#27 – Fight Burnout to Live a Balanced Life | Michael ‘Miz’ Mizrahi & Ben Grynol

Burnout looks different for everyone, but it’s a universal experience for all of us at one point or another, especially in a startup environment. Levels Head of Operations Michael Mizrahi wrote a memo on burnout to help start the discussion around the topic so we can do our best to avoid it. In this episode, Levels Head of Growth, Ben Grynol, chatted with Michael about what exactly might cause burnout and some of the strategies to mitigate it, why it’s important and how we think about it internally as a team.

03:46 – Check in on remote workers

Remote work makes it hard to notice when people are experiencing burnout. It’s important to regularly check in.

It’s a tough thing to do in a remote culture where you don’t physically see people. So you can’t sense their change in state. You can’t understand that they’re skipping lunch or look stressed and they’re taking an extra afternoon walk or they’re at their desk late and coming in early and they look irritable. The kinds of things that you pick up on in a qualitative sense in an in-person environment don’t exist for us. And so it’s possible to go a day or a few days without really seeing someone. You might get a Loom, you get their written thoughts, but you’re not really understanding how they’re doing and how they’re feeling. And so intentionally and explicitly calling that out, making sure that we make an effort to connect with one another, to check in, check in with ourselves, check in with our peers, check in with our reports, our managers, whatever it might be. The hope is that inserting that into the culture starts a positive cycle around the topic.

06:30 – It’s not just overworking, it’s overinvesting

The startup environment at Levels is ripe for creating burnout because it’s a mission that everyone wants to achieve.

That doesn’t address the core issue in my opinion of what burnout truly is, which is that deeper piece of overinvesting your identity in work. And what’s tricky about our environment and what the memo set out to describe was that we have a culture that’s ripe for creating burnout. We have a big, exciting mission. We have people doing the work of their lives, something that they care deeply about that’s personal because they have family members affected. They care about the metabolic health crisis. They want to impact this big problem. We have peers and coworkers who are high performers. And so you look left and you look right and you see people just working hard and doing great work with a lot of really good output, not in the hustle culture sense, but in the truly great work, people are doing exceptional things and shipping really good product. And so you’ve got that. You’ve got the social element. And then we’ve hired people that are achievers and who want to perform well and have some high bar quality for themselves. So you add that on, and all these other things.

08:24 – Separate work and personal identity

Work identity and personal identity need to be separate and in harmony.

The other needle to thread here going into a little bit of a side conversation is we don’t want to, as a team, send a message to each other that this doesn’t matter. This is just work, just like put in a day’s work and walk away. It’s not important. It’s just a day job, because it’s not, it is meaningful work and I think it requires some level of investment on a personal level to do great work to move this startup forward and then prove out this concept and build this company for all the people that need it. But we also need to keep ourselves healthy and keep ourselves here for the long term, because we don’t know what twists and turns are coming. So we need to do that at a sustainable pace. And the best way I found to do that is to create some separation between work identity and personal identity and make sure that those are both kept somewhat in harmony. I don’t want to say balance because I know the work life balance conversation is a different one, a lot of different perspectives.

11:15 – Remember change is constant

Ambiguity is part of the process, but people also need to be able to set their own cadence within that.

The message to communicate really is that change is constant and the expectation is that things are going to move and getting comfortable with that ambiguity and just that constant adjustment is part of being successful in this kind of work environment where we’d hold everything steady and not iterate on the company side of things. There would still be things that would break and would probably be more painful. And so, getting comfortable with that change is tricky and creating that second responsibility, that second job for everyone to keep up with all the change can absolutely be overwhelming, especially in an environment where you’re on your own. You’re talking to the ambiguity of the day and the schedule where it’s on you to schedule that on your own and figure out your cadence and get used to things. And so, I think there’s a balance of giving people control to manage their own days and structure their own work, but also need to also do that within a structure where you’re working with other people and need to have some sort of coordination that keeps everyone on the same page.

14:20 – Trust in yourself and your work

Part of avoiding burnout is not worrying about things unless you have evidence that there is something to worry about.

That was another principle in the memo that I think we tried to communicate clearly is that there’s nothing to worry about unless there’s something to worry about. And so, trust that you’re doing a good job, you’re performing well and you’re in a good spot. Like everyone is trusting you, believes that the work you’re doing is of high quality. You’re putting out what you’re expected to. And of course you’re going to have personal pressure on yourself to meet deadlines and to deliver things fully. But we don’t want people working from a place of fear where they’re wondering if they’re going to be fired or that their manager’s unhappy with them. So in a few different points, try to really deliver that message that unless you’re actively aware of an issue, don’t think that there’s something underlying. That’s just your own. That’s you telling that to yourself and getting over that bit of fear helps you get to a more sustainable place where you’re not working in a state of anxiety of what might happen if you are a day late on this thing, or you don’t deliver this fully or whatever it might be.

19:38 – Keep boundaries

Work hard, but have personal limits that you stick to that keep things in perspective.

We bounced this around with Darren from GitLab. I bounced this memo around with him and he added some thoughts. I think they call them priority portfolio or something like this, but basically it’s like, what are your non-negotiables in life that you need to maintain that regardless of what happens at work, you will still do. And it might be getting eight hours of sleep at night. It might be eating a really healthy diet. It might be going to the gym three times a week on your regular schedule, might be putting the kids to sleep every single night at the exact same time and being around for a family dinner, whatever those things are that give you some sort of boundaries in life and something that you have to attend to that’s not specifically the work kind of prevents you from getting sucked into the rabbit hole and helps you keep some perspective on what matters. And this is again that sidebar of like, this doesn’t mean don’t work hard, it just means have boundaries and keep it healthy.

27:38 – Understand people’s whole lives

People have lives outside of work that deserve space on the calendar too.

