Overcoming Burnout and ADHD with David Greenwood
David Greenwood is decoding burnout. In his exploration of this pervasive modern malaise, he's ventured into the very trenches of exhaustion, spoken with those who have stared into the abyss of depleted energy, and conferred with the experts who chart the treacherous landscape of chronic stress.
This week on the show, David sits down with Nikki and Pete to discuss the often-overlooked connection between ADHD and burnout. They explore the surprising statistic that suggests a staggering disparity: up to 93% of adults with ADHD grapple with burnout symptoms, compared to a mere 30% of the general population. What accounts for this chasm? Is it the relentless pursuit of perfection, the constant struggle for self-regulation, or the insidious creep of executive dysfunction that leaves one perpetually playing catch-up?
Together, they dissect the nuanced symptoms of burnout, moving beyond the simplistic notion of mere tiredness. They explore the physical manifestations, the emotional toll, and the mental exhaustion that can leave one feeling utterly depleted. They discuss how the very nature of ADHD, with its challenges in time management, emotional regulation, and sustained focus, can create a perfect storm for burnout to flourish.
David shares his unique perspective, honed through years of experience, offering practical strategies for recognizing the early warning signs and reclaiming control. He emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between stress and burnout, highlighting the critical need to address the root causes of chronic stress before it escalates into full-blown burnout. He introduces a deceptively simple yet profound tool for self-assessment: What are you complaining about? This seemingly innocuous question, he argues, can unlock a deeper understanding of the stressors that are silently chipping away at our well-being.
Join Nikki, Pete, and David for a conversation that is as insightful as it is practical, as thought-provoking as it is empowering. They offer a roadmap for navigating the complexities of burnout, providing the tools to reclaim energy, focus, and lives.
Links and Notes
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Pete Wright:
Hello everybody and welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast on TruStory FM. I'm Pete Wright, and I'm here with Nikki Kinzer.
Nikki Kinzer:
Hello everyone. Hello, Pete Wright.
Pete Wright:
You're feeling strong today, Nikki. You feeling good?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
Me, too. Kung Fu is strong. The sun was shining this morning. My morning dog walk was gorgeous. The leaves are beautiful. The color against the sky is outstanding.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. Fall is such a nice time.
Pete Wright:
It is such a beautiful time, especially here. I'm living it up, living it up. We got about six days of this, and then it all goes to hell. So, I'm living it up. And we are talking about burnout today. I'm very excited for this conversation. We have a fantastic guest, and we're going to dig into that in just a moment. But first, are you feeling burned out yourself?
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David Greenwood isn't just writing about burnout. He's decoding it. In Overcoming Burnout, he's gone deep, talking to the people in the trenches, the ones who've stared into the abyss of exhaustion, and the experts who've mapped its contours. This isn't some ivory tower analysis, it's a street-level view, a practical guide to navigating the burnout maze. He cracked the code from the floor of a dishroom, and he's here to share its secrets. David, welcome to the show.
David Greenwood:
Thank you, guys, for having me. It's always a pleasure to connect with you. I know I've had you on my podcast, and those episodes are always very well received. As you say, you guys have somewhat cracked the code and have a methodical approach to being a busy person with ADHD. I always love chatting with you guys.
Nikki Kinzer:
Thank you. Thanks for being here.
Pete Wright:
Well, thank you. Thank you for being here. I remember in that last conversation we had on your show talking specifically about burnout. We had that eureka moment. What better conversation to have right now, given the high prevalence of folks living with ADHD who burn out. What got you into this? I mentioned the dishroom story and your first experience with burnout. Can you just set the table with what led you down this road of really exploring burnout and then writing a book about it?
David Greenwood:
I spent 16 years in the restaurant business, many of them as an owner. I owned a small restaurant just outside of Boston. It was a franchise, and I was also in a wealthy community surrounded by probably the other most wealthy communities within Massachusetts. I mention that because this was a time where I couldn't get help. Kids weren't working. A lot of kids, no offense to anybody, but in wealthier communities, some kids just don't work. It was even more difficult. The economy was very good at the time. I couldn't get help. I actually worked two straight days by myself, and at about five o'clock the second day, I'll spare the details, but I had a massive nosebleed that wouldn't stop.
