnout. But again, there's always a flip side because it's qualities like that that make some people incredibly successful, and that's what's particularly energizing about their role. The fact, you know, that the fact that they feel so closely identified with it, they've kind of got this vivid dream about where they want to take it and what they want, what it means in the world.

So It's— I don't want to say balance because that's like such a cliché and it's hard to really pin down. But it's when things are— but when people are burning out, what's generally happened is the psychological contract between them and their work has somehow become unbalanced.

[28:42] Paul: Say a bit more about that psychological contract. What does that mean? Like, what is it? How does that really show up in somebody's life?

[28:51] Natalie Rachel: Yeah, so I mean, I'm thinking in terms of like what you want from your job or your work or whatever, your vacation. So you kind of have your needs from it, but then it also has its demands on you as well. And sometimes they work harmoniously and sometimes it can become very unbalanced on one side and it's eating into other aspects of your life. For example, that would be kind of a simple example would be that if your mental energy and your actual time is getting disproportionately focused on your work, then you're starting to become overcommitted, overinvested, and therefore unbalanced in other aspects of your life. And one of the ironies of that is that the more overinvested and overcommitted you are, the less you actually notice that these other aspects of your life are sliding, like relationships, health, fitness, um, other interests.

Um, and you kind of notice less and less as that your self-concept is getting narrower and narrower, which then makes you quite fragile. Um, and then anything that threatens that, um, is a disaster for you.

[30:10] Paul: You're a growth hacker and then your company sales start tanking, right? That's, that's high risk for your identity. Not just your career. And that can be really painful for people. What about solutions? What, what have you seen in terms of steps people can take first to just get space to think about this?

And then two longer-term, uh, solutions you've seen?

[30:34] Natalie Rachel: I mean, there's a few, there's a few things that people can do. I mean, my solution is, is basically this, the three principles to it. Um, the first would be to, to actually get to the root as we were discussing. I think that's absolutely foundational to having a lasting healthy relationship with your work. Secondly, I would say you need to spend some time understanding like the mind-body loop and connection and really going back to basics there. So getting your sleep right, doing some sort of movement or exercise and being more intentional with your attention.

I mean, meditation works really well for some people, Other people, they don't wanna do that or they don't wanna call it that, but being purposeful about where you're pointing your attention is, I would say, an essential step to recovery. And then the third principle I would say would be designing a new approach to your psychological contract with your work and you're building your strengths and your values into your day. But really design, like as in go back to first principles, think about what you actually want to get out of your day, out of your work life and go from there, which is why the getting to the root is so essential and you can't really skip that step. I would point people in the direction of, I think we've spoken before about Dr. Geri Paley's work. She does a lot of work on people on how to recover from burnout and she almost treats it as like a traumatic event.

It's like, it's almost, it's very similar to recovering from PTSD. And one of the things that she notices is that almost everyone who's been burnt out, they actually need to take themselves out of the industry, either, you know, either temporarily or permanently. They do need a complete break with the thing that has traumatized them before they can, you know, start to engage with recovery. And the thing she finds work well in recovery, similar to what we talked about really, like things like exercise and reflection, moving into a new industry, taking on a new challenge, things like that. But I mean, what I would say to anyone who's kind of going through it is there definitely is hope. You know, people do recover from burnout, maybe not as quickly as you might hope, but it's not a quick process to become burned out, so the road back is also takes a while, but it's not a character flaw.

It shows you're human. And I think that just recognizing that you're suffering like this shows that you're human, and recognizing that you're human shows you've got huge potential for, you know, for the other side of it, which is joy, connection, thriving, peace. You know, there's a lot to be experienced and it's worth it, basically, is what I'm saying.

[33:39] Paul: Yeah, my research on this has led me down a path of realizing, okay, maybe this is a traumatic event. It's kind of a loss of part of who you are and something that matters to you. But on the other side of that can also be something called post-traumatic growth. And when I started reading the definition of this, I'll read a little bit of it. It's saying it manifests with appreciation for life in general, more meaningful interpersonal relationships, increased sense of personal strength, change priorities, and a richer existential and spiritual life. Now, if most people would sign up for that, exactly.

Um, but it's, it's wild because I did experience a lot of these things. And I think I've talked to many people either become self-employed or they've taken different paths and they've gone through a really a crisis or something, either a work crisis, health crisis, relationship crisis. And almost nobody ever wants to undo what happened to them. But I also am not sure that you want to induce crises purposely either.