That doesn’t have to be that way. There are very easy ways to solve for these kinds of problems if that’s what you’re trying to solve for. So I think what’s important to call out in understanding our culture is like, we don’t want to create that kind of environment where people are doing unnecessary, mindless work with very high expectations when it’s actually not that important. And this is coming from me as someone who hasn’t worked in finance, I don’t understand that industry much other than anecdotes. So I can’t really speak firsthand, but it seems like how you care about people and how you understand them in their entirety, not just in the commitment that they make to work is a really important part of this. And that’s where I think our culture is really good about being forward and thoughtful and considerate that work is important, but it’s not everything to everyone and people will have their own lives that also deserve some credit on the calendar and some space

29:30 – Let people define their own limits

People need to prioritize their work as their role evolves and make sure they’re not taking on too much.

Yeah. It sounds obvious, but giving people the permission to prioritize for themselves is important. We encourage that by talking often about project debt, about tax debt, about prioritization. It’s very easy to start a job and then six months in, you just have this massive portfolio of things that you just do. You keep things running and you keep taking on more, but it’s okay to reassess that and make sure that they’re all still serving a purpose and getting rid of some things before you take on more things. The goal here is really just, in a word, prioritization and focus. And to the boundary’s conversation, having a sense of what you can actually reasonably take on, where your limits are and just being mindful of that.

36:55 – Talk to someone if you need help

Talking to someone can help in multiple ways. It lets off steam and it might also lead to solutions to the problems you’re having.

Yeah. There’s two pieces here. The first is that sometimes just talking to someone about the concern, just naming it for yourself is very healthy and helpful and might actually diffuse a lot of the anxiety that you have around this certain thing. You might not even be looking for the help, you might just be looking for an outlet to express it. And so this is kind of like permission to talk to people if you’re concerned about something, like have a peer that you can relate to and just release some steam, vent about a problem, you might not even be looking for a solution. The second piece is that when you talk about these problems and you admit that you’re human and you can’t do everything and you also invite in help, a lot of times those solutions that are obvious to someone else like, oh my friend did that, let me just give him a call and let them get on the phone with you and tell you what vendor to use and your problem will be solved in 10 minutes. You invite in help that you might not have otherwise connected the dots on, that you can’t solve yourself. So there’s an element of just having outlets and not bottling up these things that are on your mind. And the second order effect is that you might actually get help on the thing and help point you back in the right direction, because two minds are better than one.

44:54 – Check in on peers

Everyone plays a role in keeping the whole system healthy. Checking in on each other is a way to keep everyone connected.

So if everyone has someone that checks-in on them in a somewhat organic way, we’ll be in a much better spot versus someone that gets lost in a corner and forgotten about and just kind of suffers and silence on their own, doesn’t bring things up, doesn’t have any outlets for it. That’s not going to be a good outcome. And so, very explicitly supporting and promoting these kinds of relationships, which to be honest, do happen organically for most people, but sometimes taking the extra effort to proactively check in on someone that you might have heard from before or might have a good relationship with is good for the whole. It’s good for everyone. And so, the don’t be a superhero thing is like one, take care of yourself. One, talk to others. And the last bit is like check in on others. Regardless of where you are, your obligation to others is to keep the system healthy. That’s the piece here that we wanted to communicate.

Michael Mizrahi (00:06):

As a lesson I’ve learned coming out of past experiences is really prioritizing yourself and your life over your work is really empowering and freeing. And so, in the time since I’ve recovered from being in bad spots, previous to Levels, I think as I’ve taken on new roles, I’ve created really, really healthy boundaries and really healthy non-negotiables for what I want to focus on in life that is not specifically work. And so creating those, holding those deer and highly and protecting them is kind of like a good antidote to getting into a burnout situation.

Ben Grynol (00:45):

I’m Ben Grynol, part of the early startup team here at Levels. We’re building tech that helps people to understand their metabolic health, and this is your front row seat to everything we do. This is A Whole New Level.

Ben Grynol (01:17):

Startups move really fast, and with speed comes burnout. Well, burnout happens at any company. It’s really easy to get disengaged when you stop liking the work that you’re doing or when you’ve got too much of it, or when you feel like you’re outside of your comfort zone. Burnout’s not something that is isolated to the startup world. Very much affects many people in many different roles across different companies.

Ben Grynol (01:41):

So how do you balance, how do you mitigate this idea of burnout? What are the conditions that you can create yourself to make sure that you’re living this balance life, the sense of balance? Something we’re focused on as a team. And we don’t want to pontificate to the team. We don’t want to pontificate to others, but it’s something that we’re so anchored in the way that we think about it. We want to make sure that we are living the values that we set out. It’s not just talk. It’s something that people live. So we do all we can to make sure that when there are things like burnout, that might be on the horizon, well, we have to hit the nail on the head.

Ben Grynol (02:16):

Michael Mizrahi, Head of Operations, Miz, as many of you have come to know him, he wrote a memo on burnout. And the idea was just to address it, to say, Hey, this thing might be in the air, and it’s not something that everyone will feel in the same way. Burnout is very much something that people feel individually. What makes one person feel engaged, might make another person feel burnt out. Miz and I sat down and we discussed this memo. We went into the idea of what exactly might cause burnout and some of the strategies to mitigate it, why it’s important and how we think about it internally as a team. Anyway, no need to wait. Here’s a conversation with Miz.

Michael Mizrahi (03:01):

One of the things that was interesting about writing this memo was in writing it, I didn’t want to suggest that people were burning out or make any assumptions about what people were feeling, but I did want to put a finger on the pulse and just kind of call out that this can be a thing and it’s something we should look out for. We should have the language and the vocabulary to talk about it, and we should really define and understand what it actually means. It’s a phrase that’s very easy to throw around similar to other phrases in culture, but I think recognizing it where it truly exists and preventing that state is the important part. And so, that was a big part of the effort and was just trying to understand where people are at, what conditions exist that might create situations where people are overworked or potentially burning out and just get us thinking about it.

Michael Mizrahi (03:46):

It’s a tough thing to do in a remote culture where you don’t physically see people. So you can’t sense their change in state. You can’t understand that they’re skipping lunch or look stressed and they’re taking an extra afternoon walk or they’re at their desk late and coming in early and they look irritable. The kinds of things that you pick up on in a qualitative sense in an in-person environment don’t exist for us. And so it’s possible to go a day or a few days without really seeing someone. You might get a loom, you get their written thoughts, but you’re not really understanding how they’re doing and how they’re feeling. And so intentionally and explicitly calling that out, making sure that we make an effort to connect with one another, to check in, checking with ourselves, checking with our peers, checking with our reports, our managers, whatever it might be. The hope is that inserting that into the culture starts a positive cycle around the topic.

