Burnout - The Work Wire

[00:00:01] Hey everybody, this is Bob Goodwin, President of Career Club.

[00:00:04] Join by my good friend, the President CEO of Shirm Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. Johnny, how are you?

[00:00:10] Now I'm doing well in you.

[00:00:11] I'm doing well. I cannot wait to jump into another episode of The Work Wire with you.

[00:00:15] Thank you.

[00:00:16] Let's go.

[00:00:18] Awesome.

[00:00:19] So, let's just get right into it.

[00:00:21] You know, Shirm recently put out a statistic that indicated the 44% of workers are

[00:00:28] identified as being burned out recently at work.

[00:00:34] And, you know, we talk a lot about bringing the whole person to work and stuff like that.

[00:00:40] And I want to unpack Burnout and the business implications of that and then how HR

[00:00:48] and as a function can help with that, what my responsibility and things I can do is to

[00:00:54] employees and individual can be doing with that.

[00:00:58] But I just want to set the table really, really quick and then I'll hand the microphone

[00:01:02] over.

[00:01:04] We've got a presidential election coming up.

[00:01:06] People are freaked out about that.

[00:01:08] We've got a war in Israel that people are freaked out.

[00:01:11] We've got inflation.

[00:01:12] We've got layoffs.

[00:01:14] We've got potentially a recession.

[00:01:16] Just lots of things going on, you know, kind of outside.

[00:01:22] But it'd impact me directly.

[00:01:24] Then there's my real life.

[00:01:26] I've got my aging parent.

[00:01:28] I've got my potential kids who's going off the rails.

[00:01:32] I've got the health issue.

[00:01:34] Maybe I haven't told you about.

[00:01:36] Maybe my marriages have been doing amazingly well right now.

[00:01:39] There's all kinds of stuff going on in my air quote real life.

[00:01:43] But oh, there's the work that I do.

[00:01:47] You know, and do I have enough resources?

[00:01:50] Do I have a great boss?

[00:01:52] Am I capable?

[00:01:53] There are so many things acting on people that are resulting in things like burnout,

[00:02:01] which is not just physical exhaustion.

[00:02:03] It's a mid-20 motion exhaustion.

[00:02:05] It starts to reflect itself in loss of productivity, healthcare costs,

[00:02:11] attrition, absenteeism.

[00:02:14] There's just tons of things that are impacting businesses and people

[00:02:19] that kind of fall on, but I think the general headline of burnout.

[00:02:24] And I'd like to explore that in the maybe some things that individuals and companies

[00:02:29] might be able to think about to address it.

[00:02:33] So this is a topic that I'm so glad you introduced in the way that you did too often.

[00:02:41] So I mean, seriously, hats off to you because what you did was you painted the entire picture.

[00:02:46] Too often, the discussion about burnout begins and ends at 9 o'clock in five o'clock.

[00:02:54] So they put all of the responsibility that onus the four burnout on the employer and the people manager.

[00:03:04] As if that is the sole cause of burnout.

[00:03:07] And I'll tell you why this resonated with me.

[00:03:10] I was walking to the garage one morning, morning, and I walked into an employee,

[00:03:16] and I said, how are you doing?

[00:03:18] And she burst into tears.

[00:03:20] Oh my god, it's wow.

[00:03:22] And she said, I'm exhausted.

[00:03:25] I'm just burned out.

[00:03:28] And so literally standing there in the garage, I probed why because my natural thought was,

[00:03:35] is she working for someone who is working for 70 hours a week?

[00:03:39] Are they calling her on the weekend?

[00:03:41] Are they doing things?

[00:03:41] Are we responsible in short for her burnout?

[00:03:46] Just by listening, I learned her mother had been terminally ill.

[00:03:52] She'd been leading work.

[00:03:54] Her boss was actually quite accommodating and letting her leave early to take mom to the doctor's

[00:03:59] appointment and come in a little late when she had like all of this.

[00:04:04] But the problem is she was working 20 hours a day between her familiar responsibilities

[00:04:11] and her work responsibilities.

[00:04:13] And she had to do both.

