Episode Highlights

• How Dr. Wiens personal experience led her from being a management consultant to studying burnout
• How past experiences affect how we deal with stress and also hold ourselves back
• What is Emotion Focus Coping and how we can shift away from it to taking ‘control’ of our stress
• The root cause of burnout and why it’s important to know
• What drives us to burnout (without us realizing it)?
• Burnout versus Overextension and why it’s important to know the difference
• How to know your degree of burnout
• What are protective patterns when dealing with burnout
• How we can be burned out even without a job
• What is Burnout Immunity and how to develop it
• How to self-regulate and change your mindset

Useful Links

• A Classic Case of Post-Production Burnout
• I Was Tired of Putting My Kids to Bed via FaceTime Every Night. Here’s What I Did About It
• Are You Burned Out? Or Is It Something Else? 
• Burnout Risk Assessment | Kandi Wiens
• kandiwiens.com
• Severance Is Not Only the Dystopian Future of Workplace Burnout…In Many Ways We’re Already There
• The difference between exhaustion and burnout (and my dirty little secret)
• How I burned out as a burnout coach (and then bounced back)
• So You’re Burned Out…Now What? [7 Ways to Climb Out of the Hole]
• 7 Red Flags You Might Be Burned Out (Or You’re Headed There)

About Guest

Kandi Wiens, EdD is the Director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Masters in Medical Education Program and the Penn Health Professions Education Certificate Program. As a sought-after international speaker, Dr. Wiens is co-founder and chief research officer of Big Sky Leadership Labs, where she leads and conducts evidence-based research on executive performance, emotional intelligence, burnout, and resilience. Her work has been prominently featured in the Harvard Business Review and in several Harvard Business Review Press books.

A Senior Fellow at Penn, Dr. Wiens is Academic Director of the PennCLO Master’s Program and teaches various graduate-level and executive-format courses. She has designed and delivered over 2,000 leadership development programs focused on helping leaders build and leverage their emotional and social intelligence to amplify their positive impact and protect themselves from burnout.

Dr. Wiens holds a doctorate from the Penn Chief Learning Officer executive doctoral program at the University of Pennsylvania, an M.B.A. from the University of Oregon, and a B.S. in business administration from Montana State University.

Facebook, Connect on Twitter, Linkedin, Click to visit our guest’s website

Transcript

Zack Arnold: I'm here today with Dr. Kandi Wiens. She is the director of the University of Pennsylvania's master's and medical education program. And you're also the co founder of Big Sky Leadership Labs. Your work has been prominently featured in the Harvard Business Review several Harvard Business Review Press books, you have so many accolades and letters after your name, it will probably be most of our podcast interview, if I shared all of them before we even got to talk. So I'll we'll step away from those and people can read your bio. But really the reason we're here today is to talk about your book Burnout Immunity: How Emotional Intelligence Can Help You Build Resilience and Heal Your Relationship with Work. That's a mouthful, and we've got a lot to unpack today. But Kandi, it is a tremendous pleasure to have you on today's call.

Dr. Kandi Wiens: Zack, I'm really happy to be here with you.

Zack Arnold: Alright, so full disclosure for both you and the audience.

We should have canceled today's conversation.

Debbie and I have gone back and forth several times about how we probably shouldn't be doing this, because number one, I'm losing my voice. Number two, I am tremendously overworked and exhausted. And I'm pretty sure that I'm on the bleeding edge of burnout. So we went back and forth. And I said, with just about any other guests, I am not showing up at my best and we should probably reschedule. And I said because of who we're talking to today, there's no better conversation to be having than to be perfectly open and authentic, about the fact that I probably shouldn't be doing this right now. And I'm talking to the world's expert on why that is and what I can do about it.

Dr. Kandi Wiens: I really appreciate you sharing that, because I'll be honest, I'm feeling the same way. Here it is for me Friday afternoon. I've had a long, long week, we launched the book on Tuesday, I've been doing press nonstop, I mean a day trip over to New York to record a TV show or a TV interview. I have a number of things still this afternoon, and I'm getting pretty tired. So it's interesting, you know that we say that when when we get to a point where we're overworked, we notice that we're not at our best. That's key. That's one of the keys, I should say, to self awareness. And that's information that we need to listen to.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, and we're going to talk a lot more about awareness, because that's really a cornerstone of being able to manage the burnout, being able to manage all the other things that come with it. So well, one of the things that I'll share with you is that I can confidently say that I'm an expert in burnout. And I say that to you knowing that you are literally the expert in burnout with PhDs and research and all this, I have none of that. However, I consider myself an expert on burnout. Because it's the story of my life, I can almost set my watch to the cycle every five to seven years. Here it is. And I always believe nope, not this time. I've got it figured out. And all of a sudden here I am totally neck deep in burnout in overwhelm, and exhaustion, thinking, dammit, how did I do this again. And when you came along in our inbox, Debbie and I were thinking, look, because right now I have another full time job. I'm managing two full time jobs between running this coaching company, and also editing one of the highest profile TV shows on the planet, coupled with a third part time job that I have now taken against my you know, better wishes, which is that I'm now dealing with the care of both of my elderly parents. So essentially, I have these three things that are converging on top of also having two kids, right? Yes. So the last year or so has just been kind of a slow degradation. No, I can power through I can power through and finally thinking, nope, like it's, it's I'm starting to hit that wall. So you come into my inbox. And I was like, oh, here, this new book about burnout. I'm like, I just we cannot put one more interview on the calendar. None. I'm like, No, this is one that we need to do. It's one thing to be an experts on the academic side of things. But what I loved about your book is you didn't come out of the gate with your degrees, you came out of the right out of the gate with here's my personal story of how he ended up here. So that to me is so much more important than getting to the research. So what led you to deciding I'm going to become an expert on burnout?

