6 Signs You Might be Experiencing Burnout with Naveed Ahmad | B-Well Together | Salesforce

Well, hello everyone. You might have noticed I'm not actually Jodi Kohner. Jody's taking some time off to recharge. She is practicing what she preaches and a great role model of a very hot topic that we're introducing to you today. It's all about burnout. My name is Karen Manji and I'm Vice president of Customer and Market Insights. And I'm thrilled to be here hosting today in her place while she's recharging. I want to welcome today's special guest with such a timely topic, Navid Ahmad. And for those of you who don't know him yet, he is a burnout expert and coach who got interested in this topic based on some of his own life experiences that he's going to share with us today. He's the co founder and CEO of a company called Flourish and their mission is all about helping create a just, peaceful, prosperous world by helping everyone realize their full potential. Doesn't that sound fantastic? And he brings to it a very innovative background in healthcare as well. And today he's going to take us through six, perhaps unlikely surprise discoveries or signs that you might find in your own life that indicate you're either on a path to burnout or already burnt out. But the good news is he's not just going to help us identify those stages of burnout. He's going to help us have some tips for how to address those going forward along the way. As you're listening, please feel free to post any of your questions to the camp Be well chatter group and we'll make sure to get to as many of those as we can at the end of today's session. So with that, Navid, thanks so much for joining us today. I understand from the Berkeley area after a little fun in the sun this weekend.

