Burned Out: Navigating the Edge of Exhaustion

[00:00:08] You are now listening to Black Guy Therapy, a therapeutic podcast.

[00:00:38] A residential doctor, so really Ray, aka Dr. Ray, what I call him. The boy not only a doctor, but he makes beats too.

[00:00:48] And he makes the beats.

[00:00:50] Man, he killed that one, didn't he? Straight up killed it. So shout out to Ray. We appreciate you, sir, for the new intro for Black Guy Therapy.

[00:01:03] And he kept it true to the old one, too.

[00:01:05] Oh yeah, he did. He did. He did. I like that. He's over there, got that thing. Feeling nice.

[00:01:12] Yeah.

[00:01:13] He got a little beats drop there.

[00:01:15] Yeah, I like that. And I actually went to his house and helped do that in his studio. He allowed me to do that. Thank you, sir.

[00:01:24] I felt like I was Lil Wayne in there.

[00:01:28] Anyway, welcome to Black Guy Therapy. This is your first time listening to us.

[00:01:33] We say this all the time when we start our intro with Therapeutic Podcast.

[00:01:38] We are a podcast designed for Black men to come and just vent.

[00:01:43] This is a safe space for us, right?

[00:01:45] This is a safe space for us to vent, talk about things that we probably wouldn't talk about in our normal everyday lives.

[00:01:50] So if you're here listening to us, thanks for coming.

[00:01:54] We hope that you get something out of this. And welcome.

[00:01:58] But anyway, it's me, your boy Todd, AKA TC.

[00:02:03] Whatever you want to call me. And I got my boy, Derrod here.

[00:02:05] So, you know, we have our, our, our slew of doctors and I'm the only one that's not one, which is amazing.

[00:02:11] Cause now I feel like, cause here's the thing we got, we got a pharmacist.

[00:02:16] We got a mental health doctor.

[00:02:18] We got a, uh, MD, right?

[00:02:22] We got a medical doctor, right?

[00:02:24] We got, we got a, we even have a lawyer.

[00:02:27] We have a residential lawyer on the show now.

[00:02:29] You're a Jewish doctorate?

[00:02:30] Yeah, we got them all except for me.

[00:02:32] I'm just, I'm just happy to be here.

[00:02:36] You set yourself short over here, man.

[00:02:40] I guess.

[00:02:41] You got a lot of talents going on, man.

[00:02:43] I have, I have a few, I have a few.

[00:02:45] Look, one talent being, I got us together for this podcast.

[00:02:51] That's one, right?

[00:02:52] And law enforcement, you know what I mean?

[00:02:55] Like you got, you got a bunch of random things.

[00:02:59] Yeah.

[00:02:59] A bunch of randomness wrapped up in one.

[00:03:02] Oh, well, yeah, I guess you got law enforcement, cyber security, corporate security.

[00:03:09] I guess I can secure some things maybe.

[00:03:13] No, no.

[00:03:15] No business background, you know.

[00:03:18] That too.

[00:03:19] I guess I do real estate too.

[00:03:20] I got a real estate license.

[00:03:22] Real estate license.

[00:03:23] You own a farm?

[00:03:24] I do.

[00:03:24] I do.

[00:03:25] I do.

[00:03:26] You're a farmer.

[00:03:27] You know?

[00:03:28] I am a farmer.

[00:03:28] Farmer Todd, what they call me.

[00:03:31] I ain't farmed nothing on there yet.

[00:03:33] Just cut down trees.

[00:03:35] And my home's dead, you know what I mean?

[00:03:37] Oh man.

[00:03:39] But yeah.

[00:03:39] And obviously we could go on for days, but if this, again, this is your first time listening

[00:03:44] to us.

[00:03:44] We are just a group of black men just here for each other.

[00:03:48] And this is, this is a therapy session.

[00:03:50] Again, we're a therapeutic podcast.

[00:03:52] We can't say that enough.

[00:03:53] We're here for you.

[00:03:54] But anyway, Gerard, how are you this week, sir?

[00:03:57] I am doing well.

[00:03:59] You know, I really can't complain too much.

[00:04:03] Been just hanging out with the family over the weekend and my mom came in town and we

[00:04:09] were just getting to hang out and just enjoy each other.

[00:04:12] So, you know, I can't complain.

[00:04:14] She came to help out.

[00:04:15] So I had a little bit of free time.

[00:04:16] You know, I got to see some old friends, you know, college friends, you know, Jonathan

[00:04:21] Hefner, he got to come in town, hang out with Antoine Stewart.

[00:04:26] And so we hung out a little bit and man, I've been doing good, you know?

[00:04:32] I feel like a dirt bag because I fell asleep.

[00:04:35] Y'all text me early and was like, I was like, where y'all at?

[00:04:38] They was like, we at your house, right?

[00:04:40] They at your house.

[00:04:41] And then next thing I know, I wake up, it's like two in the morning and y'all was like,

[00:04:47] we at LA Jackson.

[00:04:48] I was like, oh, whoops.

[00:04:51] There you go.

[00:04:52] They continued that I had to come home.

[00:04:54] So, you know what I mean?

[00:04:55] But they had a ball.

[00:04:57] Now, remind me, is LA Jackson where we got escorted out of Peyton Manning's retirement

[00:05:05] party because of Antoine?

[00:05:08] That would be correct.

[00:05:09] Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:05:12] Yeah.

[00:05:17] You know, every now and then somebody has one of those nights and that was his night.

[00:05:21] So that was his night and and couldn't have been on the biggest night for somebody else.

[00:05:27] Right.

[00:05:29] Peyton Matty.

[00:05:29] Right.

[00:05:30] I know.

[00:05:31] We made it into the room.

[00:05:32] It was like, yeah, yeah.

[00:05:34] Yeah.

[00:05:34] I might want to get him some help.

[00:05:37] He heard me right now.

[00:05:38] Like, I.

[00:05:39] Yeah.

[00:05:39] Yeah.

[00:05:41] When Peyton comes over and says, hey, whose man is this?

[00:05:45] I made them.

[00:05:46] I was like, oh, that's my man.

[00:05:50] Let's go.

[00:05:51] Let's go grab him.

[00:05:53] Get him out of here.

[00:05:56] Oh, that was bad.

[00:05:57] That was bad.

[00:05:58] But we had a great time.

[00:06:00] Oh, we did.

[00:06:01] We did.

[00:06:01] I mean, great.

[00:06:03] Great time.

[00:06:03] You know, how about yourself, man?

[00:06:04] How you doing?

[00:06:05] Oh, you know, I can't complain.

[00:06:07] I'm just happy to be here.

[00:06:09] Life's good.

[00:06:10] I woke up on this side of the grass, so I cannot complain.

[00:06:15] Ah, that is the best thing to say, man.

[00:06:18] That's right.

[00:06:18] Your problems are a blessing because you're here and you're living them.

[00:06:21] Exactly.

[00:06:22] Always.

[00:06:23] Money in my pocket, food on my table.

[00:06:25] Family's good.

[00:06:27] Can't complain.

[00:06:29] Man.

[00:06:29] So.

[00:06:30] Ain't nobody gonna listen anyway, so.

[00:06:32] Nah.

