In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the prevalent issue of burnout among agency owners. They explore the different types of burnout, including cyclical and long-term burnout, and offer strategies to identify, cope with, and prevent it.

Key recommendations include taking regular breaks, understanding personal energy drains and boosts, and adjusting work habits accordingly. They emphasize the importance of self-care, realistic time management, and the necessity to avoid making major decisions while burned out. Chip and Gini also share personal experiences and practical tips to help agency owners manage their workload more effectively.

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich.

And

Chip Griffin: Gini, I’m burned out.

Gini Dietrich: Are you?

Chip Griffin: Just burned out? Hit the wall.

Gini Dietrich: I’m sorry. You know who else is burned out? Olivia Benson sleeping next to me.

Chip Griffin: Oh, well that’s good. That means no dog in the show.

Gini Dietrich: We don’t have to play ball. Yeah. Yeah, she may, she may show up, but right now it’s passed out. Burned out.

Chip Griffin: What? What did you do to her this morning?

Gini Dietrich: I didn’t do anything.

Chip Griffin: Oh, okay. Well, I, I didn’t know if, you know, she had been out, running around and,

Gini Dietrich: mm-hmm. No, it’s snowing here out that way, so, no. Mm-hmm.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. Now we’ve got some snow here as well.

Gini Dietrich: So Dumb. It’s April.

Happy Spring.

It’s April. It’s dumb.

Chip Griffin: Oh, it is what it is. Well, we, we are gonna talk about burnout today. Not really necessarily mine or yours, but burnout generally and how agency owners can identify it, cope with it, prevent it. Just generally, I mean, it’s a, it’s a good topic because you know, you and I are both talking to a lot of agency owners who tell us that they are feeling burned out and they want to either take some time off or change up what they’re doing or pretty much anything, which I don’t blame them.

I mean, you put on the news these days, I mean, pretty much anybody, you feel burned out after about five minutes of the red breaking news, chiron sitting on the screen.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. It’s funny because we do a lot of work for a client that is in the HR space, and the HR publications have been covering this, I’d say over the last six weeks, leadership burnout.

So it’s, it’s definitely a topic. It’s definitely something that everybody at the top levels is experiencing and thinking about, and I think it’s a really good topic for us to explore because we’re human beings. We’re gonna burn out. You can’t necessarily prevent it, but there are things that you can do to help sort of mitigate some of the side effects of it.

And also be aware that if you’re getting to that point, it’s going to affect your team too, because your attitude, your behavior, all of those things affect the way that your team behaves too.

Chip Griffin: Absolutely, and, and look, I mean, every entrepreneur that I’ve ever known faces burnout at some point or another.

And I think there are two different kinds of burnout that we need to think about here too, because there’s what I would call cyclical burnout, which you know, to me at least happens a few times a year. You know, where it just, you kind of just, it catches up with you. Mm-hmm. The hard charging nature. And then there’s, there’s longer term burnout where maybe you’re starting to feel frustrated with the business generally.

Not just, not just because you’ve been busy in the moment, but because you know, it’s just wearing on you and, and they’re, they’re two different problems, but, but they’re both definitely problems.

Gini Dietrich: For sure. You know, I think one of them, the first, the first one that you mentioned is the cyclical burnout, which is, I think we all tend to probably work more than we should.

And we probably don’t take care of ourselves the way that we should. We don’t eat right. We don’t sleep right. We don’t exercise. All of those things that lead into it, and we are working, you know, 10, 12, 14 hour days consistently. That stuff leads to burnout. And so you have to really think about how do you sort of take care of yourself first.

It’s like putting the oxygen mask on first, right? How do you take care of yourself first so that the business can survive and thrive, and so can your team.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and I think you know, it, it starts with trying to identify which kind of burnout you’re feeling, right? Because if you, if you can, if you can discern whether it is just that cyclical, I’ve hit the wall and, and need a short term break, versus I need to really shake things up.

And, and I would encourage you, if you think it’s the latter, if you think it’s, you know, I need to big time shake things up. Get some short-term rest, try to deal with the short, you probably have short-term burnout too, right? Deal with that first, as you can think more clear headedly about the, the bigger picture.

Because one of the things you really want to avoid is making substantial decisions when you feel burned out. Because it, there’s a natural tendency, and I, I have done this myself to overreact in those moments for sure. Instead of, of solving the problem in a, a simpler way, you know, you go for the full on amputation.

Because why not? I mean, that just, it solves the problem. You know, who, who cares whether a little bit of rest and, rehabilitation would’ve solved it instead.

