Flip the Switch Episode 20: Employee Burnout
SOPHIA: Today on flip the Switch. Apple is allowing customers to make an important decision. And Snapchat is really starting to piss people off. Facebook throws a curve ball and changes what your news feed looks like. And the guys discuss career burnout. We talk inspirational business people and answer a couple of questions about internet marketing.
Let’s get into it.
00:49 AUSTIN: Welcome to Flip the Switch presented by Power Digital Marketing. We are very excited to bring you episode number 20.
00:56 PAT: Oh yeah. So I think we’re honestly astonished that we’ve made it this far.
01:01 AUSTIN: No way. I’ve got all the confidence in the world.
01:02 PAT: As do I. but we do have a really good show for you guys today. We’ve got some great business trends and news to go through. A couple interesting topics that we think are very timely for this time of year. Mainly about burnout. Ways to overcome that.
But first and foremost we want to introduce one of our in-house social experts, Mr. Connor Sanner. Connor, great to have you on the show today.
01:21 CONNOR: Great to be here guys. Thanks for having me. I’m surprised it took 20 episodes, but I’m very excited and hope to give you guys some insight.
01:28 PAT: Little big for his britches already. I like it.
01:29 AUSTIN: Yeah, but we are really excited to have Connor on. The great thing about Connor is he is a specialist in everything Facebook. So we’re going to be talking a little bit of advertising. If you’re up to speed. If not, Facebook did make some very big changes to their algorithm lately and what that means is that what you see in your feed is going to be pretty different from what you see right now. They’re really trying to focus on relationships with individuals instead of companies. So that is greatly going to affect advertising.
01:55 PAT: Exactly. And we thought that this would be super-valuable to bring to you guys, since it’s a brand new trend for 2018 that we’ve observed over the course of the last week. And we thought the best way to do that–instead of talking about it ourselves–is to bring in an expert. And in this case, that’s Mr. Connor Sanner.
So Connor, we’re going to briefly go through this with you. And we want to kind of collect your thoughts on it and hear everything about it.
But first, can you kind of give us a little bit of an update as to what’s happening with the algorithm and what changes people have seen this week.
02:20 CONNOR: Yeah, definitely. so kind of to give you guys a little background and a breakdown to what’s happening is Facebook is trying to become more of a… go back to its roots of being a social media platform. So it’s kind of losing that sense. For a lot of people a source of news. And it’s kind of just a thread of constant news. So they’re trying to bring back the roots of the personal aspect.
02:41 PAT: That’s interesting. And we’ve talked a lot about Facebook this year. A lot of the fallout from the 2016b election and the way that Facebook handled that. The scrutiny that it was put under. Is this in any way a response to that? To try to win back some public opinion?
Or what is the cause for this change?
02:59 CONNOR: Yeah. I think there’s definitely a couple causes for the change. I think one of the main ones was what you reference. Was kind of the issues that they’re having with the election and then the fake news and all the stuff surrounding that. And kind of bringing people back to the forefront is an easy way for them to mitigate this issue.
Cause it’ll be so… kind of how it’s going to be working is the algorithm’s going to be favoring content produced by people and content interacted with individuals versus reacting to content with brands and other groups.
So the way that your news feed gets ranked is it gives it points based off of how you interact with it. Those points can essentially… you can see them as being doubled if it’s interaction with someone in your close friend group or another individual versus a brand or a group.
03:47 AUSTIN: Right. So what you’re saying pretty much is they want to be delivering more of people getting engaged, or maybe your friend got a new dog. Instead of a company serving you general information about their products.
03:58 JOE: Or your friend trying to educate you on Bitcoin?
04:02 AUSTIN: Hey, hey, hey.
04:03 PAT: We’ll leave that out. That better still be ranking on it.
04:05 CONNOR: Yes, exactly. That’s pretty much exactly what they’re trying to do.
So the implications on how this is going to affect brands and advertisers is kind of yet to be seen. But I think some of the main things that’s going to be very important is brands are really going to have to focus on the quality of the content that they’re producing. So if you’re content is quality, and people are still interested in sharing it with their friends. And still commenting on it and tagging their friends… You’ll still have the ability to rank in the newsfeed. It’s just going to be more difficult.
So if your content is not engaging then it will not be seen pretty much anymore.
04:43 JOE: Is this effecting on the organic side and paid side? Or is it one or the other? Or is it the whole shebang?
04:48 CONNOR: So, currently it is only affecting the organic side. So this actually kind of brings me to another one of my theories. The reason that they’re not messing with the paid side is because it’s their only source of revenue right now, correct?
05:01 PAT: Absolutely.
05:02 CONNOR: So what I’m thinking is, they’re going to make it harder for brands to get their content seen organically. Which means, in turn, they’re going to have to spend more ad dollars to get the organic content seen.
