EPISODE 229 WITH MICHAEL D. LEVITT: OVERCOMING BURNOUT AND FINDING BALANCE

Ready Yet?! Podcast Episode 229 with Michael D. Levitt: Overcoming Burnout and Finding Balance

Transcribed with Descript

Erin Marcus: All right. Hello. Hello. And welcome to this episode of the ready yet podcast, where my guests this morning, Michael Leavitt and I will be chatting about burnout amongst other things. I have some questions about that. So this is really good timing for me personally with other people. I’m sure they’ll benefit from it as well.

Erin Marcus: But before we get into all my questions, why don’t you tell people a little bit officially who you are and what you

Michael D. Levitt: do. Oh, thank you so much. Really looking forward to our conversation today. So as you said, my name is Michael Levitt that was given to me by my parents. So it’s a name that I’ve stuck with for a while and no real plan.

Michael D. Levitt: Yeah. It’s I hear the name and I go, Oh, okay. I think they’re talking about me. So I, I fell into this world of, you know, coaching and speaking and writing about burnout. Through my own journey with burnout back in 2009 and 2010, where I had a pretty bad bout of it, and it created what I like to call my year of worst case scenarios.

Michael D. Levitt: So over a year’s time from 2009 to 2010, I had a heart attack that should have killed me. I lost my job during the Great Recession, my car was repossessed, and my home was foreclosed. And all of those things happen to me because I was burned out. I wasn’t taking care of myself. So after, you know, dusting myself off of those fun events, you know, I thought, well, I don’t want to go through that again.

Michael D. Levitt: So let’s kind of figure out what in the world happened. You know, why did I end up the way that I did? And I started researching like, okay, so what’s this burnout stuff? And I realized, oh yeah, I check all the boxes on that. Okay. And then You know, recovering from that, I decided, all right, let’s do a little bit deeper dive into this and figure out why I burnt out, you know, what, what was I doing that created these things to happen.

Michael D. Levitt: So after doing that for a couple of years, I’m like, okay, now I know how to kind of live my life without doing that again and was on my merry way. And then I just started noticing a lot more people. Burning out, and this was, you know, 2014, 2015, you know, now it’s, you know, even much worse than it was back then.

Michael D. Levitt: And I thought, okay, I can do something about this. Let me start writing about it. So I started writing about it, had a blog, and then a colleague of mine said, you know, you should do a podcast on this. And I’m like, podcast? Why the heck would I do that? And he said, no, just, you know, do a little five minute, yeah.

Michael D. Levitt: A little five minute segments on different things you can do to avoid burnout or recover from it. I’m like, okay, fine. So I did that and started with like 50 or so episodes. And then he calls me and says, so when are you going to start interviewing people? Like, it’s like, what are you doing to me, man, talk to other people.

Michael D. Levitt: I’m not just about burnout. Talk, talk to him about anything. And it’s like, okay. So. Did that and you know, 600 some episodes later, here we are and like, yikes. Okay. And then I decided, okay, since I’m writing, I might as well. Publish some books about it too. And it just kind of took a life of its own.

Michael D. Levitt: It, you know, the framework, you know, I launched the business. I got incorporated and all that. It’s like, well, you know what, why don’t I just do that and kind of get something and see what happens. And, you know, I ended up leaving my job in 2018 to go full time into this and consulting and all kinds of other stuff.

Michael D. Levitt: So it was one of those things where my experience actually. birthed, you know, a career path for me, which I would have never guessed, you know, after, you know, that wonderful year that I had, that that would have happened. I figured I would just, you know, gone back into working, learning, you know, better ways to work without beating myself up.

Michael D. Levitt: And that’s how we got here today. So again, looking forward to this chat.

Erin Marcus: Awesome. Well, thank you. Cause I, so one of the things that strikes me about your story and I’ve interviewed other people who’ve had situations like yours, where when you’re saying burnout, you’re talking about some heavy duty things happening, right?

Erin Marcus: Like debilitating life and death situations. And then there’s a lot of people that it’s almost becoming a little bit overused. The word, right? Like, there’s, right, the word burnout in our dramatic Instagram world, we’re calling things burnout that are definitely a rough patch, don’t get me wrong, but isn’t anywhere near The level of the story that you share the stories that I’ve had some guests share, you know, lapsing on the floor type of met, you know, hospitalized situations.