There was nobody in the restaurant at the time. I locked the door and lied down in the dishroom. Now, I probably should have called 9-1-1, but I didn't. I cleaned myself up and unlocked the door because I was a franchiser. I had a contract. So, either an earthquake or you die is the only reason that you could close the place. I didn't know it was burnout, but one thing I did know at that time, and we're going back to the late '90s, is that I couldn't live like that anymore. I couldn't see myself working in the restaurant business and dealing with labor issues and everything else for the next 40 years of my life. So, I basically sold the place, took six months off, and went into working another job for 10 years.
But to answer your question specifically, it wasn't until the middle of the COVID years where I had a son, like many of us, who started a new school at the dining room table on a laptop. I was trying to run a business. The business was pivoting. I was in the public relations world, so there were massive changes in that. And just everything, COVID, being a caregiver, business changing, trying to keep the lights on. And one day, I was saying to myself, casually, for a couple of weeks, "I feel burned out. I feel burned out." Until I realized, no, I'm burned out. My muscles hurt. My face hurts. Everything hurts. I'm exhausted. I can never get enough sleep. Food just didn't taste good anymore. All these kinds of things.
Then I went to look for a book that I wanted to read, and I couldn't find it. So, what do we do when that happens? We actually write the book, and that's when Overcoming Burnout came into my lens.
Nikki Kinzer:
When you talk about working two days by yourself, or when I think of burnout, I think of people that are working like that, right? They're working around the clock, they're working long hours, they're working on the weekend. But can you have burnout with just a part-time job?
David Greenwood:
I think anybody can experience burnout if the conditions that are going to cause them chronic stress are in place. So absolutely, yeah. I mean, that's why I get irritated, quite frankly, because I look at social media, and I see people talking about burnout or creating these graphics and all this stuff. They're painting a very simplistic view of burnout. What's even worse is that they're getting a ton of likes. Burnout is complex. And people really need to understand that. There are a million factors that could play a role into somebody feeling burned out.
And yes, it's a part-time job that maybe they hate. Maybe that's the only job they have, they're having financial difficulties, maybe they've got other things going on in their lives. Maybe they're working a part-time job that is also chaotic, or their boss is a jerk, or what have you. So, absolutely, I think there's a number of conditions that contribute. You don't have to work 80, 90 hours a week to burn out.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
That, I think, gets to a really important distinction. When speaking about ADHD and burnout, my sense is there is probably some easy confusion about what burnout looks like for ADHD. I mean, ADHD is a neurodevelopmental issue. Persistent inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity, we get all that, and those are experiences that we live with day to day.
Burnout, we've heard, is more than just tired. But the state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion, and the physiological symptoms that come with that might read as something that isn't burnout. Right? Can you set the stage for how to... And you already said there are a million factors, but how do you start to discern if you're burned out?
David Greenwood:
One of the, I think, indicators that somebody should pay attention to is to distinguish between stress and burnout. And again, that's another social media thing that drives me crazy. I see people saying, "Oh, I was so burned out, so I took a long weekend, we sat by the pool, and I came back Tuesday and I feel great." Okay, beautiful. Maybe you were on your way to burnout, but I don't think that indicates burnout.
Burnout is chronic stress, over and over again. Those factors come that into play. And I think when we're talking about people with ADHD, I think we do bring a lot to the table, whether it's those habits, our work habits, it's our time and energy management, or maybe it's a lack of self-care, those types of things. It's the people-pleasing. It's trying to prove ourselves over and over again, all those things piling up month after month after year, do contribute to burnout. I have a belief that, I think, those of us with ADHD can actually burn out faster and harder just because of the habits and the ADHD brain that we bring to the table.
Nikki Kinzer:
I can see that because I see with clients a lot of, "I didn't get as much done during the day, so I need to bring this home in the evening." I mean, they're pushing themselves more because of the people-pleasing, because of all those ADHD symptoms that you've mentioned. I can see that.