[00:06:33] Not at all.

[00:06:34] Not at all.

[00:06:35] But, yeah, we're in a weird season.

[00:06:38] This is election season.

[00:06:40] I don't know if you've been paying attention to anything that's going on, but it looks like

[00:06:45] one of the campaigns is getting out of pocket.

[00:06:48] I would agree.

[00:06:49] I think today was a lot out of pocket.

[00:06:51] This I heard about, you know, I mean, you want to be, don't judge anyone for their

[00:06:56] political views and things that they want to.

[00:06:59] And I was telling someone the other day, like, I don't care who you vote for, but I feel

[00:07:05] like if you're voting for someone for reasons that are incorrect at that point, I'm like,

[00:07:11] I can provide some like basis for like, oh, whoever it is.

[00:07:15] I don't want someone to lie on someone to make them look worse than, than they would be

[00:07:20] in any case.

[00:07:22] So if someone has some things that they're like, I'm voting for this person because of

[00:07:26] this.

[00:07:26] This is what I heard.

[00:07:27] It's like, well, that may not be true.

[00:07:29] What you've, what you've heard.

[00:07:32] Um, that's, that's the thing that bothers me.

[00:07:34] The most of the times it's just some of the, some of those things.

[00:07:37] And, you know, it's this political season.

[00:07:40] So you're gonna hear a lot of it.

[00:07:42] Absolutely.

[00:07:43] And I try not to get too involved.

[00:07:44] I have done my duty.

[00:07:45] I've already early voted.

[00:07:47] So, uh, I, I did my job and, uh, I, I try to keep that to myself again.

[00:07:53] This is, this is a therapeutic podcast, not a political podcast, but I think that it's

[00:07:57] important in this election season that people protect their peace.

[00:08:01] Uh, because right now, even I saw today, I read a news article today where in Texas, a,

[00:08:07] a poll worker got punched out by, uh, well, by somebody wearing a, uh, Trump, uh, like MAGA

[00:08:17] shirt.

[00:08:19] And, um, now that person is going to, or I say they're going to prison.

[00:08:24] Uh, they, the article read that they would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the

[00:08:29] law, which, which to me being a former law enforcement person means that they're going

[00:08:34] to make an example out of that person.

[00:08:36] Right.

[00:08:36] So that punching out a poll worker that carries a felony, uh, along with three years, a maximum

[00:08:45] of three years in prison in Texas, just in that state.

[00:08:50] So, oh, and they can hit that guy with, uh, elderly abuse too.

[00:08:55] Cause the poll worker he punched out was older.

[00:08:57] Um, so yeah, all that to say it's not worth, it's not worth your piece.

[00:09:04] There's no politics worth the violence.

[00:09:06] Right.

[00:09:07] Yes.

[00:09:08] Politics at the end of the day, everybody's, you know, trying to win for one reason or the

[00:09:13] other.

[00:09:13] So it's a lot of different reasons out there.

[00:09:17] You know, you can have your own, you know, thoughts and, you know, behaviors that you think

[00:09:21] people are kind of acting upon.

[00:09:23] So, and what, what else they have happened today?

[00:09:26] I think some in like Seattle or, uh, Oh yeah.

[00:09:30] So there was a ballot.

[00:09:31] Somebody set a ballot box on fire.

[00:09:33] So I think like hundreds, yeah.

[00:09:35] Hundreds of ballots were, were burned.

[00:09:38] So.

[00:09:40] And, um, trying to keep some, I think in South Carolina to keeping some students from

[00:09:44] being able to vote because, you know, they turned 18 before the election and they just wouldn't

[00:09:52] let them register, you know, and Alexa talking, but the, uh, they were inaccurate in what they

[00:10:00] did in a system.

[00:10:01] But then they're like state Supreme court, I believe upheld it, that they didn't have to

[00:10:05] let them vote, even though they made a mistake.

[00:10:07] You would think they were like, Oh, we made a mistake.

[00:10:09] Let's go ahead and settle this.

[00:10:11] But of course, you know.

[00:10:14] Yeah.

[00:10:14] I've never understood.

[00:10:15] We encourage people to vote.

[00:10:17] We give a lot of people the day off to vote, but yet the states who encourage open and

[00:10:25] fair elections do things that sometimes don't always look open and fair.

[00:10:31] Yeah.

[00:10:33] So those historically wouldn't vote the way that they would like.

[00:10:37] Exactly.

[00:10:39] Exactly.

[00:10:40] So sometimes it baffles me.

[00:10:43] Yeah.

[00:10:43] Yeah.

[00:10:44] We, we, you know, I pay attention.

[00:10:46] I listen, I look, I watch, you know, you don't want to have conspiracy theories, but

[00:10:50] evidence has proven that these things are, are true from courts of law.

[00:10:54] So.

[00:10:55] Yeah.

[00:10:56] It's, it's, it's all that to say, Hey, it's election season.

[00:11:00] Get out and vote, go vote for whoever you think is the best candidate, uh, for your situation.

[00:11:06] I would say, right.

[00:11:09] Exactly.

[00:11:09] But at the end of the day, there's an Indian proverb and I hate saying Indian, a native

[00:11:14] American proverb that says left wing, right wing, they're still, uh, wings of the same

[00:11:20] bird.

[00:11:21] So at the end of the day, it's one system.

[00:11:23] Um, even though you think you're on either side of it, but do your due diligence, do your

[00:11:28] own research, research.

[00:11:31] I mean, we are, you know, black guy therapy and there's been a lot in the news about black

[00:11:35] men here recently.

[00:11:36] So that's why we speak on, you know, vote your conscience, but just have the correct

[00:11:42] information.

[00:11:42] And like, if you vote for somebody for a specific reason and that's why you day go for it, but

[00:11:48] just make sure you have the right information out there.

[00:11:52] We're not a monolith.

[00:11:53] We all have different, you know, things that we value.

[00:11:57] Um, so I'll leave it at that.

[00:12:00] I, the last, like the last election, I was working in the barbershops a lot and I heard

[00:12:03] a lot of different conversations.

[00:12:05] So that was very eye opening.

[00:12:08] Oh, I'm sure you did.

[00:12:09] I'm sure you did.

[00:12:10] I'm sure you heard this one.

[00:12:12] Cause I've heard this one a lot.

[00:12:13] And this is my last thing.

[00:12:14] Cause we are not a political podcast.

[00:12:16] We are a therapeutic podcast.

[00:12:18] Yeah.

[00:12:19] The steamies.

[00:12:19] They, we got them steamies.

[00:12:22] Hey man, people's man.

[00:12:24] They love them steamies, man.

[00:12:26] It was, I ain't gotta go here.

[00:12:28] I ain't gotta do that.

[00:12:29] On top of this, let me find me an odd job that I can do.

[00:12:33] Save me a here and there.

[00:12:35] I got the stemmy.

[00:12:37] Yeah.

[00:12:38] And if you've listened to this podcast before, you know, we've had a political, a political

[00:12:42] commentator on Jasper Hendricks, right?

[00:12:45] Who was actually one of the electors, uh, for Hillary Clinton.

[00:12:51] So, um, I know who would have thought, man, that was, that was, that was, my mind was

[00:12:56] blown when I found out that he was one of those guys.