05:15 AUSTIN: Just real quick, paid versus organic. The organic is what you would see in the newsfeed? And then a paid ad would be on the sidebar? Or what’s the big differences between the two?
05:23 CONNOR: So that is kind of… That’s just a placement. So the newsfeed and the right column… Organic content will never be on the right column. Right column is just a placement for paid advertising. But the difference between organic advertising and paid advertising is simply if it has ad dollars behind it.
So the way that organic content is very favorable right now is because you can get free impressions by just creating engaging content. But it’s going to be more difficult now for that content to be seen, because they’re putting a preference on content shared by individuals.
05:58 AUSITN: Right. So it sounds like there’s still a way for brands to get around this new change and it’s simply by getting to their roots of who their customer is and what they like. So if they can be super-hyper-focused on their demographic and their individual then they could possibly still show up in the newsfeed quite well.
06:14 CONNOR: exactly. That’s spot-on.
06:18 PAT: It’s very interesting. And, you know, I think again, going back to what we were talking about earlier. You know, my own opinion on it as an advertiser to is it a little bit to have to with Facebook trying to win back some of that public trust. And re-establish themselves as their primary function.
But from a business perspective, this makes a lot of sense. If advertising is where they’re making their revenue, and they have seen some bad publicity that could potentially affect their revenue in a negative way down the line, this seems like a pre-emptive remedy to that. To try to stabilize earnings. Especially now that you know, it’s a public company. They have share-holders to answer to. I doubt that Mark Zuckerberg decided this completely on his own. I think the board of directors probably came in and told him exactly what to do with this.
But it’s interesting, nonetheless. And it’s been really interesting to see the industry reaction. Really… wrapping this up really quick Connor. What have you seen as far as your colleagues or people that are in the industry? Are people worried about this? Are people that help boost organic social posts and do organic social services for businesses worried at all? Or should they be?
07:20 CONNOR: So, I do see it causing a good amount of worry. But I think the worry is a little unprecedented. Because if you are generating quality content and you understand how to utilize your ad dollars to not only promote your e-commerce or conversion oriented campaigns. And understand that brand awareness and engagement with your community is equally as important. You should be able to shift some of that budget around and still get those engagements that you’re looking for.
And also just… you should be putting a higher emphasis on the quality of content that you’re producing.
07:56 AUSTIN: Absolutely. That was a fantastic explanation and thank you very much Connor, for coming on. You’ve been a great help for us in understanding what’s happening. And also it’s great to hear just content is still king. And the importance of a brand to make great content will never go away.
08:10 CONNOR: Thanks for having me, guys.
08:12 AUSTIN: Next up, we’re talking about Apple. And we’re discussing what Apple’s been up to with their iPhones. We did see in the news recently they came out and said that with battery life they’ve been adjusting performance because of the battery life as a phone continues to get older. It’s a little bit more difficult to keep it alive.
So users were very upset about this. No one wants to know that performance is dipping on their device that they’ve paid money for, in favor of something else. So Patrick, what is Apple up to now, and what are they saying about this issue?
08:40 PAT: Yeah, so a article came out on Quartz earlier this week talking about this… And this is brought forth from a few people from Apple specifically. It’s well documented over the past few years that Apple’s made this decision for people. So basically choosing secretly to optimize iPhone batteries so that as they age the processors would be artificially hamstrung is the phrase that they use–to match how much power the phones could put out.
But they never told the users about this. They’re making the decision for you, basically.
09:11 AUSTIN: It reminds me of a podcast I was listening to recently and the guy was joking that his battery died from 30% to 10% in a matter of 5 minutes. And he was making the joke that it might have been the cold.
But turns out it’s just Apple draining your battery.
09:25 PAT: It’s Apple draining your battery. My battery currently dies at, like, 35% because of this. And every time that you update your software, it gets even worse. And now we have a documented reason as to why.
So obviously it’s been very widely disagreed upon that Apple should have been making this choice without communicating it to people in the first place. They’re facing a bunch of class action lawsuits as a result of it. They’ve apologized and offered to replace batteries for $29 instead of $79, which… you know, how gracious of you. You’re the most valuable company in the entire world, but you’re still going to charge people after screwing them over a little bit.
10:01 JOE: do you think people are justified in filing class action law-suits against them when it’s kind of like… I feel like this is one of those situations where people just kind of get a hold of something and realize that they could maybe make a quick buck.
10:11 AUSTIN: I bet in their language in all their contracts that they’re covered in this sort of thing. I’m assuming that they have the best lawyers in the world…
10:16 PAT: T & Cs baby…
10:16 ASUTIN: Exactly.
10:19 PAT: You never read them. Click away.