Pete Wright:
I was looking into the relationship between ADHD and burnout this morning, and I found some statistics that I thought were sort of shocking. There is a range of reported statistics, it's kind of a fuzzy model. But it said that up to 93% of adults on the high end with ADHD experience burnout symptoms. Now, that sounds like an interesting and rational number to me. I know a lot of people who feel burned out, but this compares to only 30% of the general population, according to this one model. Ninety-three percent of people living with ADHD and 30% of the general population get to the experience of profound burnout. Does that line up with your research?
David Greenwood:
Again, I think we go back to how somebody uses the term "burnout." And I think we throw it around a little too loosely, to be perfectly honest with you. I mean, if you can take a vacation and come back and feel like a new person...
Pete Wright:
Maybe you were just tired.
David Greenwood:
No, and maybe you just needed to hit the reset button.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
David Greenwood:
But I have worked with people who have taken leave of absences from work. They haven't worked for six months. They worked and lived in that mode for so long, just trying to power through. Then it got to the point where they just couldn't do it anymore. What's even worse is that many of them have a hard time even going back to work, so now they're working on getting disability benefits or what have you.
So I think, again, if we do anybody a service, it's distinguishing between stress and the burnout. Now, if you're stressed out, yeah, you need to take a break, because if you just continue to operate like that month after month after year, you're going to get burned out, and it's going to be much harder to flip the switch back. Those are the things that I think I want to... We're throwing these terms around a little too loosely.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. So tell us more about what the symptoms of burnout are. What can we be looking for and understand?
David Greenwood:
I think, obviously, one of the big ones is exhaustion. It's the physical exhaustion, the mental exhaustion. And again, we're having a discussion about ADHD as well, so you're like, "Well, that sounds like ADHD," lack of sleep, poor sleep habits. Many people who are burned out could sleep 10, 12 hours. They still feel like they got no sleep, they don't feel rested. So, very disruptive sleep patterns, that loss of appetite, and those physical symptoms.
I have talked to people who have had everything from heart attacks to miscarriages to digestive issues. The medical community hasn't been able to trace it back to burnout, which is a whole other conversation we could have about the level of awareness that the medical community should have about this. Again, it's cynical, it's resentful. It's that lost focus. It's that lost productivity over and above our typical ADHD tendencies, so to speak. It's anxiety. It's panic attacks. It's pulling the covers over your head and not wanting to get up, those types of things. It just goes on and on, and they just pile up.
Pete Wright:
You can start to see, as you peel the onion on this that where the symptoms of ADHD, the experience of ADHD, lines up a hand to glove with exacerbating the symptoms of burnout, right? Executive function deficits. I'm thinking about time management. When I'm just tired, if I get a poor night's sleep, my executive function is a mess. When I'm emotionally dysregulated, my executive functioning is a mess. When I'm burned out, I imagine my behavior around time is straight-up maladaptive.
David Greenwood:
Absolutely. Your time management goes much further down the toilet than it typically is. I think there's also one thing to point out. There was a healthcare executive that I interviewed for the book Overcoming Burnout, and I started out by saying, "What are those first signs of burnout?" This is a guy who had a heart attack, and he said, "The first sign of burnout is when you stop doing the things you love."
And I thought that was interesting. He had season tickets to Major League Baseball. He had a parking space. He had a booth, seats. He had free food the company paid for. And he stopped going. All he had to do was drive there and show up, and he stopped doing that.
For me, I felt, I use the example in the book of... I love working in the yard. I know people might think that's crazy, but I love working out in the yard. It's fresh air. I would generally love to talk to my neighbors, but when I felt really burnt out, if a neighbor came out of their house, I would literally run in the house until they were gone. I didn't want to talk to them. Those are the types of things. But I think he's right. One of the biggest warning signs is when you can't do the things that you love to do anymore, then that's a massive red flag.
Pete Wright:
Is there a connection the other way? Do you see folks, their sort of dopamine-seeking behavior changes? They stop doing the things they love, but they look for some sort of engagements in another way? Maybe, again, maladaptively?
David Greenwood:
Yeah, you may say that. You may see that in maybe more negative behaviors. Alcohol would be one of them.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right. That's what I'm getting to. How do you see... What are the trends in sort of numbing behavior when you don't recognize you're in a burnout cycle?