Gini Dietrich: This is kind of an extreme example, but a couple of years ago, a really good girlfriend of mine was diagnosed with breast cancer and she was like, I’m done.

I’m out. I’m closing the business. And I was like, whoa. Well, let’s, let’s take a step back here, like you’re going through some stuff right now. Let’s focus on the personal and let’s not, let’s not completely bomb your business. And about six months ago she called me and she goes, thank you for talking me off that ledge. I’m really glad I didn’t close my business. And I was like, you’re welcome.

But it’s the same kind of thing, right? I mean, the burnout could be because you’re just exhausted. The burnout could be because the business isn’t doing what you thought it would, or it’s not profitable. Or there could be something personal going on, a big life change going on that could, that could create it too.

So it’s kind of the, the same thing that they tell women when, when they’re pregnant, don’t cut your hair while you’re pregnant because you’re gonna regret it afterwards. So don’t make big decisions when you’re burned out.

Chip Griffin: That’s not how I lost my hair. Just for the record.

Gini Dietrich: You cut it while you were pregnant.

Chip Griffin: It wasn’t really optional either. I, I didn’t get to, I, I chose to make it all go away, but it was mostly gone anyway. Alas. You know, I, I think that’s, it’s a, a great point and I, I think, you know, you start by just take an hour or two off even, right? If, if you’re feeling like that, you know, try to, try to take whatever chunks you can so that you can lower that temperature just a little bit.

And, and every little bit that you can improve things, the easier it is to start making rational decisions about how to address the, the larger problem, whether it’s a short-term or a long-term one. You just, you want to, to really avoid those, those knee-jerk reactions that you tend to have when you’re tired, when you’re burned out, when you’re frustrated.

It’s just, it’s too easy to make the wrong choices.

Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. And you know, I mentioned this at the start, and I, I know, I know that me telling you to take time for this stuff when you don’t have time is counterintuitive. But I promise you, if you take time for yourself, if you get eight hours of sleep every night, if you eat correctly, get your fruits and veggies and your protein and your fiber.

If you even, even if it’s not like working out, you’re taking a walk every day, those things are going to help because it’s helping you as a whole person instead of you just sitting in front of your computer for 12 or 14 hours a day. Take a walk while you’re doing a phone call. While you’re talking to a client.

There are lots of ways that you can get in sort of quote unquote exercise or get outside during the day, except that when it’s snowing in April. But get outside during the day to be able to, to take care of yourself. Because those things help when you start to feel this way.

Chip Griffin: So I have, I have two thoughts there.

Neither one is necessarily useful, but if, if you are going to, take a phone call while you’re walking, please take it off video. There’s nothing to me more annoying. Please just do use your, and when people are walking, walking around, holding their laptop or their phone, they’re bobbing all around on the screen.

Like, just go off camera. Just say Yes, please. I, I’m, I’m, I’m gonna go, so I’m gonna go off camera. I agree. Yes, and I’ll just keep going. Please do that.

The second thought was, if I get eight hours of sleep in a night, I’m gonna go crazy because I, I can’t even remember the last time that I got eight hours of sleep.

It’s bad for you. It’s very bad for you.

That is not, that is absolutely not true. Everybody has a different sleep need. Okay? And, and you need to know what your own sleep need is. In my case, it’s closer to seven.

Gini Dietrich: All right. Seven’s not bad. Let’s say seven to nine.

Chip Griffin: I’m not talking about like I’m a two hour sleeper or something like that, but

Gini Dietrich: Winston Churchill here,

Chip Griffin: but if I’ve slept eight hours, chances are it’s because I’m sick.

Even, even if I’m on vacation or something, I’m not gonna sleep eight hours. It just, it just doesn’t. I can’t stay asleep that long. Apparently you can, based on how you’re,

Gini Dietrich: oh, I can sleep.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. So, so can Jen. She’s very, she’s very good at that. I, I never have. That, even as a kid, I was like, raring to go,

Gini Dietrich: yeah, I can sleep.

Chip Griffin: So, but yeah, I mean, get the, take care of yourself in the, the best way that you can, given all the demands that you have on your time, because it will make it easier to address things. I think the, the next piece is to figure out what’s, what’s really driving the burnout. Sure. Is it simply that you’re doing too much work or is it the kind of work that you’re doing, or is it the stress that you’re feeling to your point earlier, either in your personal life and, and things that are going on outside of work.

Or within work itself, you really need to, to diagnose the actual root cause of the burnout if you’re gonna make a, a change to it. Because it might be that reducing the number of hours you work is not really the solution. It might be that changing up what you do or working in something else in your off hours to to help.