[00:04:15] She had a moral obligation to take care of her mother, who was transitioning.

[00:04:21] She also had a financial obligation to come to work every day and do high quality work.

[00:04:27] So I bring that up to say, this is really complicated.

[00:04:30] And we need to be careful not to think that the solution is you've got to be a better

[00:04:35] person.

[00:04:36] People manager or you've got to distribute the work more evenly, it's not that simple because

[00:04:42] people are bringing everything with them to work.

[00:04:46] They could actually walk into your office in the morning already burnt out.

[00:04:51] Exactly.

[00:04:53] 100%.

[00:04:53] Right.

[00:04:55] I gave a talk last week to a local firm chapter on this topic and was sort of making the case

[00:05:02] that I just did to introduce this afterwards.

[00:05:07] A lady who helps lead IND in her workplace, you know, in very familiar the concept

[00:05:14] of bringing herself to work, she's like, you completely redefine.

[00:05:18] I had not thought of it that holistically.

[00:05:22] And yet as human beings by definition, you know, there's the mind-sold body spirit, kind

[00:05:30] of, like it's all of those things and we can't compartmentalize them very neatly at

[00:05:36] all.

[00:05:37] And all of it believes on to the other thing.

[00:05:41] And part of the case that I was trying to make is that for businesses, these weren't soft

[00:05:48] issues.

[00:05:50] No, like, I'll just be in empathetic, right?

[00:05:52] And I'm certainly a good listener.

[00:05:54] And whatever it's like, no, like there are some extremely hard cut.

[00:05:58] You're already paying for this.

[00:06:00] That's right.

[00:06:01] You are already paying for this.

[00:06:03] But about the question then is, because of people do try to compartmentalize, people are

[00:06:09] not as forthcoming.

[00:06:10] So it's one thing to ask a business or an employer and HR professional to help someone solve

[00:06:15] a problem, but you can't solve that, you don't know.

[00:06:19] So in this case, the employee didn't tell any of us, right?

[00:06:23] So all I know is that you show up to work and you're not your best self.

[00:06:28] You're not productive, you're not efficient, you're irritable because you're in sleep

[00:06:33] last night.

[00:06:34] And so the person next to you, you snap at that colleague doesn't know your story.

[00:06:40] And but you want to hold the organization accountable for not being empathetic, not having

[00:06:46] a culture of inclusivity.

[00:06:48] And but like you also, again, you hear me say this a lot, there's plenty of blame.

[00:06:53] And culpability when it comes to these things.

[00:06:56] It really is.

[00:06:57] And it's easy to drop this at HR or at the people manager at leadership's door

[00:07:02] step and say, you're responsible for having a burnout culture.

[00:07:06] My only point is that legitimately happens in some places.

[00:07:10] But we are seeing that it's far more complicated.

[00:07:13] I give you another one that we are seeing a lot.

[00:07:15] In fact, if you saw just recently, DC government because of people's ability to work remote,

[00:07:23] either sometimes through high-but-of-full-times, full-time, there are a lot of people working

[00:07:28] two full-time jobs.

[00:07:30] And so you can play it about being burned out and the answer is, yeah, because you have chosen

[00:07:36] to take on two jobs in addition to all of your familiar responsibilities.

[00:07:40] And I say, chosen because I know someone might be saying, well, but I had to repay my

[00:07:44] bills again, you chose we all make decisions.

[00:07:46] We make our own choices.

[00:07:48] And so what happens when the person drove Uber starting at 4 o'clock did a four-hour shift

[00:07:55] from 40 minutes and then came to work for me because they were trying to help put their

[00:08:01] kid through college?

[00:08:03] I get it, but is it fair for me as the employer to at non-aclock in the morning, get you

[00:08:10] five hours into your day?

[00:08:13] Yes.

[00:08:14] And if I don't know that you're an Uber driver for those first four hours before

[00:08:19] you get to me, I have no way even if I wanted to accommodate it, back to it, etc.

[00:08:26] I can't.

[00:08:27] You can't practice what you don't know.

[00:08:29] And this is what I'm in about the compartmentalization of it.