[34:48] Natalie Rachel: Exactly.

[34:49] Paul: Um, so it's kind of one of these challenges of life where it's like the, you can find meaning in life through pain, but when you're in the pain, you don't want to be there.

[35:00] Natalie Rachel: Exactly. And you know, the description you read out then is, is very similar to what people describe when they've had like, you know, a brush with terminal illness or, you know, even, or something, some, or a near-death experience in an accident or something like that, that after the event that the clarity and the focus and the falling away of things that don't matter and the revealing of things that really do matter. But it's like you say, the challenge then is to get to that point without putting yourself through a near-death experience, um, or, or through a crisis. It may be that there's, you know, there's maybe not a shortcut to it, but I think if there is, it's probably found through introspection. And, and we can support each other in doing that.

I mean, I think, like you say, you can be more encouraging of conversations where you ask people what, you know, why they're doing what they're doing. Are they really happy with it? Um, You know, in a non-annoying way, you can probe and support.

[36:01] Paul: Yeah, I try not to— I try not to have those questions, those conversations too broadly. A lot of people just don't really want to have them. But I basically solve for that by saying every Wednesday you can book a call with me and we can chat about work. And that's been one of the most interesting ways where I kind of learn about how people are dealing with these things.

[36:26] Natalie Rachel: Yeah.

[36:27] Paul: One. So a couple of the steps are great, right? It's like, get to the root cause and figure out the mind-body connection, handle your sleep, maybe start meditating, maybe exercise and move. But from what I've seen, like meditating 5 minutes a day and moving a little more and, um, Doing reflection is not going to help the extremely burned out. Is that a different case for you? Is that kind of like a get the, get space, get distance as soon as possible type thing?

[37:03] Natalie Rachel: Yeah, exactly. I mean, I'm sort of thinking more of kind of healthy habits that people can, can proactively, you know, yeah, proactively. Exactly. Just kind of being conscious of the fact that you are in a mind-body loop all the time, for example, is, is quite a healthy way to, to engage with, with your day. But for people who are actually burned out and unmistakably burned out, then a complete break is generally the only way to do it. Once when you're actually in your, in your role, in your, in your job, it's very, very difficult to pedal that back when you're in a state of burnout.

And I think that's one of the reasons why company, I mean, you might have a point of view on this as well, but it's why company efforts to tackle burnout generally miss the mark, um, because people are already in, to say the least, they're already in, in the environment that's, you know, traumatized them often, um, with the relationships still as they were. Um, and it's, it, it actually annoys people sometimes, like when there's these kind of company burnout programs, because it's, I think it can feel to people like if you think about if you were in a relationship with a person who, you know, was constantly demanding of you. They didn't let you sleep. They undermined your other relationships. They kind of put you down all the time. And then one day they turn around to you and said, you look a bit stressed.

I'm going to leave some healthy snacks out for you. You'd be furious. You'd like, you know, it's almost like gaslighting.

[38:34] Paul: Like my last company was doing a wellness initiative and the wellness initiative meant they would pay for yoga classes at like 6:30 after work. Right. And like company events you like had to go to and it's like, this is not helping, but yeah, it's interesting. The thing that's intrigued me the most is we're so deeply tied to the idea that we're supposed to work 48 to 50 weeks a year, 5 days a week.

[39:11] Natalie Rachel: Yeah.

[39:11] Paul: Um, that the most obvious thing is just to give people more time or to work less. I think one of the best ways I've seen people recover from burnout quickly is taking a sabbatical.

[39:24] Natalie Rachel: Yeah.

[39:25] Paul: Um, and I've seen people make massive transformations in 2 months.

[39:30] Natalie Rachel: Right. Yeah. And I mean, uh, a mutual friend that we chatted about earlier, that's, that's what he did. I mean, and one of the things he commented was that people were saying to him, oh, you know, give yourself time. It's gonna take a while cuz it took you so long to get burned out. But actually he was feeling good in a couple of months.

Um, because he had that complete break, that, that time to himself doing things he enjoyed. Um, and yeah, I mean, you, you can certainly recover quickly. Yeah.

[39:57] Paul: It's even small, small things. Like I was talking to, uh, a friend of the podcast that took a 2-month sabbatical and basically realized he was just saying yes to everything at work.

[40:11] Natalie Rachel: Right.

