How to avoid Burnout and achieve Balance! EP #361

Let's talk burnout. And how do you maintain balance when scaling a business? Sorry? If you get my dogs barking, I don't know why they're just walking up and decided to buy stress because you're.

Working too much, then you're gonna burn out. You're aware of it.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Now. Yeah.

I'm not actually sure that this is going to be a very relatable topic. Sorry, Dan.

Yeah, maybe not.

No experience in burnout or balance at all. Yeah.

Yeah. Alana, you were just saying before we started recording some very wise words from Werner Hartzog. I wonder if you might start by sharing those and see if our beautiful listeners and viewers can relate at all.

Certainly. Well, he has 21 life tips for filmmakers, which I highly recommend checking out. They're fantastic things like ask for forgiveness, not permission. It's worth spending a night in jail to get the shot. But relevant to this is get used to the bear behind you. And I think that's very much a thing in whatever way you interpret that. It's always a bear behind you, whether it's your deadlines or bills or finances or stress or. Yeah. I think you just have to get used to being uncomfortable and being in that state if you want to scale a business, but then figuring out what the tools are to balance that. And delegation. God, delegation. Such.

Yeah. Letting go. Letting go of the control.

Yeah. Asking yourself, like, am I the best person to do this job? 1 and 2. What is it costing me? Like, am I spending all day swearing at my computer and wanting to throw it out the window? Like, would it just be easier to just delegate it to someone else and spend my time doing something that makes me feel good and that benefits the business? And I think sometimes pushing things that you're not the best person to be doing can.

There we go.

You just missed some goals.

Yes. Balloons exploded.

That should be mine, actually. Why am I not running balloons constantly?

Yes. Yeah.

But, yeah, letting go of that is so freeing. And then you can really focus on the things that are actually going to move you forward and not burn you out as much. That was definitely a lesson for me.

That's a good tip. I like that.

That brings me back to feeling like I needed to be relevant and knowledgeable across all technical sides of, like, production and. And also, like, you know, setting up. How do you set up your email client? And, you know, or I felt like I needed to know all of this stuff. And now fast forward 10 years and I'm like, I don't know. I could not. I mean, May I might be able to work it out, but I know that getting a professional to do X, Y or Z, they'll do it faster, they'll do it better, and I won't need to have done it, which is really, really good when you know that you've got much higher valuable tasks, like much higher value tasks to be doing. Yeah. So freeing.

Yeah. I think like burnout is one of those things where it can kind of sneak up on you too. And I think one of the best preventative measures you never want to get to burnout stop, then sort of build up to that again. So you're looking to prevent starts from within. Right. It's self reflection and being able to identify like, hey, I'm overstretched here. And I think we're in a unique position as business owners where we all really like working and doing what we get to do. And there's a real pride in that, especially as it starts growing like you want to be involved in so much of it, but it just gets to a point where you literally do not have enough time to do everything that the business needs. So yeah, identifying like, okay, I'm not the best person to execute on this or I'm not going to do this as well as outsourcing it to somebody else. Recognizing that and being able to say to yourself, that's okay, you don't have to be the best person at this point starts to relieve that pressure of that building burnout feeling you mentioned in a previous podcast, Dan, about Janine Alice from Boost. And she we've done some work with her over the years and I remember I was sitting in on an interview with her about leadership, which is great. Like how often do you get just the front row seat to one of the most prolific entrepreneurs that Australia's produced? And she just without a fail always talked about hiring people better than her to move the business forward because it was like you could spend the time trying to learn, trying to upskill and trying to really develop your abilities in a specific area or you can just get somebody that's heaps better at it, bring them in and learn from them, but also they'll bring all that skillset to the table. So I think like that as a mentality is really helpful when you start looking at scaling and maybe that is just, you know, bringing on more work for yourself, taking it from a bit of a side hustle to a full time gig freelancing, looking at a way of going right, I'm going to hit a cap here on what I can actually do. How can I bring in other people that are better at this to sort of elevate the whole process and avoid, you know, hitting that ceiling and then kind of pushing through the real struggles and fatigue and stress of trying to do it all yourself and then burning out and causing yourself more harm than good?