There are a lot of different ways that you can solve it, but if you don’t know what’s really driving your own burnout then you’re, then you’re not gonna be able to make a wise decision on how to prevent it, or at least, you know, put it off for the, a longer period of time.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. For me it’s the back to back to back to back meetings and, you know, I’m in back to back to back to back meetings all day long and then I don’t have time to do my work. And so I spend the evenings and early morning hours doing that and I start to burn out after that. So one of the things that I do is, because I can’t avoid, always avoid the back to back meetings. I take one week a a month with no meetings. And I say, this is my week that I’m not gonna do anything.

And I get caught up on things and it, you know, it allows me to sort of refresh. So I’m still working. But that’s my sort of taking time off where I’m not having, and, and part of that too is because I’m an introvert, so all of that, not being able to recharge during the week is a lot for me. So if I have found for me that if I take a week a month of no meetings, that and gives me the ability to catch up, that I do better that way.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, I, I think your, your point there is that it’s, it’s different for everybody. So Yeah. For, for some folks, I mean, I, I’ve always loved meetings personally. You know, I, I, I do take energy from a lot of meetings. Not pointless meetings. Not useless meetings. Sure. But, but I actually, I, I enjoy the, the, the back and forth, the give and take and, and things like that, that you have in them.

And so for me. I mean, yes, I wanna be careful that I don’t have them back to back, so I can’t get anything done. But at the same time, the mere fact that I have meetings is not an energy drain. It, it tends to give me energy. And so the, the solution for me is not the same as the solution for you. Sure. Yep.

And, and every listener that we have is gonna have a different solution as well. And so you really need to tailor your own approach to burnout based off of that and not based off of what works for you or me. I do think in general, most agency owners would benefit from carving out blocks of time for certain things. Whether that’s a week with no meetings or in my case, I, I tend to block out half days throughout the week where I don’t have meetings.

Mostly just to make sure that I don’t ever fall too far behind on my inbox and, and things like that. Sure. So, yeah. I basically have three half days a week where I block from most meetings at least. And that helps, as far as making sure that I keep my head above water, at least at all times. Yeah. And that’s something I’ve done for many years.

And, and would encourage you to think through what’s the right approach for you? What works with the rhythm of your own business and the way that you work best?

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Because I think all of that leads to burnout because you don’t, when you’re feeling overwhelmed, when you’re feeling underwater, and when you’re feeling like you can’t keep up, that’s gonna lead to burnout.

Chip Griffin: Right. And, and I think that, you know, another piece of this is, is really understanding how you’re spending your time and how you want to change that. Whether that is spending more or less time in meetings. More or less time writing, or doing other creative pursuits. More or less time doing business development.

Try trying to really understand exactly how you’re spending your current time, which is why I’m such a big believer in time sheets and time tracking. Yep. It, it really does help, even if you’re only doing it in snippets from time to time as an on, I, I would rather you do it all the time, but if you don’t do it all the time, at least do it some of the time so that you have a clear picture of, of how you’re spending your time. And then figure out, okay, what are the things that that give me energy and what are the things that take energy away? And how can I rearrange things with my team, with my clients, with others, so I get more of those energy producing things and fewer of the energy drains, and that will help to resolve burnout, but more importantly help to stave it off for longer before it comes back.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I, yes, I mean, I think what we’ve outlined here is there’s no one size fits all. It definitely depends on you figuring out why you’re burned out or why you’re, you’re, it, why it’s leading to burnout, will help. Understanding, you know, what gives you energy, what takes energy away. And it it, to your point, it depends on your personality, it depends on the way your brain is, is wired, all of those things, right? So understanding that about yourself, because if you can be present the best, your best self, then you’re going to present your best self for your clients, for your team, for your contractors, for anybody that you’re working with. Which is what you should be doing as an agency owner.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, and I, and I think that, you know, the other piece of this is that you have to find ways to take time off.

Gini Dietrich: Yes.

Chip Griffin: And, and, and the way we all take time off is different. If, if people looked at the way I take time off, they would say, that kind of looks like you’re working. But to me it’s not. But you know, when, when I take time off, I like to read business books and watch business videos and things like that.

But it’s not, it’s not deadline oriented client service things. It, it, it still is broadly speaking work, but it’s mentally enriching portions of work that I can do in a more relaxed fashion. And so again, that’s how I’ve always done things. Most people are like, you’re on vacation. Why are you reading these business books?

Why? It’s what I do.

Gini Dietrich: And, and you don’t have time to do it otherwise.