Ben Grynol (04:37):

Yeah. And burnout can be so personalized as far as it’s very personal because it’s subjective. What one person feels, let’s make up an example, one person gets 10 emails a day and they don’t like communication. That feels overwhelming. It’s like I have to do this task and it’s making this consistency that I get this seven days a week, whatever it is, it makes me feel burnt out. And another person might get like 50 or 100 messages a day and they hammer through them and that’s leading to zero burnout. So it’s like to extrapolate something that is like, this equals burnout and this is how to manage it or how to mitigate it. It can’t be done. And that’s why it’s important to highlight. Burnout is very personal. It’s very subjective in view and lens. What can be beneficial though is hearing stories about how other people have dealt with situations in the past or what makes them feel this sense of anxiety or burnout so that other people can take nuggets out of it and say, here’s how I’m going to design against it for myself.

Michael Mizrahi (05:43):

Exactly. The core distinction of the memo was that there’s overworking and there’s overinvesting. I think that was the key point that had come up in some side conversations and kind of thinking about the topic of what it means to flirt with burnout, to get into that red zone for a sustained period of time. We can share all the tips in the world, and we have, to avoid overwork and to add productivity and efficiency to your workflow and to remove unnecessary work and to delegate and to rely on systems. And those all really, really help. Those very much help against overworking and getting bogged down in like tens of emails or a lot of process and all these kinds of things, taking time to do the work, check that’s great.

Michael Mizrahi (06:30):

That doesn’t address the core issue in my opinion of what burnout truly is, which is that deeper piece of overinvesting your identity and work. And what’s tricky about our environment and what the memo set out to describe was that we have a culture that’s ripe for creating burnout. We have a big, exciting mission. We have people doing the work of their lives, something that they care deeply about that’s personal because they have family members affected. They care about the metabolic health crisis. They want to impact this big problem. We have peers and coworkers who are high performers. And so you look left and you look right and you see people just working hard and doing great work with a lot of really good output, not in the hustle culture sense, but in the truly great work, people are doing exceptional things and shipping really good product.

Michael Mizrahi (07:17):

And so you’ve got that. You’ve got the social element. And then we’ve hired people that are achievers and who want to perform well and have some high bar quality for themselves. So you add that on, and all these other things. I think I listed out maybe five or six features of our culture. And then you add the remote, which kind of obstructs and obfuscates the view of people that you’ve got. And it’s very easy to end up pouring yourself into the work in a way where your identity and your personal life starts getting mixed up in the work itself. And when you cross that line, that’s where you’re in a danger zone.

Michael Mizrahi (07:54):

It doesn’t mean you’re burned out if you’re fully investing your identity in work, but it means you are very susceptible. You’re at an elevated glucose level. You’re in the bad zone where if something goes wrong, if something, an interaction goes sour or a project gets derailed or some challenge gets hit, you approach that and you feel that as a hit on yourself and on your own character and your own identity and your own success potential, instead of seeing it as a challenge that you have to solve at work.

Michael Mizrahi (08:24):

The other needle to thread here going into a little bit of a side conversation is we don’t want to, as a team, send a message to each other that this doesn’t matter. This is just work, just like put in a day’s work and walk away. It’s not important. It’s just a day job, because it’s not, it is meaningful work and I think it requires some level of investment on a personal level to do great work to move this startup forward and then prove out this concept and build this company for all the people that need it. But we also need to keep ourselves healthy and keep ourselves here for the long term, because we don’t know what twists and turns are coming. So we need to do that as a sustainable pace. And the best way I found to do that is to create some separation between work identity and personal identity and make sure that those are both kept somewhat in harmony. I don’t want to say balance because I know the work life balance conversation is a different one, a lot of different perspectives.

Ben Grynol (09:19):

There’s so many things that can lead to this sense of burnout too, where you highlighted it. We have a lofty mission. We’re addressing a global problem and people are connected to it emotionally in all these different ways. These are things that you highlighted. But the other thing to take into consideration is in addition to startups are inherently risky and ambiguous and ever changing. We’re on the edge of that because we’re trying to basically invent a new way of working and reinvent this way of working. It’s not that remote work is this new thing. It’s that levels version of remote and asynchronous work is constantly evolving.

Ben Grynol (09:57):

And not having routine can feel overwhelming, can feel scary, can feel like, this sense of constant change can feel degrading and lead to burnout as well, because it’s just sort of like, I was just getting the hang of, let’s use threads. I was just getting the hang of threads, and tomorrow we decide we’re not using threads anymore. That sense of change can feel so uncomfortable that it just feels like I’ve got this pile of work on my plate, now I have to go learn this new thing. I’m feeling burnt out because I have a lot of work. I care about the work I’m doing. There’s no consistency in like, here’s the only way to approach it. So I think that it’s just this matter of, we tend to evolve and change and iterate on the company building side of things, not the go to market, the company building side of things so quickly, that can be really hard too.

Michael Mizrahi (10:52):

Yeah. The ground is moving and you’ve got to keep up with it. And that’s a second full-time job, especially here where there is a lot of change and there is a lot of iteration on the culture itself. There’s a new memo process that’s released. There’s new states. Well, what about [inaudible 00:11:07] last week? Do I follow the same process? Do I go through the new one? Now I have to read this memo to understand how to release a new memo. So there’s work about work that we’re introducing. The message to communicate really is that changes constant and the expectation is that things are going to move and getting comfortable with that ambiguity and just that constant adjustment is part of being successful in this kind of work environment where we’d hold everything steady and not iterate on the company side of things.

Michael Mizrahi (11:38):

There would still be things that would break and would probably be more painful. And so, getting comfortable with that change is tricky and creating that second responsibility, that second job for everyone to keep up with all the change can absolutely be overwhelming, especially in an environment where you’re on your own. You’re talking to the ambiguity of the day and the schedule where it’s on you to schedule that on your own and figure out your cadence and get used to things. And so, I think there’s a balance of giving people control to manage their own days and structure their own work, but also need to also do that within a structure where you’re working with other people and need to have some sort of coordination that keeps everyone on the same page.