Dr. Kandi Wiens: Yeah, because who grows up thinking I'm going to become an expert in burnout. That's definitely not something I had on my mind when I was a kid. You know, I was a management consultant for many years, and I had the lifestyle that a lot of consultants do and a lot of just busy working parents do. And I loved my job for the most part, but there are also parts of it where I was like, you know, this just isn't for me anymore. I don't know that I'm really doing what my life's purpose sort of work. So I started noticing that things were really off. So like you I you know, I knew that I was really stressed. Burnout really wasn't used back at that time in 2011 a whole lot. I didn't have a word for it, but I knew that I was overwhelmed a lot and I also suffered a lot from imposter syndrome and really, really worried that I would lose my job just based on the way that I was raised. I would call myself an anxious overachiever. So anxiety kind of runs high I in the way that I approached my work, but then overachiever as in like I liked I love the thrill of getting great grades and getting promotions and recognition and all of that. So, here I was in 2011, throwing myself into my job raising three young boys at the same time traveling a lot. And I operated that that at that level, where it feels like burnout is the new baseline, sort of level, what you're describing, and it just felt so normal to me that I didn't really notice really anything was was off. I started to get clued in now, it was the Friday before Mother's day when my youngest son was a kindergartener. And I had gone to my other two sons Mother's Day events when they were older when they were in kindergarten. But my third son, I couldn't get out of this trip that I had to had to be out of town for work or something. And it really bothered me, but I thought, you know, I just need to push through just like everybody does, we're just pushing through the pain sort of thing. But it really hit me when the kindergarten teacher sent me a video clip of my son. On Mother's Day, he was the only kid in the classroom that didn't have his mom, or an aunt or grandma grandmother in the classroom. So that really hit me and it started to, you know, wake me up a little bit. But again, of course, I ignored a lot of those signs. I just kept working, I just kept pushing. And about a week later, I went into my doctor's office just for normal annual exam, you know, those kind where you go in, they check your vital signs, you're in and out of there in 20 minutes, and the doctor says, Great job, Kandi, A plus C next year, you're in good health. That's what I was expecting. Because that's, you know, I was, for the most part, feeling normal. Well, the nurse, when she took me back to the exam room, she checked my blood pressure, second time, third, fourth time without saying anything. And then she left the room quietly. She said she'd be right back. And I sat there with my phone, and what what do you think most of us would do when we're in the exam room by ourselves? I got back on it. And I started working again, my mind was always in overdrive working. And anyway, the doctor came back came in with a nurse and I held my hand and she said, How are you feeling Kandi. And I said, I'm fine. I'm fine. I literally felt fine, because it felt so normal to me. And she said, Well, we're gonna give you you're actually not quite fine. I don't want you to worry. But I'm gonna give you some medicine. So they loaded me up with Xanax and blood pressure medicine, she called my husband to come and pick me up. And that's when I started getting really getting worried. So my husband showed up. And when he got there, she was explaining to me once I was stable, she said that my blood pressure was a 200, over 110, which is I was an active hypertensive emergency, I should have probably been rushed to the hospital at that point, it is very serious, it could have had a stroke or heart attack, or it could have died had they not caught it. So it's really scary to think about I was operating at that level for so long and didn't even notice the fact that my blood pressure had been raised. And I am a very healthy person, I don't have this in my jeans necessarily. So it was all stress induced, this blood pressure issue is all stress induced. So the doctor, of course, she ordered me to go home and she says I want you to take the next five days off, like don't work, just lay on the couch, take it easy. And I want you to call me if you have any symptoms like headache, anything. And my first thought was, that's not going to happen. I'm gonna come around the couch for five days. They have a big leadership development program to run next week, and I just said I got a little stressed then thinking I was gonna miss work. But then my second thought was, well, thank God, finally somebody has given me a chance to just get some sleep giving me permission to rest. And then my third thought, which I even recognized as unhealthy at that time was, she's absolutely right. My doctor is telling me I'm not fine. And I need to take this seriously. So for the next several days, I just spent a lot of time thinking, reflecting, relaxing, talking to my husband, and really started taking it seriously and started really reflecting on my relationship with work, and just how unhealthy it was, even though I felt like it was healthy. So that then set me on a quest to learn everything I could get my hands on. So I was reading a lot of other people's books and research. And long story short, I got so interested in it. And I started applying a lot of the stress management stuff on myself. But I became so interested that two years later, I decided to get my doctorate. So as if I wasn't stressed enough with the kids and the job and everything, I decided to get my doctorate but also for me I did that that was very intentional, because I knew that that would eventually put me on the path to doing work that I really loved and would help me get out of this hospital culture this constantly in the grind culture. So I ended up studying this stuff for real with my dissertation. I wanted to study people who work in high stress environments, but don't get burned out. Because I was working alongside a lot of people that had just as much stress that as I did, yet they weren't as burned out and breaking down like I was their bodies were breaking down. And maybe they eventually did I, you know, some of them I didn't see for years. But that's what I wanted to study was people who have very high degrees of stress for long periods of time at work, and at home. And they're not burned out what's going on with these people? Like, what's the what is it like they won the genetic lottery or something? I don't know, maybe their parents were unusually cool headed and who, what, and I just wanted to know, what was it isn't a mixture of what we're born with, or what we can learn? What's the best of the best was stress management skills. So that's what I learned. That's what I put in the book.

Zack Arnold: Well, I love all that. And I definitely want to dig in deeper to the research to the findings, I too am absolutely captivated by the idea of there is this idea of burnout, immunity. And there are certain things about how you can approach your mindset, your emotional intelligence in your relationship. With work, I want to get into all that. But there's one other thing that I think we'd be remiss from digging into, which is that your background before becoming a management consultant is fascinating. And I don't think it's tangential to the journey that you're on. So we certainly don't need to make this the Kandi's life story podcast, but my guess is in most of your interviews, let's get into the research. Let's talk about the book. But just in the first three pages of your book alone, I'm like this human being is fascinating. And I think there are certain things about your very what I think many would see as an unusual upbringing that led you to the path of management consulting, to having a PhD to now being an author that I think relate to this entire journey. So are you willing to share a little bit more about your very unique upbringing?

Dr. Kandi Wiens: Yes, and I would think that all of us have a unique upbringing. And our unique upbringing affects and influences the way we manage stress today, and actually influence our influences our subjective experience with distress, and then ultimately how we deal with it. Yeah, so I was raised on an Indian reservation, my mom and dad got divorced when I was five years old. And I lived with my mom who was in and out of alcoholism lot. And on her side of the family, there was quite a bit of mental illness and unresolved generational trauma. And we lived in government housing, I grew up with a lot of food insecurity, with a lot of imposter syndrome, feeling like I just didn't belong at school, I was bullied a lot when I was a kid. All the things that make for an insecure, little little kid growing up, always feeling like I wasn't fitting in, and always feeling insecure, because of our home situation. And at the same time, there was this little bit of me, that was an overachiever. Like when I would do well, in school, I liked the feeling of getting recognition. So when I lived with my mom, up until I was 12 years old, I was, you know, not in a good environment. But my mom loved me very much. So I had that support. But the the living situation was not good at all. And so when I was 12 years old, I made the choice to go live with my dad in the state of Montana, you can do that. So when I went to move with my dad, I went from getting straight F's in school, like literally, almost all apps, maybe a D here and there, when I was in middle school, to then I moved with my dad and ended up within six months got straight A's, because I learned that I actually was capable. So that then just set me on this path of, you know, over achieving my way through things and pushing myself through the pain, playing through the pain. And all of that influenced again, the way that I view stress. So then when I went and, you know, went to college and went to work, eventually, all of those things fed into the way that I view stressors, what triggers my stress, and ultimately, how I deal with stress. And that's really important that everybody, every listener just reflects on their past experiences, what is it that makes you you? And how does that contribute to the way you are able to effectively deal with stress? Because sometimes we're very good at dealing with it. But then also, what are the ways that we hold ourselves back from being our best version, when we're stressed? Well,