Thanks so much, Karen. So glad to be here. And thanks so much for the kind introduction. Yeah, I mean, you know, this conversation around burnout is just, as you mentioned, so important right now, especially given everything that's happening in the world, all the different layers of stress that so many of us are feeling and are under at the moment. But this, you know, the conversation on Burnout is really about something a little bit different. It's really about fulfillment. It's about how do we live rich, satisfying lives that when we're old and gray, we feel proud of, that we don't look back on and feel a sense of regret around. And I've had the good fortune of making this my work at Flourish. But as Karen mentioned, this really comes From a personal place. You know, I only got into this after I had a really key learning, which is really important to our conversation today about burnout. So I want to begin by telling you a little bit about that story. And, yeah, I'm the son of Pakistani immigrants, and being the son of immigrants, I had very clear instructions for how to succeed and what fulfillment looked like. You work hard, you get good grades, you get a good job, and you excel in that job. And I did exactly what I was supposed to do, but yet I still felt like something was missing. And this all came to a head about a decade ago when I was in Zurich for a meeting that I was running. It was with. It was with dignitaries from all over the world and major CEOs of corporations. And the point of this meeting was all about how to alleviate poverty in West Africa. This was just incredibly meaningful work. I get up to my room after this long day of this meeting, and. And I'm just exhausted. You know, I'm dragging my suitcase into the door, and, you know, I kind of just fling my coat on the floor. I don't even bother to hang it up. And I'm just tired, you know, and that was probably the norm, unfortunately. The norm back then, which is why I probably lost my hair. I don't exactly know the science on this, but that's. That's what I'm going with for right now. And I kind of just instinctively flip open my laptop, and there in my inbox are two emails. And these two emails represent. They represent probably the two extremes of emotion that I could have experienced at that point in my life. One is from my boss's boss. And that is a. That's an email congratulating me on a new promotion. This was something that I had worked really hard for, I had really wanted. And not only did I get it, but I got it early. You know, this should have been a moment of joy, of satisfaction, of excitement, but I didn't feel any of those things. And then the other email was from my girlfriend. And this is still probably one of the most emotionally provocative emails I've ever received. And, you know, it was my girlfriend actually breaking up with me over email, which, you know, by itself is bad enough, but why was she breaking up with me? What was the reason? It was because of my ethnicity. I mean, it's. It's hard to put even into words how I, like, should have been feeling in that moment, right? Like rage or anger or frustration, but, you know, sadness. But again, I didn't feel anything. All I could do was close my laptop, fall back on my bed and just pass out. Like suit, tie, shoes and all. You know, looking back on it now, I knew I was burned out. But at that point, I didn't know. I couldn't see the signs. I didn't have any sense for what was really going on. But what I did know was that the way I was living wasn't working for me, that something had to change. So I embarked on a journey to figure out what that was. And I did a lot of the things that you might imagine one would do if they're struggling in that way. I focused on self care. That's what we hear so much of these days. I exercised more, I started meditating, I ate right, I even lost 40 pounds. I even quit my job and took some time off, which I was fortunate enough to have the space to do. But it still, you know, it still didn't make a difference. I still wasn't happy. And I couldn't really understand why until I had a conversation one day with my dad. And so I'm. Yeah, I call him up and I ask him how he's doing, and he tells me that he's just, he's insanely busy and stressed out, which I kind of come to expect at this point in my life. I had known my dad pretty well, but it was a little ironic because he at this point was probably 10 years into retirement. So what on earth was he insanely busy and stressed out about? He was so busy because he had spent the entire day looking for a receipt to a couch from the 1980s that we still had that he wanted to. That he wanted to use to get the cushions for that couch replaced for free because the couch had a lifetime warranty, you know, and like, this is what he's spending his time on doing. Like this. The absurd, absurdity of this was just, I mean, you know, in that moment, I just kind of get quiet. I don't exactly know how to react. But I'd also seen this from my dad, you know, much of my life. And, and to some extent it was expected because, you know, my dad, he, you know, he grew up in a situation of not significant financial security. You know, he was born in India, but on the wrong side of a line, so that, you know, when he was four years old, he and his parents had to board a refugee plane and leave everything behind. You know, effectively lost all of their material wealth in that one moment. So, you know, my dad, for much of his life, you know, was, you know, scrimped and saved, right? He was very focused on having financial security, which made sense. But here he is in retirement, where he now has, you know, he's by no means rich, but in a place of comfort. You know, he doesn't need to be saving anymore. And so I'm trying to understand, you know, what on earth is he doing? Why is he spending all this time doing this? And then it hits me. He's saving now in retirement so that he can give his life savings to me, my brother, so that we don't have to live, you know, that same life of scarcity that he did. And in that moment, I was just felt so deeply loved and deeply sad because, you know, I knew my dad to be fairly unhappy most of his life. You know, he was so focused on saving that next dollar, making that next dollar, that it obsessed him, it consumed him. And he was doing all of this to give, you know, he was doing all this for his family, you know, and this is. You know, society would suggest this is like a noble pursuit, but he had measured his life, he had measured himself by what he was giving to others. And I realized that I was doing the same thing. You know, for me, it wasn't about money or necessarily about giving to others, but it was about achievement. It was about getting that next promotion. You know, what. What was the impact I was making in the world? What was the accolade I was receiving and, you know, I had gotten. And none of these things are bad things necessarily, right? Working hard and performing well, this is not a bad thing. But the challenge becomes when, you know, that, like, for me and my dad, we had lost track of who we were because we were so focused on these things. And it was only after I was able to value myself just for being human, independent of all these other things, that the rest of my efforts in the world actually started to feel satisfying in the ways that I always hoped. And I think this is so important for all of us here today that, you know, there's real value in working hard, achieving our goals, and committing ourselves to the service of others. But those things by themselves cannot be how we measure our worth, how we measure our value. In fact, doing so is a clear path to burnout, to realize fulfillment, we need to feel valuable just for being human. Being human is enough. And so I'm so glad to be speaking with you all today because I know that so many of us, you know, show up every day wanting to contribute to our best, wanting to be there for our colleagues, wanting to be proud of the work, are doing Wanting, want to be there for our family. And when burnout hits, it can just be so difficult. Right? It's difficult to get out of bed in the morning, let alone to even take a shower, let alone to see friends or to socialize, albeit socially distantly at the moment. And right now, especially with COVID given all the layers of stress that we're under with, you know, concerns about our health and financial security and just the uncertainty of it all, you know, these, these things really exacerbate underlying issues. And awareness is, is the first step to how to deal with this. And, and that's, you know, what, what we're going to talk about today as an attempt to, you know, to give you all an opportunity to potentially avoid hitting that crisis moment that I had to hit. And so I want to, I want to share my screen now and we'll start to talk a little bit here about the, about the six signs. Let me just get my screen shared. Hopefully that works.

Okay, well, and as you're sharing your screen with us, I hope you're going to talk a little bit about can you do both? I mean, can you have a job at a company which inherently rewards accomplishment? Right. Get gold stars, differentiate yourself from the group and at the same time be valuing yourself, feeling that being human is enough? Tell us a little bit more as you're taking us through the signs of burnout about how those things can coexist. I mean, can you have both? Yes, absolutely. And can you show up well for yourself as a person and for your family and find that fulfillment?