10:21 AUSTIN: And every time you make an update for the software on your phone, there is a new agreement. So I can bet that they probably updated… if they hadn’t already… with this most recent update. When people started figuring it out. They definitely covered their own asses. They’re the largest company in the world.
10:36 PAT: Largest company in the world. The most at stake. But what’s coming out now… Tim Cook actually explained it in an ABC interview. That with the upcoming update users are basically going to have to choose which of those two things they care about more. Do you care about better processing power and worse battery life? Or vice-versa.
This doesn’t sit well with me. This doesn’t sit well. I don’t know what you think about it, but I personally think that if you’re buying one of the most sophisticated pieces of technology on the entire market, I should not… If I’m paying $1000 for an iPhone, I should not have to choose between whether it works and dies fast or vice-versa.
11:11 JOE: If I’m Samsung, I am seeing this as the biggest opportunity just to start taking stabs at Apple. And start taking away their customers.
11:18 AUSTIN: That’s a great idea.
11:20 PAT: Totally. Because we saw that competitive advertising when they released the new Samsung Galaxy and they basically poked fun at everybody that’s waiting in lines for the iPhone X. Ten. I’m so sorry Apple users. The iPhone ten.
11:33 AUSTIN: Well, it’s starting to remind me of cars a little bit, where we’re headed. Where you have to choose either between… or you used to have to choose between the gas mileage and the luxury, right? And now they’re starting to be integrated into one…
11:43 PAT: Tesla.
11:44 AUSTIN: Tesla, right? That’s where we’re at.
11:45 PAT: And what is Tesla regarded as? The most sophisticated piece of technology on the market.
11:49 AUSTIN: And what’s the iPhone? Supposedly?
11:50 PAT: The most sophisticated piece of technology on the market. And this goes back…
11:54 AUSTIN: You can’t do that to your customers. Where we’re at with today’s age and what customers want is peak performance and battery life. I don’t think that they should be allowed… with the following they have. The cult following. To make individuals to choose.
12:06 PAT: But from a business perspective–and playing Devil’s advocate, here–I understand how if push comes to shove… You would have to spend a ton of extra money on R&D and manufacturing to make that the case. And you know that there is a base of tens of millions of people that no matter what, are going to buy your devices and use them every single day… Why would I spend the extra money on overhead when I could increase my margins, right?
12:27 AUSTIN: And 15… What? 10 years now…11 years after the iPhone being out and they’ve done it every single year. And it’s just now coming to fruition that they’re doing it. That is quite the profit margin. I’m assuming that would cut into that they’ve figured out to a T. And with the exponential growth of revenue per iPhone release, they don’t… that mess that they would create with this is something to bring to mind.
So I definitely see as a business decision why they do want to make people split and choose. Because they don’t want to cut into that profit margin.
12:58 PAT: Yeah, but at the end of the day, they’re getting this response from their customers showing that they… this doesn’t sit well with the customer. And that’s why they’re making the change.
And that actually transitions nicely into the next piece of business news that I wanted to go over with you which is Snapchat’s big redesign…
13:13 AUSTIN: Oh-oh. Snapchat is back.
13:15 PAT: It’s one of our favorite topics because we love to bash Snapchat…
13:18 AUSTIN: Not in a good way…
13:19 PAT: So what’s basically been happening is that Snapchat released a big redesign and disregarded… and this is actually a Tech-crunch article… disregarded 83% of user reviews in doing so.
13:30 AUSTIN: Ouch.
13:31 PAT: Yeah. So pretty much what happened… the most referenced keywords in the negative reviews included things like “new update stories,” and “please fix.” “Please fix” is literally one of the keywords that was the most used in the negative reviews.
13:44 AUSTIN: So it turns out that they were doing some weird stuff where they’re sandwiching stories in between private messages. It was a very strange situation. But with Snapchat you can DM people and it’s very private. And then they were forcing =other people’s stories… these long videos… to be in the middle of them when you’re doing messaging. Is my understanding.
And that is just very strange to make someone break up the individual, private conversation for much more general idea…
14:15 PAT: Totally. And so there’s 2 pieces of this I think. First, is that kind of invasion of user privacy, right? And that, in itself, is in my opinion somewhat unethical, but also not a best practice. Because you gotta think about the user experience first and foremost before revenue. And this is a way for them to allow advertisers to get their money…
14:30 AUSTIN: And with their rebrand they said the most important thing was the user experience. They were going to cut down on time spent away from the app by making it easier to go between the stories and DMs and taking photos. And getting your news. And all these things.
And they went a little overboard. It sounds like they just kind of shoved everything together to make that. And they really, really tried to make it efficient. And it turned out being more of an unethical decision.
14:53 PAT: Yeah., So I think it’s unethical, a). B) it clearly sits so poorly with their consumer base that people are just like starting to abandon Snapchat altogether. When you get that much negative press about a product update… think about it… if Apple updates their software… and going back to actually the first conversation we had. Apple updates their software. My phone is super-slow now.
