4. Stepping in and out of Burnout - with Zane McCormack

Burnout sparked the end of Zane McCormack's career as a policeman.

After recovering from burnout he started speaking to colleagues and friends. Supporting them from their journey. He found himself at a cross roads in life and he chose to become a burnout coach (The Assured Man).

As a police officer Zane has seen a lot of things. Living on the opposite side of the world to his family meant there was a lack of real conversation. To top it all off the world was closing down.

Zane has researched the steps of burnout and recognises the differences between this and PTSD or CPTSD. His understanding allow him to help individuals and businesses manage burnout.

His passion with leadership and how a burntout leader can impact a team drives him to support more businesses. It's up to businesses to support their colleagues and for colleagues to feel safe to speak out about their mental health.

Zane faced adversity head on. He realised the best way to get himself out of burnout was by doing it himself. When a lot of people try to get themselves out of a situation they work harder or try harder - Zane had to work smarter !!

You can follow Zane on his linkedin below

Zane McCormack | LinkedIn

And even though he is 48, he does still manage to use instagram too

Zane McCormack (@the_assured_man) • Instagram photos and videos

If you want to catch up on all our episodes, check out our spotify page:

https://open.spotify.com/show/5QRFQUzrRCv4380MXWnMhV?si=244262b980fe46d5

Transcript

Zane: 0:00

I'm Zane McCormack.

Scott: 0:01

And this is overcoming adversity, real stories, real people, real life. I'm your host, Scott Whitney, and every two weeks, I'll be bringing you an interview with someone who's faced adversity. Overcome battle adversity now, please, please, please subscribe to our podcast, give us a rating, share it with your friends. It will help us be more visible and help more people. So let's get back to the interview.

Zane: 0:38

All right. So originally I am from New Zealand. I came over to the UK in 1999, playing rugby. I did that. I coached and played for five or six years, before joining the police and I was with Devon Cornwall Police for just over 16 years, leaving the police at the end of 2022. And I am now a burnout coach, trainer, and speaker.

Scott: 0:59

Welcome, Zane. It's great to have you here. you know, you've been through periods of adversity. can you just take it from the start, if that's all right?

Zane: 1:08

Yeah, like I said, I spent, sort of, yeah, between sort of 30 and, 47, with the police. So that came to an end just over a year ago now. The, the, taking back a few years, the big, for a lot of people, lockdown was quite a big deal for people. You know, everything went sort of, went particularly well in the UK, in March. But for me, I was already locked down. about six weeks prior to lockdown, I had collapsed on the way into work one day. I had gone for a late shift as usual, and I found myself having to take a phone call. So I pulled over to the lay by, took a phone call. It was a friend of mine just sort of checking up on me. She had a few little concerns about a few things, you know, a few things that were happening. And I I don't really remember a whole lot about the next 10 days. I remember her being by my car, in about five minutes time, but she worked half an hour away. I remember getting home, and what initially happened was I obviously had had to call into work and say I wasn't going to come again. Things, you know, got pretty bad. And luckily, you know, with the police, there was plenty of support that got wrapped around me quite quickly. but at the time, It was a, there was a lot of talk around CPTSD, PTSD, there have been a couple of particularly nasty jobs that I've dealt with, in the lead up to, to my collapse. So I had around two months off, so like I say, I went off, and then, you know, it was like one of those apocalyptic movies you have when, you know, the, you know, the person goes into a coma and then wakes up and, you know, there's been the, you know, the meteors hit or the zombies have arrived and, you know, so I, I went back to work, as a police officer in the middle of the pandemic. So everything had changed, so that was quite a surreal experience. And then the phase returned back, but six months later, things started to get a little bit awkward again. this time I'd recognized a few signs and symptoms of stuff that was going on. So I sort of put my hand up again and said, look, you know, I'm not feeling particularly well. So I went off and spoke to somebody else this time. And what was interesting is that The person I spoke to the second time around didn't just look at the last sort of month or two leading up to my collapse. She looked at the last 10 years and went through everything that had happened. I've been through, you know, issues going on in my personal life. So I was still working as a police officer. and she just said straight away, Zane, this isn't CPTSD. You've just burned out. You've just been overwhelmed for the last 10 years with everything that's been going on. and for me, that was, probably six months of trying to work out what was going on. That was like the final sort of piece in the puzzle that sort of hit. So yeah. So from there, we started doing a bit of work around sort of burnout. I was off again for another, I think it was two and a half months. But this time I had a bit of a head start on myself. So I sort of knew what was going on and yeah, came back to work. And everything changed as soon as I realized it was burnout, and just taking proper practical steps to address it. Like I say, everything changed. So I had another two years, policing, but obviously with everything that's gone on. Yeah, I'd come through that period of, period of, you know, being particularly unwell, and it was, you know, quite a difficult period, and it, and it changes you, and it changes your priorities, it changes sort of how you, how you, how you view the world, and how you, how you, what you really want to be doing, and sort of focuses the mind a lot as well. So, having come through it all, there was a point where it was just time for something different. I had no idea what I wanted to do, and it wasn't until I had a bit of a chance conversation with someone that was doing sort of similar sort of work with coaching, and we, you know, and, That sort of, the idea was sort of sewn. a year later, I, I finished with work and moved to doing this, and I've been at it now for around 14 months.