Erin Marcus: And I, I vacillate between thinking overusing the word waters down the problem, or does awareness help people jump out in front of this before it actually gets bad?

Michael D. Levitt: And this is just my observation and participating in studies and in research and whatnot is it is good that we’re talking about it, but I don’t think society is quite yet at the stage of people actually taking some actions to correct it.

Michael D. Levitt: There was an article that was published yesterday that I have not read in detail, but it was it was a UK based article, but it basically flushed out that. Employee mental health programs through work are not getting used. They’re not, they’re not, they’re not helping at all. Even though employers are pouring more money into it now than before.

Michael D. Levitt: Just the here, here’s the EAP brochure.

Erin Marcus: There’s a rate, but when I listen to what happens in the corporate world. And, you know, my boyfriend works for a very large company. It’s actually a really good company. And I, but because we’re all working from home, I, he seems to move slowly out of his office and into the kitchen over the course of the day.

Erin Marcus: So I hear more and more of it. I hear all of his afternoon meetings. And this great, great company is also having this problem. It’s so weird, like, the more that I get involved with people like yourself, and the more that I get immersed in my own personal development journey, I’m thinking this problem is being solved because the people I surround myself with are very aware of this, and they’ve taken, they’ve done the work to prevent it, and they’re in charge of their own lives, and yeah, I agree with you on the corporate side.

Erin Marcus: Even though there’s so many rules now and, and DEI and things that you need to be providing your employees, I think it’s a check the box situation too many times. Right. The company says, look, I have this available to you. Check. I get to check the box. But is it really something I promote they promote to be utilized?

Erin Marcus: Is it really something that they’d be okay with if people utilized it? And so I think it’s so interesting to me that as a group of people has become more and more and more aware of it, the rest of the people, it’s gotten worse and worse and worse.

Michael D. Levitt: Yeah, I think there’s awareness and going back to what you said a moment ago with the social media, instagram, everybody’s saying that they’re burned out.

Michael D. Levitt: They’re definitely dealing with some stress, but burnout, but burnout is prolonged stress, you know, where you’re You know, unable to keep up with the demands of your life. You’re overwhelmed. Typically, it’s work related, but you can get burnout from being a

Erin Marcus: caregiver or being a

Michael D. Levitt: stay at home parent or whatever the case may be.

Michael D. Levitt: It’s not exclusive to work, but you know, the stats are showing that a lot of it is, is due to that. And, you know, there’s a lot of factors that throw are thrown in there one, and we’re starting to see this again. It’s kind of mimicking, you know, when I had my burnout. during the great recession where organizations are cutting back so that if you’re fortunate enough to not lose your job you’re going to in all likelihood have to pick up the slack a little bit because you’re you have less people working so you’re going to be working more on some things so that can be emotionally overwhelming you’re like oh i got more work to do and a lot of it And some people might get mad at me for saying this.

Michael D. Levitt: A lot of it is your mindset. It’s like, okay, I have to do this versus I get to do this. I’m paid to be here eight hours. I’ve got all this work. It’s going to take me at least eight hours to do it, or I’m never going to get my work done. Never getting your work done means, you know, you’re always got things going on is actually a good thing for job security.

Erin Marcus: Well, and this is something that I had to learn when you talk about your perspective. I had to stop telling myself that I needed to fix my calendar, that I needed to fix my time blocks, that I needed to fix my mindset. That I have. I figured out somewhere, I’m sure other external people helped me realize it, that saying that I had to fix those things implied that there was one day that there was going to be fine.

Erin Marcus: And that’s not a thing, like calendar management is an ongoing thing, mindset management is an ongoing thing, and letting go of the idea that it’s either broken and or fixed. kind of helped me change my perspective. Sometimes I have to work on it more and sometimes I could get to work on it less, but I got to be aware of it.

Erin Marcus: And, and the other thing to your point where because people are, you know, they’re getting, people are getting laid off, the people who remain have more work to do. I would say compounded right now is the fact that the increase in price Right, the inflation and the effect that price increases have had on just staying generally alive and okay have gone up so much that now you have that added stress of doing more work for what result?

Michael D. Levitt: Yeah, the cost of things are much higher than what the Government is reporting in certain things. You know, yes. Okay, you can do the math and say, okay, that’s up 20 percent or 5 percent whatever on things, but you recognize in the grocery store. We definitely recognized it at the gas station for a while.