[40:12] Paul: And it was like, I should just not do that. Went back to his full-time job and is really enjoying it. And it was like super small and like just the small amount of giving, getting a little ownership over your work, I think is one of the biggest benefits of getting that space or reflection, because we're brought up with work beliefs and success beliefs that are almost guaranteed to drive you to burnout, right? Work hard, make sure you're always showing up early, do what your boss says, make your boss look good. Um, oh, like always say yes. It's like, okay, this might work to get you promoted, but you might be promoted to a job you don't actually want.

[41:01] Natalie Rachel: Right, exactly. Yeah, I mean, that's such a good point. And what comes along with that is, is that sort of resentment towards yourself as well as towards your job. Because you— I mean, like, like the chat, you mentioned, like, when you're saying yes to everything but internally saying no to a lot of it, you know, like, on some level, you know, you're not being— you're not treating yourself well. And then there's that kind of— that's almost like a shame comes with that and an anger at yourself. Um, which is really difficult.

And as you say, it comes, it comes from those, those core beliefs that we start off with, that that's what you do and that's what makes you good and valuable. And, um, that's what, that's what you do to succeed at work without pausing to actually think, are these good beliefs so that it's actually going to take me somewhere good?

[41:50] Paul: I had built my identity around this person that was one, like really smart at like landing good jobs. A good consultant and also somebody that like had ownership of my career. So like I would change jobs every like 18 to 24 months, like in my head, like I was never the sucker. Like I would always get out and like make my situation better. And like I was actively carving it. But now looking back for 10 years, I was basically just ignoring the fact that I was on a path that wasn't mine.

And it was too scary to admit. And it took 10 years. I still wonder sometimes, am I stupid for walking away? These things are just so hard.

[42:32] Natalie Rachel: Yeah. I mean, there's a, there's a lot of momentum behind them and a lot of, you know, it takes a lot of resistance to carve out a different path. I mean, certainly like, like we started the conversation with saying, once you're, you know, if you're on those rails and you seem to be doing well, no one's gonna, no one's gonna stop you. No one's ever gonna tell you. To work less, no one's ever gonna tell you to try something different.

[42:54] Paul: Um, you were on the James Altucher podcast. He was feeling a moment of burnout. I actually highly recommend this episode because it was fascinating combo because he was very much therapy for a while. Well, he was very much in it. He, he one didn't have a mental model of understanding what was happening to him. 2 was incredibly curious just to like try and figure out.

And 3, he was just really confused about what was going on.

[43:30] Natalie Rachel: But I think it was so like new for him because he, you know, he's obviously been someone who's always been very productive.

[43:36] Paul: He did stuff he loved, right?

[43:42] Natalie Rachel: Exactly. Like, you know, his whole career has been very self-directed, just kind of following his passions and his curiosity. Never had any issues with productivity. If anything, you know, his productivity was hyper, like, and then he'd hit this, just hit this wall. For anyone who didn't hear the show, I mean, what happened is he'd had this nasty shock in terms of a bad public reaction to an article that he'd written at the start of the pandemic. And, you know, it ended up in a lot of online criticism and kind of personal, quite personal criticism.

And as we've kind of covered in the conversation, it was just this huge shock, you know, he felt that it was unjustified, first of all, so it was very hurtful in that sense, because it was so personal. But that pain had then paralyzed him so that he actually wasn't able to engage with any of the things that he previously enjoyed, like his work, his writing. He was really struggling to do more than a couple of hours a day. He said that he'd just taken refuge in doing online chess, like for hours and hours and hours a day. And it was— I think he was healing. Like, you know, we talked earlier about sort of recovery from trauma.

I think that was probably what was going on. He was just following his his impulse to do something that would heal his brain and his psychology from this nasty shock that obviously also happened at a very uncertain, stressful time anyway, for the, you know, for the world, in the middle of lockdown, to kind of suddenly be hit with this wave of unjust criticism. Yeah, and he was just, I think, just kind of going through that healing process, and because of the way he Works because he's so open and vulnerable. He was just working through his questions and his recovery in a very public—

[45:44] Paul: I think the pandemic was incredibly hard for a lot of people. I talked to, I think, 100 people in 2020, and one of the hardest things was that people were stuck literally in place. I think one of the biggest, one of the easiest things people can do when they're just feeling disconnected is change location, like travel, extend the longer the travel and the less of a vacation it feels like I think is better. But, uh, yeah, people didn't have that outlet. Have you seen, um, what have you seen in 2020 and what are some of the things maybe about travel that you've seen related to burnout?

