Will Humphreys, a physical therapist and business owner, experienced nearly 2,000 daily heart palpitations and was warned he might need a pacemaker. Perfectionism and people-pleasing drove his burnout until he hired a coach, studied stress, and restructured his work, which restored his health and let his family spend six months in Europe.
Questions this video answers
Almost 2,000 palpitations per day.
A tilt table test.
A pacemaker.
Physical therapist and private practice owner (entrepreneur).
Four children.
Chapters
In this video, we're going over a brand new series on my channel called Stress and Burnout at Work. Hi, everybody, my name is Will Humphreys. If you're new to my channel, please consider clicking that subscribe button below. That helps me make videos for you to increase your income, impact, and freedom. And today we're going over episode one of my story around stress and burnout at work. You know, I will never forget the day when I sat across for my electrocardiologist and she explained to me that I needed a pacemaker. You see, I had been experiencing almost 2,000 heart palpitations every day. A heart palpitation, for those of you who don't have them, is when your heart skips a beat. But mine were becoming so severe that I was almost blacking out, and no one understood why, although they suspected stress was a part of it. They did a series of tests, one of which was a tilt table test, which I flunked. And so my electrocardiologist explained that without change, my heart could suddenly stop. As I drove home that day, I wasn't surprised as to why there was stress in my life. I am a physical therapist, and as a healthcare worker, I spent most of my day with people, 40 to 50 hours a day, treating patients and then going home to do massive amounts of paperwork. I remember back when there were paper charts that oftentimes the seatbelt alarm would ding as I drove all the way home because the pile of charts in the passenger seat was so high. In addition, I'm an entrepreneur and I owned my private practice. And frankly, due to a lack of business training, things weren't going well. So you take that stress and you couple it with everyday stress, additional responsibilities like church service and having a wife and four kids. All of that, plus the fact that I am a perfectionist people pleaser, it wasn't hard for me to understand why things had become too much. And so I analyzed my life and could see the result of the stress and burnout in my life. It was sad because I had this incredibly short fuse. I would snap at family members for little to nothing. I was gaining weight and feeling tired and didn't like what I saw in the mirror. In addition, my marriage and my relationships with my children were suffering simply because of a lack of time and connection with them. And now I was starting to recognize how my health, physically and mentally, were both failing because of the amount of stress that I was experiencing every day. So I became depressed. And shortly thereafter, it became clear to me that if things didn't Change that I wouldn't be around much longer. So I reached out for help. The first person I spoke to was my wife. We had some very difficult conversations around my life and where I was at. But it started the healing process of my heart. She helped me understand the importance of me getting professional help. So the first thing I did after talking to some others was to reach out to a business coach to help me understand what it was that I needed to learn to create better balance at home and at work. And so I became obsessed with the research and study of stress and burnout, especially in the workplace, because it had almost ended my life. And I've come to the realization that stress and burnout at work doesn't get better without help. All of us need additional knowledge, guidance, love. That love needs to come from self. It needs to come from others. So if you're listening to this and you can relate to any part of my story, first and foremost, I want you to understand that you are not alone, that there is always hope. In my personal story, I learned that it can get better. With additional help and guidance, I was able to grow my company. And as it grew, it needed me less and less, which is increased my freedom with my wife and my children to the point where I was able to take my family and live full time overseas without work for six months in Europe. We homeschooled and bonded. We had adventures, we learned. And all that came from the lessons I learned from feeling burned out and stressed at work. So listen, this is a series that we're doing. So the next episode is how stress and burnout impact your health. That is essential to understand as we go through this journey. And so I ask you the question now and please put it in the comments below. What do you think is the difference between stress and burnout? Guys, thank you for watching. As always, if you click subscribe, we make an additional donation to Feed My Starving Children. Until next time.