Zack Arnold: minus the glasses and the hair and the Indian reservation is like, I'm looking into a mirror right now. It is eerie, how similar our backgrounds are upbringings, you know, the feeling of not fitting in the feeling of you know, not having enough like, I want one of my seminal memories that I remember, I must have been 10 or 11 years old, is my dad saying we're going to go grocery shopping, so make sure to check all the couch cushions for any loose change. I'll never forget that memory. So I can very much relate to a lot of what you've shared. I didn't have to deal with the divorce or any of the issues that you went through but just the general living in a very rural impoverished environment and how that can very much drive the perception that I need to overachieve to get somewhere. So the reason I bring that up, and the reason that I think it's so important and how much I admire the fact that you share right out of the gate, here's my story, rather than here's my numbers. And my research is that there is as you talk about so many components that lead to burnout, that are external toxic work, cultures, long hours, no purpose and your work, etc, etc. But more often than not, and you can speak to this as being the expert, because I'm just speaking anecdotally. But so often, it's our relationship to work and our perception of ourselves. That's the underlying driver of all of it. And that's really the awareness that I've been coming to for the last several years is that yeah, the the industry I work in in Hollywood, it's cutthroat. It's relentless. There's long hours. But there's so much more about myself and my perception of why I need success, or why I call myself a recovering perfectionist, right are why I deal with the imposter syndrome. And so much of that is from the experiences that really formed us. So that's why I so appreciate that you shared so much about your background, because it's way more than just the amazing research that you've done that really make sure that this message hits home.

Dr. Kandi Wiens: Regardless of whether you grew up on an Indian reservation, or you graduate from an Ivy League school doesn't matter, we all have childhood experiences that if we're in the right supportive environment, and around the right role, resilient role models that can really shape us, again, in terms of the way we manage stress, and all of that. But what's really important here, as we think about our own past stories, and our past experiences is that it helps us better understand what we can control today versus what we can't control. So I like in your case, you can't control the fact that Hollywood is a very cutthroat industry and all the things in the external environment that you have no control over. So what happens I'll just get just a tiny bit technical without getting academically, please. Yeah, when we're faced with those kinds of stressors, and we get overwhelmed by the things we can't control, we go into what's called emotion focused coping. So we're then dealing with the emotions of the stress that we can't control, I'm frustrated, I'm angry, I'm anxious, I'm scared, you know, all of those, I feel uncertain, we just have to deal with the emotions of it, because we can't control the stress itself. But if we can think about the things that we can control, like, I can control the fact that I put a lot of pressure on myself, I can control the fact that I say yes to more things than I probably should. I can control the fact that I, sometimes I have boundaries, but I let people break those boundaries, you know, even emotional boundaries with other people and let them get into my space more emotionally than I should. So that then what happens is when we can get clear on what we can control, which is almost always us our feelings, or thoughts or behaviors, then we can get it we're not so much emotion focused coping, it's more like problem solving. I'm aware of the fact that I just, you know, said yes to a bunch of things that I probably shouldn't have on a Friday afternoon, book launch week, do I have the ability? And do I have the enough care for myself to then maybe postpone something? Can I maybe reschedule a podcast or something like that. So that problem solving attitude that gives us more agency makes us feel more in control of our stress. So knowing our personal stories is helpful when it comes to thinking about what we can control versus control. Yeah,

Zack Arnold: and this is something that I've written about incessantly in many newsletters talked about on many podcasts. I don't officially call myself a stoic, but unofficially, I'm sharing a lot of those stoic philosophies, the most important being focus your time, energy and attention on the little tiny amount of things you can control and ignore the rest, which it's a lot easier said than done. But I feel I've done my best under the circumstances to try and do that. But when it comes to all the things outside of my control, one being that we're watching the implosion of an entire industry before our very eyes. And other being that, you know, just happens that coinciding with that would be the rapidly deteriorating health of both of my parents simultaneously, all things outside of my control, to realize that the I guess the to go backwards for a second to the big realization for me came about 10 years ago, very similar time period, as you were in about 2013 2014. I started to recognize the word burnout before people were talking about it. And I excuse me, another thing that we mentioned beforehand, my voice is just completely shot. So if anybody's like Zack doesn't sound like himself, totally being transparent. My voice is completely destroyed right now. So I sound like crap, I'm going to cough I'm going to clear my throat just being totally vulnerable. But going back to when I first started writing, I wrote a piece that was called a classic case of post product didn't burn up. And when that came out and went viral in my industry, with the reaction being, I can't believe you're saying this, how can you be saying this publicly, like nobody talked about it. But what I realized is that for me, and now over the last 10 years reading and research and talking to people like you, I found that the root cause of my burnout and a lot of people's burnout is mismatched expectations, setting and proper expectations. And I am the president founder, you know, I hold all the board seats on the board for the company of overachievers anonymous and setting unrealistic expectations. And so much of burnout comes from that, which as we talked about there that has a root cause. So I know that you talk more, and you actually break down some of these mismatched expectations that could lead to burnout. So let's, let's go deeper, then I work long hours, and my boss is an asshole. Like, I hope nobody's going through that those are obvious causes of burnout, let's get into the more nuanced things like these mismatched expectations. Yeah,

Dr. Kandi Wiens: I think what it really ultimately comes down to is tension between our values. Do we value money? Or do we value meaning in our work? Do we value getting a promotion? Or do we value security and our job so that we can provide for our family? You know, what are the things that we value taking, and sometimes that takes some work to get really clear on that you might be able to off the top of your head list five core values. But there's a lot more work and I in the book, you'll see exercises to help you get more clear on that. But once we get really, really clear, and we start to identify where there's tension between competing values, that oftentimes is at the core of why we behave in certain ways, why we're, you know, still taking on work and not pulling in help when we need to. Right. So if you think about all the things that you're doing to manage your stress, what am I doing? And then what is it doing to me? And oftentimes it's it comes down to well, I chose to do XYZ, because I value something. And again, just looking at that tension between couple of different things that are important to you.

Zack Arnold: Yeah. And you already shared the perfect example of that kind of visual representation of the tension between values and present circumstances, which is you saying this, you know, the Mother's Day thing and like, Oh, everybody, all the other kids have somebody with them, but my kid, right, that's a misalignment of values. And you know, your reality that I had a very, very similar circumstance that I've talked about before, and written about several times, where I was putting my kids to bed via FaceTime every single night, right. And in my mind, I was I was a present father, I was a good father, I was a family man. But here I was working 70 hours a week, commuting to three hours a day working on the biggest TV show on television at the time, right. So I was that overachiever. I was getting a pluses at work and ever, like 25 million people were watching the work that I was doing in my small dark room, right? Putting my kids to bed via FaceTime, and realize this is a total misalignment of my values. I wasn't using that language 10 years ago, but that's why I was so burned out. And for me, one of the biggest realizations, and this is where I thought I had solved the problem. And now here I am back talking to an expert trying to figure out what the hell did I do wrong? I assumed it was the mismatch of the work I was doing and lack of purpose. Right? It was I was getting paid. Well, I was headed amazing eight plus credits. Everybody was watching it. But I wasn't telling the stories that I wanted to tell I wasn't making the impact on the world I had, I wasn't I didn't have purpose driven work. So that's when I transitioned into building this program is doing writing and doing podcasting and doing work that's or even working on television shows that are much more in alignment with my deeper why and my purpose. So I figured check that box. There's no amount of long hours or craziness. Now I thought I had I didn't use the term at the time, but I've got burnout immunity, because I love what I do. And here I am. Alright, so let's talk about first the the purpose being such a big driver of burnout. But how there's more to it than that.