[46:27] Natalie Rachel: That's really interesting. Yeah. I mean, the, that certainly is, is, is something that's come up. The fact that people feel very trapped. And that is a big factor in burnout, actually, that feeling of you can't physically remove yourself from the stressful situation and the hopelessness and the horror and the pain that comes with that. It's like, it's one of the comments that's come out is when we're working from home, we're actually living at work.

And if your work's burning you out and you're there 24/7, obviously, and there's zero delineation between your home space and your workspace. And if you take the metaphor further, that the work is your stalker, or certainly the object that's traumatizing you, then obviously that's been incredibly hard and psychologically destructive for people. And added to that, the fact that people actually have been objectively working much longer hours. You know, the fact that they've saved on the commute time, that's just spilled over into checking emails and being at the laptop much, much longer, longer hours. Yeah.

[47:40] Paul: Well, it also just takes away that disconnect that I think a lot of people did find useful when you are in an office. Like we said at the beginning, it is easier to do that work that you aren't as motivated to do, cuz it's like, well, I'm in the office anyway. Community, or I'm in work mode here at home. You're like, I mean, I'm sure you've discovered this while being self-employed. You literally can't do something you're 5 out of 10 excited about. It just doesn't happen.

You're going to do stuff over here. You're going to do stuff over here. Um, just impossible to do. So I think so many realizations for people and I I think it's only the early stages of seeing how that plays out in the job market everywhere. But I think it's going to have a profound effect in terms of how people relate to their work.

[48:34] Natalie Rachel: Yeah. And I think as well, the other thing is it's quite hard to be precise about, but when there's been this crisis going on in the world, I think that's really brought into quite sharp relief. If people are feeling fundamentally that their job is is meaningless or not beneficial, it's only amplified that. I mean, I don't know if anyone's ever had the experience of like where you've had to come into work where, say, a family member is seriously ill or something like that, and there's just that feeling of, I have not got time for this petty BS. I just, I'm just not interested. I've got other things on my mind.

And I think there's almost been like a collective experience of that because of all the stress and anxiety, even if you've been fortunate enough not to be personally You know, anyone ill in your family with COVID I think just the sense of all these things going on in the world and all the pain and suffering, our tolerance levels for stuff we don't care about has dropped through the floor.

[49:33] Paul: You have the dynamic where the people who are future burnout victims, they're the ones that are promoted because they have identified so deeply with their work and take it so seriously. So even if you're trying to lead lean against that and build in balance and good habits. You're dealing with a boss that it's life or death if the work is good. And that can be incredibly hard.

[50:04] Natalie Rachel: Absolutely. And that's one of the things I actually come across a lot in my work is that, you know, how the leader of the team is, is, is just guaranteed to amplify and feed through to the rest of the team. And that's how you can end up with such toxic work cultures in, you know, for example, in startups where the founder does have such an outsized influence on how the work's organized, the whole ethos, how people relate to each other and so on. You know, so if they are burning themselves out and are identifying with their work, over-identifying with their work, that's inevitably gonna feed into the team.

[50:45] Paul: The thing I realized after a while was that the organization was going to shape me more than I was going to ever be myself at work. And I think this is a hard realization for people. And we have these idealistic visions of, oh, I'm this, like, I'm so good at X, I have this mission, I am going to make all this change. But at the end of the day, if you're at an organization which incentivizes behavior, which is totally opposite of how you want to be, You're screwed. You gotta get outta there and find a place that might help you be the person you wanna be.

[51:18] Natalie Rachel: That's one of the reasons why knowing yourself is so essential. 'Cause you're never gonna overcome the company incentives. That's the purpose of incentives is to drive behavior. So if you, and if you don't know what your values and your purpose really is, you're just gonna be, swept along by that and find yourself somewhere you really didn't want to be. And so again, that's why that reflection.

[51:43] Paul: Yeah, and I think it's hard. I found this remarkably candid interview from 1989, Jack Welch, the CEO of GE, and he, he's talking about this rollout of this continuous improvement program, how he wants all 300,000 employees to follow it. But he says this crazy thing, like no CEO would talk like this, but he said the psychological contract has to change. He's saying today's workforce, today's workers expect companies to be loyal. This kind of loyalty tends to focus people inward, but given today's environment, people's emotional energy must be focused outward. It's like, I was like blown away when I read this first, like nobody would say this, but two, there was an explicit aim to say, okay, people feeling secure such that they could focus inward.

