Tough Things First

YouTube and TikTok users know this all too well. Fact: We live in a more isolated work environment, often at home, in our own little space, with what seems like a lot more to accomplish. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn discusses “creator burnout”, why it happens, and how to deal with it. (Watch the video podcast here…)

Rob Artigo: Ray, a lot of talk lately and Congress took some action on this is, is the possibility of banning TikTok, and or forcing a sale of TikTok. Now, this podcast isn’t really about that, but one of the side stories that I happen to notice was something called creator burnout. We have these video influencer types that are on these platforms and they spend so much time doing all the work, putting in the… because really, it’s a individual responsibility.You’re going to have some kind of channel on one of these platforms, and you’ve got to do the work. You’ve got to actually do work, and that includes the recording, the editing, you’re writing it, and somebody said that, actually, it’s like storyboarding what you’re going to do, and all the other tasks that are associated with the process. And there’s, apparently, depression that ensues among many of these people, and they even have mental health problems. So let’s talk about creator burnout. Is there a kind of creator burnout that can occur in other tech industries or any industry really, where people have to put in a lot of time and effort in a creative endeavor? I mean, we have creative teams in these things. Silicon Chip Design, for one, I know they have teams of people that do certain tasks in that, and it can be pretty tedious in the creative process.

Ray Zinn: Well, it goes to the saying that if you love what you do, you don’t work a day of your life. And there’s another one which is counter to that, which is, no pain, no gain. But if you do enjoy what you’re doing, you won’t have burnout. I write every day, I write thousands of musings. I’m on my fifth book, yeah, on my fifth book. And so creator burnout really becomes when you lose interest in what you’re doing, when it no longer becomes enjoyable. It can happen in sports. Forgotten now that somebody just retired because it was burnout.

Ray Zinn: Cont.

He was getting burned out. He’s a well-known football coach, extremely well-known. And so you can get burned out in politics. There’s a guy recently leaving the Congress because… I think his name is Buck or something like that, because you get burned out. If you’re no longer enjoying what you’re doing, you will burn out. So I think the key here is if you continue to enjoy what you’re doing, whether you’re doing design, whether you’re doing nursing, whether you’re doing teaching, whatever the field of endeavor you’re involved with, you’re going to experience burnout if you don’t enjoy it. Again, if you enjoy what you’re doing, you won’t work a day in your life.

Rob Artigo: It seems that if you stop enjoying what you’re doing and you face some burnout is maybe you got to pivot and do something else. Can we-

Ray Zinn: Absolutely. Pivoting is another thing, obviously. I don’t care, as I said, if you’re a politician, if you’re a football coach, a sports coach, or if you’re an athlete, or if you’re involved in running a company, I know that the average tenure of a CEO is around five years, no, three to five years, three to five years. And the reason for that is because of burnout. And it may not be burnout being a CEO, it may be a burnout in being a CEO at the endeavor at the company that you’re involved with. So again, it doesn’t matter if you’re an engineer or a teacher or a coach or whatever, an athlete, if you cease to enjoy what you’re doing, you’re going to get burned out.

Rob Artigo: Well, sometimes I would suspect that people don’t recognize that, that is what’s behind their feelings of burnout and some of these issues, like the mental health problems and the depression and that sort of thing. And bringing it back to a creative team, say, for silicon chip manufacturing, is there a way to recognize when a team member is suffering from burnout or facing burnout that they maybe don’t even recognize is occurring, but their actions or behavior seem to reflect a lack of motivation and desire to continue doing the job?

Ray Zinn: Yeah, that’s the key subject, is how do you recognize employee burnout? Number one is they’re going to make more mistakes. Their interest is going to flounder, they’re going to take more time off. They’re going to be sick more. Just look for a change in their behavior, maybe they’re going to be more disgruntled, more upset, more looking for excuses, as you would. So again, they’re a disgruntled employee, whether it be burnout or for whatever reason, their telltale signs are, they’re going to be more angry, more upset, more disenchanted. And so that’s the key to knowing when one of your employees is on the edge, as you would’ve, of burning out.

Rob Artigo: Can we prevent it in our teams?