Dr. Kandi Wiens: Yeah, right. It's interesting. You say that because I I've met a lot of people who describe burnout as being this very insidious thing, where it sneaks up on them. And they they tell themselves stories that I'm doing the right thing like you did when you putting your kids to bed via FaceTime. Well, a lot of it I think, has to do with Sorry, I'm blanking for a second.

Zack Arnold: No, no, I actually I take this as a victory because it means you're not answering the same road questions that you've answered. 50 times.

Dr. Kandi Wiens: Yeah, no. I mean, it's it's very much a I'm noticing by the end of the week that my brain is fried. This is where I'm at. And I'm very real right now. I'm starting to question myself. Did I hear the question right, and am I processing it right? Yeah, I'm here. I write a little bit in the book about when meaningful work backfires When we get really engaged in work that is important to us, it's purpose driven, it fuels our soul a little bit. And I've also interviewed people who get get caught in what's called the over engagement trap. They're very engaged in their jobs, they, they take a lot of pride, and they receive a lot of meaning and fulfillment from their jobs, to the extent that they make more personal sacrifices than they really want to or for, for a longer period of time than they really want to. And it becomes this really, really gradual thing where first it says, well, I'll just, I'll just say yes to this, this one trip. And then I'll you know, it's everybody has their own version of that gradual progression of burnout. And oftentimes, what happens and most of the people that I interviewed that have experienced burnout don't say that it was because of stress in one day, one big thing that happened, they described it as it just built and built and built over time, so gradual, I almost didn't even notice it. And that happens quite often with people who over engage or over identify with their work. Even very purpose driven people, even people who absolutely love their jobs.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, I'm definitely one of those people. Now we're, at least if we look at the the two full time jobs that I took on, voluntarily, both running a business and doing podcasts and writing coupled with the work that I do as an editor, there probably isn't an hour of my week where I'm miserable. And I don't love the work that I do. I mean, there's always that 10% I gotta make the donuts gotta do this. Gotta answer the emails. Like, nobody loves 100% of what they do. But it's it's been years, probably six years since I've ever questioned, Am I doing the right thing. I love the work that I do. I love working with people, I love the shows that I created, the the impact that they create. And I really was living under the false impression that I'd solved the problem. This is what I was missing. This is why I had the five to seven year cycle of burnout. Problem solved. Now it's in the rearview mirror. And over the last year, so the the realization that I had come to and I recently did a podcast with another fellow author, her name is Dr. Romi, moosh. Doc, she has a book that's called the busy brain cure, and talks a lot about the busy brain and being super distracted and overwhelmed and saying yes to too many things. And we, I had had this conversation with her. And I'm interested in having a similar one from your perspective, where I said, it's oftentimes hard to identify the difference between anxiety and depression and exhaustion and burnout, because they're different flavors. They're in the same general conversation, but they're different flavors. And I argued with her not argue like in a you know, just had like a very, you know, heated conversation saying, I don't think that I'm burned out. The reason being, I still have ideas all day long about the things that I want to write about and the things that I want to do to expand the program and all these ideas for editing scenes, whatever it might be. But then we started to go into the relationship that I have with being, you know, having to manage the health of my parents. And she said, I think what you're experiencing is caregiver burnout. And it was just like, like, huge revelation for me. And then what I also realized is that a huge way that's put upon me and I've created this circumstance, is that the work that I do as a career strategist, and with the podcast and the relationship that I have with my audience, with the industry, imploding guests, who everybody sends their life stories where they say, I've lost my job, I'm losing my house, I'm delivering UberEATS when I won an Emmy a year ago, I'm the inbox that they hit. And to get those messages over and over and over. It's a tremendous, it's a tremendous honor to be the person that people see that I'm somebody that can help them. But that coupled with everything going on with my parents coupled with the industry in the uncertainty, I was like, that's that's the burnout that I'm experiencing. It's not, I don't love my job, and I need to find another career path. It's I just, I don't have the energy, energy or the enthusiasm to jump in and help everybody which has helped me realize over the years, and I've talked about this with my students as well. And you can tell me if you agree or disagree, because this is a drastic reduction of all the work that you've done, but I believe the root cause of burnout is the word yes. It's just over and over and over and over. It's just yes to too many things. When your intuition says I really need to say no to this, but I can't. And in certain respects, I set really good boundaries. I create guardrails. So you are not going to careen through this guardrail at 100 miles an hour. But like you said, my boundaries, they're really soft. And I say yes to a lot more things than I need to and I think a lot of people listening can relate to that.

Dr. Kandi Wiens: And again, something you have absolute control over, they hang then back to the tension between your values. There's something there that you value more than perhaps your well being in that moment. Because you are saying yes to it. Maybe you value the relationship maybe you value being able to serve other people or do something for someone else that they will gain value from. So there's something there with a dot value of yours that you're going after that is blocking the value that you might have to just take that say no to it and take a little time for yourself.

Zack Arnold: Mm hmm. Yeah. And that's, that's the the eternal struggle of not just me, but just about everybody in my family. We're all wired this way. It's multiple generations of teachers, and people that work in some form of hospitality, helping others. And it's just it's kind of a running joke in the family of you know, how the cobblers kids have no shoes, everybody else around us is taken care of except ourselves. So then again, that goes back to the upbringing and the awareness of so many of the scripts or the the experiences or your very subjective perception of the world.

Dr. Kandi Wiens: Yeah, I can definitely see how all of that will contribute to feelings of burnout. What I would push back against a little bit, though, Zack, is that I wrote a Harvard Business Review article about this that sometimes people will describe what they're feeling is burnout. That's like the most common term, it's like, it's getting overused and misused quite a bit, when really what's going on, if we were to really dig in and diagnose psychologically what that person was experiencing. Oftentimes, it's overextension. So it's just too much to do too many demands, on my time, too many demands on my energy, including my emotional energy, then I have the resources for so my demands, everything coming at me is more than the resources or the capacity that I have right now. So the difference between feeling overextended and burnout is that with overextended, it's mostly driven by just too much to the volume and all of that. But there's still a desire to want to serve, there's still a desire to want to do the work, versus someone who's burned out. The cost could be from the could be a capacity issue. But it could also be from other reasons, which we can get to if you want. But the difference between a person who's over extended and a person who is burned out is the person who's burned out wakes up in the morning and says, I can't imagine getting up out of bed and getting another ounce of energy to anybody around me. And it's think of it to as the difference between a headache and a migraine. So people who are overextended might describe it as like what's kind of sounds like a pretty bad headache for a longer period of time. But people who are truly burned out and really, almost can't function emotionally or psychologically with their work. And there are different degrees of it. It's not just I'm burned out or not burned out. But that's my grain level of stress. So

Zack Arnold: then, I want to dig into this further, because this is fascinating. Let's use this example. Right? You wake up in the morning, you look at your calendar, and you're like, there's just no way, there's no way I'm getting through the end of this day, I would guess it sounds like that's kind of how you felt waking up this morning. By the way, PS thank you for not rescheduling your podcast because I'm fascinated. And so glad we did this, I'm so glad nizer was cancelled when both of us should have cancelled. But having said that, so one version is you wake up, you look at your calendar, you're like, I just can't write that's the headache version. What is the person with what you call the migraine version where it's true burnout? What is their experience when they wake up and they look at their calendar?