David Greenwood:
Yeah, it would be alcohol, it would be maybe eating poorly, those types of things. It would be, again, pulling back from things, like not going to the gym or, "I can't even squeeze in a 20-minute walk." I mean, again, the number of people that couldn't even get off the mark and say, "You know what? Just go take a walk around the block." "I can't do it." That's burnout, that's not stress.
So I think it's more, yeah, again, I would say alcohol and eating and some of those on the other side. But burnout is when we pull back, we retreat. We retreat from everybody. We retreat from our friends, our colleagues, our husband, our wife, our family. We retreat.
Nikki Kinzer:
So how is that different than falling into a depression, or is it the same?
David Greenwood:
I think you might see the same symptoms, but also, there are many people who let their burnout go so long that they actually have gone into depression. And then they've needed that extra care and support, such as a therapist or medication, which I'm certainly not qualified to speak about. But I've talked to a lot of people who, again, it's the length of time that... I know one woman who's a very high up in an organization that worked like this for 15 years. Fifteen years. And she can't go back to work. Other people have had to go on medication, they've had to see a psychologist. And that's why we can't ignore those warning signs, because if you continue to do that, and a lot of us with ADHD, I think, decide we're just going to try and bust through the wall or power through, we need to take note of that.
Pete Wright:
Right. That's the cycle. The cycle is, "Oh, with ADHD, let's say I get a new job and I'm excited about it, or I have a new function at my job. I'm in this sort of glorious phase of maybe hyper-focus and high productivity." And I imagine there's a very sudden cliff from, "Oh my God, I am doing great because I'm hyperfocusing and getting things done," to "I didn't even see it coming, the burnout part." Is there a more gentle phase? Or am I misattributing experience?
David Greenwood:
I can make a case for both, but I don't generally feel that burnout creeps up on you. You know something's wrong. You know you're stressed out. You know when you're having challenges. You know when you're exhausted. Those patterns change. I can make a case for saying, "Yeah, I'm stressed out because it's life and I'm working a busy or demanding job, and I'm in a demanding career." And then all of a sudden, "Oh, look at that. I'm actually burned out." But I think, the more-
Pete Wright:
Right, and I can tell you I love my job and I love my work, and also, holy crap, I'm burnt out.
David Greenwood:
Yeah. But I think, again, this goes to, the more we educate people about those warning signs, I think, the earlier that they can address these issues, whether it's with yourself or with your working conditions, so to speak. I know I meet with a lot of people that, and I don't know if you see this too, Nikki, but somebody comes to you and they say, "I'm missing deadlines. I'm procrastinating. I'm doing all this." And then you dig in after a few weeks and you realize, you know what? This isn't all their fault. They're in a chaotic work environment. They're in a toxic work environment. And that goes on time after time. You're stressed out, and then that leads to burnout. So there are a lot of factors involved. That's why I say this is complex.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Well, and that's why I poke at that just a little bit, because I know, I recognize I'm totally projecting in this conversation, because my flavor of ADHD is such that when I'm emotionally dysregulated, I'm the last person to know it. And that's why some of those transitions feel sudden until I lash out at somebody I love. And I start experiencing the more extreme kind of rage or pulling back that somebody else needs to knock on my door and say, "We need to talk about how you're living your life because it's not like it was six months ago." Do you know what I'm saying? I don't always love being the last to know. I'm sorry, Nikki, I feel like I've interrupted you twice.
David Greenwood:
But it is, it's a huge piece of self-awareness that we have to have, and maybe we're not capable of that self-awareness when we let it go too long.
Pete Wright:
Yes. Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. And I also think there's something to what David's saying, too, about "you know." Because I think of the people that I've worked with who have very demanding jobs, and the expectations of what they're supposed to do in a day is so unrealistic. And so, when they're coming to us with that exhaustion, they know. They know what's happening. They just don't know what to do about it. And it's not as simple as, "Get a new job." So, I'm curious, David, yes, what happens when I go to the doctor or I go to a coach and I say, "I feel like I'm having these symptoms"? What do we do with this?