Ray Zinn: Well, it’s a psychological thing. It’s up to the individual. You can help them by just understanding what they’re going through, maybe it’s a divorce, maybe it’s a problem at home. It might be financial. It could be a number of things which are outside the issue at work. It may have nothing to do with work. It may just be something that their personal involvement outside of work is causing the problem. So again, when I was running my crown, I did a lot of managing by walking around and talking to people, and then talking to their managers, supervisors, trying to understand how their team is doing.

And we constantly run across people who are going through a bad problem at home, a bad home life, as you would, or a personal life. It has nothing to do with the company, but there are occasions where there’s an issue at the company with the either pay, or could be the job description, it could be that they’re struggling with the particular tasks that they’re doing, but more likely than not that I have found, it’s more personal, it’s more problems outside of work, is what’s causing their issues with regard to burnout.

Rob Artigo:

And reversing it is another thing. And perhaps doing something like tweaking… you said the job description, maybe something like tweaking the person’s responsibilities within the team so that they’re doing more of the stuff that they really want to be doing and less of the stuff that they are struggling with, and maybe that will lift them out of the burnout process.

Ray Zinn: Well, again, remember, Rob, I was just saying that most of the time, I found that 75 to 80% of the time, it’s a personal, it’s not involving work. It’s not a work problem, it’s a personal problem. And they cause more problems than at work. So while I wouldn’t ignore or minimize something that might be happening at work, I certainly would look elsewhere. I just find out how their personal life is going. And as I said, nine times out of 10, or eight out of 10, anyway, it’s usually involving a personal problem that they’re facing. And that’s not something that you can solve particularly other than maybe asking them to take a little personal leave or maybe just encouraging them to seek counseling in some way.

I mean, again, depending upon the problem they’re facing, that changes the solution. But anyway, as I said, eight times out of 10, or at least my experience is 75 to 80% of the time, it’s a personal problem, not a work problem. And again, back to your starting comments about the TikTok and creative burnout, what’s happening is that they’re expecting more from their efforts than they’re getting. So it’s an exaggerated view of their expectations, and that causes discouragement. We’re referring, again, to people who are doing creative work on TikTok or Facebook or X or whatever, or LinkedIn. If they’re not getting the reward that they expect, that causes them burnout, as you would. I know it sounds securus, but that’s what’s happening, is that they’re not getting the reward that they were expecting.

Rob Artigo: That makes sense because we have, in many cases, what they call, the gig economy, where people are doing these… maybe working from home and they’re doing piecemeal work for something, and we use Rev.com just to plug the service we use to get our transcripts done for the podcast. They send it out to somebody and that person edits, they write it up and edit it, whatever, they transcribe the audio. I think it’s probably done by computer first, and then they go through and work it up. That person might be getting paid okay, but in some cases, the gig economy ends up being, if you work it out, it’s sometimes like pennies on the dollar for what you’re… that’s where you’re going to face the depression, is that, man, this is a lot of work and I’m not getting anything for it.

Ray Zinn: Well, it’s unrealistic expectations, is what causes these kinds of problems. So maybe it’s something you thought you would enjoy because it sounded good or paid well or something, and then you found out that your expectations were unrealistic. And so I think that’s the other issue that they face, is having a unrealistic expectation. I’ve talked to a few people that are involved in this media effort, whether it be marketing or whatever, they’re doing some kind of creative editing or whatever, that they’re losing interest in it, maybe they’ve grown tired of it, maybe it’s not a challenge for them, or maybe they just feel they’re not being properly rewarded for the efforts they’re putting in. Unrealistic expectation is what I call it.

Rob Artigo: Well, Ray, I appreciate you being with me for this great video podcast. Our listeners can choose between the audio version or the video version. You can come back and check out both. But those of you who have checked this out on YouTube and enjoyed this video, please rate the podcast wherever you are and make sure that you let people know that you’re listening, and even share the link for this stuff. This is quality information that helps a lot of people in business out. So thanks, Ray. This is great. And I should remind people, toughthingsfirst.com is where you have your blogs, links to all of your social media, and also, you can find out more information about your books. You mentioned Tough Things First, and the Zen of Zinn series, there’s three books there. We have the upcoming Essential Leadership, which is going to be a fantastic book, and I hope people will be around to experience and enjoy that book as well. Thanks for the great conversation, Ray?