Dr. Kandi Wiens: Yeah, that it's that feeling of I literally can't do it. Not that I don't want to do it, but I can't, I can't do it. That's pretty extreme level of burnout. But most of us operate, if we're burned out, operate at a low grade level of burnout, where we can still function, we still keep going. But gradually that will turn into a higher degree higher intensity, feeling of burnout. So that's what's really important to watch. I have a have an assessment on my website. So burnout risk assessment, it'll give you an indication of whether you're a low, moderate or high risk of burning out. And that that's the self awareness tool. It's really intended to just help us see, okay, if I'm at high risk, that means I need to really take a close look at what's going on. And depending on what's going on in your external environment. Internally, we might need to make a lot of changes. But moderate, that's an indicator that you're prone, you could be on the cusp of getting pretty burned out. Yeah. So it's really paying attention to how you're feeling but it also, like you mentioned to getting on on the podcast today. Both of us are pretty exhausted from a long week. I'll admit, I sometimes wonder a Friday afternoon, am I really at my best? Probably not, not

Zack Arnold: guarantee I'm at my worst Friday at this time and later. So I'm right there with you. Yeah,

Dr. Kandi Wiens: I mean, not not to my standards anyway, not my best. And so we put that pressure on ourselves. And back to your point about unmet expectations. Oftentimes, it's we're not meeting our own expectations, which just eating contributes contributes more to we amplify stress for ourselves. Yeah,

Zack Arnold: and I wanted to get into this assessment further. First of all, anybody listening, the link will be At the top of our shownotes, take the assessment, you also have the assessment in the back of your book. This is exactly where I wanted to go next. Because this is what's what's so fascinating about your book specifically versus other people's perspectives on burnout is that it's very much within your control to change. A lot of it's specific specifically with your emotional intelligence. And here's what I found so fascinating with the previous podcasts that I mentioned about the busy brain. There was it wasn't a burnout quiz, per se, but it was very similar. It was more about burnout and overwhelm. And obviously, these are very subjective questions. It's not like your assessment was the same as this other person's. But and I don't remember the exact numbers. So anybody that's like what you said, the numbers in the previous podcast, I don't remember what they were, but give or take. It was if you score above in the high 30s, or the low 40s, you should be concerned. And I said to the the author, I said, Hold my beer, because I just took your test, and I was in the high 80s. And her face drops. And she's like, Oh, my goodness, we need to talk, right? So I took your test, assuming that it was going to be the same thing. And my number was significantly lower. And I was fascinated by this. Now I'm really fascinated about the idea of being overextended versus burned out. As I scored, I think 52, which it wasn't like 10, but I wasn't in the 80s or 90s. Like, like you I'm like, Oh, I'm gonna get an A plus on this and score 100. Right. If I'm going to overachieve, I'll leave over achieve the things I shouldn't be over achieving it. And what I found is that so much of it, I think was driven because you even were very clear about this as the amount of points you get for this question or this question. And I largely felt in control of my circumstances. And so much of what my doing is my choice to be doing, and I love what I'm doing. So I almost kind of feel like you're at least helping with the argument of maybe I'm not as burned out, as I think maybe I'm just massively overextended and exhausted. Yeah. Yeah. I

Dr. Kandi Wiens: mean, if I were to do the real burnout assessment on you that would be my my inclination is that you would profile calm profile as overextended rather than burned out. And it's important to know that because the intervention to help you would be very different than someone who is burnt out. So do you mind if I ask did you come back a moderate risk of burnout? Whatever

Zack Arnold: the whatever 52 was, I think it was above 40, something was moderate risk. So yeah, but to me, that was a huge victory, because I assumed it was going to be close to this book and call 911. Right. And it wasn't even close to that. What

Dr. Kandi Wiens: that tells me though, Zack, is that, if you noticed, every single one of those questions is intended to get you thinking about what you are doing, or what you're not doing. Also what's going on in your environment that could cause you to be at high risk, or what is maybe protecting you from getting burned out. And so you might have a combination of things that you're doing, right, like focusing on what you can control. And then there might be some things in your external environment, maybe it's some personal relationships, or some support that you're getting, that is also protecting you from getting burned out. So there's some things going right, even though you have way more on your plate than you probably should right now, in order to be at your best. But you're doing some things right? When I ask people to take that assessment, or anyone who takes it, I would really encourage you, yes, it's important to get the final result to find out if you're at low, moderate or high risk. That's that's one thing. But I think more importantly, is to really take the question seriously, turn off all your devices, sit down with a cup of coffee, or a glass of wine, whatever you want. Kick your feet up. Don't Don't let anybody in the room and actually really think about every single question. And be honest, be completely honest with yourself. Because a lot of times people will have an insight, just by reflecting on the questions. And that will then prompt them to think okay, well, I'm not doing enough of this one thing. And I know I've known that. But now when I'm faced with answering that question, I really know that and now that I know, I can't unknow it.

Zack Arnold: And I had the same experience, which it wasn't just about, let me just click, click, click, click, click so I can get my score. It was then there were several and I like I said, I did it with a physical book. And I was just like, I don't know the answer to this one. But I want to think about why don't I have the answer to this one? And I think this is an important question. And I want to make sure I get the right answer. So I had that experience several times. So just the process of going through the questions even before getting the result at the exact same experience. So like the sense of, I need to reflect on why am I answering this question this way. So it's absolutely I think vital for everybody listening to to really take this quiz and better understand even if they're not gonna buy the book or, you know, go any further down the rabbit hole. This alone allows for some of that awareness that I think so many people are lacking. Yeah,

Dr. Kandi Wiens: exactly. And it's a free resource. I mean, encourage people to take it and the other thing I hope that will that At that burnout risk assessment will spark is just more conversations, you know, you just shared your results with me, I take that assessment every couple of months. And I have people that I talked to about my results. And so I now have language like we have common language me and a group of friends and colleagues about where we're at with our burnout risk level on we support each other. So it it bonds us when we're able to share it a little bit about our experiences and whether or not we're feeling actually really feeling burned out or, or not. Yeah,

Zack Arnold: and that's one of the things that I found with building the global community that I built over the last several years, which is ridiculously ironic giving how antisocial and introverted I am. But I found through a lot of the awareness and therapy that a lot of the reasons I built the community was because I was seeking a peer group that I couldn't find because I always felt left out or different. And realizing that there's just as much value in talking through our struggles, rather than it just being about solutions. And the one of the things I want to make sure we cover I'm going to put a pin in it in a second. But I want to make sure we cover this from not just the perspective of I'm working too many hours, there's too many demands, there's too little budget not enough time, I'm working with shitty people, because I think so many people right now are saying, Well, I'm not even working, and I haven't for a year. So I want to go there for a second. But there's one other thing that I want to identify specifically about saying yes to too many things, taking too many external expectations. How much of that have you found, is really used more as a distraction, so you have an excuse to not look inwards and take care of your own needs? Yes.