But am I pissed that I have the new update? Or the new redesign?
15:16 AUSTIN: Not necessarily.
15:18 PAT: No. Snapchat tried something new here, and just fell flat. And I think as a corporation, as a publicly traded company, that is the most disheartening aspect of the entire thing. From a consumer standpoint, yes, I think it’s unethical. But from a business perspective now you know that you’ve tried to get better and you don’t know your customers anymore. You don’t know what they want.
15:41 AUSTIN: They need to do a quick redesign, back to somewhat of the original game plan that they had. If they can. Because…
15:48 JOE: Well I’m just seeing… I was going to say, looking at Tweet here that they tweeted out after getting all this backlash. They said, “Hi, it’s not possible to revert to a previous version of Snapchat. But let us know if you need help with something specific in the new layout.”
16:01 AUSTIN: Yikes. That’s a…
16:04 PAT: I would love to get Connor back in here to talk about that’s social media management best practice. Because I would venture to say that it isn’t. But I kind of need an expert’s opinion on that, right?
16:12 AUSTIN: My goodness. I think what comes to mind very quickly for me is watch the stock price drop. Because that is a very, very big issue.
16:19 PAT: Yeah. That’s actually another piece that I was talking about too. So they don’t understand the consumers anymore. They tried something new to recoup their losses. Let’s recap how bad things are going for Snapchat right now.
Their Q4 earnings have not come out yet. I venture to say that they’re going to slip and under-perform exactly like they have the last 3 quarters in a row. But Q3 earnings expectations, they fell short by 443 million dollars.
16:43 AUSTIN: Yikes.
16:45 PAT: Yeah. That’s not a small chunk of change. And again, we’ve talked about this time in and time out, but we’re seeing Snapchat actively losing traction in an industry that they pioneered. And if I’m a Snapchat employee, I’m thinking about jumping ship.
16:57 AUSTIN: Absolutely. And I think if you’re a user, you’re also doing the same. And we know what the biggest thing is for these types of companies is daily active users. That’s what Instagram is using as their key metric. And that is what Snapchat is using as their key metric.
They want to see this grow exponentially of course. That means people are using their product and enjoying it and coming back. But, what we’re going to see with this quarterly report come out is the opposite. We’re going to see just like the quarter previous. They had daily user activity drop. And that is going to keep occurring with these types of situations.
17:28 PAT: And, on top of that, DAU count isn’t just an indicator of your business’ health, but it’s one of the biggest KPIs for Wall Street investors. And people who trade. So if you’re seeing DAU count go down, you know that there’s less new people coming to the site. As an advertiser too, you know that there’s an increasingly lower amount of new people that are going to be exposed to your ads on a recurring basis. And it’s going to be less and less worth your dollar every time…
So we’re really seeing Snapchat start to get pushed out of the market. It’s not something that I like to see, but I will go on record as saying that we called this.
17:57 JOE: Yeah, this Twitter feed… it’s pretty entertaining to watch them just struggle to satisfy their clients. And kind of make this horrible situation not that bad. And they’re just failing miserably.
18:08 AUSTIN: I think we’ve learned a very valuable lesson if we didn’t know this already. Know your user base. Understand your customer. In this day and age there’s nothing more important than as a person supplying a product… as a company supplying a product. You have to know who’s consuming it down to the very words they’re speaking. And with the Internet, we can do that. So…
18:27 PAT: There’s no excuse to not know that. Lessons should be learned.
18:30 AUSTIN: Absolutely. Well, a lot of companies in trouble here. We’ll see how this plays out. Please keep up to date with us on information. And you know that we’ll be bringing you all the updates.
Our main discussion today we’re going to be talking about it burnout in your career and how to overcome it. More importantly than the burnout itself.
So let’s first discuss what burnout is and then we’ll go into the details.
18:53 PAT: And, you know, before we start too… One thing that I want to iterate to everybody and why this is so important. This is the time of year… the last 3 weeks or so… motivation levels can be really high. It’s a brand new year, you have all these new goals for yourself.
Right about now is when people start to fall short of some of those goals and some of those expectations. And it’s so easy to slip into burnout. Even at a job that you love you could experience it. So what we’re trying to do, and what our point is here today is to teach you how to basically identify the signs of burnout. Whether that’s in a co-worker, friend, a loved one. And ways that you as a person can deal with it. And tactics that you can give them to deal with it.
So, without… I’ll just pass it back to Austin and we’ll get going on it.
19:35 AUSTIN: That was a very good explanation, by the way, Patrick. Thank you.
19:39 PAT: I actually practiced in the bathroom before…
19:41 AUSTIN: All right. First I’m going to give you guys the definition of what we’re looking at here. So burnout is a state of emotional, mental and physical exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. So it is a step above stress. It occurs when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained and unable to meet constant demands.