[00:13:00] Yeah.

[00:13:01] And he's, and he's doing big things.

[00:13:03] He's doing big things.

[00:13:04] He has a couple of groups.

[00:13:05] Uh, he just started a pack here.

[00:13:07] Um, and he's doing some things in Washington.

[00:13:09] So we should probably get him back on.

[00:13:11] This would actually be a great time to get him back.

[00:13:13] Yeah.

[00:13:13] We might need to get him next week just to kind of talk about different things.

[00:13:17] I mean, we are, you know, local here to have a bill thinking, well, it'll affect you quite

[00:13:23] as much as it does myself in Nashville.

[00:13:25] They're trying to get a lot of people to kind of talk about the, um, transportation bills

[00:13:30] they got coming up.

[00:13:31] So, you know.

[00:13:32] They ain't got nothing to do with me.

[00:13:33] Not me.

[00:13:36] But oh, well, like I said, we're a therapeutic podcast, not a political podcast.

[00:13:40] So we're going to move right on over.

[00:13:42] Uh, so today you're here and you're here for a reason.

[00:13:46] We want to talk about burnout.

[00:13:48] Oh yes.

[00:13:49] Burn, burnout is, is interesting.

[00:13:51] And I'm gonna let, uh, Gerard tell us, tell us a little bit more about burnout.

[00:13:55] But we just jump in.

[00:13:57] All right.

[00:13:58] Yeah.

[00:13:58] We want to just talk about burnout.

[00:13:59] We know this is a, um, condition when you got a lot of people being, you know, overworked.

[00:14:06] Burnout is specific for individuals in the workforce, even though you can have some burnout

[00:14:11] and, you know, like in the home, especially if you, um, have a lot of responsibilities

[00:14:17] where you're taking care of, care of children or an elderly parent is specifically tailored

[00:14:23] towards work in this instance.

[00:14:26] And that could be your work of choice.

[00:14:28] Um, so you could be, um, a mom, stay at home, a mom, dad, or, you know, just any of those things.

[00:14:36] But there is a specific thing or a definition for burnout and it has three different characteristics.

[00:14:43] So the first one would be emotional exhaustion.

[00:14:47] So you just feel like you're exhausted.

[00:14:50] Now this is more than just being tired.

[00:14:52] You're feeling drained, depleted, fatigued.

[00:14:55] Um, so that's kind of the first one.

[00:14:58] The next one is what they consider depersonalization or cynicism, where you're a cynic about your work,

[00:15:04] where you view everything that you do is like very negative.

[00:15:07] Um, so especially towards your job or your colleagues and also, uh, reduced like personal accomplishments.

[00:15:16] So anything you do, you don't think, oh, this is not going to work.

[00:15:18] Um, you not don't feel like you're as effective as you previously were, um, leading to like decreased achievements.

[00:15:26] So all three of those things have to be there before you could consider yourself burnt out.

[00:15:31] Not just one, two or three, um, but all three together.

[00:15:36] And I think sometimes, you know, you, you're feeling tired and it's good to put a name on some of these things because I know as a man, um, sometimes we get caught up in like a lot of different emotions, but we just lean to those being like mad.

[00:15:52] And I'm sad, number one, like I'm sad, angry, uh, you know, I'm happy.

[00:15:57] Like we have like four or five different emotions that we have.

[00:16:01] And if we don't learn how to, you know, define those emotions and like, see what's really causing them.

[00:16:09] Um, I've been getting into a lot of psychology books myself.

[00:16:13] And one of the biggest things, me and my wife talk about this realizations that we have is always trying to figure out why you're feeling the way that you feel.

[00:16:20] Because if you don't understand the why you're going to constantly be caught up in those emotions and, um, you're, you're, you should feel the way you feel, but you should know why you feel the way you feel.

[00:16:34] And that helps you kind of get, get on with that.

[00:16:37] And I think this podcast today, we'll just kind of discuss this and the particular facets of burnout on, on black men and some of the like stigmas that, um, that play a role in black men being, being faced with, with burnout and not being able to, you know, talk about it kind of as much.

[00:16:57] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:16:59] And maybe if time allows, we might have our mental health specialists just show up, might just pop in the studio.

[00:17:10] We would hope so.

[00:17:12] Um, so, but yeah, you know, I, you being a pharmacist and we're talking about burnout, this is just something that just popped on the, into my mind and not just a question that I have.

[00:17:26] Is there medicine?

[00:17:27] I know there's, I mean, burnout is an, is an interesting thing, but is there any medicines that people try to use or, or, or can be prescribed for feelings of burnout?

[00:17:40] Because it sounds like there's a lot of different, uh, things that go into it, right?

[00:17:46] Stress or, you know, physical, mental, uh, emotional exhaustion.

[00:17:51] Is there, some would say coffee, right?

[00:17:55] Coffee fixes that, right?

[00:17:56] It gives you all those things.

[00:17:57] It gives you a boost of energy.

[00:17:58] Yeah.

[00:17:59] But, but is there something that like medicine wise that can be, or is that not a thing?

[00:18:06] What I would say about that is it would depend probably on the person and what other things that they have going on.

[00:18:14] Right.

[00:18:14] So you have someone who has a tendency, um, to be depressed or they are more likely to be depressed.

[00:18:25] Cause we all have our genetics and epigenetics, um, type of things where if you have a certain type of stressor in this person's life, at that point, you may become depressed or anxious or stress more than others.

[00:18:40] Just because you had that, that other type of stressor, you may be more apt to become anxious, depressed.

[00:18:49] And in those situations, um, they do have specific medications that they have that can help alleviate some of those emotions that you're feeling.

[00:19:00] But to be most effective, these medications have been shown to be most effective if you have some type of therapy from a therapist, as we have on our podcast.

[00:19:12] And then you can talk to and kind of try to, again, why do I feel this way?

[00:19:17] Did I have some type of like childhood, um, dilemma or problem that caused me to feel this way?

[00:19:25] Um, did someone hurt me in a relationship previously that caused me to feel this way?

[00:19:31] Did someone, um, make me feel like I couldn't trust them?

[00:19:38] So now I can't trust anyone at work and now I'm feeling stressed.

[00:19:41] I can't talk to this person because I feel like they're going to turn, turn me in or turn their back on me.

[00:19:47] And now I just got to keep all this inside.

[00:19:49] Now you just explode on somebody and all that.

[00:19:53] And some of those things can be controlled by medications.

[00:19:56] And they have these medications.

[00:19:58] Have you heard of SSRIs?

[00:20:00] No, what is an SSRI?

[00:20:03] Uh, this is a serotonin reptake inhibitor.

[00:20:06] Um, well, selective serotonin reptake inhibitor.

[00:20:09] So those are some of the mainstays of, you know, depression treatment and anxiety treatment.

[00:20:13] Um, have SSRIs, SNRIs, that's those denorapinephrine in there as well.

[00:20:19] Um, and all these medications, they kind of work in your, in your brain to kind of, um, and it generally takes about, you know, six, eight weeks before it's truly effective.

[00:20:34] And a lot of our patients, we counsel them to make sure you take it for at least that long because you won't truly see the full effectiveness of it until you, um, take it for an extended period of time.