Ray Zinn: Also, let us know if you enjoy the podcast compared to the audio. I know some of you are on your way to work, you listen to the podcast, and so the video wouldn’t help. But for those of you who are able to view the podcast as a video, please let us know if you prefer the video over the audio so we’ll know where your interests lie and what seems to stimulate you more, whether it be just the plain audio or if you prefer the video. So let us know on that too. Please respond and give us that feedback. Thank you.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, any feedback that they can provide would be great as well. I mean, do they want longer podcasts? Do they want shorter podcasts? That kind of thing, or if you have a topic that you’d like us to discuss, please chime in and let us know.

Ray Zinn: Thank you.

Rob Artigo: Great conversation, Ray. Thanks.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion has supplanted merit as an important decision tool in hiring for many companies, but has it helped or hurt businesses and employees? In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn explores fundamental truths about fairness, that DEI has set aside.

Rob Artigo: Well, because of all this talk about DEI, that’s the diversity, equity and inclusion stuff that’s been out there, some feel like merit-based hiring is unfair. And you’ve written recently about this, so I wanted to talk to you about it. So let’s see, you wrote that in life, almost everything we do is merit-based. Tell us more about that, and we’ll get started with that part of this topic.

Ray Zinn: Well, what’s interesting is I recently heard that some states are considering doing away with the law exam or the bar exam for lawyers, just to make it easier for certain people to be able to practice before the court. And so again, this DEI thing is getting totally out of hand. We’re almost not going to measure anything anymore. It’s kind of a sad commentary on our society that in order for us to standardize everything so that it doesn’t become difficult for anyone that we lose that ability to differentiate. Even the SAT tests are coming back, they’re bringing back the SAT tests, but they’re making it so it’s easier for certain people to pass them. So, this whole thing of making sure that there is total fairness makes it unfair, as you would. And going to my musing that I wrote, everything is based on fairness. I mean, on merit.

Rob Artigo: Yeah.

Ray Zinn: Merit, on merit-based, whether it be looking for a spouse, whether it be the food you eat, whether it be where you live, whether the job you have, you’re looking for something that matches your desire.

I’m not a real fan of liver. I can’t stand liver, so if people say, “Well, but in order to be fair, you have to eat liver.” That’s going to gag me, and I’m not going to enjoy that experience at all, and so, not enjoying life is a tragedy. And so, making everybody the same, we all wear the same clothes, we all marry … we don’t have a choice of our spouse, we don’t have a choice of the schools we go to, we don’t have a choice of where we work or we live, that doesn’t sound like a very fun kind of society. So, I think that not recognizing or understanding how our ability to differentiate, to be able to measure what we want and discriminate as you would, is going to cause a problem.

Discrimination has its positive attributes and it has its negative attributes. On the negative side, of course, we know what discrimination does. It’s a bias that we have to understand. Whether it be a racial, sexual, whether it be religious or political, we have to understand where we’re discriminating. And so, we really have to vote our thinking, vote how we feel … or measure how we feel or vote, same thing. And so it has to go to what we like and what we expect. That’s how society works together. It’s not a matter of whether we agree or not, it’s whether we’re agreeable, so having a disagreement is not the problem. It’s being disagreeable. That’s the problem.

So, what we want to make sure is that while we don’t necessarily have to agree on everything, we want to be agreeable, meaning we want to be amenable to hear other people’s views and feelings and respect those, because there are a lot of people that like liver. I mean, my dad loved liver. And so if I said, “Well, because I don’t like liver, we’re not going to ever have any more liver,” that’s not being fair. So, we have to understand that not everyone is going to have the same set of attributes or views that we have. It’s a matter of fairness as you would to allow other people to have their views, even though they don’t agree or they’re not in line with your views.

Rob Artigo: One of the sticking points with DEI is the idea of equity rather than equality. What we have is a concept of fairness, whereas, and you mentioned the SAT, in other aspects of DEI where they bring in elements of inequality and unfairness in the name of fairness and equity. So, it gets confusing and it’s also problematic, because it creates more problems than it fixes. Am I right?