Chip Griffin: Right. And I, and I enjoy it. Yeah. So I, you know, I’m not gonna apologize for it and you shouldn’t either. Whatever it is that, that vacation or time off looks like for you is what you should embrace. But you need to find some way to, to disengage from the, the day-to-day pressures at least, let’s put it that way, more so than even taking time off. Because it’s, look, I, I understand as an agency owner, it’s hard to take so hard, full on time off.

Gini Dietrich: Yep.

Chip Griffin: Things are always gonna crop up. And, you know, I’ve said it before on the show, I’ll say it again. To me, I view it as a real asset that we have things like phones and, and other devices that allow us to stay connected because to me it is so much more relaxing to know that in a true emergency, someone can reach me to resolve thing in things in 30 seconds. Rather than the old days when you know, I would go somewhere for a week unplug and then come back and realize that all sorts of things had gone to hell in a hand baskets. Yeah. And it took a whole lot more to solve it. Just, I mean, you gotta make sure that it’s measured and that you’re not, you know, just doing your job remotely somewhere.

Although for some people that may be good enough.

That might

Gini Dietrich: work too. Yeah.

Chip Griffin: Right. I mean, again, you gotta figure out what works for you, but, but embrace all of the things that you have to help you to, in some way disengage your brain enough to help deal with that burnout.

Gini Dietrich: And for me, being able to stay on top of my inbox while I’m out helps.

So I, I will check my email a couple of times a day. Sure. Just to make sure there’s nothing that has fallen off the tracks or there’s, you know, and I’m not gonna respond to emails that can wait, but I am gonna like, keep, just keep track of stuff because that’s easier for me and a lot less stressful for me when I come back to work.

So I think it, I think that’s a really good point, is just figuring out what works for you.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, I, I remember when I used to work on Capitol Hill 30 some years ago, and I would come back from a, a week off and you’d come into the office and the inbox was literally so high, it was overflowing, and they had started putting stuff on your chair instead.

So, I mean, it was because it was, everything was paper driven. I mean, this was,

Gini Dietrich: yeah.

Chip Griffin: For you kids out there, this was pre email. I had no email when I worked on Capitol Hill. You could still walking down the hall, you could still hear, hear people typing on typewriters. That’s how old I am.

Gini Dietrich: That’s crazy.

Chip Griffin: I know.

It’s just, it’s hard to explain to people that’s how it used to be.

Gini Dietrich: Were people still on typewriter? Typewriters? Yeah. They were?

Chip Griffin: Older members still had their entire staffs on typewriters. I mean, when, when I started working on Capitol Hill, we didn’t have PCs. We had dumb terminals. Okay. The, the, the amber screen Dumb terminals.

Yeah. Yeah. And, in the office I was in, I got the first PC myself, ’cause I was the only one who knew how to use it. But that was probably after, I dunno, a year and a half, two years of working there. Huh. And it wasn’t really connected to anything. And, and it was just, it was a, it was difficult.

So. Yep. I love it. I’m old. Moving on.

Gini Dietrich: I love it. So I’m old. Moving on.

Chip Griffin: I, I, I think that the, the bottom line is that, that a lot of you are feeling burnout. There are a lot of ways to handle it, but first you have to try to figure out what those root causes are and then work on little incremental steps to start to address it.

You’re not gonna wipe it all out overnight, and whether it’s cyclical burnout or long-term burnout, you need to try to come up with a, a plan to, to address it, and hopefully do that when you’re not so burned out that you can’t think straight.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think you raise a really good point in that you may take a week of vacation and you will come back and you may still be burned out.

So don’t expect that it’s going, that will help, but it, you could still be burned out, so don’t expect that it is gonna be solved overnight.

Chip Griffin: That’s right. And there are, there are no magic answers. So for all of all of you who send me emails or wanna do calls with me where I can just give you the answer, there is no single answer.

Mm-hmm. By the way, for most of you, it is not just sell the agency. Right. Which seems to be the favorite place that people, I’m just so burned out. I need to sell. Worst time to sell.

Gini Dietrich: That is the worst time to sell.

Chip Griffin: Worst time for so many reasons. But yes, and we can address that in another episode somewhere.

Gini Dietrich: That’s a good idea.

Chip Griffin: When is a good time to sell. So on that note, I think we will draw this episode to a close before you’re burned out, just from listening to us talk about it.

Gini Dietrich: Oh boy. So, geez,

Chip Griffin: come on. That wasn’t that bad. I’ve done worse. Terrible. Oh, please. I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin: And it depends.