Work Is Taking More Than You Think | Guy Winch

15:07Johnny:night right and there's nothing worse than you being perpetually the one that's canceling those things canceling the date night because work has encroached so much on your personal life you know

15:18AJ Jacobs:it's interesting over covid over the the pandemic people would say to me like you don't understand i I can't not do that because, you know, the sky would fall if I were to not respond to an email, if I were to be absent for a day, if I were truly to be on vacation. And then they would get COVID and they would be absent for a day or more and the sky didn't fall. In other words, we very much over assess our absolute, you know, essentialness and the essentialness of every little thing, every little beat of our workday, you know, And it turns out that when we dial back just a little bit, the sky doesn't fall and our jobs don't collapse.

16:01AJ Jacobs:People who work, and I think many who work 60, 70 hour weeks and more, right? If you dial back 10%, no one's noticing because no one knows if you put in three hours on the Saturday or six. You're home. No one's noticing. But you have to do that, again, not just for the sake of it, for the sake of having a life outside of work so that you're a more complex person, so that you can express those parts of your personality that you don't get to express anymore, that you probably forgot existed, but used to be meaningful to you. Yeah, I think as the economy has shifted,

16:35Johnny:so many of us have moved from physical labor to intellectual labor, and that requires you being deep in thought and actually getting the deep work done. But much of our day right now is spent in meetings and sending messages back and forth that don't even create the time and space to do the deep, meaningful work that we try to chase, which ultimately should be our goal for the work that we choose.

16:58AJ Jacobs:That's another problem with the current workplace. I mean, there's just so many meetings and so much time that you have to show up, but it actually doesn't really get work done. So then people are saying, well, then I need to get the work done at night. And I'm like, and even if it's true that you have to get the work done at night, The other thing you have to get done at night is actually spend some time with your family or do the thing that recharges you. All right, self-care. A little bit. The self-care. And self-care doesn't mean a massage necessarily. Self-care means addressing your needs.

17:30AJ Jacobs:It means doing the things that you enjoy doing. So it's about finding time to do both but not doing away with those things that are recharging for you, that make you feel like you, that you actually enjoy because that's what life is about. So you can't have a lot of it, but you have to have some of it.

17:48Johnny:So let's walk through the recognition now that this is a problem in our life. What can we start to do to make the steps necessary to reclaim that time back for ourselves, for our family that's so important?

18:00AJ Jacobs:So the first thing I would suggest is you really have to recognize when you're actually just ruminating and obsessing or worrying about work without actually getting any work done because that is absolutely wasted time. And that can be many, many hours a week. Absolutely. And those hours a week are hours in which you're not just being unproductive, you're actually doing damage to yourself. That's what's adding a lot of stress to your week unnecessarily, because again, nothing productive is happening. So you have to recognize that, oh, I'm ruminating right now and I'm not getting anything useful done.

18:34AJ Jacobs:And then you have to ruminate, you know, bust the rumination. You really have to get out of that habit. And the thing I suggest in the book, one of the techniques I suggest in the book, in simplified form because it's a little complicated is um you have to convert the thing that you're ruminating about to a problem that can be solved because if you're converting it into a problem that can be solved that's a finite amount of thinking so my co-worker took credit for the thing and i keep obsessing about how that's unfair and this other unfair thing happened to me and with that co-worker and even unfair to other people and yeah that can go on forever.

19:12AJ Jacobs:Turn it into a problem that can be solved. What, if anything, do I need to do to address the situation? Is it the only question present? Do I need to talk to him or her? Do I need to address it in some way? If so, what's the best way to do it? If I want to address it, what's the outcome I'm seeking? If that's the outcome I'm seeking, what's the best way to get it? That is a very contained series of questions you can answer in 20 minutes. And it makes it actionable.

19:37Johnny:Either you decide to have the conversation or - Yes, because that's the thing.

19:43AJ Jacobs:It's actionable. Because once you've then resolved it, you know what to do. You'll feel the relief, but you don't have to keep ruminating about it because you figured it out.

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22:54Johnny:podcast indeed.com slash charm terms and conditions apply hiring do it the right way with indeed i I just feel, unfortunately, so many of us, we enjoy trying to solve those problems and play with it in our mind. Think that all the different combinations of the conversations we could have or should have had and sit there. And honestly, we'll spend more time almost in that than in productive hours because it does feel personal. You feel personally attacked in that moment where someone else took credit from you or now you're going to be held back because of a performance review around that one thing that happened.

23:29AJ Jacobs:And I think that's a little optimistic, what you said, because I think it would be great if people were actually spending the time trying to play around with the best solution. What they spend a lot of time on is fantasy conversations they'll never have. Imagining how they could tell the person off, mic drop moments, they'll never really happen. This is just fantasy. This is just like how to feel satisfied and like, I can do this and I can tell them this and I'll point out this and I'll tell them that no one else likes them in the office. You're never going to do that. so it's just indulging a fantasy conversation you will not have if you're actually thinking about what to say that will be useful that's fine but it doesn't take hours it's the fantasy conversations that take hours i wish i could say this i wish i could say that and it feels satisfying in the moment so it feels like yeah that's a good thing but it's actually it's just getting yourself worked up because you're not going to have that conversation work is interesting

24:24Johnny:in a lot of ways because there's other forces at play. So when we think about our personal lives, we have a lot of autonomy and control over how we spend our time, what we work on, what we choose to do. But work, there's managers, there's team members, we're jockeying for roles and trying to get credit. And we spend a lot of time thinking about the people part of work. And that consumes us. And for those of us who feel like we don't have managers who care about us, who don't actually think about our mental health at all, then the grind amps even more. So how do we deal with that where there's a lot of mismanagement going on?