Ben Grynol (12:18):

One of the things you brought up before was the idea of being around a number of people that’ll have different approaches to work different work styles and are putting out work at different cadences. Maybe they have different areas, different functional areas they’re part of, but it’s the idea of not comparing yourself to others. That can lead to a sense of burnout too. So if I’m looking at it and I’m going, wow, look at Miz. Miz is putting out all this work and I start to compare myself to you. You’ve got a completely different work style, a completely different work output. And that’s just a bad, a mental landslide to get into where of course it’s going to be a downward spiral of negative self talk, of course that’s going to lead to burnout over time. We’re all working at the edge of skillset and challenge, which is what can lead to burnout, but it can also lead to a flow state if you allow it to.

Ben Grynol (13:17):

So knowing that, to give Tim Kendall a nod in the podcast that he and Sam did some time ago, couple months ago, let’s say, and he was talking about the early days of Facebook where everyone would get compared in performance reviews. And it felt terrible to be at the mean, like you’re average, but you’re at the average of all of these high performing people and everyone wanted to be in the 90th percentile. And so understanding there’s a reason that the mean is called the mean, because we are all average, like we’re all average. And when you’re the average of a group of people that are performing at a very high level, that’s an incredible thing to be a part of. And it’s being comfortable that is where you are. And so getting out of that mental block of comparing yourself to others and thinking through things like, well, I wasn’t in the 90th percentile of early Facebook and, it might feel bad, but you have to recognize that it’s like tell yourself that it’s really good to be at the mean, and that mean is the mean for a reason

Michael Mizrahi (14:20):

That was another principle in the memo that I think we tried to communicate clearly is that there’s nothing to worry about unless there’s something to worry about. And so, trust that you’re doing a good job, you’re performing well and you’re in a good spot. Like everyone is trusting you, believes that the work you’re doing is of high quality. You’re putting out what you’re expected to. And of course you’re going to have personal pressure on yourself to meet deadlines and to deliver things fully. But we don’t want people working from a place of fear where they’re wondering if they’re going to be fired or that their manager’s unhappy with them. So in a few different points, try to really deliver that message that unless you’re actively aware of an issue, don’t think that there’s something underlying. That’s just your own. That’s you telling that to yourself and getting over that bit of fear helps you get to a more sustainable place where you’re not working in a state of anxiety of what might happen if you are a day late on this thing, or you don’t deliver this fully or whatever it might be.

Michael Mizrahi (15:19):

And so that plays into the calm work environment that’s come up in some other conversations, creating a calm environment where people can just do good work and focus on that and not get anxious about all the pieces around it. I hope that came through as well, was just kind of reassuring folks that you’re good, unless otherwise.

Ben Grynol (15:40):

Let’s digress from the memo for a second, then we’ll come back. What are some of your personal experiences with burnout? Some of the instances where it’s happened, what happened and then what did you do about it? Did you recognize it was coming? I don’t know. What are some things that you really think about when you try to avoid it now?

Michael Mizrahi (16:00):

I can think too, probably if, maybe I think two discrete times in my career to date that I’ve definitely been in that zone and recognized it. And I think it’s always interesting because it’s very easy for other people to recognize and it’s usually really hard for you to recognize yourself because you’re so tied up in whatever thing that you’re excited about or worked up about. And so, the indicators for me are when you’re just really, really emotionally invested in some situation and every single turn that it takes has the ability to just totally rock you. And you stop being able to zoom out and think of it as a problem solver and you start just thinking about it as just a very reactionary, emotional experience. That’s an indicator that you’re probably in too deep.

Michael Mizrahi (16:50):

The other is kind of the opposite. And I think this just depends on people and how they process things and how they work is when you really just don’t care anymore whatsoever. You’ve got no energy left to give. And you know that the finish line might be right around the corner if you can just push through this last little bit, the project’s almost finished, but you don’t care. You’re just like, I’m done. I’m so exhausted from this and I’ve got not much left in the tank.

Michael Mizrahi (17:16):

I think it takes on different characteristics depending on the person, him or herself. The thing that is then like the gut reaction is, oh, well, we’re going to send you to Bali for a week. You just need to go to a beach and unwind. And that actually doesn’t sound appealing. You’re like that doesn’t fix my problem. You need to [inaudible 00:17:40] like sun, I don’t care about this situation anymore. And then you come back from that, it’s like your situation hasn’t changed, your emotional engagement with the situation changed and practice probably just moved on, but you’re still a cynic. You’re still mad at the situation and the system and those bandaids don’t really fix any of the feelings that you’ve got. So it’s really hard to come back and to bounce back effectively, which is, I think, why putting energy up front to prevent getting to those sour spots is probably a better effort.

Ben Grynol (18:12):

Yeah. It can lead to deep resentment over time. It could be resentment for the problem that you’re working on. Maybe a project you’re working on, maybe other teammates that you’re working with, maybe the company in itself, there’s no one thing that happens, but it eventually will lead to that. Do you have any stories that you’d be open to sharing as far as your experience with it?

Michael Mizrahi (18:36):

Oof. I don’t have anything top of mind to jump into, only because they’re so situational and so specific to what was going on at the time and where you were in life and kind of all these things. But what I’d say as a lesson I’ve learned coming out of past experiences is really prioritizing yourself and your life over your work is really empowering and freeing. And so, in the time since I’ve recovered from being in bad spots previous to Levels, I think as I’ve taken on new roles, I’ve created really, really healthy boundaries and really healthy non-negotiables for what I want to focus on in life that is not specifically work. So creating those, holding those deer and highly and protecting them is like a good antidote to getting into a burnout situation.

Michael Mizrahi (19:38):

We bounced this around with Darren from GitLab. I bounced this memo around with him and he added some thoughts. I think they called them priority portfolio or something like this, but basically it’s like, what are your non-negotiables in life that you need to maintain that regardless of what happens at work, you will still do. And it might be getting eight hours of sleep at night. It might be eating a really healthy diet. It might be going to the gym three times a week on your regular schedule, might be putting the kids to sleep every single night at the exact same time and being around for a family dinner, whatever those things are that give you some sort of boundaries in life and something that you have to attend to that’s not specifically the work kind of prevents you from getting sucked into the rabbit hole and helps you keep some perspective on what matters. And this is again that sidebar of like, this doesn’t mean don’t work hard, it just means have boundaries and keep it healthy.