Scott: 4:40

I know one of the things you said was, It was looking at CPTSD or PTSD, and then, he was told it was burnout. What was your initial thoughts and feelings when, when they told you it was, burnout?

Zane: 4:55

Well, it was the first time I heard the word burnout. and so I didn't really know what they were talking about. So straight away, you know, Just as much research on it as I could and you know, I'm a little bit, you know, I don't want to be sort of advising you and self diagnose yourself on Google, but you know, as soon as I started looking at everything, everything started making sense. And the thing that really struck me was that we talk about sort of, you know, going through adverse times and the, the impact it has on your resilience levels. And nothing had really changed with policing, you know, the jobs I've dealt with were unpleasant, but there'd not be anything different from the stuff I've dealt with for, you know, for 16 years. I had a couple of roles where I was coming into close contact with that sort of, those sorts of environments, those sort of situations. But what had changed was my personal situation. So, it was an area of my life where I could realistically expect to be going, you know, sort of going home and, Recharging and sort of, you know, resetting after, after, after police shifts, but that just wasn't happening. So it got to a point where there was no real part of my life that was anywhere near, settled, which is a little unsettling. So, and it was just a gradual sort of, wind down over the years and looking back on it and as soon as I'm looking into it, you know, the five stages of burnout and how you sort of move into it, how it affects your cognitive abilities, affects all your everything at all, you know, I could. Almost map out by going over 10 years and see the moments where I realized I'd slipped into the different stages of burnout to where I got to a point where I was in habitual burnout and I was probably there for near on four or five years. And the thing is with those, with that stage is you can stay there nearly indefinitely. but for me, I think my body had just said, right, enough's enough, you know, another thing with burnout is it doesn't sneak up on you. There's nothing sneaky or sort of, about it. And my body had been sending me plenty of signals, you know, for the last, you know, the last 10 years. But being a, being a bloke, you ignore those signs and symptoms. You sort of write them off and sort of put them away, you know, all the little things sort of, you know, you start getting, you know, bouts of ill health, you know, because your immunity gets shot to pieces. So you find yourself picking up all the little bugs and everything, but you know, our young kids, then, you know, so I just said, well, you know, they're just bringing up stuff home from school. gut health goes, you can talk about when you're stressed, you know, that little appetite in your stomach and the rest of it. I was starting to have some quite, serious issues with my gut health. But again, I was working night shifts, drinking a lot of coffee. My diet probably wasn't as good as it could have been. So I just sort of broke off as that. But it wasn't really until there were a couple of moments where I needed to be able to step up and turn it on with, you know, decision making and, and, you know, being, being a little bit creative, which, which initially been, you know, a strength of mine when I joined. It just wasn't there. It was just nothing. And I spent the last probably three or four months just on running on absolutely zero before I finally crashed.

Scott: 7:41

So you mentioned, signals, symptoms and, and the five stages. So. I'd like to hear a little bit more about that. And I don't know if it's best to start with what the signals were best to start with the five stages. So I'll leave that to you because you'll know which way it fits best.