[00:08:32] If it's familiar responsibilities at last night, you were with your mother or your kid.

[00:08:37] And this morning you drove Uber and then you showed up to me, all I know is the person

[00:08:41] who showed up and their performance.

[00:08:44] So that makes this really difficult.

[00:08:47] It don't you get what I'm saying, and so I do.

[00:08:50] It's very difficult.

[00:08:51] And we can't overly simplify this.

[00:08:53] The discussions that I hear around burnout do a lot of dropping this at the feet of the

[00:08:58] organization and essentially blaming.

[00:09:02] Actually, I want to pick up on that, John, because I want to flip it a little bit here.

[00:09:07] Rather than laying the blame at the feet of the company, HR, if you want to pick

[00:09:13] on them, is how the company and I think specifically HR can be part of the solution

[00:09:20] to help meet people where they are, but you're going with they are to meet them.

[00:09:25] Ah, I'm massively agreeing with that.

[00:09:29] So one of our mutual friends, Characinal Reed, who's the CHRO, we co-incestries.

[00:09:35] Who I've got tremendous amount of respect for, we were talking earlier this week.

[00:09:40] And she was saying, you know, people experienced the company through their manager.

[00:09:46] That's true.

[00:09:47] And she is leaning very heavily into like, you need to know your people,

[00:09:54] you need to be very intentional about knowing your people so that when you see that,

[00:09:59] you know, Johnny's showing up a little blurier, he has worked some been late a couple of times

[00:10:04] and that's not Johnny, or Johnny got a little snippy about something and said,

[00:10:09] that's not the way Johnny usually handles himself to take that empathetic.

[00:10:16] What's going on?

[00:10:17] You don't seem like yourself as there's something that is going on that I can help with

[00:10:23] and giving that person the opportunity to kind of share.

[00:10:26] Now, the people have to choose to share.

[00:10:29] That's the only point I want to double click on.

[00:10:31] I know, I know the people have to choose to share.

[00:10:34] However, you know, the really first class front line people manager,

[00:10:41] you know, and I think there's a training and this is part of the care of it.

[00:10:43] Say there's a training opportunity to help people become better people managers.

[00:10:48] Oftentimes we get to be a manager because we're really good at the technical,

[00:10:52] the proficiency part of my job.

[00:10:54] Right?

[00:10:54] I'm a great at this, so I'm going to put you in charge of something else.

[00:10:58] Versus, well, now that you've got people responsibilities, that may be a completely new

[00:11:03] skill set.

[00:11:04] Probably is for you.

[00:11:06] Let us help you learn some of those skills.

[00:11:09] Again, not that we're absorbing that other persons burnout.

[00:11:13] That's not the people managers job-breathing age, our person's job.

[00:11:17] But just to learn how to look for signs, learn how to engage, and give people at least the opportunity

[00:11:24] to share more what's going on so that if we do need to be accommodating, do something

[00:11:30] that's more flexible.

[00:11:32] A lot of times there's company benefits to people either don't know about or aren't taking

[00:11:37] it back after Jeff or it may signal, hey, we need to bring another benefit in here

[00:11:42] that because this seems to be a recurring need at the company.

[00:11:45] So I'm talking too much.

[00:11:46] I think you know where I'm headed.

[00:11:49] No, and I won't, but I do want to unpack that a little bit more.

[00:11:51] I'm going to get a really personal name, all right?

[00:11:54] A moment to true.

[00:11:57] I in 2005, six, my marriage starting failing.

[00:12:06] Okay, probably was failing before, but I mean, I became acutely aware of it.

[00:12:10] And four years into my marriage and I was really struggling.

[00:12:15] And I was general counsel of a huge 400,000 person company, once it was here.

[00:12:22] I thought I'm going to a big job and I was in my early thirties.

[00:12:26] So you know, a career, you know, story that people dreamed of and I was making a lot of money

[00:12:31] and that a lot of that.

[00:12:34] And I had my own burnout moment.

[00:12:37] I mean literally where I just, I could not manage anymore.

[00:12:43] My organization, I had a great relationship with my boss.