Ben Grynol (20:28):

Getting in front of them is so important and being able to have enough introspection that you can recognize it before it’s happening. It’s like seeing the storm on the horizon and go, I should probably grab my raincoat or like I can see the rain coming, because then you can mitigate against it. It’s when you just let it fester and fizzle and you might feel it. If you’ve been through it before and you can recognize it, then you can mitigate it. And mitigating is actually a pretty good thing because then you realize, like I sat out in the storm, I had my raincoat on, I didn’t get wet and the storm passed. Big deal. That’s it. That was the mitigation. But if you got soaking wet, it feels terrible and then you’re grumpy and, and, and, that’s what I found one of the key factors to be is that anytime, personally, I feel a sense of anxiety about something.

Ben Grynol (21:19):

One example, I think it was linked in that memo for what are personal examples using reminders in superhuman. And every day there would be a flood of reminder emails that would come in. And you’re like, it feels terrible to get 20 reminders to myself of these things that now I have to do something with and filter through. It was like a bad start to the day. So I was like, well, why don’t I take care of those the night before? Because that’s a different time slot and different mental energy. And then I realized, I was like, why can’t I just batch process all of these for the following week on one day, like a Friday for the week ahead. And some of them might be just like reset the reminder ahead. Some of them might be like, I don’t need to deal with that anymore. And some might be like, oh, I’ll send this now or I’ll do a send later on this exact message.

Ben Grynol (22:14):

So you’re taking all the work of this thing that would be like, I have my work to do. And now it feels like there’s some other thing that’s dumping a bunch more work on my plate. It’s like the mitigation was, it’s making me feel bad. If I let this fester, it’s going to lead to burnout of not feeling like I’m able to manage communication or be on top of the work that needs to be done. So you just move the things around until you find your own flow and go, this thing seems to be working right now. And the second it stops working, you readdress, you identify what isn’t working and then you readdress. It might be, like to your examples of something feels off. And it’s like, oh, I’ve been missing dinner with my family too many nights a week. Well, just move that. That becomes your priority portfolio and do that. So finding all of those little cues and making sure that they fit your lifestyle, your work style, all those things are so important.

Michael Mizrahi (23:12):

I wonder if it’s possible to communicate these messages and these learnings enough that people can avoid them without having to go there and to experience getting into a bad spot. I wonder how much of this is learned through experience versus how much of this can be communicated and taught. And I don’t know the answer, but my hope is that most people don’t have to get into a bad spot at work. You can pack the umbrella without ever having to get soaked because you know it’s going to rain. And so, curious for your thoughts on that. Do you think this can be taught or does it have to be experienced?

Ben Grynol (23:46):

I think it’s a little bit of both. You can share anecdotes and stories and say when this happened in the past or here was a situation when it did happen recently and here’s how I dealt with it, because every example is N plus one. Maybe there are some examples that are analogs, like they’re relatively close and people could say, cool, I’ll try that. But what they might find is that strategy doesn’t work for them. And so being able to take nuggets out of everyone’s way of approaching things, I think that’s what it is. It’s probably more a matter of experiencing it and designing your own mitigation tactics around it. I think that’s really the only way. You can teach, but you can’t… You can read about pushups, but until you do them, it’s like you don’t know how the arms will feel, like they feel sore if you do a whole bunch of them in a row and you’ve never done them before. You can tell somebody that, but you got to feel it.

Michael Mizrahi (24:42):

Yeah. I think what’s important is that we at least do talk about it so that people are comfortable bringing it up, comfortable exploring the topic, know their way around it and know that it’s not a forbidden thing or something that they’ve done wrong if they get into a spot where they feel like they’re overworked or overinvested or kind of in a burnout situation. So something we want to avoid by all measures, but giving people the tools to talk about is the goal here.

Ben Grynol (25:06):

One of the things you wrote in the memo is, there’s a couple things actually let’s digress for a second. There is one instance where burnout can take place, where it can evolve, and that is by a work environment where the conditions that are created are not supportive for mitigating against burnout. We’re very lucky to have you with your lens, and Sam and Josh and everybody who is very much focused on people ops to say the tone at the top is this, the opposite of that is there’s a culture of disrespect and a culture where we come down on people and a culture of, so that can lead to burnout. Assume a person’s really good at managing their work and understanding what levers they have in their control to manage their own potential burnout. But then there’s just this arbitrary pressure now, like bring it back to what you wrote in the memo is the idea of don’t impose urgency where none exists.

Ben Grynol (26:03):

If you’re in an environment where everything’s a fire drill and we agree that we’re async, but somebody constantly cold calls you and they demand things right away, that’s just going to make you feel bad, and there’s not as much you can do about it other than have the conversation with someone and say, this is the way that it makes me feel, this is outside of our cultural practices of working. And if that tone at the top is consistently the sense of like everything’s urgent, everything’s on fire, it doesn’t matter who it is, everyone will feel burnt out over time by that sense of working.

Michael Mizrahi (26:38):

I think of friends that I’ve had who went into, say like traditional finance or banking roles after they finished college. And the kinds of work environments that they’re in are really, really intense and have very high expectations for butts and seats, hours worked, visibility. And you have people waiting around, and I’m explaining this job, but I’m sure this is true of a lot of different jobs and industries and professions. You have people who are basically kind of treated somewhat disposably, like their personal life doesn’t matter. It’s not considered in the operation of this company or the firm or whatever it might be. And they have, let’s say an important investor meeting at 9:00 AM or something like this. And they have these folks sitting around at their desks until like 2:00 or 3:00 AM to wait for the final file being sent from the partner. And then it’s their job to print and collect it from the mail room and deliver it to everyone’s house by 4:00 or 5:00 AM, go home and sleep for now and then come back and do it all again.