Ray Zinn: Sure. Let’s take an example of education. We know that Harvard or Stanford, Yale, some of the well-known schools, charge a whole lot more for their education. In other words, their entry costs, their tuition, and maybe even just the living expenses are higher than they are at some of the state schools, like San Jose State or West Virginia or whatever, or Colorado State or Utah State. The state schools are a lot less expensive, and junior colleges are even less expensive. And so, is that fair for those bigger schools, like Stanford or Yale, Harvard, is it fair for them to charge more money? And the answer is, that depends upon how you view fairness. If they have to pay their professors more money than they do at the junior colleges, that raises their costs for that education.

What is considered fair? And so, if you look at it in light of what it costs them to provide that education and the intrinsic value of that education, it’s going to be much more money than at the junior college level. And so you have to say, “Is that fair?” The answer is, “Yes, it’s fair if you do that comparison.” And so, if you had a bachelor’s degree in, say, fine arts or something from Stanford, you’re going to pay 10 times what you would pay for a fine arts degree at a state school. And so, that may sound unfair, but it’s still what it costs them to produce that education, or to provide that education.

Same thing with cars. Is it fair that a Mercedes or a BMW costs more than a less expensive car like a Kia? And yes, if it costs more to produce the Mercedes and BMW, and just the intrinsic value that you get for having that more expensive car, it’s fair. It’s not fair for Kia to charge the same amount of money that Mercedes or BMW does. And the same thing with foods. There are certain foods that you pay more money for, like a rib eye steak compared to a hamburger, because it’s the intrinsic value you get out of that rib eye versus that hamburger. Is that fair? Yes, it’s fair because it’s that intrinsic value you get from it.

Going back to education, if you feel that you need that education provided by Stanford or Yale or Harvard or whatever, MIT, if you think it’s worth it, then you’re going to pay more money. If you don’t think it’s worth it, then go to a state school. You’ll get similar education. You may not have the intrinsic value of that, quote, unquote, “Oh, I went to Stanford,” or “I went to Harvard,” or “I went to Yale.” You can’t say that. “Oh, I went to Colorado State,” or “I went to Utah State,” or “I went to Arizona State,” that doesn’t have the same ring, just like driving a car. “Oh, I drive a Mercedes” or a BMW, versus, “Oh, I drive a Kia.” I mean, it’s fair in that sense of the word, but doing this diversity, equity, and inclusion is to minimize the fairness as you would. So it’s unfair in my mind, it’s unfair to do diversity, equity, and inclusion, because you lose the intrinsic value of the differentiation, whether it be in clothing, whether it be in food, whether it be in cars, housing.

Is it fair to charge $2 million for a house in one area or part of town and $600,000 in another part of town? Yes, it’s fair, if that’s the intrinsic value that property brings. But if you put everything at $600,000, and that’s the maximum that you can pay for a house, sooner or later, that’s going to be unfair. Do you see what I’m saying? So again, I’m not trying to minimize the importance of discriminating unethically, unethical discrimination, in other words, where you’re holding somebody’s head to the fire for something that is not logical. For example, if a kindergartner was going to Stanford, they wouldn’t do well, so that’s not fair. And so, you can’t expect a kindergartner to do well at Stanford or at any higher education place. So, we have to keep it so we don’t discriminate as you would, but we differentiate. So we’re differentiating, and that’s what I like to use, the word differentiate versus discriminate. Does that make sense, Rob, about let’s differentiate, not discriminate?

Rob Artigo: Yeah. And the bottom line is that it used to be just common sense to treat people fairly and equally, and give people an equal chance and hire the best, surround yourself with the best people. And now, in a lot of workplaces, it’s just been replaced.

Well, let me wrap this up. This is a fast-growing podcast. Ray, as you know, rated one of the top in Silicon Valley. We’d like to keep that up, so listeners, please go to your podcast source, rate the podcast, make sure that we’re getting some traction, more traction out there, and share the links to the podcast as well with other people so that we can grow the audience and spread the word with Ray Zinn’s knowledge. Also, check out Ray’s … Oh, yeah, go ahead.

Ray Zinn: Remember, differentiate, don’t discriminate.

Rob Artigo: Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: That’s the bottom line of this podcast.

Rob Artigo: Please also check out Ray’s books. You can differentiate between Zen of Zinn I, II, and III, then you can choose those. Also, check out Tough Things First, the book. That’s the original book that set all this in motion, and we’d love for you to read that. It’s a great series, the Zen of Zinn as well, so Zen of Zinn series, and those books are available. We look forward to the next time, Ray. Thanks.

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.