Yeah, I would say my definition of burnout would be, um, giving out of an empty cup, and that I experienced that pretty hardcore early on in business. And it was definitely one of those moments that crept up on me. And, you know, I was. I was sitting at my desk. I think I remember sitting at my desk. I'd come to work, I'd get a coffee, I'd sit down at my desk, and I'd just be numb. I wouldn't. I wouldn't have any thought of what to do. Nothing was happening upstairs. I set up my Atomos recorder, brought in my Xbox and set up my Atomos recorder as a screen because I couldn't work. I couldn't play, couldn't do anything else. I was literally sitting in my desk playing Xbox on my screen recorder. Like, it was low, guys, seriously, I got to the depths.

Please tell me you are playing one of the Burnout games, because the whole thing's just going full circle. That's good.

Probably could have just, like, hit record and uploaded it to YouTube and you'd be on YouTube sensation.

Yeah, yeah, probably.

I think I was playing Fortnite or something, and I'd never played before. Anyway, that's not important. It was very. It was a very dark place.

And.

I don't recommend it. Please, please find ways to fill your cup before you get to that stage. And I think one way, one. You know, we've talked about one area of, like, making sure that you're optimizing your. Your time and you're not spending more time than you need to be, and you're working smarter, not harder. But a couple of keys that I really learned throughout that process and climbing out of that hole was community and creativity. I reckon most people resonate with. You know, you get into business because you love making. You love making videos. You actually love the creative practice of doing the thing you love creating. And then over a period of time, when it gets really hard, you no longer love making videos. I mean, I hope that doesn't happen to everybody, but that happened to me. I. I just saw. I resented it because there was financial challenges and I. It wasn't. It was burning me out, trying to go to work and turn on my creativity and give out when there Wasn't anything going back in. So, yeah, one thing I tried and it worked really well was just doing something creative that wasn't work and it wasn't actually videos, it was writing and resting.

You know, resting is so important. It's so hard when you're a freelance because you're up at the crack of dawn. And I used to explain this to clients. It's like, guys, you gotta remember this is your one day on set this week. This is my fifth. And every day everyone's trying to pack 14 hours into a 12 hour day. And everyone was. Everyone wants you to sort of shove a sandwich in your face for lunch as you're driving to the next location.

We have to have rest. And it's really hard when you're freelancing, but it's actually a habit. You see yourself falling into the business owner when there's a lot going on. You have to be very aware of when you're pushing yourself too hard. And sometimes you just need to stop and go, I'm at capacity, I need to go rest. If that means sitting in front of the TV for an hour, decompressing, try and get some solid quality sleep. Lie in a bit later if you have to, if you can. Because that energy needs to be. It's like a battery, right? It needs to be charged. Running on a high FMD battery, you just make mistakes and you make silly mistakes and those silly mistakes can cost you. You know, they can be very dangerous if you start, you know, jumping in a car when you've not had enough sleep and things like that. So I think it's really important to have a. A barometer for your own energy level. It's not always easy.

Yeah, big time.

I think this ties into another conversation we had on a podcast where we were talking about prioritizing. And I really think that it's all well and good to really prioritize your business, but I think it's equally as important to prioritize your health and wellbeing. And like, for me, I'm a massive Andrew Huberman fan. I talk about him a lot, but I love it. And I know, Caleb, you love this as well, like optimizing performance and like, we've got this body, this machine, let's get it working in the best way that it can. And so I swear I'm not sponsored. I wish I was, but I wear a. A whoop, which is a tracker tracking device that like tracks all of my metrics and tells me when I'm stressed out and when I need to you know, relax more or you know, when I've got more energy and I should push a bit harder and do a workout. And I find this is fantastic. It's used by a lot of CEOs and athletes and you can literally pinpoint at what point of the day you're incredibly stressed. Usually at daycare drop off most days. But it's really helpful for that. And then just other things like I try to make sure my circadian rhythm is, is set really well. So trying to look at low lying light in the morning and in the afternoon and making sure I have complete darkness at night and you know, taking different supplements, doing exercise like I do try to do a lot of things to, to get that working. I think prioritizing sleep is a huge one. That's a huge one.

It's massive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We, we say in the Christian world and we, our kind of structure and how we look at people humans are, is that we are a spirit. We have a soul and we live in a body. We're three parts and one cannot one. Each of them influences each other. Like you can't separate one of those from the others. And when we're talking about your, the effects of your physiological makeup and your body has massive impacts on your mind. That's nothing new. Right. We, we should all know that you, what we do in our body, exercise and things is, has a big impact on mental health for example in our soul realm. Right. But the just having that understanding that each, each part of us influences each other and it's, it's so powerful to, to focus on like you're saying Alana, the, the physical part to go. How can I optimize my, the performance of my body so that my mind is strong so that my, my soul, where my emotions live is, is not leading me and I'm not getting taken, I'm not getting taken down a path I don't want to go down. Yeah.