25:01Johnny:There's a lot of bad managers out there that create a lot of this for us.

25:06AJ Jacobs:That's absolutely true. And I want to start with a message to managers. The research shows that you as a manager exhibiting caring without being able to solve the problem, because you might not be able to solve the problem. but if you just show that you care about the fact that the problem is causing distress it is huge for your employees it is huge for your subordinates because they will feel cared for that will reduce their stress significantly and all you did is indicate that you're aware that there's an issue and even though you can't solve it you feel you know sorry that there is one you're aware and you care about it so there you know it's not difficult but we don't teach that yeah unfortunately but but that would be great but you're right most people feel uncared for they feel that their needs are not addressed they feel that no one really cares about their mental health or their emotional health or their growth or their growth their development this is what quiet quitting was about when quiet quitting was a big thing like oh people don't care about my development people don't care about my work-life balance so i'm taking matters into my own hand now they weren't taking matters into their own hand.

26:18AJ Jacobs:They were just, you know, withdrawing their engagement in a way, which doesn't really solve anything. It's a temporary strategy, not a long-term solution. But it's very difficult to spend your entire day working really hard for people you perceive don't really care. Yeah, it's next to impossible. It's extremely challenging, and it's very demoralizing, and it's also very stressful. And people, one of the feelings that is big in the

26:44Johnny:workplace now is resentment yeah and for those reasons another thing that we work with leaders on is clarity in their communication there's so much bandwidth that gets wasted when you don't communicate clearly and you leave ambiguity that team members or subordinates now have to deal with and it's part of that stress that they're carrying that leads to inaction leads to lack of productivity and then taking their work home with them and ruminating on things because it wasn't clear what the expectations were, what you were looking for, how they were supposed to communicate or work together.

27:19AJ Jacobs:What I say to leaders when I'm working with them is that if more than once a subordinate, a team member, someone else doesn't deliver what they're supposed to deliver to you, you have to do a check about how clear you were in communicating those expectations or requirements, no matter how crisp you think you were. And the only way to do that, and this might sound infantilizing or ridiculous, is to then the next time you give them this instruction, whether in writing, whether verbally, is to say to them, now tell me back what the expectation is. And you will be shocked at how often what you get back is close, but it's a nuanced way and it's a critical nuance of that.

28:06Johnny:Absolutely. And then it gets even worse when the game of telephone is played and now it's communicated to other team members that you weren't there for.

28:14AJ Jacobs:Right. So that feedback loop has to be now tell me back. Now tell me back. Is that clear? Yes. Great. Tell me back. And not in an offensive way. Like I just want to make sure you understand. I want to make sure I communicate it clearly because we are all subject to that. when we're rushed, when we're stressed, then we drop bandwidth. We drop IQ points. Stress, you know, takes away a lot of our, you know, like, you know, mental game. And so we might not be communicating clearly and we might be super clear in our intention, but what came out of our mouth was not.

28:46Johnny:The other big thing with leaders is when they choose to communicate, they can set the tone in a lot of ways. So when you feel that you're in this always on work environment, you can actually break that. You can be the one to schedule the email to send the following morning and not send it after dinner and not send it in the evening with the expectation that now it's meant to load for a team member that they have to see the email in their inbox at nine o 'clock at night. And now they have to wrestle with it all night. It can wait until the morning. And oftentimes we feel the need to get it off our plate.

29:15Johnny:It feels good. Oh, my inbox is clear. It's out of my hands, but we're creating so much mental load that then boomerangs back to us too. And we all feel like we're drowning in it.

29:25AJ Jacobs:But you said something so simple about the scheduling. It's such a simple thing like scheduling. Yes, we want to get it off our plate, but schedule it. Right. It's just one extra step. Schedule it because you might think, and I hear this all the time, but I didn't need them to respond right away. They don't know. They have no idea. And they're trying to look good. Right. So just schedule it. Add that thing. If it's not urgent, schedule it. Teach them that they're going to get emails at eight or nine in the morning. And if one does come at nine o 'clock at night, it must be important.

29:58Johnny:Yeah. Then we really know instead of everything at nine and now they're trying to sort through it.

30:03AJ Jacobs:And I get the idea of like you want it off your plate, right? It's that Friday afternoon, I get a lot of stuff on Friday afternoon. You know, I know nobody wants an answer on Friday afternoon. They're just getting rid of their stuff for the weekend. Right. So I might respond to it on Friday afternoon, but it'll be scheduled for

30:19Johnny:monday yeah and i think also having clear understanding of different forms of communication so if it's really an emergency i'm going to text you but if it's something that isn't that important i'm going to email you if it's something that i i need by the end of the day i'm going to slack you i'm going to and have boundaries around the communication styles as well so that your team can actually manage what's coming from you as a communicator right and that benefits you as a

30:46AJ Jacobs:leader, because if your team is less stressed out, if they're less pressured, if they're less harried at work, they will perform better. They will actually bring more of their A-game. You can't be in your A-game 12 hours a day, seven days a week. You cannot. You're being compromised at some point. So you will get more out of them by taking these extra steps. It behooves you. It will benefit you because your team will be more productive. They'll be more satisfied. They'll be less stressed out, less burnt out. So these are simple things you can do to get more out of

31:22Johnny:people, not less. So outside of rumination, what are some other ways that we're grinding and maybe we're not even thinking about?