Dr. Kandi Wiens: So I write about what I call protected patterns. And so when you think about when we're faced with a stressor, we have a choice to either avoid that stress, or approach it, we also have the choice to internalize it, the stressor or externalize it, internalize it, meaning we don't talk to anybody about it, we just hold it in, we stuff it, we process it on our own, the approach versus avoid, we may run towards more work if we are avoiding stress at home or stress in our family life or with our friends or some something not work related. And oftentimes when I coach people, we have conversations about why trying to get at the root of why they're taking on more than they should and not saying no and not not asking for help. Sometimes at the root of it is their avoidance of some other stressor.

Zack Arnold: In it again, this if you were to look this up and you needed an image for it, I'm happy to send you any of my avatars and photos because I'm so guilty of this where well, you know, what, how about, I don't address my own burnout. And I just help other people with theirs. Right. But one of the things that I've been very clear with my audience, and like I said, again, the reason the only reason we're doing this today, when I really have no business pretending to be a podcaster, knowing what the hell I'm talking about, is because I think sharing the vulnerabilities and the challenges is just as or even more important than here's a seven step solution, right? And that's why that's why I really appreciate you being so candid about it. And that it's always a matter of oh, if I just get in, get bring in more students, and I can help them with their burnout. Well, maybe I can just avoid the fact that I'm secretly dealing with it myself as well, right?

Dr. Kandi Wiens: Yeah, you're there's something there that is helping you with your processing of it. And you may not have the answer today in terms of what you might want to do differently or think about differently. But the fact that you're talking about it openly is part of your process for it. And what

Zack Arnold: I've discovered is that it is my process. I did a podcast a few months ago, I don't remember exactly what episode we can put it in the show notes, but was somebody that taught there was an expert at dealing with chronic pain. And her process was actually creative journaling. It was like having a conversation with your body about why it is my neck or waterway. I always feel this and really kind of getting into the emotional side of it. And she talked to me about a journaling practice and like, I've tried journaling, I buy journals, I never write them. I'm horrible at it. And then she stopped me and she's like, have you tried a podcast for like 10 years? Yeah. Don't you write a weekly newsletter? Yeah, she's like, that's how you journal and I was like, Oh, my God, then I realized that what I'm doing now, this is my process for dealing with all these things. And I realized very early on and starting the podcast, starting a newsletter was realizing that I didn't want to be standing at the top of my ivory tower, speaking from my podium, saying I'm the expert on XY and Z and do the following. Because frankly, that's most of influencer culture right now. I said, What have I just talked about everything that I'm dealing with? And I attracted like minded people, and we found solutions together. So I really think that a large portion of my business model is literally my coping mechanism.

Dr. Kandi Wiens: Yeah, so it's working for you. It is it is coping, but you're also attracting people who can relate to you and really, your message resonates with them. And it was the same with me writing the book. I didn't set out to write this book for other people. I actually didn't at first didn't plan to publish it. I came up with a framework for the book which is This armor framework when I was out on a walk one day, and I was just thinking about everything I've been learning and how I was changing how really I had taken everything I had been learning about stress management and applying it on myself. And that was my process. So I just started writing, I got home from that walk, and I was I just sat down, I started typing and did a brain dump. And next thing I know, I'm doing more and more writing. So I don't like to journal either, by the way, pick up a pen only when I have to jot someone's name down, because I don't want to forget their name. But other than that I, I like to type because I can type really fast. And notice that okay, this is actually turning into something that isn't just helpful for me. I could see using this content in a workshop, or in a keynote speech or and then then it got to Harvard Business Review articles and other things. And then it was ultimately, no, there's there's enough content here that can be shared with other people where we can work together on developing these skills and burndown. Immunity. Yeah,

Zack Arnold: and the reason that I bring this up, other than because it's just my own process. But because there's so many people in my industry that have been out of work for so long. They're coming to me saying, Well, I want to start a podcast or start this or whatever, but I don't know how to monetize it, or what tools to get. And what I often try to encourage them is that maybe this can just be how you get through this period, you can build your network by doing a podcast, even if you never make a cent, it gives you a chance to talk to others about your struggles. Which is why even though to this day, my podcast is still not profitable. 10 years in, still not actually profitable as far as numbers are concerned. But it's number one helped me build an audience and building awareness. And number two, it's I don't know how not to have these conversations. I'm constantly seeking out new people that I can talk through really complex problems with, which is why I'm like, No, we're not canceling today's podcast, because I to me, this is the process that I need, with a belief that I think a lot of other people need it as well.

Dr. Kandi Wiens: Yeah, I love that, Zack. So you're taking an approach and you're externalizing, that's your, it may not have been your default default protective pattern with stress, maybe if you're introverted, you might have a natural tendency to internalize things more not sure. But you're choosing to be vulnerable and share your stories and encourage other people to share back their stories. And that that's a change then in your protective pattern that maybe wouldn't have worked for you years ago. But it's working for you now as your

Zack Arnold: physical. Yeah. And that's, that's the biggest thing that I've had to learn is how to externalize whatever's going on inside because I was very much raised by the strong silent type generation. Right? You don't have feelings, you push them down, you power through your machine, right. And I've worked with therapists where they've said, What are you feeling right now? And like, I literally don't know, I don't know what words to use to describe the emotions that I have. Because that's just the way that I was raised. Right. So what I want to get into next, which I think is kind of the the elephant in the room with this conversation, as I've alluded to, is all this is great. I haven't worked for over a year. So it's not the long hours. It's not the exploitation, it's not the bosses, how can I possibly burned out when I have all my time to myself? So how do we address the elephant in the room, which is the most people listening? Probably haven't worked for a long time and they still feel exhausted and burned out?

Dr. Kandi Wiens: Yeah, yes. Because they're not, they're not realizing the potential that they know they have, they are not feeling as effective as they know they can be they know they have a lot to contribute. And that can create a lot of frustration, frustration, creates stress, stress, creates more frustration. All of it then eventually just builds up and, and grows. So regardless of whether the work is causing your burnout, or like you said before unmet expectations, expectations of myself that I have a standard that I want to live to, and I'm not able to, I'm working really hard at trying to find the right meaningful job the right way that I can contribute to society or whatever my community, and it's just not happening. So again, it's that emotional reaction to the experience is what causes stress doesn't have to come from too much work. It can also come from not enough work. Yeah,

Zack Arnold: and essentially to, to basically steal from Viktor Frankl, it's ultimately because there's just lack of purpose and direction. Right. And one of the things that I've written about and talked about extensively, is how I think one of the good things that's going to come out of this massive correction, and there's a lot of bad things coming from it. But one of the good things that I think is really adjacent to your work is realizing that who we are and our identity goes far beyond the job title on the resume. But we've been so conditioned for generations to believe that we are the title on our resume, and if we're not working, who the hell are we? That's what I think is going on with so many people right now. And