[00:20:46] But they do have, why is that?

[00:20:47] Why does medicine do that?

[00:20:48] I mean, I've been taking it for a month.

[00:20:50] Why are y'all telling me it's going to take two months for it to work?

[00:20:53] How does that break that down for me?

[00:20:56] Most of the time, yeah.

[00:20:58] The reason that we, you know, tell patients that due to clinical trials, most of them have to go through a certain process to, to be accredited and to be licensed.

[00:21:09] And they'll do all the research and they'll look at all the patients that they gave the medication to, and they'll be able to tell us.

[00:21:15] So this is the, you know, onset of action for this particular medication.

[00:21:20] And so what they have done is they did the, the due diligence.

[00:21:24] They knew it worked, um, more, you know, quickly for someone who may first just have anxiety, but for depression, it will take an extended period of time.

[00:21:33] And they do have other medications and a similar class to these.

[00:21:36] And most of the time it's a, uh, thing where you try this and if it works good, but if not, we'll try something different.

[00:21:45] And so, um, if patients are dealing with, you know, severe depression at times, they'll, you know, they would have tried several different modalities and different medications.

[00:21:56] But I mean, for me just doing the reading and I've done, it's so important to have a therapist to talk to about these things, um, you know, before taking medication and then why you're taking medication.

[00:22:08] Um, as well to kind of help prevent again, like cynicism kind of starts kicking in where you just a cynic about everything.

[00:22:16] Like, I can't, my bosses don't know what they're talking about.

[00:22:20] Um, they got this new initiative at the company.

[00:22:23] They don't know what this is not going to do anything.

[00:22:25] I don't know why I'm doing this.

[00:22:27] I don't know why I'm here.

[00:22:28] And, um, after a while it causes you to be a little anxious.

[00:22:32] So then at that point, I would think, um, some of the medications could possibly help you kind of alleviate some of those things.

[00:22:39] But again, I'm a, I'm a big proponent of a therapist, you know, we're black guy therapy.

[00:22:44] So find you a local therapist and, uh, if they have them available to you.

[00:22:49] Uh, so it's harder to find, especially in our area.

[00:22:53] Haven't been able to find very many, but we got one, we got one on our show.

[00:22:58] We got the one.

[00:23:01] But yeah, to answer your question.

[00:23:03] Yeah.

[00:23:03] They do have some medications.

[00:23:04] I think that could help with certain parts of burnout.

[00:23:07] But again, as we spoke about this, the three kind of deep, three different variables that, that cause, um, burnout.

[00:23:15] So with one of those for sure, with that emotional exhaustion, feeling drained and, and stressed and anxious, I feel like it could help with, with that somewhat.

[00:23:25] Hmm.

[00:23:26] So I want to talk about something.

[00:23:27] I work burnout.

[00:23:29] I think, I think me, you, anybody else who's listened, who has ever worked in their life is probably experienced work burnout.

[00:23:38] Even if they knew they were experiencing it or not.

[00:23:42] Right.

[00:23:42] Right.

[00:23:44] A lot of people we overlook, and this is just, this is my opinion, right?

[00:23:50] This is just me talking.

[00:23:51] I think a lot of people, cause I've seen it, right?

[00:23:53] I was a, I was a manager, uh, and I've seen people burn out and you can, it's weird when you're the manager looking at the team versus you in, in the suck, as they say.

[00:24:10] But just from my experience, I'm going to talk about the, some of the causes and some of the things that I've seen in corporate America that, that, that, that causes that burnout that we're, that we're speaking about.

[00:24:22] If you're listening to this and you working in any of these areas and you feel this, please, like we said, seek some help, do some therapy, listen to us.

[00:24:32] I don't know.

[00:24:32] Do something.

[00:24:35] But no, like one of those things is, is high workload.

[00:24:39] Have you ever been anybody out there?

[00:24:41] You ever been in a situation where you have this high excessive workload, where it just seems like you have so many responsibilities.

[00:24:49] You have so many tight deadlines.

[00:24:52] You just can't stay afloat.

[00:24:55] You ever felt like that, Drew?

[00:24:57] Oh yeah.

[00:24:57] Yeah.

[00:24:58] That's yes.

[00:25:00] That feeling of overwhelm of, man, I can do all I can and I'm still not going to get this done.

[00:25:07] Yeah.

[00:25:07] Yeah.

[00:25:08] Yeah.

[00:25:08] It's a helpless feeling sometimes you just, and in those moments, it's like, what do I do?

[00:25:13] Like, I know I'm, somebody's telling me I need to get this done.

[00:25:17] Right.

[00:25:17] And I'm like, I'm crying.

[00:25:18] I'm doing my best.

[00:25:20] Right.

[00:25:21] And that, and, and see, that's one of the things that I hear, right?

[00:25:25] I'm trying to get it done.

[00:25:26] I'm doing my best.

[00:25:28] And it seems as if a lot of companies, not all, but a lot, especially your tech companies have shifted to a, uh, what's it called a performance culture.

[00:25:40] So you're competing against your peer all the time.

[00:25:46] So even if you're doing a good job, you still have to be ranked against your peer.

[00:25:51] And if your peer was doing better than you, even though you hit all your goals, your company could still let you go.

[00:26:00] So you have that added stress too.

[00:26:02] Right.

[00:26:02] And, and people don't even, they don't even think about these things or maybe they do.

[00:26:07] And, and that just adds onto the plate.

[00:26:11] So I think that's one thing that we had talked about at our, um, some of our meetings about setting realistic goals for, for people, even though we have a really high goal.

[00:26:22] If you set an unrealistic goal for someone, then they can never reach that expectation at times.

[00:26:29] And then what's that going to cause cynicism?

[00:26:32] Like, yeah, what I'm trying to get this goal, but I don't think it's achievable.

[00:26:38] And no one around me thinks it's achievable.

[00:26:40] And I mean, we, we play sports, you know, we try to reach the highest goal as possible, but there's a point when, you know, your limitations and we have to try to try to do something about that.

[00:26:53] Yeah.

[00:26:55] Yeah.

[00:26:56] That it, and this is obviously our backgrounds.

[00:27:01] We both have a sports background and you go back to sports.

[00:27:06] And I think that's, it's almost as if the sport that we play prepared us for this for burnout, because I can guarantee you when you're looking at work burnout.

[00:27:19] And obviously we've just talked about high workload, but you brought up the lack of control, right?

[00:27:24] That feeling, feeling powerless, not able to control the outcomes, right?

[00:27:30] Or influence, even influence the outcomes.

[00:27:33] Um, limited type support.

[00:27:36] I didn't talk about this, but I'm, I'll bring this in where, where it feel like you don't have that support system.

[00:27:41] And I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm going somewhere with this, right?

[00:27:44] Because I'm, I'm thinking twofold.

[00:27:46] I'm thinking football and I'm thinking, excuse me.

[00:27:50] And I'm thinking corporate.

[00:27:52] And when you have, excuse me.

[00:27:55] And when you have this, you just have all this stress and it literally will burn you out.

[00:28:05] Yeah.

[00:28:06] That's the stress, the, uh, no support, all of those things, like you just spoke about will leave you stress.