[00:12:47] But culturally, and this is I'm bringing in again some being vulnerable, but you don't,

[00:12:53] you separate work and your personal life.

[00:12:57] You are, we were taught that, and I can tell you, this is probably true of all communities

[00:13:00] so I'm not making an assumption about all communities, but in my southern Christian,

[00:13:05] African-American background, it was, you know, your work life is your work life.

[00:13:11] There are things you talk about at work that you don't talk about, but, you know, you separate them.

[00:13:15] So I never, even though I had a great relationship with my boss, I consider my friend,

[00:13:21] and never thought it appropriate and I would not share with him what I was going through.

[00:13:26] There was nothing he could have done to get out of me what was going on in my life

[00:13:33] until I literally hit a wall and messed up on something substantive at work.

[00:13:40] Now I'm well educated, I didn't need to check, you know, I wasn't like,

[00:13:45] oh my god I have to be perfect because if I don't get this next to me, check, I'm not in trouble.

[00:13:49] It wasn't any of that, but individuals, as you know, human beings are really complicated and

[00:13:54] complex at once, and I think we, I burned out literally to the point where I had to seek help.

[00:14:03] There was no reason. I didn't have a ton of children to feed or look at what we just do that.

[00:14:08] So I just, I use, when I think about burnout, it's not a theoretical topic to me. It's one

[00:14:13] that I had to live. I literally had to stop working and get myself together, but I never, ever would

[00:14:21] let the company know because I thought that's my problem. So I hope what we're doing as a profession

[00:14:28] is doing all that we can to your point to build trust with our employees to let them know where they are.

[00:14:35] But then you have to, as HR professionals know that sometimes you're just not going to know,

[00:14:41] people are not going to tell you I've had staffers who have gone through chemo.

[00:14:46] And they determined they had learned they were diagnosed with cancer,

[00:14:51] went through all of it and didn't disclose to me until it was obvious, either loss of hair or

[00:14:58] they jump up a mill of a meeting and go, you know, regurgitate their lunch and about them,

[00:15:03] I had no idea. And I am a pretty darn good people matter, just if I must say something to

[00:15:09] tell me, I'm in tune to that because again, what I've gone through my career is I just, I'd love

[00:15:13] you to react to what do you do? Because I think they're clear there's room for us to address burnout.

[00:15:20] You and I on a past episode of Workwire, the workwire talked about, you know, working people

[00:15:26] in the 80-90 hours, we consistently check, got them. And that can lead to really bad outcomes,

[00:15:32] including people who are lost in life. But what do you do if you assume that there's some

[00:15:38] people are pretty darn good as people manage? You think they would you just can't get it out of your

[00:15:43] people? Yeah, so that to me is the second domino. The first domino is being

[00:15:52] observant, being intentional, right? And knowing your people well enough to build trust.

[00:16:01] For me, this is all philosophical, but you know, it's kind of the difference between a leader and an

[00:16:06] manager. A manager is good at managing tasks and work. And what does the spreadsheet say?

[00:16:12] And you're at 92% of what the spreadsheet says you need to be so Johnny, there's an 8% gap,

[00:16:18] okay, way to go. For me, a leader is somebody that can demonstrate that they care more about

[00:16:27] the person as a human being first than as a work producing unit. And when you can build that level of

[00:16:35] trust with somebody, that everybody going to share, no, but you're at least creating the environment,

[00:16:44] that that's okay. And one of the things that I have learned from smart people like you and

[00:16:49] another really top shelf CHR, both folks is modeling vulnerability. You just did it, right?

[00:16:57] And being able to share with people, you know, like again, you don't have to just like bear your

[00:17:03] entire soul and life, you know, to somebody at work. But to say, you know what, I've these best

[00:17:09] weeks have been pretty hard on me. And you know, I'm going to take Friday off because I just need

[00:17:14] to decompress and I need an extra day. And if any of you guys are going through something like,

[00:17:19] you know, well, I'm feeling right now, like, let's talk about it, let's figure out how you can get the rest

[00:17:25] that you need. But so I go, Johnny's burned out at that Johnny was Superman. Right?