As the stress continues, you begin to lose the interest and motivation that led you to take on a certain role in the first place.
20:04 PAT: Think lawyers. I actually read a really interesting article on Harvard Business Review saying that lawyers have the highest rate of burnout of any industry and the reason why is, think about it, you have people that they’re depending on you for their literal freedom. And if you… you’re stressed. You know their livelihood is in your hands. That can cause a lot of stress. And if you’re… if there’s external factors going on If there’s other things going on in your personal life, or even not. You can just get burned out really, really quickly…
20:35 AUSTIN: I think the thing that comes to mind for me which is different here from stress, is just the disconnect that you will get from your day-to-day. So whether that be relationships, your job or whatever you used to find very exciting, you no longer care about. You’re disinterested, you don’t want to do it. You don’t really want to do much.
And with stress it’s more so a reaction to do more. So you’re trying to take on more. You’re trying to really cover yourself by working harder. Maybe you’re emotionally up a level, right? You’re getting more upset about things. That is stress.
When you finally get too far into that, your whole entire mental state just shuts down. You go the opposite way. You no longer can exercise the ability to care.
21:13 PAT: And that’s why it’s totally… those are 2 different things. When I think stress, I think of somebody who cares so much about their job that they live and die with every day at the office.
Somebody that has been disconnected or disengaged is an even keel in a sense, because their emotional state doesn’t change with the ups and downs…
21:30 AUSTIN: And it doesn’t mean that they don’t care anymore. It means that they’ve been pushed so hard that they’ve entered into a place where they can no longer handle the pressure. And that can be from various activities. And again, to remember, if you see someone who’s disconnected, don’t necessarily think that they don’t care. Think that maybe something got them there. What is it?
Is it their environment? Is it a relationship? Is it their day-to-day job that got them to that point where they no longer are putting in the effort that they once did?
21:56 PAT: Right. And steps to identifying that in the first place… let’s take a look at some commonalities that are shared among people who have experienced burnout at work.
So the first one here says every day is a bad day. So if you’re talking to your buddy at lunch. And it’s like, “How’s today going?” And they say, “Same old, same old.” And you can tell that it doesn’t actually… from their tonality that that’s not a good thing, that’s a sign right there.
The second one, that I thought was really interesting was caring about your work or home life seems like a total waste of energy. Going back to that disengagement that we talked about.
22:28 AUSTIN: Yeah, I think that that is a really big one. Because that can be a major sign. If someone that you’re used to being on top of something. Or they’re really excited about, let’s say, working out. They love going to the gym after work.
And then all of a sudden, they just don’t. They say, “Oh, I don’t care. I don’t want to go today.” And it’s consistent. Then you know that something happened.
22:47 PAT: Or one thing that you can hear too… and I know that I have friends at other companies that have experienced this… they’ll just say, “I don’t have time.” And that’s that stress piece coming in. They’ve piled so much essentially imaginary stress and imaginary work on their own plate, because the emotional baggage that they’re bringing around with them. That they think they’re too busy to go do these other things that help provide balance in their life.
And that’s super-important.
The 3rd one, you’re exhausted all the time. This ties back to a couple very physical traits that you can… or, a couple physical reactions to stress. When stress levels are higher, it’s like an innate human reaction… You’re not going to sleep as well.
This actually goes back to a long, long time. Like caveman days, basically. Where stress is induced because of a lack of food, lack of water… so like, lack of nutrition basically. Or like, lack of something in your life. That causes your brain to be more alert and attuned to trying to seek that out.
And so wat happens is when people get stressed, there’s physical traits. You can tell. People start to gain weight. They’re irritable. That’s something that a lot of people can empathize with.
The last one is that they’re not sleeping right. Their sleep schedule is totally screwed up. And what happens is they come into work exhausted the next day. They’re stressed out at work because they’re exhausted. That adds more stress to their plate. They go home, try to sleep, can’t sleep. Come in exhausted the next day. And you see where that takes you…
24:15 AUSTIN: Yeah, the vicious cycle is definitely an indication of a bigger issue that is at hand with these type of individuals. So I think what is important is once you’ve identified this, is what can you do to make a difference? Whether this is yourself or someone that you really care about, you want that to get better. So you want to deal with it somehow and unfortunately, you know, the hardest part can be communication.
But that seems to be the best way and the most helpful way is talking with someone about the issue.
24:44 PAT: Right. So very first thing that you can do when you identify these traits is just… I’m a proponent of that direct line of communication. Just walk up, offer to take your co-worker or loved one to coffee, and just say, “Hey, what’s been going on? Why are you feeling burnt out?” And really try to dive into the actual reasons as to why.
Like we talked about how people pile up this extra work on their plate and kind of imagine the amount of stress that they have.