[00:28:17] It will leave you unfortunately, you know, in a, in a worse place because now you're anxious.

[00:28:27] Now depression starts to creep in.

[00:28:30] You're taking it out on family members.

[00:28:33] You're taking it out on friends, you know?

[00:28:37] And now they're, you know, you kind of being forced into a cocoon because I feel like the walls are coming in on you because you are so stressed and you don't know what to do with it.

[00:28:48] And if you're not talking to someone, it's all just kind of being self intertwined and you're going into a little cocoon and feel like you're all alone.

[00:28:55] And once we get there, it's hard to get out of that, that, that hole.

[00:29:04] Yeah.

[00:29:05] Yeah.

[00:29:05] Have you, have you ever had these feelings when you, when you had, or when you felt the burnout coming on?

[00:29:13] I think I've had all of these that chronic fatigue or, or just lack of energy.

[00:29:19] Like, I just don't want to do anything.

[00:29:21] Yeah.

[00:29:22] Or that, you know, having that irritability, being irritable all the time, being pissed off, as they say, and just frustrated.

[00:29:30] Sometimes you have that social withdrawal or you isolate yourself or you do crazy out of your, out of your character things.

[00:29:41] Right.

[00:29:41] Or you have the physical symptoms.

[00:29:45] And I think that's one that we don't talk about the physical symptoms where you have constant headaches, you have stomach aches, you have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, things like that.

[00:29:57] You ever had any of those when you, when you had it?

[00:30:00] Yeah.

[00:30:01] I don't know.

[00:30:02] I mean, I can tell you, I saw, thinking about community pharmacy or, you know, retail as some people call it.

[00:30:10] And just working there at like your local, like CVS, Walgreens.

[00:30:13] I worked at a CVS kind of slash target, but, you know, especially around like flu season and the busier times of the year.

[00:30:22] Um, I think pharmacy was one of those, um, like institutions that definitely wants you to do more with less.

[00:30:31] A lot of times to kind of increase profits and burnout is rampant amongst pharmacists.

[00:30:38] A lot of times things have gotten better, get gotten better because it was so much burnout out there.

[00:30:44] And it was focused on, um, because, you know, we should not get a lunch, man.

[00:30:49] Like we were considered managers there.

[00:30:52] So as long as you were considered a manager, you know, by state law, you don't have to be provided a lunch.

[00:30:59] So that meant that at any point in time, if you tried to sit down and eat, if someone needed to be counseled on a medication, you had to get up and go do that.

[00:31:07] So no uninterrupted lunch.

[00:31:09] And if it's that busy where there's a ton of lines and lines of people that have a lot, another law that says a pharmacist should counsel you, especially in the state of Tennessee, to counsel you on every medication, new medication that you have.

[00:31:21] So just imagine you have a bunch of new medications.

[00:31:23] You're trying to eat lunch.

[00:31:24] Every one of them needs to be counseled.

[00:31:25] So you don't get that lunch and it just kind of keeps going.

[00:31:28] And every day is kind of just grind you down more and more things to do.

[00:31:32] You're given vaccinations.

[00:31:33] You're given, you know, checking these medications.

[00:31:35] You got kids that are sick.

[00:31:37] You got, you know, people that are sick on their worst day.

[00:31:40] You want to, you know, give them the best customer service that you can.

[00:31:43] And with all that pressure being on you at times, it can lead to, you know, that burnout, that feeling of, y'all want me to do, you want me to do what now?

[00:31:53] I don't feel like I have the, you know, the staff or the capability to reach these goals that you're putting for me.

[00:31:59] So what am I even doing?

[00:32:01] You know, and in those moments, you just kind of kind of feel it.

[00:32:05] The only thing you can do is look at people and got the phone ringing.

[00:32:09] You like, hey, people, I'll be with you as soon as possible.

[00:32:13] So for all y'all out there, y'all see your pharmacist struggling, you know, give them a pat on the back.

[00:32:18] Say, I understand what's going on because a lot of them out there, especially if you, I saw a video the other day.

[00:32:24] I was going to speak about this.

[00:32:25] The lady, she got so stressed.

[00:32:27] She just, I can't do it anymore.

[00:32:30] She shut the gate of the pharmacy and just left, left everybody sitting out there.

[00:32:36] Wow.

[00:32:36] Was she the only one working?

[00:32:38] She was the only, I mean, most of the time it's only one pharmacist working, but you know, it was a technician's, hers being one pharmacist.

[00:32:46] She, you know, just had it with so much going on in the pharmacy and you know, everybody's looking at her cause you feel like you're in a fishbowl cause everybody can see you.

[00:32:54] And everybody's looking at you to get them what they need.

[00:32:56] Right.

[00:32:56] And then, you know, people are sick too at times when they come to the pharmacy.

[00:33:00] So I understand they need what they need, but everybody's like focused on you.

[00:33:04] Like you have 15 eyes looking at you and you like trying to figure it out insurance issues are going on and you're trying to talk with them.

[00:33:10] And, and so I can, that sense of overwhelm that you can get when everyone's looking at you and expecting something from you.

[00:33:18] If you don't know how to deal with that stress and you have to do that day after day after day, especially in that profession that I'm in.

[00:33:29] Luckily I don't do it as much anymore, but for my colleagues, it can be very stressful and burnout is a big factor in the pharmacy profession.

[00:33:39] They're trying to do better with it, trying to get some legislation out there to help, help our pharmacists.

[00:33:43] But it's a thing, man. So yeah, thanks for asking about that because in the world of pharmacy, it's rampant at times, just depending on how busy your story is.

[00:33:55] It can be bad and devastating.

[00:34:00] And I feel like it shouldn't be that way.

[00:34:02] I feel like there was for a long or not for a long time, but in the recent past, I thought there was like a wave of brand new pharmacists out here working to kind of help alleviate that.

[00:34:14] Is that not the case anymore?

[00:34:18] So with the way that they, that the corporations do things for the most part, even though what he did have a lot of more pharmacists that came to have a lot of pharmacy schools that opened more recently,

[00:34:31] probably the last 10 years or so.

[00:34:35] They, they didn't necessarily make the working conditions better for them.

[00:34:41] They just, you know, condensed store hours a little bit more.

[00:34:46] And then they put more work on the pharmacist.

[00:34:49] So if you noticed, you know, pharmacists used to just dispense mostly medications, but then we added on vaccinations too.

[00:34:56] Right.

[00:34:57] So all your flu shots and the COVID vaccines came.

[00:35:00] Right.

[00:35:00] So then that's just added responsibilities.

[00:35:04] And then on top of that, they, you know, the pharmacy started doing the, was it like the COVID tests that they do now?

[00:35:11] So like test to treat things.

[00:35:13] So now a lot of different pharmacies are actually doing, you know, you can get a flu test.

[00:35:19] See if you have the flu currently.

[00:35:20] We see if you have COVID.

[00:35:21] Um, they have some tests out to check for UTIs for, for females.

[00:35:28] Um, you can get blood tests done at the, at the pharmacy.

[00:35:32] So you have all these different things that are coming in, but they're not really giving you any more work for us to do it.

[00:35:38] You just have to do it amongst the time that you are required to do the other thing.