Zane: 8:02

Yeah, so burnout is sort of an extra stages characterized by this three three points. So you've got. Just general overwhelm with exhaustion and overwhelm. you've got, sort of emotional dysregulation and you've got sort of, professional, efficiency being degraded. So those are your three sort of, main, your three main, signs, symptoms with burnout. And each of the stages, they, all those three get more pronounced. In the first two stages we talk about sort of, there's a honeymoon period. That's where we all start off at a base level, you know, when you're, When you've got no care in the world, you're turning out, you've got no real responsibilities, and you, you know, water off a duck's back with everything that happens, and nothing really bothers you. The second stage is when you get to a point where, you know, things are starting to get a little bit, you know, work can get a little bit stressy, but nothing that a bit of self care doesn't sort out. And that's a real key point too, to just remember that about, about self care and making sure you're looking after yourself. Because what, if you, if you, if you're catching it early in stage two, early stage of stage three, It's all perfectly manageable yourself, you can pick it up yourself and you know, nothing that a weekend off or a weekend away, or just a bit of time with the family or friends will sort out. stage three is when sort of the stress starts getting a little bit more sort of pronounced and when we start talking about, professional capacity starting to dip off a little bit. And that sort of comes from the whole idea that once you start getting a little bit overwhelmed and the exhaustion as well, so it's not something you can catch up with, with a good night's sleep. You're generally feeling tired and exhausted. All the time. But again, working shifts, I'll just put it down to that. you know, night shifts are tough. and then, then we talk about your resilience levels. And you, you know, you're willing to bounce back and you're not. So the two things that really start getting quite, noticeable now are your rumination. So you start to re ruminate about things, you know, and rumination is all about things that have happened. going over things that have happened. Or worrying about things that might happen, you know, sort of, difficult conversations you've got coming up or situations at work or confrontations that you might have. So you find yourself ruminating a lot more. And the ruminating is a lot stronger and they're not, as easy to sort of, to snap yourself out of as well. And procrastination, you get to a point where you're just overwhelmed. So you're Your ability to plan things, your ability to understand time, you know, so normally if you've got a workload that you're managing and you think, right, next week I've got this, this, this coming up, so I need to be doing this and this. Now, that ability sort of starts going. you start, you know, you can, you can start missing appointments or being late for stuff and just losing track of time because of all those sort of things start going. Chronic stress is when that is the new norm, when you are just in that rubdown. And with stage three, you can sort of bounce back a little bit and sort of fluctuate between two and three. Once you're in stage four, that's it. And it's not something that a bit of rest or a bit of recuperation can sort out. That's when you start looking at needing some, some time off, to be able to do that. And once you, when you've got that time off, start doing that deep work to address the the causes of your burnout and, and, and that overwhelm. So what also happens now in stage five, another thing that can happen too, is we talk about sort of impaired performance at work and how this manifests a lot of times is, you know, performance reviews start sort of becoming a bit of a problem, maybe HR involved because you know you're missing deadlines, you're missing, you know, you're missing targets and what it also does, because the other thing with burnout is with the overwhelm, What your brain will do is just start shutting down all the non essential, items. It's almost like your car going into limp mode when there's an issue. It'll, it'll, it'll give you just enough to get you home or to get you to the garage. You know, you, you're never going to be able to put your foot down and, you know, do any sort of speed. You might be able to You know, there'd be no power there when you try to use it. And that's what it's like with, stage four. Which is fine if you're rubbing along and doing a job that you're comfortable with, and you're in your comfort zone, and you're fine. But as soon as you're asked to step out of your comfort zone, nothing happens. And I had that with a couple of, things I had at work. I applied for a role. got on the course. The first half of the course was all stuff that I'd done. It was all, you know, general sort of policing and the rest of it. I was able to, you know, do quite well with that. And it wasn't until there's a whole lot of new ideas and sort of, sort of policies and the rest of it that were introduced. I just struggled. Nothing was sinking. I couldn't learn. So your memory, gets shot to pieces, and you're unable to take on new skills and new ideas and sort of, so all your problem solving and your, your cognitive abilities go to pot. And then when you're stage five, you are just getting through the day. That's when you're waking up and you just, you know, and the other thing is too, is you're also losing any ability to enjoy things. So there's just no joy in your world anymore. You're just getting up, going to work, working through the day, and getting home again. And for me, going to work, obviously policing, you know, not too much error to make any mistakes. There were some of the, situations we had. So it was taking all my energy to do the best job I could. When I was going home, there was just nothing. I wasn't, I wasn't socialising, I wasn't going out. I was just at a point where I was just getting through the day. I finally had the, had the collapse, and I had 10 days where I was particularly unwell, and I would say without any exaggeration, I probably sectioned the people, that were less unwell than I was those 10 days. The only thing that really stopped me from having any meaningful interventions was the fact that everything was locking down. I got bounced between a few agencies, GP, I went to the OccupationalHealth nurse. They were all a bit flummoxed what to do with me because I was all over the place. and then by the time any referrals went through, everything was locked down so no one could see anyone face to face. So I was left alone for, like I say, two and a half, three months. just sit on my sofa and try and work things out. And what I found was that, you know,