You want to dig into the actual tasks that they’re being asked to do each day. And when you can help them get granular like that. They can start to piece-meal, “Oh, I can actually… I can take care of that today. I can do that. I can do that.”
Sooner than later, you’re on a roll. And next thing you know, you’ve cranked through your entire to-do list and you know what? You go home and you’re not stressed anymore. Cause you know exactly that you did everything that you could that day at work.
25:28 AUSTIN: And I think in an environment, maybe you’re saying, “There’s no possible way that I can have less work.” You know it’s probably growing. If you’re in a digital marketing agency like us, we’re constantly getting new business, new tasks, new roles. That’s kind of going to be up to your environment.
So a lot of the ways that you can fix burnout just as a culture is by creating a very positive environment. So relationships with your co-workers. The partners. The managers–are very, very important. How is their disposition? Are they constantly seeking the positive side of things, right? If there’s a situation that’s extremely difficult, are they just looking at it like, “Hey, we gotta get this done, and it’ll get done. And I’m going to help you get it done.”
Those type of things can at least save the mind from a moment of feeling that negativity. And the less that someone who is constantly feeling burnt out or stressed has to feel negative is more time for them to reciprocate or recover from those moments of feeling that pressure.
26:23 PAT: I totally agree. Another one, just be more sociable with your co-workers. So talking with them on a consistent basis. But doing things outside of the office. If you’re friends with these people and you have a connection with them outside of just the workplace. Go grab a beer from the bar. Go get some dinner somewhere. Go do something that you know they like. Because that starts to establish that sense of normalcy again. That makes them feel like, you know, they’re not stressed.
26:47 JOE: I think that’s a good means of in a bigger picture just breaking you’re routine. Starting to not get into that rut, and start doing different things that you normally wouldn’t and that you would automatically say no because this is going to then cause this coming up the next day.
In reality, that’s not the case. It’s more it’ll be nice to kind of break that routine. Do something different and kind of approach your day or night in a completely different light.
27:12 PAT: Yeah. I think the biggest moments of personal growth… at least for me… have been when I’ve had a chance to step back from my daily routine. Cause you can get into the daily routine and start to see the negative in it. Cause that’s all you’re thinking about, right?
27:23 AUSTIN: And you’re living it. Every moment.
27:24 PAT: You’re living it. Every single moment. You go home, visit your parents. Take a day or 2 where you just think about what you’re doing. And from a macro scale you realize that nothing is that bad. If you have a job to complain about, it’s not the worst thing in the world. You might not like what you’re doing right that second. You might not like exactly where your career’s headed.
But you know what the nice thing is about life? You can change all of that. In a minute if you decide that you want that.
27:49 AUSTIN: That’s a great point, Patrick. And just getting that high-level overview of yourself by maybe doing something outside of your routine will be extremely helpful to get out of this rut. You need to take a look at yourself from a different area. Because being in the same spot over and over again is not going to fix the situation. It’s just going to be that vicious cycle that we’re talking about.
So, if you’re a manager, a partner. Or just a friend. Be on the lookout for these signs right now, in this time-frame. As we talked about… as Patrick said, this is the time people start burning out because they’re not experiencing that high of a new year and those new goals. So be on the lookout. It’s up to you to be aware of your friends. Help them and fix the culture to be positive.
28:29 JOE: I’m curious… what’s something that you guys do personally if you’re ever getting to that point? Getting stressed out? The boss-man’s coming down on you hard. You know you’ve gotta do something to get out of that rut. What’s something that you would do to change things?
28:42 PAT: That’s actually a really funny question because this is something I actually just did this morning. It’s not because of burnout at all. It’s literally because it’s something that I truly enjoy doing.
I woke up super-early, walked down to the beach with a cup of coffee from my house and just sat on the sand for like, 30 minutes. It was like, meditative almost. And it gave me a chance to just start my morning on a positive note. And I feel myself at work. Great mood all day.
29:08 JOE: I think that and that light… it doesn’t necessarily have to be exactly what you did. Because I don’t think everyone is as lucky as we are to live 5 minutes from the beach.
but I think the idea of waking up earlier and forcing yourself to do something that requires a lot of focus–whether that be working out, whether that be meditating, whether it be something along those lines. Something that you really have to give all your full attention to before coming into work so you’re not waking up thinking about work. Going home thinking about work.
Just waking up. Get up earlier. Go to bed earlier. If you get up earlier and do these types of routines, you’ll sleep better at night. And it will kind of help you come into the office, wherever you work with kind of a clear head and knowing that you had to accomplish something before you came into work.
29:52 AUSTIN: An easy win for me, on what Joe is saying, is listening to a podcast. I think all of us here can kind of agree that’s one of our favorite things is podcasts. That’s why we got into podcasting cause we had people that we love and their shows.