[00:35:42] So no, it's, it hadn't gotten much better.

[00:35:46] They had more people to come out.

[00:35:47] Well, um, and the interesting part is they're actually closing a lot of stores.

[00:35:52] Now, um, a lot of Walgreens, a lot of CVS stores are closing, creating what they consider a pharmacy desert.

[00:36:00] So, uh, so patients, especially those who don't have transportation or, you know, starting to feel it because they're closing some of these stores and, um, patients can't get accessible medication because they have to drive really far walk.

[00:36:16] Um, so if you don't have a car, it makes it kind of hard in America to kind of get around a lot of times.

[00:36:22] There's some select cities, of course, you can get around without one, but yeah.

[00:36:27] Yeah.

[00:36:29] Well, I look, obviously we could, you work in pharmacy.

[00:36:33] We can go on for days about that, that type of burnout.

[00:36:36] Um, but I'll say this, obviously we're at the, we're closer, we're closer to the end of our time.

[00:36:44] Maybe we should talk about fighting burnout.

[00:36:48] Cause I feel like that's something that people should know.

[00:36:51] Right.

[00:36:52] Um, I think so fight and burnout.

[00:36:58] Go ahead, go ahead.

[00:37:00] Fight and burnout.

[00:37:01] No, I want you to go, man.

[00:37:03] I think, you know, the fight burnouts, you have to, you know, number one, like name it.

[00:37:08] And especially for, um, African American males out there, we have a, um, I would say a more likelihood of, uh, emotional suppression or like to call it like stoicism where we just want to be stoic.

[00:37:26] Even though the more and more pressure comes on us, it's like, I can handle everything.

[00:37:31] Um, I can do what I need to do in the, in the face of all this pressure, all this weight.

[00:37:38] You're not going to see me sweat, right?

[00:37:39] That's kind of one of the things, how I dealt with it myself.

[00:37:42] It's like, okay, I'm gonna have a cool face on, even though it may be eating me up inside.

[00:37:46] I'm not going to let them see my struggle.

[00:37:50] And I think it can be very invisible for us because we're used to having a lot of stress, like microaggressions that we've kind of grew up, um, dealing with, you know, a lot of other things that in the African American community, you know, we, we, we have to have to deal with.

[00:38:11] We use, we're used to stoicism.

[00:38:12] We used to have them to put on our shield and just taking a lot of things and being able to do that.

[00:38:19] But we still need to talk to somebody because if we don't find a stress reliever in exercise, right?

[00:38:28] Or, you know, making sure you have your yearly physicals, making sure that, um, you get the proper treatment, uh, having that mental health coach that you may need.

[00:38:38] So I definitely think, um, some ways that we can, can deal with that would be number one exercise, right?

[00:38:45] That's a big one for me at times is just getting out, taking a job, um, playing a sport, doing something that gets my mind off of, of work.

[00:38:55] Um, um, um, being with your family, you know, really leaning into those things can be very impactful in, in your life and helping you understand what you need, need to do.

[00:39:09] So that's what I, that's, that's, that's one of some of my suggestions for individuals.

[00:39:13] We can get into a little bit more of how much exercise you want to do, um, how to find a health and mental health coach and things of that nature.

[00:39:21] What are you thinking, Todd?

[00:39:25] I think you took, I think you took some of them right out of, right out of my mouth, right?

[00:39:28] We want to make sure that we first recognize the signs of that burnout.

[00:39:33] We got to make sure that we acknowledge the feelings and symptoms of burnout, right?

[00:39:38] To know that we have to take some type of action if we do and start to feel those ways.

[00:39:45] Uh, we also like you, like you said, or alluded to, right?

[00:39:50] We got to set boundaries.

[00:39:52] Um, got to learn how to say no to things, got to learn how to prioritize things.

[00:39:58] We have to establish like clear hours for, for example, for our work and for ourselves and our families, right?

[00:40:07] Everybody talks about work-life balance, but as, as a lot of people are starting to say now, it's not really work-life balances work, work-life harmony.

[00:40:17] Can you make it all?

[00:40:19] Can you do it all and harmonize it at the same time?

[00:40:22] Right.

[00:40:23] Another one is just taking breaks, literally just take a break.

[00:40:30] Uh, for example, we took a break from, from black-out therapy, not because we wanted to, because we had to, but even then taking the break and coming back to this with a fresh set of eyes and a few fresh minds.

[00:40:44] We we've been able to just make this even better.

[00:40:48] So always consider taking breaks use.

[00:40:51] And I'm talking from the corporate side, cause I work in corporate America, right?

[00:40:55] Take those vacations.

[00:40:56] They give you them vacation days.

[00:40:58] You can't take them with you.

[00:40:59] Just take that vacation.

[00:41:01] You gotta take that vacation.

[00:41:03] If you don't take that vacation, you better go.

[00:41:06] So, and then, and then for me, and I do this all the time in my job now that I'm have returned to work and I'm now back in an office.

[00:41:14] I take short breaks throughout the day and I just walk around the building.

[00:41:19] Now, granted, I work in a very big facility and I can walk literally miles and miles if I wanted to.

[00:41:28] But the point I'm making is make sure that you take a short break just to recharge, step away and get it together.

[00:41:37] Practice self care.

[00:41:38] That's another thing.

[00:41:39] Just practice self care.

[00:41:41] You said this earlier, prioritize your physical health, right?

[00:41:45] Prioritize exercising.

[00:41:47] Prioritize eating right.

[00:41:48] Prioritize sleeping.

[00:41:50] Do those things.

[00:41:51] Engage in things that bring you joy and happiness.

[00:41:55] Not gonna lie.

[00:41:56] Engaging in black guy therapy brings me joy and happiness.

[00:42:00] Exactly, man.

[00:42:01] You know, that joy.

[00:42:02] That's a big word, man.

[00:42:03] And just finding things that bring you joy.

[00:42:06] I had a word, you know, I had read this whole book called All.

[00:42:09] Like, find things that bring you all in the world.

[00:42:12] Like, I watched the comet.

[00:42:15] You see like a full moon that's really close by.

[00:42:18] The biggest all moment, you know, like a solar eclipse.

[00:42:20] Like anything in the world that can bring you all, sometimes can just take you to another place, man.

[00:42:26] Just, I'm big in these definitions of words, man.

[00:42:30] So, I feel you when you say that joy.

[00:42:33] It hits different.

[00:42:35] Yeah.

[00:42:36] And I'll tell you, I got some awe.

[00:42:38] I just bought, I just bought a massage chair.

[00:42:43] Like, you know, the massage chairs you see like at the mall.

[00:42:47] Right.

[00:42:48] I bought one.

[00:42:50] The legs and everything.

[00:42:51] When I tell you, oh my God.

[00:42:55] When I tell you it's the best, it's the best money I've ever invested.

[00:43:00] Oh, nice.

[00:43:00] Straight up.

[00:43:02] Relaxation and it's finest.

[00:43:03] Yeah.

[00:43:03] If you come over, you're going to have to try this thing.

[00:43:06] Okay.

[00:43:07] It's phenomenal.

[00:43:09] Yeah.

[00:43:10] It's worth every penny spent.

[00:43:14] I had a little awe just like a couple of weeks ago.