31:29AJ Jacobs:So one of the things that happens is our relationships. For example, there's research that shows that when we are very stressed out, our partner can start to develop symptoms of burnout. And most people I talked to were like, well, no, I try and not bring it home. The operative word, they're being try. Because you are. There's no way that you can be in that kind of mode all day and just shed it in an instant when you get home. So you need to develop some kind of ritual to transition from your work life to your personal life. You need to alert your brain that it's time to bring it down a notch that you don't have to be because when we're at work in a difficult environment in the grind we're in fight or flight mode yeah and our brain doesn't really distinguish well between whether that battle is in a boardroom or on a

32:20Johnny:battlefield yeah and our partners will see it in a snap at home over some small question or small inquisition and instead it's like our stress from whatever we're ruminating on or thinking about or working through comes out in these moments. Yes.

32:36AJ Jacobs:And so it's really important to really create some kind of ritual that teaches your brain that when we start doing this, it's time to unwind a little bit, as much as you can.

32:46Johnny:So what are some examples of rituals that have been effective?

32:49AJ Jacobs:So you want to involve as many senses as possible because that kind of goes a little bit deeper and teaches our brain more comprehensively. So number one, sound. So So whatever music is very evocative. So whatever music calms you, relaxes you, signifies to you the end of the workday, are clothing. Change clothes when you get home or when you finish your workday at home into clothes that you associate with your personal life rather than work. Now, if you're wearing T-shirts to both, have a set of T-shirts that work and have a set of T-shirts that isn't work. Our clothes are very impactful on us.

33:26AJ Jacobs:the idea of a power suit or this, it's because certain clothes make us feel powerful, certain clothes make us feel relaxed. So make that distinction. Use lighting to shift the mood. If you're working from home, you can shift the mood with changing the lighting. It can be creating more light, less light, but create that kind of shift. You can even use candles and the olfactory scents, but try and come up with the same ritual that you do on a regular basis because that'll really train your brain. When this starts to happen, it's time to unwind yeah the other thing is that our brain doesn't distinguish well between physical fatigue and mental fatigue and so when we feel drained at the end of a workday because we just had eight or nine hours of difficult meetings and what have you we you know like plop down on the couch and feel like i can't do anything i'm too tired yeah you're not physically tired you're mentally tired and if you then just plop down on the couch for three hours then you will wake up tired the next morning because although you didn't deplete your batteries any further you didn't recharge them to recharge your batteries you need to do something that's recharging for you that's an individual thing if you're athletic you need to work out if you're an extrovert you need to socialize if you're an organizer you need to organize if you're creative you need to do something creative you don't have to spend all evening but you need to dip into the things that recharge you and you know what they are because when you do them even let's say i'm i like to work out when i work out i might be tired at the end of the day but after the workout despite expending energy i will feel more invigorated i'll feel recharged i'll feel like oh now i have energy even though i just spent energy and and so don't confuse the mental fatigue with physical fatigue you just most of us are sitting all day yeah or standing or you know but But we're not, it's not physical labor, as you said.

35:18AJ Jacobs:So it's like find the things that are recharging for you and do a little bit of that. And it's important on two fronts. First of all, that'll recharge your battery. It'll really kind of allow you to come out of the work mode in an important way. But it will also reinforce aspects of your personality that are mattered to you, that are meaningful, that you don't get to express usually during the day. and that, you know, will keep you a more well-rounded person rather than just the, you know, the work drone that just works and works and works and works and works.

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39:14Johnny:So I have that separation and then I cook dinner. And I think that for me is recharging. I know like I love seeing people light up with what I'm cooking and what they're eating. And I enjoy just the science of cooking and working with my hands. And much of my day is spent on a laptop or on calls. It's a totally different experience. Well, cooking is a great example.

39:37AJ Jacobs:It's also a great passion to have because it ticks so many boxes. I mean, yes, it's working with your hands. It has this immediate feedback loop. You can kind of go into a flow state when you're cooking. But the product is also nourishing to other people. So it's a way of giving, you know, to the people around you and to yourself. I think it's great. Anything that has to do with working with your hands is a great idea. Going for walks is a great idea because, and especially leaving the devices at home, because especially if you can be around nature. I live in New York City. It's not necessarily that easy to find nature when you're going for a walk.

40:16AJ Jacobs:There are not that many parks that you can have access to, but it's really important to try and find something like that because it's a shift from your day to day. Most of us are on screens most of the day, and then we make the mistake of coming home in the evening and being on screens again, and our brain is like, I can't tell the difference between what you did all day and what you're doing right now.

40:38Johnny:Yeah, and it's funny. there's a comedian who had a joke about, you know, you finish your workday where it's a screen and then you come home and it's just even more screens. Maybe the screen's bigger. And now you got three screens in front of you, your Apple watch, your phone, the TV, and it's just screen after screen.

40:53AJ Jacobs:Right. And your brain doesn't have the difference. And so your brain is still in this, you know, heightened kind of mode. You want to kind of think about what your day was like, because our days can be different sometimes. And then you want to do something that's different from that. You want to be in a different mental mode than what you did all day. If your problem solving all day, then you want to do something that's more creative. And if you're trying to think creatively all day, then you want to think about something that's not that creative. You really want to try and balance so that you're giving your mind something else to think about.

41:24AJ Jacobs:I'm going to mention one other thing that people can do, and this might sound silly, but our brain takes calendars really seriously. And so I suggest most people when they have their calendar is like chock full of all these different colors during the work day and then just blank in the evening unless they have specific plans and then there's dinner here or this i suggest fill in those blanks even if it's with personal time family time uh resting whatever the thing would like come up with it because when your brain sees that that's your task for the evening even if the Evening is one hour of personal time, date night, resting, kid time.

42:05AJ Jacobs:It understands that that's my job now. It reminds you that that's your task. It's not a blank thing that you need to fill. It's filled with doing the thing, whatever. So call it personal time. Call it relaxation time. Call it recharging time. Call it recovery time. Whatever you want to call it. But have something there that tells you there's a task here too. Yeah.