13:49

we talk a

Zane: 13:51

little bit about, sort of, overcoming, you know, adverse times. And I remember sort of driving about trying to find someone to speak to. I just, you know, I'd be at home, not really sleeping, not really eating. And I felt like I needed to go to the house and, and sort of, connect with someone. so I popped, you know, went around and see if I could find a few friends to talk to, but nobody was home. I was in the week, so everybody was at work, obviously. And I just remember stopping on a motorway overbridge. Nothing untoward. There's no sort of any suggestion I was going to harm myself. Well, I was just stood there, just sort of, thinking a little bit about it, and with the job I'd done, the patch I looked after in depth, we had the M5 running through it, and M5 stopped on more than one occasion with people on bridges sort of, you know, sort of talking about harming themselves and the rest of it, and, you know, I've been the officer that's got me speaking to them and getting them off the bridge.

14:39

And I just,

Zane: 14:41

it just struck me that, you know, you know, I had quite a, quite a big job, no more than sort of, six months ago where it, where exactly that happened.

14:49

And it

Zane: 14:50

just struck me that all those times when I was there, whenever anyone had, you know, was in a bit of bother, a bit of trouble. They would have the Niners, and it was me that was turning up, and I was turning up, and people were looking to me to, to, to solve the problem, and that's what I just had this moment where I just realized, actually, the only person that was going to be able to solve my problem was me, and it was Almost, and how I compare it is I just had this moment of sort of calm and realization. Do you remember the, um, Predator movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger?

15:25

Yeah,

Scott: 15:26

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Zane: 15:26

Yeah, you know, when the Predator's in the jungle and he's looking at Arnold and he's, you know, going through the infrared and the black and white. And for me, it was like everything that went thunk and went from black and white. HD color, everything just made sense and all of a sudden it was like the old me was back and it was quite a weird sort of feeling. I stopped shaking, I'd been probably shaking for the best part of three days. I went home, cooked the first big meal that I've had in probably ten days, went to bed and slept. And probably slept, the longest I've slept for, you know, the best part of three years. Woke up in the morning and went, right, I don't know what I'm going to do, I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I just knew that I need to be the one taking control of what was going on and not leaving it in the hands of everybody else. And that, for me, was the start. Like I say, that was before the, you know, I went off the second time. So, you know, so whenever I was talking about the CPTSD, I was like, right, okay, we'll go along with that. Nothing wasn't feeling quite right with it. And like I said, it wasn't until six months later, when someone said no, it was burnout, that all those pieces that have been spinning around just finally fell into place. Everything, everything made sense.

16:34

So

Scott: 16:35

you said, um, that you knew. That it was gonna be you that needed to talk yourself through it or get yourself out of it. Do you think that is because you've been the person talking people down before, or do you think it's because there's a, there's a little bit of responsibility on the person in the situation to, to look for a change, whether it be a significant change or a small change to get the ball rolling. So, exactly that.