[00:43:16] We went to Rock City in Chattanooga and just, you know, those, some of those views were breathtaking.

[00:43:22] I was like, man, this is, this is nice, man.

[00:43:25] I'm really enjoying my life right now.

[00:43:27] You know, like just having those moments to like, just take it in.

[00:43:32] This is joyful.

[00:43:33] This is, this is all inspiring.

[00:43:35] You know, I need it.

[00:43:37] Yeah.

[00:43:38] I tell y'all we can be, you can be happy sometimes.

[00:43:40] Yeah, and you need it.

[00:43:40] I believe it too.

[00:43:43] Yeah.

[00:43:44] You need those moments.

[00:43:46] And you talk about Rock City, man.

[00:43:48] I, I have, I've been before.

[00:43:51] I've, I've been up on the side of that mountain up there, but it's, I think about, I like to take in, and this is just a personal thing.

[00:43:58] When I'm having my awe moments, I always try to think about the ancestors, right?

[00:44:03] Were they able to have this type of moment?

[00:44:05] Probably not.

[00:44:07] So when I'm like, when I'm taking in these moments and I'm looking at them, I have, I'm not only looking at it through my lens.

[00:44:14] I'm looking at it through my ancestors lens, who's living, who, you know, who not living there, they're dead, obviously, but their spirit lives on through me.

[00:44:23] Oh, I have to, you know, take that into account too.

[00:44:28] So, yeah, all the history, all the things they've done set us up to be able to live the life that we're living now.

[00:44:34] And we're trying to, you know, push that forward for the next generations and our family and friends so that they can, you know, have those moments as well.

[00:44:44] Have more and more of those moments, you know, that come along.

[00:44:48] Absolutely.

[00:44:49] Absolutely.

[00:44:50] And you, you brought this up earlier.

[00:44:52] Another thing that we would do is we're going to develop that support system.

[00:44:56] You talked about reaching out to your family, friends, having those people for that connection for support.

[00:45:04] You got to have that.

[00:45:05] If you don't have a support system, make one, right?

[00:45:09] Join a group, join, join, join a group, get active in your community.

[00:45:15] Make, make something right.

[00:45:17] Make something up.

[00:45:18] I guarantee you, whatever you're thinking about, there is a market for it.

[00:45:25] For example, for example, we're going to use blackout therapy.

[00:45:30] This idea was birthed in a garage during a workout session with me and Joel, who if y'all, if y'all been with us since the beginning, like Joel is, he is the original co-creator of this, right?

[00:45:46] Cool.

[00:45:47] Um, and literally we talked it out one day and I said, Hey, Joel, I think this is what I want to do.

[00:45:54] And I want to bring black men together.

[00:45:58] Like, let's have a community group or support group where we can just come together and just be us.

[00:46:06] And he was like, that's a hell of an idea.

[00:46:08] How you want to do it?

[00:46:09] I didn't know how I was going to do it.

[00:46:11] But there was, you know, it was, it was during the pandemic and, and podcasting became a big thing.

[00:46:17] I was like, let's just make a podcast and see if we can't reach some people.

[00:46:22] And look at us now, right?

[00:46:24] We're a few years into this and, uh, we started at zero.

[00:46:30] And now we have, like I said, I always say this, we have a small cult following.

[00:46:34] We've had 20,000 plays.

[00:46:38] Like it's insane, right?

[00:46:41] We almost have a thousand subscribers.

[00:46:44] That's insane for something that was literally birthed from an idea, just trying to get black people, black men specifically together.

[00:46:54] So again, develop a support system.

[00:46:57] I promise you there's a group out there for it who wants to hear it.

[00:47:01] Oh, there is.

[00:47:02] There is.

[00:47:02] I mean, I think about the new frontier of, of, of mental health therapy and what they're going to have is these AI assistants that are going to come along and be able to, you can talk to it and just like record what your thoughts are.

[00:47:18] They can give you, you know, some thoughts back.

[00:47:20] I don't know if it's going to be good or bad, but I know it's coming down the pipe.

[00:47:23] And I've seen some of the, you know, commercials and the things that they're talking about, AI personal assistant that can help with your, your mental health assistant of your own to kind of talk to you, talk to you if you don't have anybody else to talk to.

[00:47:39] So be sure to see how that goes.

[00:47:48] I tell you what, if you know what the name of those companies are that are doing that, please let me know so I can invest in them.

[00:47:57] All right.

[00:47:57] There you go.

[00:47:59] Well, maybe we need to make one for black men.

[00:48:01] There you go.

[00:48:03] Hey, you, you find us, you find, whoa, wait, we had a banker on here, right?

[00:48:09] We, hey, we could do it.

[00:48:12] We can, we can do it.

[00:48:13] You know, we know where to get the capital.

[00:48:15] We, we got a mental health specialist.

[00:48:17] We got a couple of MDs.

[00:48:19] We could probably make it work.

[00:48:20] Taylor, just for us.

[00:48:22] Just for y'all.

[00:48:23] Literally.

[00:48:24] There you go.

[00:48:25] We can make that work.

[00:48:26] Something to think about.

[00:48:28] There you go.

[00:48:28] And the last couple of things I got though, for real, or look,

[00:48:32] mindfulness, right?

[00:48:33] Just practice mindfulness.

[00:48:35] If you, if you know that you're experiencing burnout, you're starting for yourself, practice mindfulness, meditate, do deep breathing exercises, things like that.

[00:48:45] Do yoga.

[00:48:45] I know I need to be better at that.

[00:48:47] And all those things have to clear your mind.

[00:48:49] These are just exercises, finding exercises that'll clear your mind, literally.

[00:48:54] And one of the biggest one, and, and Gerard talked about this earlier, seek professional help.

[00:48:59] That's one of the big things.

[00:49:01] Seek professional help.

[00:49:03] Speak with a therapist.

[00:49:04] I know we have one on this show who obviously today wasn't his day.

[00:49:08] He wasn't able to come on here with us and talk with us, but we finally, that was one of the things that we were searching for.

[00:49:15] For those like, Hey, we, if we can find a black mental health specialist that would make this podcast be the best podcast.

[00:49:21] Right.

[00:49:22] And we finally found that.

[00:49:23] So consider the, consider speaking with therapists or a counselor, anybody who can help provide you with that, you know, coping strategies and support.

[00:49:33] Even, even if you're at work and you don't know what to do, use EPA or not EPA, EAP, right?

[00:49:40] Your EAPs.

[00:49:42] Most companies, at least if you work for big ones, they have those EAPs and they can, they offer resources.

[00:49:47] And a lot of times they offer that mental health resource for you.

[00:49:50] And since the pandemic, that's been a big thing that companies have been offering.

[00:49:54] So check it out.

[00:49:55] Look, check out employee assistance programs at your company.

[00:49:59] But they also go by EAPs.

[00:50:01] Also reassess your goals, right?

[00:50:03] Look at things from a different lens.

[00:50:06] Like, Hey, I know a year ago, I said, I wanted to be here, here, here, and here.

[00:50:11] I don't think I can do that and keep my peace.

[00:50:14] Right.

[00:50:15] So sometimes you just got to reflect on your career goals, reflect on what's, what's important to you and what's not.