42:30Johnny:And I think with so many of us having notifications and playing our entire life by that calendar, there is a reminder of like, hey, I have this thing on my calendar coming up. It's my recuperation. It's my recovery. It's my unwind. It's now I know to go to the kitchen and actually start cooking. Right.

42:48AJ Jacobs:And why I use, I mean, the word recuperation and recovery are really important here because, again, when we are in fight or flight all day, we weren't designed for that. You know, like when we were hunter gatherers, we went on a hunt. That was a limited amount of time, you know, and even, you know, a couple of thousand years ago when life was more difficult, we weren't activated all the time. Right. And now we are all the time, day after day for many, many, many hours of the day. So we need to recover physiologically and mentally from that high level of activation because there's wear and tear on the body and on our systems.

43:27AJ Jacobs:And that's how burnout happens. And that's how people get sick. That's how people, you know, really start to to kind of, you know, fall apart. Yeah. You know, literally, because there's no break in the system. So the recover time is, yes, you are under a lot of stress during the day. Recover.

43:44Johnny:And for many of us, myself included, I've been known to doom scroll too. So much of our entertainment and the things we choose to do outside of work are also activating, are also emotionally charged, whether it's a video about someone suffering or a political uprising or whatever's going on in the world in those short bites that we're consuming, we're also activating that same system.

44:08AJ Jacobs:and again i think it depends what it is because the political stuff most of us these days no matter what side you're on consume it and feel outrage in a certain way outrage is highly activating in a negative sense it's upsetting it's stressful it's distressing so that's not a best way or the best you know mindset to have in your evening now if you want to like have somebody i know and she said to me like i like i'm really good at spending the evening doing the things that i find relaxing i have such a difficult job that i get home and i i just want to watch the stuff that i like to watch and i'm like what do you like to watch it goes i love stuff about serial killers and I'm like, like, oh, that doesn't sound, she goes, it is for me, like, I'm really fascinated by it, I'm not activated by it, I'm not sitting there like, I can't believe they murdered another person because about serial killers, you know they are, I just find it engaging.

45:08AJ Jacobs:So for her, that's relaxing, it truly is but it's like, it's not so much what you're watching or what you're scrolling, it's what is it doing to you emotionally, what's the reaction that it's engendering for you and if that reaction is, again, negative, it's outrage, it's upset, it's disgust it's like really then it's not the great idea that's not how you're gonna come that's

45:30Johnny:not how you're gonna come down well let's talk about that because i i know for many of our clients when you've been living in that heightened emotional state for so long you don't even realize you're you're doing it you don't even realize the sensations in your body the tension that you're carrying and the stress that is outwardly expressed to others you might not even recognize so for those in the audience who maybe aren't as in tune with their body to know that about themselves? What can we do to start to bring our senses back to that and recognize that we're choosing things that are creating that?

46:01AJ Jacobs:Well, even if you're not that in tune with your body, you do have a sense of where you're getting activated. I mean, if you're outraged, people do feel that sentiment. You just ask yourself, what am I feeling in a given moment? This is the thing most people don't do. We don't pause to ask ourselves, wait, how am I feeling? And if the the answer is upset or bad or annoyed or irritated or angry, then something, then you're not using your time wisely. Because those are not the things you should be feeling. Those are activating feelings that you probably have a lot of during the day as well. And so just pause, start by asking yourself, well, what am I feeling?

46:42AJ Jacobs:And then ask yourself the other question, which is more important and what would I like to feel in order to feel relaxed like what relaxes me what makes me feel good what makes me feel fulfilled what makes me like what do you feel when you're cooking

46:57Johnny:yeah that flow state for sure of just time fades away I'm zoned in on the ingredients and thinking about exactly in my senses being activated right it's got smell taste touch all

47:09AJ Jacobs:of it right you want to feel absorbed in something without any negative emotions coming up and again when you're in flow you're not aware of what your feelings are um but no one is watching the news at night and they're in flow i can tell you right now no i think for many in the audience their

47:25Johnny:default is i just need more rest i just i just need to rest rest is not sufficient you need to

47:30AJ Jacobs:recharge rest people who get home and just rest wake up tired because they didn't recharge what will recharge your batteries rest will prevent depletion further depletion but what's going to recharge you? What's going to make you feel invigorated? What's going to make you feel like that was worthwhile? I'm so glad I did that.

47:51Johnny:So how do we identify that? I know you have a great framework in the book, red, yellow, green.

47:56AJ Jacobs:So that's about email management. And one of the things about email management is, just to be realistic, we might want to try and do those things in the evening, but most of us do have to respond. The emails are at least checked, right? And so I'm going to say first about the email and then I'll just say the other thing. So what we need to do is frame in our head that how we're dealing with the emails is actually an intermission from what we're actually doing that is recharging. And so we figure out like, okay, if this is a recharging thing, then I might need to take a break to check emails. Do it all at once.

48:39AJ Jacobs:You don't want to check continually. you will not be present in whatever you're doing. Figure out the time ahead of time. If there are other people around, let them know. I'll be taking a 15-minute break to check emails. And the red light, green light is a way to signal your brain that you still have that feeling of autonomy. You're still in control of your time. It's very demoralizing to us that we don't feel in control of our time. And when emails start flooding in, we don't. And so one way you can regain that back is telling yourself, like, emails are flooding in, but I don't need to address them every minute.

49:11AJ Jacobs:I can take 15 minutes, 20 minutes, and do it at a certain time. And if somebody's saying to you, why couldn't you respond earlier? It is none of their business. You might've been getting a massage. You might've been getting busy. You might've been doing, you know, having an intimate moment. You know, need to explain that. You can just say I wasn't available. But then do the 15 or 20 minutes. But that is an intermission from the thing that you find is recharging. Now, most people know, like you know it's cooking. For me, it can be various things. It can be working out. It can be writing, but not creative writing rather than psychology writing.