Zane: 17:10

with the policing, you know, a lot of times we'd be speaking to people that, you know, their resilience had been shot to pieces and they just didn't know what to do, that it wasn't the case. I'm saying, right, little baby steps. I mean, we, we were turning up with people in crisis, so we didn't have the answers, but we had the answer to get you through the next few hours until you got to someone that could speak to you. So for me, it was like, right, just stop trying to sort out the big picture and let's just take it, you know, just put it right back. What do I need to be doing now, the next 12 hours to be getting on and not worry about the next, you know, two weeks. But for me, it was like, right, let's just get myself home. I knew I hadn't eaten. so I was finding myself sort of realizing I hadn't eaten for a day. Forcing down some Weet Bix or forcing down some toast or making a, you know, an omelette, forcing it into me. all of a sudden I felt hungry for the first time in 10 you know, I'm a big bloke, you know, I'm sort of 17 stone and six foot four of Kiwi. So I like my food. so I went home and, you know, been hungry for the first time in 10 days. So, and then suddenly, and then, and then, so all I need to do now is I just need to sleep. So I went upstairs, had a nice hot shower, got myself into bed, read, and then crashed. Woke up the next day, thought, right, all I'm going to do today is just look after myself. You know, let's, let's, let's start cutting meals. Start taking, start, start, start taking control back in my life again. So, because a big part of when you're, you know, in that sort of state, everything's just chaos. You know, it's like you're caught in the middle of a whirlwind. Everything's spinning around. So it was like not worrying about the stuff you can't control and just starting to take a bit of control of the things that you can. That was, you know, quite, quite an empowering sort of, you're doing and it was nuts because it was the, it's exactly the advice that I've been giving to people for the last 16 years in case of actually, it's time to start taking some of your own good advice.

Scott: 19:02

you know, I suffer from chronic fatigue in which isn't the same as burnout. But I guess when I'm at a period where I'm completely drained, I try to get myself just. Completely back to basics. So what what do I need to do today? I just need to eat, drink and that's almost it. So would you say it's a similar situation for the 1st kind of.

19:34

I don't know,

Scott: 19:36

36 hours or 48 hours of just going, right, let's just get the basics in place and their achievements then. Yeah, that's it. I

Zane: 19:43

think a lot of people, you know, especially guys in positions like myself, it was just that not being in control that was quite difficult. I used to have been all over the place and not, not really knowing what was going on. So yeah, there really is about, and also the other things too, is action empowers. You can sit there sort of, you know, procrastinating and ruminating and worrying about stuff, actually getting up and doing something. It's quite a powerful thing. Once you start doing something, it's that first push. Once you're through it, things do get a little bit easier. It wasn't easy. I was making it up as I went along. There was certainly no master plan or anything like that. What it did do was it just brought a little bit of, calm and routine to what I was doing at the time. You know, at the time, I was bouncing from appointment to appointment and not really understanding what was going on. Another big thing that happens with, with burnout is it was all around how you manage stress, about your stress responses. So we talk about the, the main types of stress response that people understand, you know, the fight and flight. but the other one, the other two that we don't talk about too much is the freeze and the fawn. So, and how I like, how I liken it is, if someone's coming at you, running at you with a, with a, with a weapon, you're either going to run away or you're going to sort of try and fight them. That's your first two sort of, you know, instinctive reactions without thinking too much about it. there's also the freeze. So a lot of people just, you know, sort of just frozen, complete in action. The fourth one is fawning, which is, you know, you start sort of trying to reason with them and sort of, And now you go and, and when you're in burnout, a lot of people do revert to form, which can be quite problematic if you, got any involvement with HR or there's any issue with performance and you have to speak to bosses, or you're having to speak to a professional about what's going on, because what it does do, it takes away your ability to stand up for yourself and to be able to advocate for yourself, because when you're that, when you're, when you're, when you're completely wiped out and resilience levels are rock bottom, you just don't have that emotional, Strength to, to have those difficult conversations. So when you're hearing a professional in front of you to the talking and you think, well, that's not right,

21:59

it

Zane: 22:01

can take a lot more energy than it would normally take to stand up and say, look, I actually, I don't agree with what you're talking about. So for me, it was also about trying to find that strength. So hang on, you know, better, a better idea of what's, what's happening than what you're saying at the moment. A lot of what you're talking about isn't resonating. So we need to take a step back.