Dr. Kandi Wiens: you just got at the heart of the second book that I want to write, which then we're gonna have to talk more after today. I would love to I totally agree with you, I think we've been socialized, conditioned to develop a belief system about what success looks like and what it should be for us. And that then sets into motion a series of decisions that we make in our young adulthood. And, and when we get our first jobs, and then that we get into this perpetual cycle of, we get reinforced for that belief system. And then the next thing, you know, it's like we're not living to some to we're not realizing something that we really valued. So we're suppressing perhaps something that we really, really value because we've been chasing these goals and chasing achievements, or whatever, because of this preformed belief system that we were conditioned to believe in.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, and then I just had this conversation with somebody 15 minutes before you and I got on this call, where this was a writer that had been kind of a wash. And although the Hollywood writer and actress strikes last year, and he said, I had all this time to myself, I didn't use any of it. Right? Because it was just the sense of if I'm not working, I don't know how to how to manage my own time and manage my day and build any systems. So it wasn't if I'm not working for somebody else, and it's under their construct with their vision. I was given everything that I've said that I just had the time to myself, I could do all of these things. Given that on a silver platter. Now granted, it comes with a stress of well, am I going to work? And can I pay the bills, which are all very real challenges, but as far as the calendar all the time in the world, and a year later said, I did nothing with it. Now I'm working again, and I have no time. And I still want to do all these things. And I think that too, can lead to the burnout.

Dr. Kandi Wiens: Where Yeah, any of those things, anything that's causing you internal tension, whether it's too much work, not enough work, the wrong kind of work, too much of the right kind of work, whatever it is like anything that's causing you internal turmoil, tension, just watch it, because that ultimately leads to some boiling over of stress that could absolutely burn you up.

Zack Arnold: So we talked so much about burnout, and why I'm struggling with it, why you are potentially struggling with it. While you've been talking about it for years, we haven't actually shared any solutions. And again, the short version is if you want all the solutions, just go out and buy candies book. But I'm fascinated by this idea of developing what you call burnout, immunity through increasing your emotional intelligence. So if we're just going to kind of dig into the Cliff Notes for like 10 minutes, help us understand what burnout immunity is and how we can actually develop it, and it's within our control.

Dr. Kandi Wiens: Yeah, so my definition of burnout immunity is that it's it's a set of emotional intelligence principles, strategies, tools that people use to develop their resilience and heal from work if they are burned out. So that's the base of it is how we use our emotional intelligence. So that two of the core pieces of it, I'll focus more on that, and we'll briefly touch on some of the others, but it's having a high degree of self awareness and a high degree of self regulation. So the self awareness piece, one of the big, big things there is for people to understand and really learn about what triggers your stress, what ticks you off, what really sets you off, and not just what sets you off. But why? Why is that thing triggering you Where's that coming from, in your past work experience, or maybe your childhood, but getting really underneath that to learn as much as you possibly can about yourself, and why something is triggering you. The other part of awareness is understanding what makes you tick, what motivates you what gets you going what energizes you what makes you feel passionate about your work. And if you're not getting enough of that from your job, you're more you're at higher risk of burning out. So having an awareness of the what makes you tick and what ticks you off? That's a big one. Having an awareness of your burnout risk as risk level that's the assessment that I created. Awareness is also what's creating vulnerability for you what's going on in your, in your environment, and what's going on internally. So really looking at the mismatch between what you want and need and a job. And what you're actually getting that awareness will help you pinpoint more closely, what's going on. Then the self regulation piece is all about regulating our emotions, our thoughts and our behaviors, when we're in the midst of stress. So I share a lot of research and stories and tools that will help you regulate your emotions when you're when you're snap, like from a three to a seven level stress just like that. How do you keep your nervous system in check? Many of us when we get triggered by something, we if you notice, you have to notice it. It's an awareness thing. Notice that your heart rate goes up your blood pressure, all of that it's your nervous system kicking in, then you might start to feel okay, I've got cortisol running through my body and all of these things help us learn more about our nervous system so that we can, the more I know about my unique nervous system, the more I know what I need to do. to manage it, to bring it down regulate it, which might be totally different for you. So that's a lot of the regulation stuff. And then the there's a chapter that's really dedicated to meaningful connections. That's where I get into the value of meaningful connection to your values. And that's where I really help people understand that people with burnout immunity are very clear on their values. And they set their boundaries around those values. And they don't let they're not very often do they let people or choices cross into those boundaries of their values. So they're very values focused and purpose driven. They also are surrounded by relationships that are supportive in a lot of different ways. So they have meaningful, caring, supportive relationships. There's also a chapter on mindset, there are four vital mindsets that people with burnout immunity have. So I talked about each one of those. One of them actually, I think, when you tell me your story about serving other people, and really helping other other people, even though you might, you might need help in some aspect of your life, that servant leadership mindset where I want to serve other people, it's really important to me, it's a value of mine, that I provide that I help other people, it's maybe it's your Enneagram type. That's a personality indicator. But if it's a value of yours to serve other people that can be very protective of burnout. And only to a point, though, right? It's good until it's not. Yeah,

Zack Arnold: and I'm not gonna perfect example of that, too, for sure. Yeah, until you

Dr. Kandi Wiens: overuse that strength, which is a self awareness thing, recognizing that you might be overusing a mindset that has worked for you before. But it's causing you to make some sacrifices that, you know, you might not want to continue making in the long term.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, so if if we're going to dig into this a little bit deeper, and if there's anything else you wanted to add to that, we can certainly continue as well. But just before we go too deep down the rabbit hole, to to break this down and simplify it just kind of with my own personal experience, which I think is similar to a lot of others. I spent years developing the awareness portion. And I feel like I have a very high level awareness of both the history, the family patterns, the belief patterns, the limiting beliefs, all those experiences, I've dug super deep into that. So as far as the awareness component, I feel very good about that when it comes to having the right growth mindsets and approaching this with the right mindset and the right perspective, feel very good about all of that, which is again, why I think I scored so much lower on your tests than I might another more standardized tests. For me, it's the regulation. Regulation right now, to be perfectly honest, is a shitshow. Right? So I'm very aware of when the stress is there, I can feel it. But the ability to properly regulate it in a healthy way, is very, very challenging for me. So I again, it's I kind of feel like I'm we're reinforcing some of my initial argument, which is there's a lot more overextension and exhaustion, than there is true burnout. Because it's not a matter of, Oh, I'm so tired of getting the emails, I don't want to help anybody stop bothering me, right? There's none of that. It's like, I just, I don't have the energy to respond to another one of these messages. Yeah, you

Dr. Kandi Wiens: don't have the physical mental energy to do that. Yeah. So that the where I would point you to read in the book is in the mindset chapter, there's a section on the aware and care mindset. So I talked about how it's not enough to just be aware of all these things, you have to also care enough for a for yourself care enough about yourself to write make some regulation type of choices, to whether it's a boundary thing, or whether it's a self care thing. Whatever it is, it's it. It's a choice, a decision, and an action that you have control over. And then take that awareness and put it in, there

Zack Arnold: was something that you talked about with mindset that I think is really important to dig into, which I agree with. But it's also really hard to wrap your head around this idea that like shifting a mindset, it doesn't really take a lot of time. It's not like months and months of work. It's just about changing the way that you think about things. And the first thing that I thought of, and by the way, I agree with this, but it triggered something in my past, I had a chemistry teacher that in high school drove everybody crazy, because he would always like talking about all the most complex things he's like, but it's so simple if you just understand it. And I would say to him, but we don't. It is your job to help us understand. It's like but I don't get it. It's so simple if you understand it. So a trigger that that memory when you're like mindset, it doesn't take a lot of time. You just have to change the way you think about things. I'm like, Yes, but how?