David Greenwood:
You bring up a good point. I mentioned it earlier, you go to the doctor and you say, "You know what? I'm having stomach issues. I'm having trouble eating or digesting," and all these things. Then they send you to the lab, they send you for an endoscopy, and all this stuff. And then they say, "Oh, nothing's wrong."
And I hear more stories about this, rather than the medical professional taking a little time to say, "What's going on in your life?" There is a book, many of you have probably heard of it, it's called The Body Keeps the Score. It's written by a psychologist who worked here, a psychiatrist, I'm sorry, who worked here in Boston and dealt with veterans coming back from the Vietnam War and other people that had experienced trauma, such as crime trauma and bodily injury and all this stuff. But I've never seen a book more aptly titled, because the trauma which, when you go from stress to burnout, is a form of trauma.
It comes out in the body. It comes out in the headaches, the stomach issues, and these "I keep throwing out my neck" or all these physical symptoms. And the trauma from burnout is coming out in the form of physical symptoms. And it's another thing that we need to be fully aware of. Why can't I hold down food anymore? Why do certain foods bother me? Why doesn't food taste good anymore? Those types of things.
I'm not saying you get bored of food, I'm not saying you're burned out. But that, along with all the other things going on in your life, again, those are the things that we need to take note of. And again, the more we create awareness about this, the more people can understand that, yeah, maybe I'm in that territory.
Pete Wright:
Okay. So I walk into work with you and I'm confused, and I believe I'm experiencing my burnout. You write a book called Overcoming Burnout. How do you do it? What does 8:00 AM Monday morning look like when I'm working with you to help me get a handle on my experience?
David Greenwood:
First of all, I want somebody to hit the pause button. I want them to go be able to take that 20 or 30-minute walk because we stopped doing those things. For a lot of people, I ask them if they can financially do it, is to just go take a weekend away at a hotel where you can just do anything. Bring a couple of books, sit down, go sit down at the hotel restaurant downstairs, just enjoy, have a nice steak. Just get away from it for a couple of days just to settle your head down.
I think one of the big things that people need to address very quickly is that time and energy management, because most people I talk to, just looks like a dumpster fire. They need to, I think, there's always a way to guard more of your time when you're burned out. We just don't know how to do it when we're in that setting. And then the other thing, which may sound odd, but I talk to people and I ask them to list their complaints. If there's something that you continue to complain about day after day after week, those are the things that you need to start addressing.
If you're constantly complaining about something... For me, it was clients that wouldn't pay me when I was running my PR firm. They'd go out 90 days longer than that, and I'd still be working for them because I was a people pleaser. They weren't paying me, but I was like, "Oh, it's okay. I understand. Sometimes you just forget to pay me." But no. My wife, I was complaining about this one client for God-knows-how-long, and we were sitting down watching the Food Network probably, having a beer, and I was bitching and moaning about them. And she said, "Would you just shut up, either fire them or put your foot down and say, 'Pay me, or I'm going to stop working.'"
And that's one of many examples where it's like, I was complaining about it. It was eating away at me. It was pressing me about-
Pete Wright:
Yes. You're last to know. She needed to tell you. Right?
David Greenwood:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
That's exactly what I'm talking about. I love that.
David Greenwood:
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I know that-
Pete Wright:
I mean, I hate that for you. I'm sorry, but I love that.
David Greenwood:
No, but you're right. It's like what, sharing, and what's that, moonstruck. Snap out of it.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Snap out of it!
David Greenwood:
I'm not suggesting that because that is clearly not a strategy you want to employ, but I do think we do need to wake up and take back control of our lives. I think we mentioned when we spoke last time on my podcast about us being co-founders of burnout. There is, in many cases, equal skin in the game when it comes to somebody feeling burned out. So, we have to take control.
Nikki Kinzer:
I really appreciate that, and I appreciate you asking the question, "What are you complaining about?" Because that takes it to a different level. Because now instead of just complaining about everything, I can look at, okay, what are my biggest complaints and what can I do about this? If I'm working too many hours, how do I work less hours? How do I put in some boundaries that I'm going to be done at five o'clock? Maybe that means I'm going to be disappointing some people. They're not going to get as much, or they're not going to get something as quickly, or I'm going to see less clients because I need to have a boundary of only seeing so many clients per day, or I need to hire someone to offload some of this work.