I think a big thing that kind of the way I'd sum that up at least is isolation. Right. I think running a business can feel incredibly isolating and it's challenges that you know, the best intentioned partners or friends don't quite understand. Like it's a, it's a different level of stress and pressure that running a business just forces on you. And so I think that finding a way of having community or connection with people is a really great way of just relieving that pressure feeling seen and understood. So obviously we've got the video mentors and the vba. It's a great community of people that share the same understanding because we're all in this as video business owners. But, you know, it might be a case of seeing a therapist and, like, it might just be really focusing on your mental health and having an outlet to understand and share these pressures in a way that's really constructive. But another one, even just at the simplest level, is kind of being humble and taking humility and vulnerability to those in your life, right? So if you've got a partner, sharing with them and saying, hey, I'm really struggling with all of this stuff, and that's what's going on for me. I just want to let you in on that. There's no expectation of fixing it, or there's no expectation of having them change it for you. Just the mere act of sharing that, it just. It just lets that load off and let somebody else come in and be present with you to support you in that, because it is. It's incredibly isolating. And I think that it's really easy to just go, yeah, things are growing, and I got to go, and I got to go, and I got to go. And then all of a sudden, it's like three months down the track. You've slept really poorly, you're not eating well. You feel just like an absolute husk of a person when if you just sort of reached out and said, hey, I'm struggling or I need help, or this is what's going on to. Whatever feels right for you in that moment can just instantly give you some of that space. Back to go, all right, take a breath. Have a bit of a moment to just recompose and then go, right, what do I need to do next? Maybe it is bringing on somebody else for team, or maybe it's saying no to more stuff and kind of freeing up some time. But that isolation's the secret kind of killer to this. And it's just like it can sneak up on you really, really quickly.

I think also in relationship to the idea of the mind.

You cannot think you're aware of problems.

The mind is not actually where you got to think problems and solutions. And I think we get confused. And this is something I've only really started to understand fully recently, is that the mind is a place where lots of tricks can be played and the mind can be taken off in shiny directions all the time. But actually, I think what you're talking to there, Caleb, is this notion of your heart and feeling and making sure that when you're making decisions in your business, you're not Just trying to think of solutions and come up with logical answers. You actually spend some time and cultivate a practice where you can have some quiet space and quiet in the mind. And, you know, there's various tools for this. Meditation, mantras, you know, breath work, anything.

The tactic is kind of less important, but a common one is to just breathe consciously. We all breathe very shallowly, shallowly up from the top of our chest. But if you watch kids in nursery, they breathe with their belly. If you watch dogs, they breathe with their belly. And when you breathe with your belly, you push the diaphragm down. It massages your liver, it detoxifies your liver, but it also regulates your nervous system. And I think that not enough time, not enough effort and energy is put into talking about the nervous system. We talk a lot about mental health, the mind, but your nervous system is another layer of that that you really want to be learning at a business owner level how to regulate that nervous system. And this is stuff that isn't really talked about. We talk a lot about mental health in the media, in the world, about, you know, hey, are you okay? Hey, you okay? You okay? But there's actually practices you can engage in.

To quieten the mind. And, and what's really important is it's not about making the mind not think of anything. It's just about a practice, be it meditation. I mean, I started all this journey on an app called headspace. It was 10 minutes a day of guided meditation. I think it's worth exploring what works for you. But being aware of this notion of quieting the mind dropping into your heart and feeling.

Is, I think, a really important tool for how to avoid burnout. Do any of you folks have any perspectives on how you manage that?

Well, I was just going to say the mind can often be a blocker for what's really going on. You can build walls up in your mind that stop you from feeling what you need to be feeling from, and that confronting what needs to be confronted. And they can be defense mechanisms. And what, what you're talking about there is the, the practice of, of removing those or letting yourself feel what you need to feel and, and letting things kind of be revealed. And it's, it's surprising. We did you facilitated a, an expert to come in and lead us through some breath work not too long ago. And that was incredibly powerful. But it, it and the feedback in the room, right, was that, wow, I didn't really know that was in there. I didn't know I hadn't dealt with that or I didn't know X, Y, or Z. It's really, really powerful how many of.

Us ended up sobbing in that session. And you don't hear about that in any other business courses, do you? But it's so that holistic approach. That's what I love about you, Dan.

It's so important.