Dr. Kandi Wiens: Not exactly. No, yes, but how do we change our mindset? So, I mean, aside from working with a therapist or a coach, coaches are great at this, by the way, leaders

Zack Arnold: is what I what I do most of my day is helping people, but I understand it from both perspectives.

Dr. Kandi Wiens: Yeah, I So a lot of it is helping if we're able to work with someone, that person challenging us on our assumptions, our belief system, you know, Where where are my current mindset is coming from what what informed that mindset. And then what's getting in the way of looking at things a little bit differently, which often comes back to well, I have these assumptions or limiting beliefs or whatever it may be. It's much harder changing mindset is much harder said than it is much harder done that is said.

Zack Arnold: So in short, you're saying this isn't just about cold showers, meditation, forest bathing and chamomile tea, you're saying the burnouts a little bit deeper than those things. Because I'm, I'm on Instagram, following the influencers, those seem to be all the solutions. Well, and

Dr. Kandi Wiens: you know, my that maybe this isn't a popular message, but I'm going to tell you to be honest, because I in your best interest and anyone's best interest. It is not a band aid sort of approach. It's not an overnight things are going to happen for me if I just start applying all these burnout immunity things. I had my life threatening Wake Up Call 13, almost 14 years ago, and I still work on this stuff every single day. And I'm super intentional about it, because for me, it has health consequences. And so it is it's it's not something that you can just say, Well, I'm gonna Yeah, Campbell, middle tier and massage, yoga, whatever, those can all help, they may might be part of your solution. But oftentimes, there's much deeper work that each one of us needs to do, to examine our where our behavior patterns are coming from, in the ways that we're coping with stress. Yeah,

Zack Arnold: it's funny that you just brought up the idea of deeper work, because I was literally just going to share one of my favorite thoughts or quotes from one of my favorite authors, Cal Newport who wrote literally wrote the book on deep work, and has nothing to do with deep work. But he said that I don't write about anything new. I just made sense and simplified something that people already intuitively knew, but they didn't understand. And I feel like that's exactly what you did with your book is you took this big giant concept, where it's either binary while I'm burned out, or I'm not burned out and really broken down to nuances. So what it's helped me do is really zero in on if I'm going to make any significant change or take an action that's within my control. The category I need to focus on is regulation. I feel really good about awareness. I'm working with other people, I'm using this program, I'm talking to people like you to develop an awareness and understanding. And I teach mindset. And it's not to say that I don't need to improve my own. But in looking at the list, you broken down something that I intuitively knew and made it very clear regulation is the step where I'm the weakest. And I need to start working on positive and healthier, separate self regulation techniques. And I think also, there's a portion of just not beating myself up so much for being the guy that talks about burnout. That's burnout.

Dr. Kandi Wiens: Yes. So getting yourself into self sabotage track where yeah, you're you got some kind of thinking trap going on, and you're putting pressure on yourself. That's just amplifying your stress, probably more. Yeah,

Zack Arnold: certainly not helping, isn't helping.

Dr. Kandi Wiens: That's one of the things I really liked about the way we structured the book is that it's not necessarily the kind of book that you have to read front to back, you know, straight through, you can and actually, it's very well read that way. But for some people like you who are much more advanced in their stress management skills, you can go right to the chapter that you think you need help on that you need to need some encouragement, inspiration and some practical strategies and tools, you go right to the regulation chapter. And that's where you'll get some work.

Zack Arnold: And those are my favorite kinds of books where if it's front cover the back cover, you're a completionist like I'm, as a recovering perfectionist, I am very hard on myself if I don't read every word of every page in the right order, because that's obviously the way the author intended, right? Very hard on myself. I've learned how to let go of that. But I love books where it's a journey, but it's also I just need chapter four. Here's here's the things that I need to vote whatever the chapter might be, right? So I know that for yours, it can both work is that journey, but it's alright, let's just zoom into the self regulation chapter. And let's see what I can do with there just to get started and feel some sense of momentum going forward. Yeah,

Dr. Kandi Wiens: momentum is huge, right? You need to get yourself some wins, so that you have more motivation and energy to take on maybe even more challenging work. Yeah,

Zack Arnold: and the big win for today was, you know, getting myself on the Zoom call when I really didn't think I should be and having this conversation, I was so close to sending Debbie the message like now just we're gonna have to reschedule my intuition said, figure out a way to make it happen to your Lord, I'm so glad that I did. Because I know that I just I personally got a lot out of this today and I hope that everybody else listening did I'm through about 7% of my notes, so I know that I'm supposed to be respectful of your time. I'm gonna need you to hang out for about three and a half more hours. So if you use your clear your already busy schedule

Dr. Kandi Wiens: next week, how's that? Yeah,

Zack Arnold: I do think that this definitely begets further conversations because This sounds like we're going down similar paths and really, really digging into what is the conditioning that's led us to this place with work our relationship to work the economy, etc. But at least for now, I want to be respectful of your time as much as I don't want to be I will be. So having said that, if I want to send everybody to one place to find the blog to learn more about you so we can help them develop burnout immunity, where's the one place to send them, go

Dr. Kandi Wiens: to kandiwiens.com Put it in your show notes, you spell it right spell it KANDIWIENS. And you're gonna find a lot of free resources out there. So yes, of course, you can read about me and my background and more about the book. But go to the writing tab, and you'll find tons of Harvard Business Review I just came out with a Time magazine piece this week, we came out with a Fast Company article. There are a couple of other articles that are coming out within the next couple of weeks it will be all new, fresh content, get your hands on it, pass it around, it's free start use it to start conversations with people and that that may be one good first positive step that everybody can take without it feeling too intimidating.

Zack Arnold: Well, I appreciate all that and more And all those are my dream publications that are on my my eventually list to have my name listed as well. But in the meantime, thank you for fitting me into your over extended crazy busy Friday afternoon means the world to me and my audience. So thank you, Kandi, I appreciate it.

Dr. Kandi Wiens: Thanks for having me on. Zack. This has been a lot of fun and look forward to talking to you again.

Episode Credits

This episode was edited by Curtis Fritsch, and the show notes were prepared by Debby Germino and published by Glen McNiel.

The original music in the opening and closing of the show is courtesy of Joe Trapanese (who is quite possibly one of the most talented composers on the face of the planet).