49:46AJ Jacobs:Most people know what it is, socializing with people, organizing for some people. It can be painting. It can be anything creative. It can be doing puzzles. Most people know what they kind of feel. And again, the effect is that you want to finish that thing and feel like, oh, I'm glad I did that. Now I feel good. If you don't know what that is, then A, that's a problem. You've been working so hard, you've completely lost touch. with that. And then trial and error. Go back to what you used to like in high school, what you used to like in college. Experiment until you find the thing that captures you, that does what cooking does for you, that puts you in flow.

50:24AJ Jacobs:And it's something that you enjoy, even if you feel a little tired and maybe I don't feel like it. Once you start doing it, you have your juices flowing and it really kind of works for you. That there has to be some recharge going on in the after hours. And then again, if you need to do the emails, use that kind of red light, green light signaling of like, now it's now taking the red light just to do the intermission. And then I'll get back with the green light to continue what I was doing.

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51:44Guy Winch:Bad advice? You talking to me? Kayak.

51:47AJ Jacobs:Got that right.

51:51Johnny:I think many of us have this sense of always on, meaning I get out of bed and I got to start checking email and I got to start tackling work. And then I'm going to bed and I'm still checking my notifications and email and what's going on at work. and we talked a bit about rituals in in my life a lot of the rituals are around the evening are there ways in the morning to set us up for success to start to regain that control of what we have

52:17AJ Jacobs:versus just giving it all to work look first of all yes about checking emails at night nobody knows when you went to bed so why do you don't need to respond to it if it's 11 o 'clock then let's say you went to bed at 10 and if it's a 10 o 'clock let's say you went to bed at nine you know what I mean in other words just let it wait till the morning but don't wake up and do that right away because it's immediately like a like a smack to the head yeah like give yourself the morning can be a good time to kind of ease into the day to kind of have some good time in the morning like I talk to some people and they're like oh I walk my dog in the morning or I do that in the morning or there's this kind of you know I you know I do the the crossword and I make breakfast.

52:59AJ Jacobs:I'm like, it can be a nice time, but it's not a nice time if you're already thinking about work. Have the discipline to decide when your work day begins. Because unless there's something really urgent going on, whether you can take that half an hour in the morning to just start the day relaxed and without, and also you'll enjoy the morning more, because that's where the stress doesn't end. It's the last thing at night. It's the first thing we do in the morning. there's no time where work isn't intruding.

53:29Johnny:Yeah.

53:29AJ Jacobs:So you have to carve it out. And the morning takes some time to carve it out. And that intrusion for a lot of us is our inbox

53:37Johnny:because it's where everyone else is placing demands on us. I need this. I need that. That is where the intrusion starts. And if you're starting your day with your inbox and you're closing your day with your inbox, you have no time for yourself.

53:49AJ Jacobs:Yes, it's exactly right. And you have an obligation to yourself. Like you get to have, and again this is not asking too much half an hour in the morning for yourself and people like well i need that half an hour and i'm like no you don't because if you if that half an hour is the critical part between you know what you'll get done at work then i'm telling you you will work more productively and more efficiently if you give yourself that half an hour in the morning and you don't get up with an angst of oh now i gotta check emails at work you know give yourself time to kind

54:20Johnny:of ease in in terms of those of us who are in situations right now where we're recognizing the work environment is not for us but we don't feel that we can leave right the instability that's in in jobs right now we talk to a lot of our clients who really despise their job hate their boss have these really strong negative feelings and that can consume you in such a way that it You lose sight of everything that is meaningful to you. You lose sight of the things you used to enjoy, the things that light you up. And we've had clients in the past say, well, I can't even think about going and socializing and doing those things that I used to do because this is just consuming me, my hatred of my job or my frustration with my boss.

55:05AJ Jacobs:Okay. And I would say to them, you are allowing it to consume you. And if we don't have control over a lot in the workplace, there's one thing we have control over. our mind and assert that control. This is a lot of what the book is about. It's like the one variable we can control and it will have a significant impact is our mind. Now, for example, if the story you're telling yourself, and it might be true, but if the story is, I hate my job, I hate my boss, I can't stand going to work. It means that you are creating stress throughout the workday and you are setting yourself up to be upset and stressed out all day.

55:50AJ Jacobs:And I would wager without knowing the people or what their job is, that there are certain moments in the workday, in the work week that are not terrible. Yeah. There are certain plenty that are, and there are certain moments that are not. So be more tempered because when you're saying, I hate my job, I hate my boss, you're setting yourself up to feel upset and resentful and stressed out. you are creating more of a grind than is actually there. So all you need to do is be more accurate and say, I have a really shitty meeting with my boss this week, and I have, you know, today, and I have another stressful couple of meetings, but there are some easier parts to my day.

56:32AJ Jacobs:I can actually take a lunch today because of what's going on, and I can try and think of something enjoyable to do for that half an hour, and maybe I'll think of that. In other words, be more balanced, more accurate. and that can take a lot of the stress out because when you say I hate my boss, I hate the grind, my job is terrible, you are setting yourself up to never get a break emotionally, psychologically, even though there are breaks because you'll sit there skewing throughout all of it.

56:59Johnny:Right, and I think a big shift for a lot of them is looking at, well, what are the skills that we're gaining? How is this a step to the next thing? Reframing what you're getting out of your job instead of focusing so much on the terrible relationship that you have with your boss or the things that you're not getting much joy out of, but maybe they are setting you up for that next level of success. Maybe that skill that you're learning right now that feels like a slog could be the unlock to that future role.