You can absolutely do both. Absolutely. And it does absolutely come down to a question of balance. But the, and in reality, it's when, when we are showing up for ourselves in a way that really honors who we are, that we're, we're in fact in a more spacious, innovative, creative, energetic place that actually leads to things like achievement. And it's. And when we, you know, don't honor those things, that's when we can kind of fall into trouble. And so, you know, as we jump now into some of the, some of the signs. So let's dive into one here. So the first one is. So tell me if this resonates at all. It's Sunday at 4pm and all of a sudden your heartbeat quickens as you think about your next day and you sit there in a moment of dread before you take a deep breath and begin planning your evening so that you're ready for your jam packed week ahead. So that, that has a name. It's called The Sunday scaries. And it's one of the signs. Has anyone else. Has anyone else had that experience before? Have we felt that before? I know it's been pretty common in my life, certainly. All right, here's another one. The alarm goes off in the morning. That awful blaring sound that, like, just grates on your ears. Your phone is across the room. So you three the covers off. You scamper over to the phone and hit the snooze button just to have, like, a moment of peace. But now, oh, you feel a little bit. It's chilly in here. So you jump back over to bed, getting back in the covers, and you just enjoy that moment of peace and warmth. You slowly doze off, and then nine minutes later, you do it all over again. Then 18 minutes later, you do it all over again. And then 27 minutes later, you do it all over again. That's what we call the snooze addiction. The third sign is one that is really common these days, especially with everything going on around Covid we tend to look at is increased consumption. So this is everything from Netflix binges to eating that extra pint of ice cream while you're watching tv or even just increasing the consumption you have of caffeine or. Karen, you were talking about the idea of just one more syndrome, just one more episode of Netflix, just one more cup of coffee, just one more glass of wine. This is certainly something that is something that folks should watch out for. And if this is something that you're noticing, it doesn't necessarily mean that you have burnout, but it's something to kind of take a look at and ask yourself the question, what's going on here? Another kind of interesting one that we're seeing is what we call planning your escape. And pre Covid, what this looked like was folks would be. Would be researching flights for faraway places they had no intention of going. And now what folks are doing, or they're maybe they're looking on Airbnb for a cabin to get away to, but again, no plans of actually making that a reality, or you're just fantasizing about just getting in the car and driving. You know, it doesn't matter where you're going. You just need to get away. That's what we call playing the escape. The fifth sign is a sharp weight change. So, you know, have you unexpectedly gained or lost 10 pounds in the last few months? This, again, could. Could be associated with other things, but if it's. If it's unexpected, something, again to look at and Ask your the question, what's going on here? And finally, the sixth sign is what we call counting the minutes. So it's 9am, your first meeting of the day, and you just find yourself immediately just checking out the clock, right? You're just glancing at the clock constantly, okay, when does this meeting end so you can get to the next one? All right, when does that meeting end? And you're just counting the minutes through the day so you can wrap things up and sign off for the day. And these days, given that we're all working from home, it's really not unheard of for folks that are struggling to knock off as soon as their last meeting is up, even if that last meeting is at 3 o' clock or 1 o' clock in the afternoon. And I want to be clear, there's not shame in these. There's no shame in any of these. I mean, this is just your body trying to figure out how to get what it needs. And as I mentioned earlier, I really wanted to illuminate these signs so that, you know, you can do something about them. And the question becomes, you know, what is that? What can we do about it? And as I mentioned in my story, or if you Google things, you know, what will come up is this question about self care. But I mean, we already know that, right? We know that sleeping more and eating right are the things that we need to do, but we still don't do it. Right? That's why we, you know, that's why there's so many New Year's resolutions that are conceived in December, set in January and forgotten by February. And so here's the thing. People will tell us to take care of ourselves, but what that needs to start with is valuing ourselves. If you take just one thing away from this conversation today is to find a way to believe that just being human is enough. And with that in mind, my team at Flourish wanted to just offer something really special to folks in the Salesforce community today. You know, we've never done this before, but we're going to run a complimentary 14 day program to help all of us just get that boost of energy, motivation so we can live that rich, satisfying life that I know so many of us all want. And this is going to be led by some of our world class coaches. And the results we're seeing from the folks going through this material are just really incredible. You know, we typically charge thousands of dollars per person for this content, but we're going to make it available to the Salesforce community totally free, right Now. So I highly encourage you to go check it out. You can sign up at the website, join flourish.com salesforce and I'll go ahead and flash that back up on the screen here. And I really encourage you to do that. Just go to that page and enter the email and you'll click the button, secure your spot. You'll be sent to a very short registration page and once you fill that out, you'll receive a calendar invite with all the info for the first sessions next week. Just that easy. And spots are really limited and we're only going to be able to keep this open until 5pm today Pacific time. So I really, you know, urge you to kind of go and go to that page and get started today because, you know, this isn't something that you want to wait on. Like life is just too short, you know, don't wait. You know, take action now. And before, before we go ahead and transition to questions, what I want to do is just share a quote from Howard Thurman, a black author and philosopher who says, don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