Michael Mizrahi (27:38):

That doesn’t have to be that way. There are very easy ways to solve for these kinds of problems if that’s what you’re trying to solve for. So I think what’s important to call out in understanding our culture is like, we don’t want to create that kind of environment where people are doing unnecessary, mindless work with very high expectations when it’s actually not that important. And this is coming from me as someone who hasn’t worked in finance, I don’t understand that industry much other than anecdotes. So I can’t really speak firsthand, but it seems like how you care about people and how you understand them in their entirety, not just in the commitment that they make to work is a really important part of this. And that’s where I think our culture is really good about being forward and thoughtful and considerate that work is important, but it’s not everything to everyone and people will have their own lives that also deserve some credit on the calendar and some space

Ben Grynol (28:33):

You need balance without a doubt. One of the things that would be good to go into is bandwidth, bandwidth and balance. I know we’ve talked about balance, but bandwidth. We’re going to make an assumption, everybody is always working on as many things that they can do as effectively as possible. It’s not, let’s take on more and more and more, but because we are human and we like to please other people, and we like to do a good job, we always like to take on more work and more work can equal burnout. One of the things that you addressed was this idea of don’t be afraid to say no to non priorities and avoid spending your time on busy or thankless work. So the idea of it’s okay to say no, or you can say yes, not now.

Michael Mizrahi (29:30):

Yeah. It sounds obvious, but giving people the permission to prioritize for themselves is important. We encourage that by talking often about project debt, about tax debt, about prioritization, it’s very easy to start a job. And then six months in, you just have this massive portfolio of things that you just do. You keep things running and you keep taking on more, but it’s okay to reassess that and make sure that they’re all still serving a purpose and getting rid of some things before you take on more things. The goal here is really just, in a word, prioritization and focus. And to the boundary’s conversation, having a sense of what you can actually reasonably take on, where your limits are and just being mindful of that.

Ben Grynol (30:15):

As companies change, this is something we talk about all the time, giving away your legos, evolution, roles change. Some people might have gap filler roles as it’s been referred to or roles where, you very much have had a gap filler role. One of the recent ones that comes to mind is the idea of everything related to people ops.

Ben Grynol (30:37):

Finance has been under your purview. And now that Riley’s on board, he is overseeing that. But the idea of as roles change, it can feel maybe there’s some loss aversion or there’s something that feels a little bit painful about either giving away your legos or you were doing this before, and then starting to second guess yourself. You’re no longer head of ops. You are head of research, making it up. It’s like you can play games with yourself and say, was I moved to head of research because I wasn’t doing a good job in ops or you can keep going down all these examples, but you’d written this idea of keeping track of your role in the scope of your role and knowing what’s under your control and knowing how to make sure that you don’t go into the landslide that feels really painful as the company changes and as more people come on board.

Michael Mizrahi (31:30):

You nailed it there, roles will change, especially in this kind of environment, being comfortable with that change, being aware of it, but also not going so far that you take on things that you’re really not well qualified to do, and you end up spending a lot more energy than you should on something that someone else who is qualified can very easily handle that without doing hours of research on something that someone already knows and has experience with. So you might be taking on things organically because you say yes and you jump into these things and take on responsibility, but be very mindful of that and don’t let that kind of role scope creep up on you too much. It’s easy to let that happen, and that’s when you end up with a lot of work and a lot of responsibility in plate that you’re actually not well suited to do. And that’s also a dangerous spot because that’s when you’re going to get overwhelmed, that’s when you feel like you’re behind and that’s when you’re not going to be able to perform and it just all cascades from there.

Ben Grynol (32:24):

Or work that you were the best suited person to do at the time when the company was five people. Out of the five people that were around, you were the best suited person to that thing. Even if you’re not professionally suited, let’s label it that, professionally suited to do it long term, you were the best at that time. And so having somebody come in to do that work, having the mindset, and this is the shift in mindset is having the mindset that you’re really happy that they’re here to do the work better than you did versus feeling like all the work that you’ve done is no longer valid or that they’re taking away things from you and the work that you could be doing or were once doing.

Ben Grynol (33:06):

If you don’t shift your mindset, everything will always be a lens on like, well, I should really be still doing that. Or I used to do that thing, but instead be happy and say, it’s amazing. Now I’ve got more bandwidth to do other things that I am now out of, let’s say it’s 50 people, the best person out of 50 to do that until we bring on more people who are going to be better than me to do this next thing, and then keep giving away and scaling your time.

Michael Mizrahi (33:35):

There’s that piece of once replacement and help has come and that’s all great and letting go and letting that happen. I think the second point here is that it’s also a little bit earlier. It’s like when you start taking on things that aren’t within your scope or that you’re not well qualified to handle, you can keep it afloat for some time, but don’t be fooled that that is something that you should be doing. Be honest with yourself. Feel like this is better suited by someone. I will keep it afloat for the next two months. But honestly, this is better for someone else, and that’s the point I think I’m trying to make here, is let it go, bring on the help because someone else is way better suited than you are.

Ben Grynol (34:11):

And call it out. It can be helpful to call it out to the rest of the team and just be, because then everyone knows where you stand on that issue. Hey, I know I’m not the, I’m going to make this up. I know I’m not the best tax accountant on a state by state basis. I’ve done my best job possible, but we’re going to need somebody eventually. That becomes the thing where everyone goes, oh, I get it. You’re not going to hold onto this thing. You actually realize just having that level of transparency that’s like, everyone else realizes that that person knows they shouldn’t be doing this thing long term. It’s super helpful because it sets the expectation of like great, we’re all on the same page about the state of this thing and where it’s going to go. There’s no ambiguity, clear the air onto the next.

Michael Mizrahi (34:58):

And it gives you some nice cover because now you don’t have to do a perfect job. There’s a level of trust and reflection, which say like, this is not my strong suit. I will do my best. I’m going to get the best resources and help that we can, but this isn’t my thing. And so don’t expect in the finance example, like me to be able to do our books as an accountant and run this at this level, that someone who is very well qualified and has done this for the last 10 or 15 years can come in and do in it with their eyes closed. So don’t expect that, I’ll keep it afloat, but let’s have reasonable expectations though. Expectation setting is a big one here and a big theme. The other theme is boundaries and self-awareness. Those are the things coming out.