57:27AJ Jacobs:Absolutely. And if you're not thinking that, if people are not thinking that that's the case, then maybe redefine what your terrible boss is as this is my opportunity to learn how to psychologically manage and emotionally better manage this kind of difficult manager. Because here's perfect training ground. They are very difficult. I can use this time to learn how to not let them overtake my life. And what a great skill that will be and how well that will serve me when I have other managers like that, because I might.

58:02Johnny:What are some other ways that people are sabotaging themselves and they're maybe not realizing through this work stress?

58:09AJ Jacobs:Well, one of the things actually within the workday is we have some breaks. Many people feel like it's meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting, but there are some breaks. And then the question is, how are we refueling during those breaks? Our go-to again, zoom scrolling, social media, it's a distraction, but it doesn't actually refuel. Right. What might refuel you is a quick video call with someone that you care about, a quick walk around the block, even if it's five or 10 minutes, just getting fresh air, being out of the context of work. Like if you have five or 10 minutes, don't get the errand done that you need to get done.

58:52AJ Jacobs:That's not a real break. But do find the things that actually are refueling to you. Because, again, we need it's a marathon. You know, these days we need breaks in between. otherwise we really get to the end of the day, you know, with our tongue out, like so, so tired. So we don't take advantage of breaks during the workday nearly as much as we should in an effective way. I mean, we do, but we just do things that are pointless and useless in terms of actually refueling us. Even, and most people don't have this option, but even like a five-minute power nap can be quite refueling. Now, most people don't, you know, in a cubicle where they're power napping exactly.

59:34AJ Jacobs:But if you have the option to sit and close your eyes for five minutes, or let's say you have a vacation planned, looking at some pictures of the place that you'll be going and looking forward to that vacation, that can be refueling. It's somewhere you're going to be going. It reminds you that, oh, I have a vacation coming up soon. It invigorates you. So find ways to actually use breaks during the workday to refuel, not just to distract.

59:59Johnny:I think one of the exercises we do with our clients, but a larger point is so many people have more control than they realize. And they're in a reactive state instead of a proactive state to really set themselves up for that mental success. And if you just think about what your perfect work week would look like, like, you know yourself, what you enjoy doing, the tasks that fire you up, where there's lulls, maybe you're out of energy. So you book your calls in the afternoon where they take less mental load and you don't have to really think through. Maybe, you know, you do really well with deep work in the morning.

1:00:32Johnny:If you really just think what that perfect week would look like for you and start to move some things around that are in your control to shape the work that we are doing towards that perfect week, you can unlock a lot of that mental bandwidth that you're not even realizing right now. We've had clients who, yeah, they have a manager who's demanding and wants things done, but they can get that stuff done on their own schedule. The deliverable matters around more than when they do it. And they can push back on the meetings and the standups. Hey, actually Thursday works better for me. But oftentimes we're not even trying.

1:01:07Johnny:We're just saying, okay, put it on my calendar. I'll take whatever you give me. I'll follow whatever game plan you have. And that reactive state creates a lot of this tension that we're feeling and stress.

1:01:17AJ Jacobs:absolutely and in fact I think we have way more options to curate in our work day than we assume and some people don't have a lot of optionality but many of us have some and then curate based on when things are better for you don't just automatically say yes think about when is that best for me actually I have a very stressful meeting here and this one's going to be really nasty maybe I don't put another difficult one after that let me just push that so I have a break so I can get a breather between those things. The same thing is true in terms of curation. I mean, one of the complaints people have these days is my manager doesn't care about my development.

1:01:53AJ Jacobs:I'm not really learning what I need to learn, et cetera. Even here, there's much more options for curation. In other words, first of all, identify what are the skill sets that I need to jump to the next level that I want to jump to or to move ahead to where I want to move ahead. What are those skills? What are those experiences? If I'm not getting them, how can I get them at work most managers if you come and say hey I want to take on this we're not object they're not going to want to like put time thought effort in in figuring out what's good for you but if you come and say I would like to do this they'll be like fine and it's no work for them they'll be like fine go ahead right if somebody else has a responsibility that you need experience in you can go and say hey can I sit in I'd like to learn this from you can I help out?

1:02:37AJ Jacobs:You know, like if you show that proactivity, that initiative to learn what you need to learn, a lot of it is available. You need mentoring and something, go find it outside of work if you can't find it in work. But don't feel like unless it's fed to me, I can't develop. Yeah.

1:02:53Johnny:And I think oftentimes our boss has no idea the path that we truly want or care about. We may have had a couple of conversations around, okay, this position is open or I want to do this thing. But your boss is not thinking about that constantly. They don't know exactly what are those skills that you need to unlock to get to the next level or what's the most important next step for you. But if you recognize one, communicate that I'm looking to learn more AI. It's important for me. I want to do a project that has generative AI. If you actually bring that up, then that plants the seed that if those opportunities arise, I will let you know.

1:03:28Johnny:And if your boss doesn't let you know, and you see that opportunity, then you bring it up to him of, hey, I see this other department is working in this. And we had a client recently who was in a job where he just felt he was grinding and he saw people get hired outside, promoted ahead of him and felt really like he was stuck in this role that he needed skills to break out of, but his boss was not giving him those opportunities. And he caught wind of a completely different department working on this project. he told his boss hey i'd love to help support them on this his boss was like well as long as you're getting your work done for me sure if you want to and all of a sudden he got facetime with a completely new department and they were doing generative ai stuff that his department doesn't do and now he got to unlock that skill but that was him being proactive that was not him waiting for his boss to say hey we're working on ai now let's bring you along most bosses are like that in other

1:04:23AJ Jacobs:words, they're too stressed out themselves to start putting extra thought into what you need. But few bosses would actually thwart you just for the sense of thwarting you. So if you go to them and you give them something that they just, it's an easy yes for them, they'll say yes, most likely. So that requires you to be proactive, you to identify opportunities and say, hey, there's an opportunity, can I do that? And most bosses will be exactly like that, as long as it doesn't prevent you from doing your work. And you could say, this will not prevent me from doing my work. I just want to add it because it's a skill set I think would be really, really useful.