Scott: 22:23

And then you, you've gone through this. Two or three times, as you said, when you're when you're coming into the 2nd and 3rd time, is it any

Zane: 22:35

Yeah, the second time. I mean, we talk about both peaks and recovery to with burnout because a lot of the time what will happen is people go off work and they'll be off for, you know, two and six months. And all you've done really is taken away from the stimulus that's causing the burnout. And, you know, you. Then it's the basic standard you talk about, basic sort of, self care stuff, you know, your rest, looking after yourself, making sure you're reconnecting with people and your, your social connections and all the rest of it, which is fine for stage one and two. but if you're in stage three and four, all you're doing by taking somebody away from, from is delaying going back to it and getting back into it again. So it's almost like if you got your hand under a, um, under some boiling water. You pull your hand away, by spending time away from the hot water, the water's still hot. So you put your hand back under again, it's, you know, you're going to be burning yourself again. So what we need to be doing is making sure that when people are going back, that, you know, the temperature's been cooled down. You've got a few more ideas of what's happening and what's happened to you as opposed to just this basic rest. So we, so people go, people tend to go off, they come back. Nothing's changed. The coping mechanism is sort of the same. They haven't dealt with all the, they haven't unpacked all the bits and pieces that caused the burnout in the first place. And more often than not, if they haven't done that work, I'll go off again. and then, which is what happened with me. So, the second time I went off, you know, when I had burnout mentioned, that was when I said, right, I need to start working out what's happened, because I didn't want to be off. It wasn't a comfortable position for me. and I wanted to make sure that I, I gave myself the best chance to get back.

Scott: 24:07

And obviously this happened when every, everyone was locked down. Yeah. But how important were, was your support network to you? I know you wasn't able to see friends and socialize, but was, did you have deep conversations? Do you wish you had deep conversations and regret not having them?

Zane: 24:30

Yeah, that was a big problem I had. Because, obviously being, you know, I'm, I'm not British, you know, all my family support networks were 12, 000 miles away. I'd, you know, recently separated from, from my, children's mother. so there was nothing there in regards to any relation I could lean into with that. So I was home by myself, you know, and I was still having my children with me, you know, on the days I was supposed to have them. So I just sort of, you know, pick it up and try and get everything together for when they were there. But then when they were gone, they, that, that was difficult. So lockdown did sort of compound, compound things. You know, people were still, you know, Checking in on me, but there was nothing, it was all, you know, it would be a phone call or a zoom call. So there was never a chance to actually properly sit down and, and, and, and go through stuff. So I found myself in a, an interesting position where again, it just compounded that idea that I need to be the one sorting it out. I couldn't be, letting it on anybody else, which was difficult, but I think ultimately for what happened with me, it probably speeded things up a little bit because I was able to, you know, I was just me having to do it.

Scott: 25:31

And then you, you made that career switch. What was that? What was the driving force behind doing that?

Zane: 25:40

yeah, because what I mean, after I came back, and it's like, I talk a little bit about it, about it's like when you buy a type of car, you know, that all of a sudden you start noticing the same make and model and the same color car, sort of, when you're driving around. So what happened was. You know, the policing is no secret. There's a, you know, there's a lot of issues at the moment with, with, with staff struggling. There's a lot of resignations. There's a lot of sickness at the moment within the, but again, no different to sort of, any other sort of a profession that's under a lot of stress at the moment. So. What, what, what happened was I had a lot of conversations with people, talking to them about my experience, and I found, I was finding that, you know, what I've been through was helping a lot of people. It was helping them realize what happened and sort of get their sort of treatment and their sort of recovery back on track. and yeah, they had that chance conversation with someone that was in the, sands of the field. I thought, actually, this is what I want to be doing now. policing, I, I had my, you know, nearly 17 years, so I'd, I'd done pretty much everything that I wanted to be doing with it. And it was a case of, you know, do I spend, I could have gone at 55, I spend the next 8 years just treading water, or do I Get on and start doing something with my life that I could actually want to be doing. so yeah, I put my resignation in and and here I am.

Scott: 26:56

Okay, so talk a little bit about what you do on a day to day basis, or maybe a week to week or month to month might be more, more relevant.