It really just makes you think about, all right, this is where I'm at. What is my pain point and what are the things that I can do to lessen that? If you really like your job, if you really like what you're doing, if you are happy.
David Greenwood:
Yeah. And I imagine you do this with a lot of people as you probably meet with people, and you've got to analyze, "Why am I working all night? Why am I working? Do I goof off all morning? Do I not have a handle on my schedule and how my days flow, and my energy levels? When I'm trying to do work, how do I best work? What role am I playing?" And then, yes, what role is the, maybe if somebody's working for somebody else, what role is the organization playing? Are they just continuing to pile too much work on me and say, "Just do it"? Are the expectations of you too much? So that's why there's equal responsibility in that circumstance.
Pete Wright:
Do you remember your transition from burnout to not burnout anymore when you picked yourself up off the dishroom floor? Do you remember what that felt like?
David Greenwood:
When I was in the dishroom floor, yeah. It was like when I handed the keys over to that restaurant and walked away, it was like that action hero walking in slow motion where they throw the hand grenade in the warehouse and they walk away and the building blows up and they don't even look back. That was the feeling. And it was reinforced when I went back about a month later just to go say hello to the guy who bought it, and the door was locked and the lights were on.
So, I knocked and he came and opened the door, and I just got this waft of heating oil smell, and I'm like, "What happened?" He goes, "Well, the truck filled the heating oil and put it in the wrong pipe in the back of the building and filled the basement with heating oil." And I'm thinking, that's another factor in burnout, it's dealing with all that crap.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, wow.
Pete Wright:
Oh my God.
David Greenwood:
And it's just like, we can talk about workload and all this stuff, but you know what? Entrepreneurs and people self-employed burnout too, and all the crap we have to deal with. And it was like just one more thing that this guy had to deal with now, and I'm thinking, "Wow, that was a great decision for me to get out."
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Right.
Nikki Kinzer:
Good timing on that.
David Greenwood:
Because I didn't have that on my bingo card. I had a lot of other things. I had floods. I had kids throwing up in my restaurant. I had everything, but I didn't have the heating oil.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
My God. When you look at folks who come in, and I guess this is a two-part question. One, do you think it's possible if you are prone to burnout, to avoid burnout? Right? Is it possible to live burnout-free in Pete-waves-his-arms-broadly in the world right now?
David Greenwood:
Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
Pete Wright:
You think so? You're an optimist?
David Greenwood:
It takes that control mindset as you guys so aptly know. Yeah, you have to, I hate the word boundaries, we've got to find a new word for boundaries, but it takes a lot of that. It takes a lot of sticking up for yourself. It takes a lot of understanding your capacity. It takes a lot of understanding when to say no, reducing your commitments, all those things. Ned Hallowell said to me when I interviewed him for Overcoming Distractions, he said, "There are two massive keys to thriving as an adult with ADHD. Marry the right person and find the right job." And so many people are in a career or a job where they have a misalignment of values too.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right. Right.
David Greenwood:
I think a lot of people with ADHD have that ethical nature about them. They want to do the right thing. They want to be in a job where they know they can make a difference and be fulfilled. And when they're in a career where that rub starts to happen, then they get cynical and resentful. So, yes. Can you live without burnout? Yeah. But you need to understand what you need to do to be in control of your life.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
And I think, I guess I'm less of an optimist than it sounds like you both, because I don't believe that it's possible to live burnout-free unless you've been burned out. Because I don't think you understand that awareness as internally of the symptomatic nature of burnout in order to read yourself well enough until you've felt it. Too cynical?
David Greenwood:
I would put a caveat on that, because we're talking about ADHD, but I think probably most adults with ADHD experience a level of burnout at one time or another. So, I think you're accurate in saying, "Wow, that last job almost killed me, and I'm glad I got out," or "I'm glad I made some changes," or what have you. But, I think, our tendencies to our work habits and what have you, do provide fuel for burnout. So, I would add that. I think most adults with ADHD probably do experience burnout at some level, at some point in their life.