And that’s a quick win. I mean, I listen to a podcast called “Pardon My Take.” I think everyone does. And it is so funny. They’re brilliant, they’re smart. And every morning that I get to listen to that.
My full attention is there and it puts me in a great mood. And just having those little wins in life, makes everything else okay. You can get through it because you’re taking that joy with you into that next moment.
30:26 PAT: I’ve given this a lot of thought since we picked this as the topic for today and the conclusion that I’ve come to from my own life experience isn’t from people that I’ve talked to. A lot of that burnout feels… there’s tactical or tangible thing that you can identify. But what it really comes down to is you don’t feel that you’re in control of what you’re doing. And you don’t get to do stuff that you care about.
And the best way to remedy that like Joe was saying, you get up, you do something in the morning before you have obligations to your job. Before you have obligations to anything or anybody. And you do something just for you. You go do something… you wake up and you say, “I want to go on a run. I want to go…” Hell, you want to go into the living room and watch the Office a little bit before you go into work. That’s your prerogative and if it’s what makes you happy, you’re going to be better off for it.
And really I think it just comes down to that. Taking control of your morning leaves you in better control of your work/life balance.
31:18 AUSTIN: I love it, Patrick. Take control of your day, folks. It’s up to you to either make your life better or your friend’s and co-workers around you. WE thank you very much. If you’ve got thoughts, ideas on this, please reach out to us. We’d love to hear what you do to curve burnout.
All right. Our final segment for today. We wanted to end on a very positive note here. So we’re talking about a business person that inspires us. I’m going to go first and talk a little bit about someone from my home town. My home area. That’s really got into my head and made me the business person that I want to be.
So this person… his name is Ed Templeton. And what he started doing was he was a professional skateboarder from Huntington Beach, California. He really had his hey-day in the 90s. And he’s still skating to this day in the late 2000s. But what he did is he took his ability as a skateboarder and then parlayed that into becoming an artist and then brought that into the business world.
So he really saw a need for a certain type of company in the skateboarding world and that was a very creative one. It used to be very rebellious, very dark. Not a lot of art involved in the community. It was more so just that Punk aspect.
What Ed did, and what was very brilliant and started a whole, entire world was he brought the very creative side to that. He created a company called “Toy Machine.” They’re also out of Orange County. And what Toy Machine did is they had all these skateboard decks and they started making very vibrant colors. Very different designs. Very exciting. Very, very intricate. And really changing the way that people viewed skateboarders. So they went and got a little bit more involved in the community. They wanted to be very grassroots but in a positive way. He’s an individual that’s actually sober, so not that that side of it is what is important to me. But it’s more so his decision to change the way that people viewed skateboarders. What I consider to be very important.
And also, tying this all back into business is he created an entire brand that reciprocated who he was an individual. And for me that’s really inspiring. He took the creative side, the athletic side and then the also the business side of him and put it all under one roof. And a great quote from him is, “Hi. My name is Ed Templeton. I’m from Huntington Beach, California. And depending on what hat I’m wearing, I’m a skateboarder, an artist or a businessman.”
And that right there, I think if I could do those three things… I’m not great at skateboarding… but if I could do those 3 things and say that sentence, man, I would be happy.
33:40 PAT: I love that. That’s so cool.
33:42 AUSTIN: That’s a cool story, hunh?
33:43 PAT: Yeah, that’s awesome.
33:46 AUSTIN: He’s got a really cool series on Vice. I can’t remember the name of it right now, but type in “Ed Templeton Vice.” That’s Vice news. And there’s a really cool documentary series where he… they do the whole story. It’s his skating, it’s his art–his photography–and then he’s now with RVCA, he’s part of RVCA’s whole artistic group and they do a really cool thing too.
34:03 PAT: That’s awesome. All right. Mine is kind of funny because we talk about this company a ton on the show. We have a recurring segment about how they’re taking over the world. But dude, mine has to be Jeff Bezos. It has to be Jeff Bezos. I mean, you look at this guy… everything that he’s done, right? I’m reading on Biography.com, early in his life he had an interest in how things work. Like a fundamental interest in solving problems for people, right?
And then he went to Princeton, which is already bad-ass, and then launched Amazon. And it like… no press promotion, nothing. Amazon it was a bookstore only first. It sold books across the United States and in 45 foreign countries within 30 days of launching. And in 2 months, sales reached 20k per week. Without any kind of promo, without anything.
Like, I just think it’s so noteworthy that in this world if you find a need that you can solve for people. Like the convenience of getting a book online instead of having to go to a Border’s. You can disrupt an entire industry and make a good chunk of change doing it. And that’s all that I’m about.