That has to change. Um, we need to get people focusing outward, competing. Um, and I do sense we're in this 30-year period where we just went super hard into that mode. And 2020 really woke people up to that. And it's really leaning back in and saying, okay, what, where is the beauty in the world? What are the things worth contemplating?

What, uh, what matters to me? And, uh, I think that's the great thing about the kind of work you're doing.

[53:13] Natalie Rachel: Yeah. That's so interesting. I hadn't heard that quote by Jack Welch before, but that's incredibly revealing. Um, about what it would be like to be a human in that organization.

[53:23] Paul: Anything else you're thinking about now as we kind of recover from the pandemic and people's relationship with work and burnout? What are some of the things that are top of mind for you?

[53:35] Natalie Rachel: Certainly coming back after the pandemic, there's, there's a big hope that a lot of people are saying, you know, that they don't want to go just go back to how things were before. They do want to be more consciously connected to each other and and do their work and be more mindful about their work environment and setting and so on. But I'm also conscious that there's huge forces, partly of habit, but also partly because some people are incentivized for things to go back to the way they were. And so I think we're at this quite interesting point where we're going to see which of those two impulses is actually stronger.

Because it was obviously a huge momentous time, but really it's only 18 months or so in the, in the context of a huge wave of kind of anti-human forces of sort of disconnection and competition and unhealthy workplaces, like as in the physical, just the way that we physically work is quite unhealthy with the constant distractions and, and the environments and so on. So I think that that battle is kind of only just starting and the challenges for those of us who, who do want to see a different sort of psychological contract, but also a different way of engaging with, with work and with other people. The challenge is for us to kind of start offering practical, practical solutions and not just kind of talking about it, but actually showing ways that people can work in that way.

Um, and sort of working with organizations who are open to it, um, to design things and show that it actually can work, that there is an alternative available.

[55:12] Paul: Are you doing anything interesting with organizations now?

[55:15] Natalie Rachel: Yeah. So, I mean, I've got a couple of organizational clients who are actively trying to build in, build in this kind of awareness of burnout into their, into their work culture so that then it's so that it's not just this reactive work people until they burn out and then replace them. Because the sad truth is there are a lot of organizations where that model actually works for them. To just burn people out, boot them out and replace them. There's very little cost to them to doing that. So I'm working with a couple of organizations who want to try a different model of working with people.

And that's, you know, it's not just kind of bottles of juice and granola on the side, like actually setting up the workday and the work relationship to be more human-friendly.

[56:08] Paul: Are they open to things like 4-day weeks and extended breaks for people, though?

[56:13] Natalie Rachel: Yes, some, some are and some aren't. I mean, one quite interesting company that you might have seen in the news last week is, you know, Bumble had that— gave their workforce a week off for specifically for burnout. So, I mean, there are some companies that are willing to experiment and lead the way and differentiate themselves. In that way. And it's quite interesting actually, if you look at the public response, I think people now are a bit more tuned into authenticity as a value. Like, it's just not enough to say, you know, to just say, for example, we support these values.

People actually do want to see some action by the companies, even if it's at the, you know, at the cost to their bottom line. I think people are valuing now that sort of differentiation through authenticity.

[57:04] Paul: Fantastic.

[57:05] Natalie Rachel: Yeah, I mean, they're out there, but, you know, it's a challenge. But there are some people who want to take it on.

[57:12] Paul: Yeah, I'm, I'm the dreamer. That's why I call this podcast Reimagine Work. I talked to Sean McCabe a couple of weeks ago and his company is a small company. They take every 7 weeks off. Wow. And his mission by 2047 is to get every company in the world to do this.

Amazing. I love the boldness of this, but I also think there's some wisdom there just in terms of giving people space to do the deep creative work that we claim we wanna be doing at work anyway. So it's interesting. Yeah. And I appreciate all the work you're doing to at least wake up these organizations to the right questions. 'Cause I think you're super thoughtful about this.

Anywhere you want to point people?

[57:55] Natalie Rachel: nimbleburn.org. Yep, you can, you can get in touch through there. Or as you know, I'm on Twitter. That's @NatalieRachel. It's my handle.