Wow, that is so powerful. And thank you so much for sharing your story, but also for this wonderful resource. And what it makes me think is maybe the first step in valuing yourself is investing in something like one of these classes or joining a community that can help you make that mindset shift to what helps you come alive. And when I think about some of the questions that are coming in, I mean, teams at companies can be like communities. And so often people feel challenged in the context of a team environment or at a company to say I'm feeling burnt out or I'm really struggling. I mean, what advice would you give, especially to leaders, whether they manage people or their leaders in other ways about how to establish some kind of language there or do check ins or encourage each other in more of these healthy habits.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I'm so glad you asked that question because it's really, I mean it is, it is very much on a lot of folks minds right now in this question of how to as teams and managers, how do we take care of our team? One of the things that is, I think, really paramount to that is is just creating the space to have the conversation. Especially right now, given how many of us are primarily operating through zoom, right? There's not the in between moments. There's not the proverbial water cooler experience where folks can just have light Interactions that might be like, just, how are you doing? How's your weekend been? Things are so structured right now that there's not necessarily the space for that. And it's so important that we start with just creating the space for that. Once we do after that, it's a combination of listening and meeting your teams where they're at, trying to withhold judgment and really, you know, realizing that it's not as you. As the manager's responsibility to also fix this problem. You want to create the conditions so that this person feels empowered enough to take the steps that they need to be able to make this change. Because at the end of the day, that's the only thing that's ever going to work.

That's so freeing. I think just because you ask and you're interested doesn't mean it's incumbent upon you as the leader to fit fix it. And along those lines, I mean, so many people are home with their children and are curious about, you know, how are these symptoms of burnout or the stress that maybe we're all carrying as adults coming through to kits. I mean, what should people be looking for in their children as these signs of burnout? And how do people get invested there in helping their kids get out of the burnout and into valuing themselves?

Yeah, well, I think. I mean, this is a great question. I think about this a lot with my own kids these days. And I think that the thing that I remember the most is that kids are always learning, right? They are seeing and observing and experiencing the world around them, and they are just picking things up, you know, whether or not we're saying things or not. And so when you ask the question of how do you. How do you create the experience for kids to value themselves? And. And how do you ensure that they're not being affected by the stresses that we're experiencing these days? It really comes back to the parents and what we're modeling. If my kids are seeing me take the time to exercise, take the time to go for a walk, take the time to do things for myself that I know are important, they're internalizing that as a message as well. And I think that's really. That's a really key thing that I try to remember when it can be so tough, right, because our kids want our attention, and it feels like that's really important to do, to give them as well. Which it is, which it is. But it can't be at the exclusion of taking care of ourselves as well.

Well, so many folks right now are taking stock of their lives or their careers and saying, you know, I think I am ready for a major change. You know, I want to look for a new job or this is the time I start that lifestyle change and I'm going to stick with it this time. And they're tempted by that feeling of burnout to make major changes. Maybe it's leaving a city and moving, finding a new job, whatever that might be. What advice do you give to people? I mean, how does it break down between the I'm just burnt out and dreaming of something else versus this is a really great path for me. How can people evaluate that right now?

Yeah, well, the unfortunate reality is that when most people make big changes associated with things like their job or changing their environment as an attempt to deal with burnout, it doesn't stick. I mean, it's really sad to hear that, but it's true. I mean, in my case, it was the case as well, right? I quit my job. It didn't really make a difference. And we see that, that folks will quit their jobs and then six months later they'll find a new one and they'll be right back in the same spot. So I really encourage folks to, I really encourage folks to start with yourself and try to understand what's really the root cause of what's going on and to do that work before making any kind of necessarily make any big changes.

It's like that phenomenon I think we've all experienced where you go on a vacation and then you over schedule yourself so much that you come home and need a vacation from your vacation, right?

Absolutely. Yeah.

Well, as you close out, I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about the Minds Matter program that you helped to establish, because I think that's really an important program right now. And tell us more about what it is and how can people get involved.

Oh, great. Yeah. So Minds Matter is a, is a nonprofit based here in San Francisco. We help low income motivated high school students get into good colleges and graduate. And you know, it's a program that I helped start here in the Bay Area. And if you're interested, you know, you can go to our website, mindsmattersf.org and there's opportunities to volunteer.

Thank you so much, Navid. Thanks for being here. To everyone watching, check in on your signs of burnout, check in on your teams, check in on your loved ones, and always remember to be happy, be healthy and be well. Thanks so much. Bye everybody.