Like, you look at everything that Amazon has done. It went public in 1997. Analysts were questioning the entire time whether or not it was going to hold its own. In the e-commerce space. Against traditional retailers and things like that, because of the tremendous amount of capital that they had.
Fast-forward 10 years and then 20 years… it grew like 500% in that first 10 year span and then since then, he has turned into the richest man in the world. Never in my lifetime did I think I’d see somebody with a net worth surpassing Bill Gates.
By a few billion dollars. It’s not like he has…Bill Gates has 86.4 billion and Jeff Bezos has 86.5. Like, at one point Jeff Bezos’ net worth was over 100 billion dollars.
36:04 AUSTIN: That’s incredible. And the way he’s done it was with adaptability. Which is fabulous. It’s fantastic to think about as an entrepreneur. Because you always want to be that, right? You wanna say, “Oh, I can adapt. I can change.”
He’s the living proof of taking what was popular in the 1990s, and then taking what’s popular in 2000 and taking what’s popular in 2015 and turning it into the largest business in the world.
36:27 PAT: Yeah, and now you see… Now he gets to explore his passions. Which I think is the coolest part about the entire thing. Like, lifelong Star Trek fan. He had a cameo in Star Trek in 2016. Lifelong TV and media guy. He started Amazon studios. He was at the Golden Globes. This guy is just living life and he came from being a online book retailer to one of the most powerful people in the entire world. And he did it through solving problems for people that caused disruptions in industries that had flaws.
And I just have an immense amount of respect for that. We give Amazon a lot of crap on this show, but I just have so much respect for Jeff Bezos. I think he’s one of the smartest, savviest, most intelligent businessmen that this world has ever seen.
37:11 JOE: I think this is me formally handing over my Amazon guy title to Pat…
37:16 PAT: I love Jeff Bezos… I’m not an Amazon guy, I’m a Bezos guy. It’s totally different.
37:20 JOE: All right. I’ll stick to the Amazon guy.
So for mine, I picked this guy for a couple of reasons. And I think this is someone that has been super-influential and kind of inspired a lot of people to do a lot of things. Us… including on this podcast. And that is Joe Rogan.
37:40 PAT: Oh, wow.
37:41 JOE: I just think that people know him for his podcast. And a lot of people are avid listeners, me being one of them. But the amount of different things that he’s been able to influence and change in different industries where he’s able to tie it all together. And I think it’s something where… he talks about it all the time… where he identified at a very young age that he’s not good in a regular working situation. He just knew that he wasn’t going to last if he had to go the normal route.
38:09 PAT: He just knows himself so well, too.
38:12 JOE: Yeah. And so he made his own route. And then built an empire that allowed him to build other empires. And allowed him to elevate all the people around him.
I’m convinced that him starting his podcast as a stand-up comedian is what brought comedy back. Because comedy was dying for a little while and now it’s bigger than ever.
He was able to bring all the people around him… all of his friends. He was able to get all of them starting their careers and being super-successful just from what he built. And he just does it all because he can and because he wants to. Not because it’s something he has to do.
I’m pretty sure his podcast now gets over a billion downloads a year. I think he’s north of 100 million a month. So there’s that.
He has on it… he has all this stuff with UFC. Comedy. Entertainment. And it’s all under his… it’s what he wants to do. It’s under his control. There’s no one telling him what to do. And I think it’s just kind of testament to him to be able to identify at a young age what he wants to go after and kind of figuring out and taking a risk.
Because he was one of the first podcasters ever. He’s the biggest… probably the biggest podcast there is. And I think he’s just been able to do things on his terms. And do them very successfully.
39:32 PAT: I just have so much respect for that too. I think as young business people, we’re constantly trying to figure out who we are and what we want. And every book that we read, podcast that we listen to, and experience we have is supposed to try to point us in that direction. And to see somebody so decisive about what they want and then just make it happen is absolutely inspiring. And I totally understand why Joe Rogan would be yours.
I think it’s so cool too with his podcast, he went from… He started as a stand-up comedian. They talk about serious issues on the show. But he talks about it in a very objective way. Cause that’s how comedians frame-up the world.
40:06 JOE: Yeah, and I mean, he started out as a comedian. Had his comedian friends on there. And then I was listening yesterday. Had Mel Gibson on there talking about stem cells.
So it’s just like, you never know what you’re going to get with him. The type of people he can get, and we both have the same name. So that’s always a plus.
40:22 PAT: Ah, there we go. And again, a little bit more insight into Joe’s vanity there. That just about wraps up episode 20 of Flip the Switch podcast presented by Power Digital Marketing. Thank you guys again so much for tuning in. We’ll be back again next week with a new episode. Always feel free to ping us with questions on our social handles. That is @flipswitchcast for both Twitter and Instagram. Again, that is @flipswitchcast for both. This has been Pat Kriedler, Austin Mahaffy, and Joe Hollerup signing off.