[00:50:23] And that's going to change day by day, year by year, because we all know in life things change.

[00:50:31] So.

[00:50:32] You got to do that.

[00:50:33] And you know, one of the big things when our, you know, old, old teammates, Inky talks about is when you're on your journey, you got to learn from that journey.

[00:50:42] Making your goals.

[00:50:43] Making your goals.

[00:50:43] Don't let, don't let your goal determine your outcome of what you're going to feel like.

[00:50:48] Because what's going to happen if you got this big goal that you want to, and you don't get it.

[00:50:51] And at that point, you always have to be like, learn from your failures, learn from what went well, what went wrong.

[00:51:00] And if you have your mind on the task at hand, oftentimes you can be a much better person and much better at reaching your goals.

[00:51:10] If you, you know, just focus on the minute steps as, as old Bush Jones, just say brick by brick, you're going to just build it up one, one thing at a time.

[00:51:19] And I think we can, we could try to do that and be a resource for, for our friends and family who are, who are trying to do that, do that as well.

[00:51:30] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:51:32] Absolutely.

[00:51:32] Absolutely.

[00:51:32] So we talked about burnout today.

[00:51:37] Yeah, man.

[00:51:38] I wanted to hopefully mention one more thing, especially like, like our community and burnout.

[00:51:46] And some of the things that we, we have to deal with personally, like the mental health side.

[00:51:53] I know some in our community should look down upon those who, you know, would get mental health treatment and call them like crazy or something.

[00:52:01] But I think we're kind of growing out of that now, but there's still some resistance to that, I think, going on.

[00:52:09] And, you know, as men in our community, we can suffer from some, you know, John Henry ism. Right.

[00:52:15] So we're, when things get tough, we just kind of pound at it more.

[00:52:20] We're going to beat that machine.

[00:52:22] We're going to beat the machine.

[00:52:23] And then what happens at the end of that book?

[00:52:25] He falls out.

[00:52:25] He beat the machine, but now he's not there for his family. Right.

[00:52:29] So we want to make sure that we, as a community, we as brothers, you know, make sure we're there for each other so that we're not beating the machine, but beating ourselves at the end of the day, because that machine is going to keep going no matter what.

[00:52:45] But we can't.

[00:52:46] Our heart will give out.

[00:52:49] Absolutely.

[00:52:51] Like always, y'all just talking about burnout.

[00:52:55] Remember, like, like you said, recognize those signs.

[00:52:58] Like that's the first step of reclaiming yourself.

[00:53:03] Right.

[00:53:03] And reclaiming your well-being.

[00:53:07] Even if you're just remember, you know, if you're feeling overwhelmed, you're really not alone.

[00:53:13] Yeah.

[00:53:13] Don't hesitate to reach out.

[00:53:16] Yeah.

[00:53:17] I think that's the one of the biggest things about, you know, us and this subject and this podcast.

[00:53:21] You're not alone.

[00:53:22] Right.

[00:53:23] You feel like you're in this together with someone.

[00:53:25] We're all dealing with things, you know, and I think one of these things you talked about earlier, Ty, was like physical symptoms.

[00:53:32] So, yeah, like chronic headache, you know, just having muscle pains and high blood pressure, digestive issues.

[00:53:39] I think was your one of one of our old guests from Memphis.

[00:53:44] He was talking about his mother who was having all these physical symptoms, but it ended up just being like anxiety, depression and stress that were leading to some of these physical symptoms due to just like internalized.

[00:53:56] Yeah, Roy.

[00:53:57] Roy. Yeah. He was telling us about that.

[00:53:59] Yeah.

[00:53:59] And I mean, this can happen in the workplace and that burnout.

[00:54:03] Can you just come on with those headaches, that high blood pressure that you're dealing with?

[00:54:07] And if you don't you don't deal with it, eventually it'll deal with you.

[00:54:12] So, you know, we're here for for you.

[00:54:15] We're here with you.

[00:54:18] One of the things that I've changed my mindset on when I talk to a family member is like, how can I help you?

[00:54:26] You know, being there for someone and asking them that question so that I can support you in the way that you need to be supported, not in the way that I think you need to be supported.

[00:54:35] And I think that's been a great shift in my mindset and it's been helpful for some because they can tell me what they need from me in those times of need.

[00:54:49] Yeah.

[00:54:52] Yeah.

[00:54:53] So, obviously, we've come to a time that's just crazy that we're already at an hour.

[00:54:59] Is there anything you want to leave the folks with, Gerard, in our final moments here?

[00:55:07] I mean, the biggest thing, I mean, I kind of take it away from from burnout is just you have to to recognize the signs and symptoms of burnout and what you're going through and find you a support system.

[00:55:23] So, someone you can reach out to and talk with so that they can, you know, affirm your your decisions and affirm your like, oh, yeah, this is definitely going on.

[00:55:34] Like, find someone at work that you can talk to about your feelings and like, am I feeling, you know, crazy about this?

[00:55:42] Is this what's going on?

[00:55:43] Like, yes, this is what's happening.

[00:55:45] And I feel like the more that you can do that, have someone that's an honest person that can give you their honest opinion and let you know, like, yeah, this does seem like it's a lot.

[00:55:55] It can very well help help you, you know, save your your job, save your life.

[00:56:01] Because, you know, walking around with high blood pressure, we've talked about that plenty of times, not good for anyone walking around stressed all the time.

[00:56:08] It's not good for you at any point in time.

[00:56:11] So, you know, find someone, let them be that that helpful hand that resource for you and be a resource for yourself, advocate for yourself and find that find that help that you need.

[00:56:22] And we'll be here to just, you know, discuss these things that we do for you as well as much as we can.

[00:56:30] Absolutely.

[00:56:31] We will be here.

[00:56:32] We are here for you.

[00:56:33] Again, we're a third Peter podcast.

[00:56:35] Can't say it enough.

[00:56:38] We're at the end, right?

[00:56:39] We're at this end.

[00:56:40] I always have to say something.

[00:56:42] I don't have much to say this week other than soon.

[00:56:47] Coming up soon, we're going to have some pretty awesome guests, couple of people affiliated with the NFL in a way.

[00:57:00] So they're going to come on here and we may talk a little football.

[00:57:05] We may talk a little recruiting.

[00:57:06] We may talk a little scouting.

[00:57:07] We may talk a little all those things.

[00:57:10] So we're going to have some fun episodes here coming soon.

[00:57:15] Again, obviously, today we talked about burnout.

[00:57:18] Derrod left you with all the key notes.

[00:57:20] Just remember, you're not alone in this and we can't say it.

[00:57:24] We can't say it enough.

[00:57:25] You are not alone.

[00:57:26] We are here for you.

[00:57:28] Remember, you can always reach out to us at BGT cast at gmail.com.

[00:57:33] And again, we respond to most emails if you're nice to us.

[00:57:38] So y'all keep listening.

[00:57:41] We're going to let y'all get back to what you doing.

[00:57:44] And if we ain't got nothing else, I guess we out.

[00:57:49] See you a little later.

[00:57:50] Peace.

[00:57:50] Peace.

[00:57:51] Peace.

[00:57:51] Peace.

[00:57:52] Peace.