Sorry, then. But it just goes to show how much is just stored in there that even I think we all showed up to that, thinking we got a pretty good handle on this. We're all very open about what we're going through. And then by the end of it, we're like, oh, I could do so much better. And, like, in the most beautiful way possible. And it's just. It's that, you know, no matter how you think you're doing, unless you have that real deep kind of understanding and connection with what you're going through, it can just creep up on you and just sneak out and go, yep, this is actually not as. Not as under control as you think it is.

I'll give you an example. Yesterday I was down at the. The men's beach gathering, Sunrise beach gathering, and I'd had a really crazy, hectic week. I just been burning the candle at both ends, just doing early mornings, late nights in the office. And I Woke up at 10 to 5, which is the time I'm supposed to get up to leave the house at 5, 15 to get to the beach for 6. And I went the bathroom, came back and went, oh, I've got another hour. So I just like. Because I was so tired, I went back to bed, Woke up at 10 to 6, and I'm like, oh, cool. Oh, spring's coming. Because, you know, like, it's. It's really light. Anyway, realized I should have been the beach, and was like, oh, okay, I'm now late, but don't panic. Just show up. Christian's always like, just show up. Just show up. So I show up, and I get there, and I'm a bit flustered. And then I do this session, and then I just said to Christian, you know, I'm on this kind of journey. I'm feeling really out of sorts. And I had this conversation about how I was feeling, and he just said to me one word. Compassion.

He said, you need to show more compassion to yourself, and you'll show more compassion to others. I was like, wow. Like, it was really confronting because he was absolutely on the money. And so I came home and I just shared it all with Sam. And then within 24 hours, everything changed. When I recognized that I was basically pushing myself too hard and I wasn't being compassionate enough with myself. And that was like mind blowing. And.

I came home and I was like, right, I'm going to go and book this, this, this thing I want to do. And I went onto my velocity points and had enough air miles to book the flights to go to Bali and do this thing I want to do. And like almost anyone who's collected points, whenever you come to spend the points, it's always really hard to spend the points because there's never any flight. And then flights were all available and this like week long retreat's like five grand. And like, I don't know, we don't really have that kicking around just now.

But I'm like, but I have to go, I have to go and do this. And the very next day, sold $9,000 worth of, you know, of courses. And it's like that all happened because I dropped into my heart, allowed myself to feel the feelings, shared how I felt, got really raw feedback, implemented it.

And then a series of events happened that were not coincidental. And so I think that.

When you're looking to try and avoid burnout.

Being aware that these feelings are going to come up, there's going to be emotions that come up that you're uncomfortable with.

My only ask is just don't compress them. Let yourself feel however you're feeling. And if you've got people you can talk to about it, go and talk to about it. It doesn't all have to be therapy. It's just the cycle of life. Some days you feel great, some days you don't. But I think that that settling of that nervous system, it's certainly been a huge win for me to understand that and apply that to my own life. And I think I'm. I feel like I'm becoming a better human being because I'm tapping into that and being, being aware and honest and open and vulnerable. And we've all had very, you know, we're all great friends and we've had some very vulnerable, honest, raw conversations with each other over the last six months a year. Everyone going through shit in their own way. But the fact that we have each other is just, it's hard to put into words what that means to me. And I know we've all shared that even though we came together in business.

It'S transcended that into something much deeper.

I couldn't be more grateful to have all of you in my corner. I think I said that to you recently, Dan. You know, I Feel like I could achieve anything with you guys behind me and supporting me.

I love what you said, Dan, about being the best version of yourself, because it's a real driver for my own sort of decision making on, like, right, what am I doing? Am I doing too much of this one thing? And so, like, in my life, I lead a team of four myself. So five of us, we've got two young boys at home, a wife, and I'm like, I want to be able to be present for my team in the best way possible at work to allow them to come and succeed in their roles and their careers. But I also don't want to do so much there that I come home exhausted and can't spend the time and enjoy my life with my family at home. And so what's the best version of me in those two scenarios? And how do I best serve myself to be that person? And one thing I'm sure we've all thought but haven't kind of vocalized in this is exercise is a great version of that, too.

Right?