[00:17:31] You get tired too. And Johnny's like, I'm going to take, and I'm going to go spend the day with my daughter

[00:17:35] and I'm just going to, you know, recharge and refresh. And you're just modeling that the heavier,

[00:17:43] in my experience when you can show people that you care about them truly genuinely as a human being,

[00:17:50] to the extent they will let you to your well-made point. And then also model, you know, hey,

[00:17:57] I'm a human being over here too. Like, you know, I got stuff going on inside, I hear you.

[00:18:02] You've at least created the environment and then the third thing I'll say on stuff is I think that's

[00:18:08] socially, that from 2004 or five that you were talking about to now, it shifted not a small amount.

[00:18:18] That it's okay to talk about I'm not doing great. It's okay to not be okay.

[00:18:22] Basically, is part of our lexicon now that before it's like, to your point, nope, dude. What happens

[00:18:29] at home is what happens at home? This is where figure out how to separate it to.

[00:18:35] And that's where we see people burning out, it's because that work-life balance implies stress

[00:18:41] that you have opposing forces that you're trying to balance. I love love love to and I don't

[00:18:48] have the answers. I don't know the research answer but I do wonder how much things have changed

[00:18:53] from 2004 to 2024. I'd like to believe that they have but the instance, the one that I described

[00:19:02] then the garage that happened in 2024. I know of an employee right now a young kid who's been married

[00:19:08] on two, three years, maybe two years he's gone through divorce. We found out and then it was like,

[00:19:15] that explains the behavior of this employee. And this is someone who I think in both instances

[00:19:23] are below their great employees will regard it. Before we got on this and it was purely coincidental.

[00:19:30] I'm going to hold this up. I was watching this on my screen. Simon Sinek actually 16 minutes ago

[00:19:36] before we started this call said the following and I think this captured just popped up.

[00:19:42] Asking for help is an act of service. Don't deny the people who love you, the honor of being there

[00:19:51] to support you. That is part of the solution. As we have got to get that message out to our workplaces

[00:20:03] that I don't know that I'm calling an obligation because it's hard to put more obligation on

[00:20:07] people to but asking for help is in fact an act of service. If we could build that as a profession

[00:20:16] into our sort of guy as I guys and people believe that we could move this for it. But

[00:20:23] it's going to be a little bit of that hit my screen just before you and I started talking.

[00:20:28] I say that and we have got to do a lot of work on the employer side but we've got to do a lot

[00:20:34] on the employee side. Some people take it right? That's all I'm taking. No, no, it's messaging

[00:20:40] and it's messaging and modeling. Yes, that's what messaging and what accountability on those sides.

[00:20:48] Always. It's not a fault to adult relationships. This is not parent child.

[00:20:55] So back to I wonder what the data would say? I think it'd be interesting to go look at

[00:21:03] actually firm communications over the years because you guys do a very good job of messaging.

[00:21:11] I bet the civility, mental wellness, resilience, all these kinds of things, I associate with

[00:21:19] firm versus if we went 20 years ago how much is it more legal compliance and that kind of stuff?

[00:21:26] Yep, I think that's right and so we're trying to fix for it and I think most of our

[00:21:33] members of a well-manly or HR professors. Yes, but as you know we're pivoting a little

[00:21:39] remaining true to our core but now talking work or curves and the workplace and the work or

[00:21:46] message is just that. You have to tell your boss if you're an HR and you're some insane amount

[00:21:55] of pressure outside of nine to five that is creating burnout conditions for you.

[00:22:02] If you think I think this is highly related, if you think that it's not good but on the same slide

[00:22:08] that I see the burnout statistic from Sharme is also an engagement. Yes, stick it in. Thank you,

[00:22:15] Dr. Alex for all the data collection analysis and insights for that. But engagement is also

[00:22:22] because it's also a contributor to this. If I don't, if I think my work doesn't matter

[00:22:31] right, it's not that important what we do isn't that important. Now I'm working my

[00:22:37] for what? Like just to make some guy on Wall Street richer or like what am I doing all this for?