Ben Grynol (35:38):

Is that your way of rationalizing being below the mean?

Michael Mizrahi (35:42):

It’s not the question.

Ben Grynol (35:44):

A good thing that you mentioned too, is not trying to be a superhero, connecting yourself with others and showing that vulnerability, Hey, I’m feeling really anxious about, let’s use like the, I’m feeling a little anxious about this state tax stuff. Let’s just keep riffing on this example. I’m feeling a little bit anxious about it and maybe on the edge of burnout, because it really feels like it is on the edge of my skill set, and I don’t want to lead us down the wrong path.

Ben Grynol (36:11):

I think we need to address this sooner than later with a true working professional. And somebody might say, great, it sounds like we need to outsource this to somebody else if we’re not going to bring on a full-time hire. Or they can help you work through it, and showing that vulnerability of the honesty with yourself and where you stand and the way you think about your role can just help to have that check in buddy. And it’s not about gossip or back channeling or anything, it’s about you having a conversation about the thoughts you have with somebody that you trust in as many people as you want to. And then they realize like, Hey, we all feel these things. No one is some superhero. No one’s on some pedestal. We don’t think of ourselves that way.

Michael Mizrahi (36:55):

Yeah. There’s two pieces here. The first is that sometimes just talking to someone about the concern, just naming it for yourself is very healthy and helpful and might actually diffuse a lot of the anxiety that you have around this certain thing. You might not even be looking for the help, you might just be looking for an outlet to express it. And so this is kind of like permission to talk to people if you’re concerned about something, like have a peer that you can relate to and just release some steam vent about a problem, you might not even be looking for a solution.

Michael Mizrahi (37:26):

The second piece is that when you talk about these problems and you admit that you’re human and you can’t do everything and you also invite in help, a lot of times those solutions that are obvious to someone else like, oh my friend did that, let me just give him a call and let them get on the phone with you and tell you what vendor to use and your problem will be solved in 10 minutes. You invite in help that you might not have otherwise connected the dots on, that you can’t solve yourself.

Michael Mizrahi (37:48):

So there’s an element of just having outlets and not bottling up these things that are on your mind. And the second order effect is that you might actually get help on the thing and help point you back in the right direction, because two minds are better than one. That’s the piece here is, it’s okay to talk about these things. Don’t feel like you’re the one responsible for this and therefore you have to be doing an exceptional job at it and have it all under control. It’s not realistic. We need [inaudible 00:38:14] on one another. We need to be honest about our capabilities, and we can’t be like calm above water and I’m freaking out underneath.

Ben Grynol (38:23):

The opposite side of that is, when on the initiation perspective, you initiate it. I come to you and I say, Hey, Miz, I want to open up and talk about these things. It’s hard to be vulnerable and talk about things that you’re anxious about and things that you’re feeling uneasy about because we’re human. And it’s just really hard to do those things. No matter how much you tell yourself, I’m going to do this, the opposite side is having somebody that minds for it, but not in a way where they’re digging aimlessly for some thread of gold in Iraq. What they’re trying to do is to check in. So having someone that just goes, especially where it’s helpful is maybe having somebody that you’re peers with or somebody that you talk with frequently and just saying like, how are you feeling about things?

Ben Grynol (39:16):

And sometimes doing that, showing enough that you care, somebody will say, I’m feeling a little anxious about this state tax thing. And just by opening up that conversation, like it would’ve never come up otherwise, but they open the door for that conversation to happen. And there’s two things, the next layer of it is, and this is where having the conversations can be helpful or maybe they can be frustrating.

Ben Grynol (39:45):

So somebody opens that door and they say, Hey, Miz, how are you feeling about things? And then you start talking. And what they start doing is they’re solutioning. And you say in the back of your mind, you just want to be like, stop. I’m not looking for a solution. I just want you to listen. I just want to tell you this stuff and I’m going to walk away. I’m going to feel a lot better. I just needed to talk about it. That’s it. And making the assumption that people want the solution immediately can be really hard.

Ben Grynol (40:18):

And so framing it as you open up, like the doors open up, how you’re feeling about things, you start talking. And when the opportunity arises, you say, do you want me to listen, or is this something that you want me to help work through with you? And just having that next layer of honesty and openness and transparency helps to get to a better place. Because if you say, I kind of do need help with the solution I don’t even know who to ask, all of that’s going to get a lot easier, but the opposite is you wanted somebody to listen. They solutioned, and you feel frustrated. You leave the conversation. You’re like, why do I even open up about these things? I’m not saying you would react that emotionally to it, but that’s sort of the brain is telling you there’s a reason why I didn’t open up about it. Because I just feel like the-

Michael Mizrahi (41:07):

Yeah, somewhere in the healthcare.

Ben Grynol (41:09):

Yeah. It’s not putting me in a place where I want to be.

Michael Mizrahi (41:10):

I think that’s something that sets great managers apart is they know when their job is to be a coach and they know when their job is just to listen and be an outlet. And there’s no reason we can’t do that as peers with one another as well. So something that we get in our culture where you have a lot of really solutions minded, rational thinkers, is that if someone states a problem, you’re going to jump in with solutions or ideas. And I think that’s okay. But yes, as the person sharing this is like, I’m actually not looking for input. I don’t want a solution. I just want to talk about this thing so that I can get it off my mind. That’s totally okay as well. Being open about that and just stating that four words up front, like I just want to say this out loud, I don’t need your help solving it can be very helpful and explicit.

Michael Mizrahi (41:56):

And then the expectations are clear and then you don’t walk away from that situation feeling like, Ugh, I shared this and now they think this, and now I’m supposed to be doing this and I’ve got all this spinning going on because I’ve opened up about this thing that I didn’t really want to. So it is just a really good listening, interpersonal skill to build. And the folks who are really good at it can just sense it without the other person even needed to say it. They can understand if someone’s coming with a problem or someone’s coming just looking for an outlet to talk to someone about it.