1:04:56AJ Jacobs:That has to look good to a boss.

1:04:58Johnny:Yeah. And then the flip side of that is also recognizing that sometimes going after learning that skill might not be a skill that you really care about or want, but it creates the face time with the people who will be impactful to your career growth and an opportunity to work with new people outside of your department to get exposure to new lines of business and areas that maybe your skill set would better align. So I think that's another thing. If we just get too focused on how does this directly benefit me right now? Or how does it get the skill that I need right now? We miss those opportunities that are always hidden.

1:05:32AJ Jacobs:This is what happens to us psychologically when we're in the grind, when we're under stress. We go on autopilot. We kind of put our head down and just go from task to task to task. and we don't lift our head enough to go like, wait, what do I need to do? Is this the right thing for me? How do I need to develop? How do I need to resolve this? Like we just don't have the wherewithal because we feel exhausted to really take control of so many of the things that we can take control of. And so all these things that you're saying are so important because there are different examples and different manifestations of don't be on autopilot.

1:06:19AJ Jacobs:Don't just go with the flow. Don't just grind it out and grind it out. The grind by definition is a head down kind of posture.

1:06:27Johnny:Yeah. And it doesn't get rewarded at work. You think it does.

1:06:31AJ Jacobs:Well, no, it doesn't get rewarded because it actually, when you're head down, nobody sees you.

1:06:35Johnny:Yeah, so you miss the visibility, but then you also don't demonstrate to the leaders that you see the bigger picture. So what you're talking about, that tunnel vision, it's like, I have my to-do list. I just have to get through these tasks. If I just slog through this, then I can get to the PlayStation or I can get to the vegging out. I can get to the rest. But you miss the opportunity to zoom out, look at, well, how is what this task is impacting the greater goal of the company, the team. And those are the people who recognize that, that get ahead. They are the ones that create the visibility that leads to advancement in their career.

1:07:11Right.

1:07:11AJ Jacobs:Right. And to ask yourself, A, what can I do? Again, I always say this, we're like, for the company that will be noticed. Yeah. Like all these acts of, you know, good citizenship and bravery that happen outside of people's, you know, like eyesight. That's great. But and what can I do for myself to get ahead? What can I do for myself to advance myself? Like, yeah, be selfish, like, you know, not at the expense of other people, but be selfish in terms of how is this helping me right now? and and you have to have that question run continually it's not a once a year question it's an ongoing question like is this working is this not working what do i need how is this advancing me okay now i'm starting this project great but after that what

1:07:55Johnny:yeah i think with that if we are in a posture of waiting for the feedback waiting for to be told what to do or what to improve or what skill we need, we've already fallen behind in this work environment. So we have to be not only our biggest cheerleader and celebrating our successes and socializing our successes, but we also have to be continually asking like, okay, what is that next thing that I need to be growing? Or what is that next skill set that I need to be focused on to get myself ahead? We can't assume that your boss knows or cares enough with the stress that

1:08:32AJ Jacobs:their feeling right and then that also have means having that same kind of thinking about any obstacles that you come across because what i hear from a lot of people and i'm sure you do too is this feeling like well but i can't do that because but my boss will never notice me because because they don't like me because we don't get along because it's all right your boss doesn't like you why don't they how can you improve your relationship with them what who do they like and why do they like those people like every obstacle is a question about okay why is the

1:09:01Johnny:obstacle there how do was how do you get around it yeah what can i do right to take my power back and do a certain my control versus be the victim right which is i just have this terrible boss right or i work at a company that grinds me right so as we wrap are there some quick hitting things that would be really impactful mental health wise for those of us who are slogging in that grind

1:09:27AJ Jacobs:um yes i just want to i end the book with a chapter about vacations yeah because it's another one of those things that we don't do well i mean we think we do um but in fact there are a few things about vacations people should keep in mind um more shorter vacations are more effective than one big long one because the impact of a vacation kind of ends after like a week or so um and the The other thing is you want to rest before your vacation. You don't want to work until the last minute to get ahead because then it'll take you half of the vacation to get into vacation mode and you won't be able to benefit from it.

1:10:05Johnny:Yeah, and I think unfortunately, many of us don't do a great job of preparing for the vacation. So we end up working more than we had wanted on the vacation.

1:10:14AJ Jacobs:But again, preparing doesn't mean working ridiculous hours right before you go on vacation. and even and again and and and we tend to do it out of habit but we're not really asking ourselves what must be done now versus not and the same way you do at night with emails encapsulate it into a very limited amount of time once a day that you check in and again you're taking a break from the vacation just to do a little bit of work and then you go back into vacation mode uh you know in that in that sense because you want to like vacations are really important to kind of a remind you what life is about you know and to be able to recharge to be able to recover to be able to you know like help your body learn a different way of being than just the grind and

1:11:00Johnny:the stress all of the time well what i like about that is with this rise of unlimited vacations they found that people actually take less vacation so companies will say hey you have a limited vacation take as much as you want but then as a team people just completely forgo going on vacation at all and it becomes a team norm that we don't take vacations. And then if you try to take the long vacation, you really stand out. But if you take short vacations, long weekends, and you do it at a more consistent cadence, you get that great experience, you have something to look forward to. You know, so much of the grind is the grind because we don't feel like we have anything on our calendar to look forward to.