Zane: 27:09

Yeah, so there's three parts to what I do. So there's the coaching, so I work with people that are either I think they're struggling a little bit and don't want to have to go off. So trying to get in with them there. I have another package for people that have burnt out, but fortunately no one's taken it up yet. So luckily with the message I'm getting, I'm a prevention coach. I'd rather speak to people that are struggling a little bit at work and realize that things are starting to go, go a little bit pear shaped. And working with them to get, get things back on track. and what I do is I'm out speaking to the local businesses. got together a, series of webinars now that I'm looking delivered to businesses, I've delivered one offs into local businesses as well, and I've also, pulled together a, a workshop for, for two times really, so workshop for. The people that, you know, for workforces, just looking at general sort of issues around burnout, but also a specifically for leaders. I'm finding that a lot of people I'm speaking to, they're in a position of responsibility. They're running teams that, you know, running small businesses, and they are the ones that are really feeling it in the moment. because You know, when you're working with, when you're in a team, you've got each other to bounce off and there's that going on, but what I'm finding is a lot of leaders at the moment, it's quite a lonely position to be in if things aren't going, things aren't going great. And what was also quite apparent, there's been a lot of research around it, and what, what's come out is quite, quite telling really. If you are struggling yourself. Your team are probably 80 percent more likely to burn out as well. so, and everyone, everyone understand, I think everyone's worked for a boss that's, you know, been struggling and understands just how disorientating and how difficult that can be. And if you are burning out at work, what we're also finding with employees is that they are 80 percent more likely to be looking for other work. and that's not just, you know, thinking about it, that's actively taking steps. So putting their CV out, applying for roles, which obviously has a knock on effect on businesses around retention, coming in for recruitment. And then for every person that's leaving, you've got issues around the ones that are staying around quite quickly, people doing the absolute bare minimum. So it's just real knock on effect. And what I'm finding is the most effective intervention point is with leaders and with, um, with the senior managers getting in there, working with them, raising their awareness. So they're able to sort of, you know, address all the knock on behavior that is coming down the line.

Scott: 29:41

So I guess like, like a junior manager, if they're going through stage three or creeping into stage four, they're going to have the knock on effect of their team, but they're also not going to be able to support their team through it either at all.

Zane: 30:01

And the big thing with managers is it's all about what you're saying is what we're doing. I liken it to being like, you know, being like a parent. You know, if you've got children, it's one thing to be telling them how to behave. But if you're not mirroring those behaviors yourself, you know, you're wasting your time. And, you know, we talked about the four shadows that, managers cast of, you know, what you're saying, what you're doing, what you're rewarding, and what you're ignoring. And if you're not getting all those four things right. You know, you're going to be, you know, people are going to be a bit confused about your messaging. If you're saying one thing, but you're the one, you know, doing the long hours, answering the phone on the weekends, you know, sending emails at sort of, um, 11 at night, not taking time off, not sort of, um, supporting yourself, you know, we talk about. You know, basic first aid about putting the oxygen mask on first before you start sorting other people out. And that's exactly the same for leaders. If you're not sort of doing what you should be doing, then, you know, the impact for who you're working for is, or who's working for you, can be quite sort of impactful.

Scott: 31:02

And, just as we, as we wrap up saying, obviously we're connected on LinkedIn and I can put your contact details in the show notes so people can find you. but what other social media platforms are you on?

Zane: 31:18

I'm also on Instagram. but I'm, you know, I'm 48 so Instagram is probably not as involved as it could be, but I'm also there. But LinkedIn is my main platform where I do most of my, most of my posting and most of my content is. It's aimed at thresholds, so it's the it's the right one mostly.

Scott: 31:37

Excellent. Awesome. Well, it's been great having you on. Great to great to chat to you. And I think, you know, there's lots of things that people can sort of take away there when it, when it comes to burnout. And the key thing is, I guess, prevention better than cure.

Zane: 31:53

Absolutely. how are the two takeaways I give people is get curious, get curious and get intentional. Things won't just happen to you if you, if you, if you're not sort of doing the work. And if you're worried about how you're feeling, I mean, there's stuff on my, on my site. If you're worried about sort of where you might be, there's a little helpful guide with all the, you know, what, what. Each stage looks and feels like, so I'll have that out and have a look at that. And if anyone wants to have a bit more of a chat with me about it, I'm more than happy to jump on forwards and just go through this piece for people. So it's all there. Nice one.

Scott: 32:24

Awesome. Thanks, Zane. Great, Scott. Great to talk. Thank you for listening and I hope that this episode has managed to help you go one way or another. Whether it be helping you yourself or helping you understand what friends may be going through. Feel free to share this episode with friends, family, repost it on your social medias. And obviously if you really enjoyed it, please give us a thumbs up and erase it. It all helps. We'll be back in two weeks. We'll see you then.