Ben Grynol (42:27):

And the next layer of it is, let’s just like, I like making up all these silly examples as you know, because why not, life should be a little fun in some ways, but no one will have a better lens on playing in the NFL than Flanigan. He’s been through this experience before and if somebody was wanting to play football and thinking about what it’s like to come up and some of the thoughts, he’s going to have a mentorship, we’ll call it that, a mentorship lens where he can provide this insight.

Ben Grynol (42:56):

And so if you extrapolate that to a startup, the same thing goes for people who might be earlier in their career, like one or two years outside of school, or this is their first job. Or maybe it’s like they’re still early in their career, providing that lens of check in, whether or not someone’s a manager. That can be helpful. Hey, wanted to know how are you feeling about things? It’s super informal. That’s one way, or someone else opens up the door in the past, and assume they’re not even on your team, but they’ve opened up that door in the past and you’ve provided some feedback. They said, Hey, I want to know what should I be thinking about the way things are changing at the company, and just taking that next step to do the check-in.

Ben Grynol (43:41):

It’s not a formal thing. It’s not agreed upon like, Hey, I’ve got a reminder and superhuman for three months from now to do a check-in. You just know in the back of your mind, I’m going to ping Miz to just see how’s Miz, like Billy. Let’s use Billy because it’s a bad example. But how’s Billy. I wonder how’s Billy doing? And then Billy appreciates that because that person knows that there are people that are thinking about them on this journey too. And Billy might have like 10 years of work experience, but hasn’t been through a high growth startup before to have that lens on what should things feel like? Is this weird? Is it fast? Is it slow? Is it level of discomfort, natural and those little check-ins make such a difference.

Michael Mizrahi (44:24):

Yeah. And this is basically an open invitation to the team to say, these are less likely to happen because you’re not going to see someone on your walk to work and you can kind of walk the last block and check in. So really just make it explicit. It’s in everyone’s interest to keep each other healthy. It’s in the interest of the company, it’s the interest of our goals and our outcomes to make sure that everyone that is here stays here and is in a healthy spot and doing their best work and in a good mind space. And so, there’s an element of caring for others here that’s good for the whole. And so if everyone has someone that checks-in on them in a somewhat organic way, we’ll be in a much better spot versus someone that gets lost in a corner and forgotten about and just kind of suffers and silence on their own, doesn’t bring things up, doesn’t have any outlets for it. That’s not going to be a good outcome.

Michael Mizrahi (45:11):

And so, very explicitly supporting and promoting these kinds of relationships, which to be honest, do happen organically for most people, but sometimes taking the extra effort to proactively check in on someone that you might have heard from before or might have a good relationship with is good for the whole. It’s good for everyone. And so, the don’t be a superhero thing is like one, take care of yourself. One, talk to others. And the last bit is like check in on others. Regardless of where you are, your obligation to others is to keep the system healthy. That’s the piece here that we wanted to communicate.

Ben Grynol (45:49):

So managing burnout is made up of compounding effort, we’ll call it that, is continuous and compounding effort that occurs over time. It’s not one thing that you do and then it’s done and you never have to do it again. Here’s the question for you is, what are you going to do today that is going to help you to mitigate against burnout? Recognize or not. I know for sure one thing for you, which is going to be interesting, that I’ve recognized in you.

Michael Mizrahi (46:24):

Given that you’ve said you know what I’m doing, I’d love to hear it.

Ben Grynol (46:28):

Having never met you, having never spent time with you. This is how well we know each other remotely. I know that you value your bedtime routine and it takes a lot to shift you off of that routine. You will do it if something is existential, but you hold true to it as a core part of your priority portfolio. So going to bed and maintaining your sleep hygiene is one of the things that you’ll likely do, this is my guess, one of the things you’ll likely do today that helps to compound over time and mitigating burnout. Right or wrong? [inaudible 00:47:15].

Michael Mizrahi (47:14):

100% right. 14 running days of hitting sleep target of night hours. Got to compete with Tom. I know he’s up there. And that’s one. I think healthy boundaries. So walking away at the end of the day, closing the computer saying you’re absolutely done. I saw a thread in the Water Cooler earlier today. I think Ian was asking for what other people do for their shutdown ritual and routine to keep it honest, because he felt like he was slipping in some spots where he checks in the morning and it he’s kind of overwhelmed. Things like that. There’s no one piece. It’s a little things that all get added together. Making sure that your mornings run the way you want them to. You make the space for the things that you want time for before you just jump right back in and mindlessly get into work. Because as soon as you open it up, it’s very easy to go deep and just look up a few hours later and get stuck.

Michael Mizrahi (48:03):

So working intentionally, building in time and space for personal routines and rituals and priorities. We’re lucky that we have the flexibility built in that allows people to live their lives the way they need to. If someone’s got a morning activity from 8:00 to 10:00, that’s totally fine. There’s not like a bunch of recurring meetings that are pinning them down. So a lot of that is very flexible and gives people the room to live their lives and work their lives the way they need to. I think we’re lucky to have that and we should make sure that we capitalize it and make sure that we’re using that to the fullest, to keep people in a really good spot.

Ben Grynol (48:37):

That is the key. The key is routine. It really is consistency, getting the reps in and routine. It’s burnout can happen when things get so far off of a routine that, and the routine is not, routine looks different to everyone. Routine is based on these habits, you have a habit of, a positive habit of good sleep hygiene. You have a habit of triaging communications in a certain way. You have a habit of, and things feel really, burnout can happen or things can start to feel anxiety inducing when they are outside of your core habits, whatever those might be. So it’s great to recognize those little things and then know what they are for you. What are your levers that give you that feeling of positivity and giving you that feeling of stability. I think stability is probably a good way of offsetting burnout.

Ben Grynol (49:33):

When you feel really grounded, burnout does not happen. It’s when you start to feel like your habits are slipping and the habits that you associate with positivity and with your identity and all these things, that all of a sudden you feel like you’re on the slippery slope of a mountain and you are no longer grounded, and that is sliding down the mountain into a path of burnout.

Michael Mizrahi (49:56):

The other one I would add on there is just the stability and routine is a sense of control and building in room for freedom. When you’re in control, when there are no surprises and where like, regardless of what comes, you’ve got a solid foundation, you’re pretty good to weather the storm that sits ahead.