[00:22:45] Can I got it in a bit? Go, what if you think your work is so important that you work too much?

[00:22:52] The opposite is true. The Wall Street guy. I this deal is so big and it is so important. I,

[00:22:59] young investment banker matter because I'm going to help the organization,

[00:23:03] land of $2 billion. So I'm willing to work 80, 90 out of some weeks. So,

[00:23:11] we didn't communicate that well. I'm saying this, I go in. I do my hours. You guys pin me every two weeks.

[00:23:18] I'm not sure why what I'm doing matters to me and I don't find it particularly fulfilling.

[00:23:25] I'm not sure how it helps to company or our customers. We're just making shareholders richer

[00:23:32] but you know that's kind of is near as I can tell the net impact of my work. That lack of engagement

[00:23:41] also contributes to a lack of innovation, a lack of creativity, a lack of fulfillment.

[00:23:50] And in either that's going to lead to we become a magnet for mediocrity that people just

[00:23:55] sort of hang out here because they they're allowed to or attrition and so I need to go someplace else

[00:24:01] where my work matters but in our work in coaching people we definitely see that folks like

[00:24:09] me to get involved in something that I find more fulfilling. This does not align with my values

[00:24:15] or my aspirations and I think that you know you can get burned out more easily when you think

[00:24:23] your work doesn't matter, you can get you can dig deeper when you think your work does matter.

[00:24:29] That's check. Don't disagree with that violently agree with it. And so I love the way we take

[00:24:36] these topics because you know I'm a lawyer but I like these I'm a puzzle got it. Like I really

[00:24:42] try to figure things out and the more complicated the puzzle the more we're kind of called

[00:24:48] engaged I become because I like figuring out difficult things. This is difficult. This whole topic

[00:24:55] is difficult and again I come back to your initial description of the situation, the state of the

[00:25:03] world. You burn out to the extent people are experiencing it is there are multiple factors

[00:25:11] that are leading to it. It may manifest itself at work because that's where we spend most of our

[00:25:17] waking hours right so we can make show up in that day somewhere between eight and six but it's

[00:25:26] impacted by a whole bunch of things that we sometimes don't control mostly don't control if you

[00:25:31] meet eight hours today there's another 16 for life to happen to you. Right so disproportionately

[00:25:37] we're at a little bit of a disadvantage but we can't layer on to the problems. Now how do you

[00:25:43] react to that? Maybe that's the biggest thing is whatever is going on in your personal life

[00:25:47] you should not come to work and then it be made worse and exacerbated by bad people managed or

[00:25:54] by unreasonable expectations, by harassment from colleagues that is the one thing we as an

[00:26:00] chump. Yes, can do is that a way? I totally agree with that I'm actually going to be you for a minute

[00:26:06] but at the same time you can't bottle it all in right and so you have to. On the complicated thing

[00:26:14] and I want to be respectful of time here the way that I've tried to break this down to my own mind

[00:26:20] I think the model works is body, soul, mind and strength and so when we can get our values

[00:26:32] like what I genuinely believe to be true that's when it tells me that's what pushes me but then

[00:26:39] there's the other part where we're engaged like like what we do matters that draws me

[00:26:46] that who's me if you will right and so you've been pushed by what I want but I must mean drawn

[00:26:52] by what we do matters, yes, right. Those are energizing things that allow me to

[00:27:00] feel less stress and maybe more fulfillment. But at the same time I need to be taken care of my body

[00:27:07] like I got asleep. I made you laugh for a couple of weeks so you have to sleep this whole

[00:27:11] work me all the day but you know I need to get enough sleep. I need to eat right. I need to eat regularly

[00:27:17] right. I need to not be abusing my body with alcohol or whatever else you know in indulgence

[00:27:23] kinds of ways. I need to take breaks we talked about that earlier right and I need to get my mind

[00:27:31] a little bit of time to just meditate, ruminate, just separate a little bit and and so when I think

[00:27:40] we can think about you know the complexity of the human and then start to break it down into

[00:27:47] how I think about things what I believe is true for me. What I need from my organization and

[00:27:53] more broadly, my calling, my purpose right and then taking care of my body that to me starts to at least

[00:28:02] break it down into more corner pieces of a puzzle that the rest of it starts to fill in around.