Pete Wright:
At one of my earliest jobs, I was 23, 25, something like that, and I was in charge at this small company, of doling out email addresses. And we hired somebody with a very complicated name. I was, obviously, not happy with my job at this time. I was, unbeknownst to me, burned out, I believe.
I went into the VP and I said, "Hey, we just hired somebody with an incredibly long name. In order to make it easier on everybody else, what do you think about changing our email format to use a set of initials for this person?" And the VP, totally her right to do so, said, "You know what? We have a standard for a reason. I think we just need to trust that people will add this person to their contact list and not have to type it out all the time." And I said, "Fine, effing fine. That's fine. We'll just break email for people." I stormed out of the room.
And I would like to say to Connie, I'm sorry about that. I was clearly burned out, but that's the thing. That was the trigger. I wouldn't have seen it coming had I not lived through it, resigned from that job, and been able to find promise elsewhere. Enough so that I can look back on it and see that I was in that cycle, and I didn't have the words to describe it.
David Greenwood:
Yeah, I think we need to understand that not all burnout is blossomed in the workplace. We have a rapidly aging population. Many of us are becoming caregivers to an aging parent. Many of us might have a child with special needs that requires a lot of extra care. Again, I want to dispel some of the things that are on social media about this.
It's like, if you're in leadership, many of your people may be coming to work already tired because of their other responsibilities, and we need to make sure we have that conversation as well when we talk about burnout, is that that's exhausting for some people. Then you're in a demanding career, you've got an aging mother that requires a lot of care, maybe they're living with you, maybe you're taking daily trips over to their house, you're going to doctor's appointments, you're ending up in the ER at night, all these types of things. And we need to understand that, and I forget the percentage, but there are far more people approaching retirement age and over now than even 10 years ago. So, we need to understand that. We need to have a full discussion about why people are feeling this way.
Pete Wright:
I think that's a great reminder, because I think you're right. I think, burnout, particularly in social media, is near inextricably connected to work. And if you just took more time in palm trees, you'd be fine. Yeah, that's not okay.
David Greenwood:
Yeah, I think for many people in that situation, and again, remove the caregiving and just in a workplace where they can't put their foot down, I think the other reason people feel burned out is because they feel like there's no end in sight to their situation. They feel like they're going to have to live this way for a very long time, whether it's a bad job, bad clients, or they've got other responsibilities with family.
Pete Wright:
And this conversation helps. Talking about it helps. It gives me a reason to be, let's say, moderately less cynical about my experience with ADHD and burnout. The words are important. And speaking of words, where would you like to send people to learn about your words on burnout? Obviously, the book is available where books are sold.
David Greenwood:
Yeah, it's Overcoming Burnout. You can find that on Amazon. There are two websites. There's the Overcoming Distractions website, which has all the podcasts that you guys have been on. We do discuss ADHD and burnout frequently as a reminder to people. And then overcomingburnout.net is the actual book website as well. There are programs that I offer in there as well, like corporate workshops and workshops for leadership in HR. I also do, as we just discussed, I've put together, if a company wants to offer their employees, what people can do if they're experiencing caregiver burnout, because it's coming from many people. They can find those workshops on that as well.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Outstanding. David, thank you so much for your time today.
David Greenwood:
Thank you, guys.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, thank you so much.
David Greenwood:
Always good chatting with you, even if we're having a deep discussion.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
Oh my goodness. And Connie, breaking email? God, I'm all riled up, and that was 30 years ago. Anyway...
Nikki Kinzer:
Honey.
David Greenwood:
Get it out of your system.
Pete Wright:
Thank you. Yeah, I'll do that. Get it out.
David Greenwood:
I'm glad I could facilitate that.
Pete Wright:
You're a catharsis, a welcome catharsis. Thank you, everybody, for downloading and listening to this show. We appreciate your time and your attention. Don't forget, if you have something to contribute to the conversation, we're heading over to the Show Talk channel in Discord. You can join us there by becoming a supporting member at the deluxe level or better. On behalf of Nikki Kinzer and David Greenwood, I'm Pete Wright, and we'll be back right here next week on Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast.