It's, you know, change your state, change your mind, and it can be as simple as going for a walk if you're stuck and kind of getting some fresh air, or it can be a more intentional, you know, gym visit or whatever. But I know for myself, like, if I don't prioritize physical activity, I'm going to be more stressed and be more, you know, disassociated with what's going on. That. But we moved offices not too long ago, and I specifically chose where we're at because it's 100 meters away from a gym, so I can go at lunchtime and get that in. And it's part of my life, and I'm not taking away from family life or from any other point in my life, but I can make it work and I'll feel better so I can come home after a full day of just, you know, making business happen, and cool, boys, let's wrestle on the couch for two hours until bedtime. And I know that everybody's getting the best version of me for that, and I'm not burning out. And it's like, that looks different for everybody, but it's. It's identifying what that best version of yourself is and how do you want to show up for these people. And by burning out, you're going to be no good to anybody because you're not going to be operating at the best version of. Of yourself. So finding a way of looking after you and giving you the support you need, whether it's breath work, whether it's support or whether it's exercise or something like that looks different for everybody, but it's a huge, huge benefit in avoiding burnout.

For me, having something outside of your business that's just for you and no one else is so important. And for me that's been karate. And I know all of us have some little thing that we do, but it's just so important, isn't it, where you go there and you're not thinking about filming, you're not thinking about quotes and you can just be completely present. It's so healing. I can be so down in the dumps and not want to do anything and then go, no, I'm just going to go to karate. And I walk out of there feeling a million dollars. So happy, endorphins surging like it's so good. What's that? For you, Caleb, what have you got?

I'm a table tennis. Karate.

Again?

Yeah. Paddles? Yeah. I play table tennis on Tuesday nights and sometimes I dominate. I'm very competitive.

Last Tuesday night I did not dominate, which was humble. Yeah, yeah. It's been a humble pie. But you're so right, Alana. I. It's having something that you can invest your energy and time and enthusiasm in that isn't your source of bread is so important. Like I, you know, that fulfills no part of. Of my life except for contributing to balance and the. My enjoyment of life. It is, and it is just so, so good.

But also uniform. Caleb. Sorry, Sorry. Alana, I just had a mental image of you and like a Lycra uniform. Is there a uniform? Please tell me I've got an image in my Lycra.

I, I love that you thought of that, Alana.

I think next time I need to, I need to actually live this, live this out. If I rock up to table tennis in Lycra, I may, I may get exited from the building. I'm not sure it's the way you said it.

Like it was really high performance. I just pictured you.

Yeah, yeah. No, I hear fabric. Full body suit or something. Yeah.

You've ever seen.

Shortest shorts?

I love it. No, I do not have a. What do you call your karate figure? A gi. I don't have a gi. Yeah, yeah.

No, I, Mine used to be playing football and basketball and then I've got knees of a man three times my age, so I have to give that up very quickly. But my football team was a mixed football team called the Flaming Peacocks and I've got an incredible jersey with just this peacock and, like, flames behind it. I'll bring it in next podcast, and it'll make no sense to people that just tune into that one, but, yeah, amazing. Perfect.

So Alana's gonna wear a gu. The next one. I'm gonna wear a fake lycra that no table tennis member has ever worn. Matt's gonna wear his jersey. Dan, what are you gonna. What are you gonna wear? Yeah.

I don't know. I wait to be told by Alana.

An all white linen outfit and sandals.

Yeah. Yes. You're an excellent drummer. Oh, well, I mean, I. With that. You've obviously. You must have dropped that on a podcast before, Dan. Like, I know you're a big music. Music fan.

Yeah, I don't know if I have that too much. Yeah, yeah.

I've just dropped your thing on here.

Yeah. Playing the drums is. Is just something I absolutely love. And I tell you, one of the things that I love most about it is the band I play with are a father and daughter, Matty, and is a absolutely beautiful people. Matty's a builder and is at uni, and we get in that room and, like, we're just three people making music. And I especially love the fact that.

Anything I do in this world, in video that I've been involved in for 30 years, you have a certain identity. But when I go into the music practice room, I'm just a drummer, and I'm expected to learn the songs, and there's a degree of pressure, and I get coached by Matt, who's an absolute. Such an experienced musician. So I get to push myself and learn.

And learning music that I just could never imagine myself playing. We play everything from Taylor Swift to the Foo Fighters, and it's like we're learning a repertoire of about 40 songs, and the pressure's on every week to learn four or five songs. And it's like, you gotta find the time to learn the songs, listen to the songs, learn the parts, play the parts, practice the parts. It's amazing. And they say that if you can play music and work with a band, it really extends your life because the amount of brain activity that's going on. So, yeah, I'm hoping it's going to keep me healthy and wise for a few more decades. Quite a few more decades, I hope.

Yeah. Heaps more.

Love it.

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