[00:28:08] Do that acronym for me. BS, it doesn't sound like BS MS. Body, soul. What's the mind mind and strength?

[00:28:18] Right okay. BS MS. That's really good. It's our degrees. That's called a degree. Yeah so

[00:28:25] part of the thing on mind is two things you're very very good about talking about upscaling so

[00:28:31] like keep me mentally challenged. That's right and keep this interesting I'm curious I want to

[00:28:37] keep learning the world's changing from under me and like how do I continue to have learning

[00:28:42] growth opportunities but there's also the part of the mind of when a problem comes,

[00:28:49] when an unexpected change comes how do I frame that out in my mind? How do I learn how to

[00:28:56] reprogram that this is an a threat as much as it might be an opportunity and how to get creative

[00:29:02] in communal, in solving this thing instead of being overwhelmed by it. The mind is really,

[00:29:09] there's somewhere that's very important to this whole thing how do we think about these things?

[00:29:13] I love creative in communal you are so good at, you're the man you can say anything and it sounds

[00:29:19] good. I learn from the best of luck but in all seriousness it's when we can see people

[00:29:29] that holistically and be able to start to break it down into actionable, defyable,

[00:29:37] measurable components. Then we've got a really good chance of making a positive difference.

[00:29:43] Lesson I'll say in the recording you. The culture that somebody finds themselves at with work

[00:29:54] isn't necessarily good or bad. That's a bad investment banker. You can choose that.

[00:30:01] Like I love that, I want to work my tail off, I want the prestige, I want the credentials,

[00:30:06] I want the money. Okay, that's not a bad culture for a lot of people, that's not a good

[00:30:10] culture for them. So you know, it may just back to autonomy and agency. You always have choices.

[00:30:19] You always have choices. Yep. I think when people can come to that understand it that they're not

[00:30:26] victims, that's right. That is highly liberating and letting people see that they have choices,

[00:30:34] that they can go act on. It's a very, very liberating, epiphany for a lot of folks.

[00:30:43] And great for HR, by the way, HR, the profession and HR, the people. No, hands down.

[00:30:48] I really really enjoyed this topic. I didn't know where we're going to fully go.

[00:30:55] Me. How is really cool like I said, I can't thank you enough for saying for setting it up to

[00:31:00] stand a lot of these discussions and to anyone who's listening today. A lot of these discussions

[00:31:06] immediately go to what the employer is doing wrong. Yeah, that's slow has been the in burnout.

[00:31:13] And I think we have to be thoughtful about how we think about this issue because it's confronting

[00:31:21] us that affects us and it's not good for business, it's not good for our people. Well, and by the way,

[00:31:26] not only said, not going away, but the pace of change in the magnitude of change are only increasing

[00:31:34] and it behooves us as business people and human beings to get a handle on this and deal with it,

[00:31:44] an effective and epithetic way. That's right. Amen. Awesome. All right, Johnny anything else?

[00:31:49] I thought that was very good. Someone told me other day it's unrelated, but they said,

[00:31:53] yesterday was the slowest day of your life. And it's really, you know, I think you mentioned that,

[00:31:59] but it's this idea that life was just, you know, it's getting faster and faster and faster and more complicated.

[00:32:04] And so these are important topics for each other, professionals and people managers to

[00:32:09] and workers and work to bring. That's awesome. Johnny, thank you so much. Always find being with you here on

[00:32:15] the work wire. Come on. And to our listening and viewing audience, thank you guys so much. You know,

[00:32:21] if there's a topic that you'd love to see us tackle, send it to me, bobbitcruir.club. We'd love to

[00:32:28] to take it on. But mostly, you're just going to say thank you for investing a few minutes.

[00:32:31] If you're listening to this on your podcast platform, please just leave us a quick review that

[00:32:36] always helps. But most of you just want to say thank you very much. Johnny, enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you,

[00:32:41] sir. Take care, my friend. All right.