1:11:39Johnny:We don't have an outlet. We're just tunnel vision going from task to task to task. Right.

1:11:44AJ Jacobs:And so I think there's that, also the thing about vacation, I believe in triple dipping. Okay. On vacations, in other words, you spend the time before generating excitement and anticipation. You know, look at the pictures of the beautiful beach that you're going to be on or, you know, the museums that you want to visit. Don't do it with spoilers. Don't see everything you're going to see. But like generate excitement before so that you can, you know, experience the excitement or the anticipation of the vacation before you go. When you're there, make sure to spend, to have some buffer time to take your selfies and the videos and the media.

1:12:19AJ Jacobs:Because most of us make the mistake of doing that instead of actually being present in whatever we're doing. So build in time to take the pictures because those matter. That's what we're going to remember from the vacation. And then the third dip is when you get back. Immediately when you get back, organize it in some kind of way. Make a booklet, make a little sequence. Highlight video. And then relive the vacation. and that way you kind of get to get the running start of the vacation the vacation itself and the reliving of it you get triple the value for the one vacation and then if you have frequent vacations that's a lot of the time that you're in anticipation or or enjoying or enjoying the reflection of some time away and long weekends are great can be four days or something like that you can pack a lot into four days or if you into more relaxing things you can pack a lot of relaxation into four days but plan them so that you're actually addressing the thing one thing i want to say about vacations is that a lot of people with young kids or kids of all ages will plan a vacation around the needs of the kids and it's not the kids that are grinding it's not the kids who are burnt out it's you so you know people will say to me like oh yeah like i'm so spent at work but we're gonna take a week and you know in disney world disneyland and i'm like that doesn't sound like a vacation how is this gonna benefit you i mean because it's great for the kids and if you had a limited vacation but like that's not enough right time you know like in other words unless find some way to have adult time at the end of the day you're going to be too tired to have adult time at the end of the day at the end of a disneyland trip you know what i mean so like you know or do half three days there but three days of something that you would enjoy more it's about you too so right you know like address everyone's needs in terms of the uh vacation the other thing is when when you're in a relationship talk to your partner about whether your stress is being transferred one of the most unfortunate research findings is that when we're stressed out at work we don't just fall short of our duties at home we actively undermine our partner in unconscious ways but you know the kids come to us after they said no we're like sure fine you know like we will do things that will undermine them because again, we're still in work mode.

1:14:37AJ Jacobs:We're not back in home mode. Talk to your partner and be open to what they're saying about how your work is spilling over into home and how it's impacting them. And take that seriously, no matter how driven you are at work, not trying to do it at the expense of your relationship or the expense of the emotional health of your partner. So have that as an ongoing dialogue. Be open to them saying, hey, this is too much, or I haven't seen you i've seen you but i haven't seen you you know like all i've seen is the work drone like you know like take that seriously because they're the ones who see you most and they can point out where like

1:15:14Johnny:you've lost the forest for the trees right where you're a bit blind to what's actually going on i think it's the vacation piece to me is one of those things where when we talk to clients around vacation they simply look at it as like okay i'm taking this short break from work and and then i'm getting back to work but the triple dip of like hey take some real time and thought in the planning and then how are you going to keep the memory going maybe it's buying something that you're going to use at home that reminds you of the vacation my wife and i we like to pick a dish that we have out on the vacation then i try to recreate it at home that's lovely within a few months of coming back and we have these little recipes now that we've collected along the way that allow me to do the thing that i enjoy doing and us to be transported back to that great experience.

1:16:01AJ Jacobs:And again, I love cooking for that reason. When you buy the ingredients for that dish, certainly when you make it, but even from the buying of the ingredients for making it, it puts you back into the vacation mode. It can be three weeks later. So that's a great way to, again, extend it. In other words, vacations are really important, but get the most out of them.

1:16:21Johnny:I love that. Well, thank you for joining us today. So many great lessons in here around, And first recognizing the grind and its invisible impacts, certainly how it hijacks us, but then practical ways that we can start to reassert that control. Where can our audience find out more about the book and yourself?

1:16:37AJ Jacobs:The book should be available everywhere. It's an ebook in hardcover and audiobook. I do the reading. And they can find out more about me, about the book at guywinch.com. They can subscribe to my sub stack newsletter, social media, etc. But all the information will be at guywinch.com.

1:16:55Johnny:Great. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me.

1:17:08Guy Winch:Thank you for joining us for another fantastic episode of the Art of Charm podcast. This is the part where we celebrate one of our X Factor members. Take it away, Clint. This is Clint, and I'm in capital sales, and I'm a former X Factor student. I joined X Factor because I felt I needed more personal and professional growth. I considered myself successful in my career, but when it came to having conversations with customers, I felt I wasn't building relationships to their full potential. I then started noticing I was having similar shortfalls in personal relationships. Additionally, I felt a confidence void in certain situations, and I was hoping I could improve on that as well.

1:17:50Guy Winch:Through the work I did at X Factor and the core confidence course, I was able to improve on both of these areas of my life. And since completing the X Factor, I've transitioned to a new position and the skills learned helped me securing an approximate 30 % increase in pay. so to any guy who considers himself a driven individual but feels he's not quite achieving all he thinks is possible in his current situation i'd say look hard at joining x factor it sure did great things for me thank you clint it was a pleasure and an honor working with you too sir and good luck to all of your future endeavors if you found value out of this or any of our podcasts head on over to your favorite podcast player and rate and review the show.

1:18:39Guy Winch:It means the world to us and it helps others find the show. Now everyone, go out there and have a very epic week.

1:19:06Today, cause you had your taste of black on the yesterday. Yeah, but I remember you. Oh yeah, I remember you.

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