Michael D. Levitt: So when people started getting called back to go into the office, a lot of people are going. Why would I

Erin Marcus: spend half of my money that I’m making to get to your company to work for

Michael D. Levitt: you? Pretty much. And, and, and, you know, management’s argument, well, you know, the team dynamics and this and this, like, whoa, wait a minute.

Michael D. Levitt: We’ve been working remotely for a year and a half, two years, even longer. And our productivity levels did not drop off. In many instances, we’ve seen that they were at least the same, if not increased, because what it did is it forced organizations to bust down all the silos that we had built up over the years and get, let’s get some communication flowing to make sure everybody has everything.

Erin Marcus: Yeah.

Michael D. Levitt: And yeah, how

Erin Marcus: to do it differently. And the, I heard a statistic, I mean, and I know it’s not. You can say it’s a problem, it’s an inflation problem, then a burnout problem, but it all goes together. You would need, the way that the average wages are now, you would need, and the way the average home prices have increased, you would need, the average employee would need a 47 percent raise in order to afford a house.

Michael D. Levitt: Yeah, the housing prices are just It’s stupid. And it’s not just in big markets either. It’s in small towns and it’s getting to the point where, okay, we need to have some type of correction, adjustment, whatever you want to call it, but what. What will that look like? It’s going to be painful no matter what it’s going to be.

Michael D. Levitt: And I remember this is a long time ago. I remember in college, I was taking an econ class and this was all right. I’ll date myself. It was the late 80s, early 90s.

Erin Marcus: Me too.

Michael D. Levitt: and my, I was in

Erin Marcus: econ in 89. .

Michael D. Levitt: Yeah, yeah. So yeah, in 87, 88. So really close. So I remember the econ teacher, you know, was talking and giving us all the caney and stuff and you know, all, all the things.

Michael D. Levitt: But you know, she made a comment and it stuck with me, you know, all these years later, it’s like at some point. In our lifetime, we’re probably going to see a pretty significant adjustment, and it’s going to hurt, it’s going to hurt really, really bad and, and they asked, you know, it’s going to be worse than the Great Depression kind of thing, and she wouldn’t comment on that, I, I don’t know what things will be like when it happens, but it’s going to get to the point where people simply cannot afford The cost of things and it’s like, what do we do about that?

Michael D. Levitt: Do we, you know, just move on? And we You know, like a lot of the commentary, it’s like we’ll own nothing and be happy about it We’re just going to be, you know, paying subscription fees to everything from netflix to our cars to food service Or whatever also to

Erin Marcus: the houses because I just met a gentleman who he manages an investment fund And nice guy great guy like he manages an investment fund and they’re You It’s a very secure, conservative, safe, managed, you know, fund because their entire portfolio is in multifamily housing.

Erin Marcus: And so you have groups of investors being able to acquire houses and multifamily housing because we are moving towards we’ll only be able to ever rent.

Michael D. Levitt: Well,

Erin Marcus: right. And what is that going to look like? And you can talk about the American dream, and that’s a bad thing. Or you can just say this is the change.

Erin Marcus: And this is what we have to deal with. But it’s very hard to unring a bell, right? It doesn’t work that way.

Michael D. Levitt: It’s One of the things when I hear and completely side, you know, unrelated, but kind of funny is whenever you hear the phrase American dream, I think of the late wrestler, Dusty Rhodes, that was his nickname was the American dream,

Erin Marcus: right?

Michael D. Levitt: Unfortunately, he’s passed away. And unfortunately, I, the American dream as it was, I think May be out of reach for a lot of people for the foreseeable future and again,

Erin Marcus: what they want has changed, right? The American dream from the fifties was getting a job that led you. You stuck with that company and they stuck with you until you retired at 62 and then you sat on your porch.

Erin Marcus: In God’s waiting room, pretty

Michael D. Levitt: much. I’m, I’m doing the rocking for those that are listening to the auto. I’m just rocking going. This is boring. No. And it, and again, going back to something I kind of mentioned earlier is. When one of the things that leads to burnout and stress and all of that is stressing out over things that we don’t have control over.

Erin Marcus: I was thinking the same thing.

Michael D. Levitt: I can’t control the housing price individually. As a group. We could, but if you follow supply and demand, and this is probably the most I’ve ever talked about econ.

Erin Marcus: 1989. Yeah,

Michael D. Levitt: exactly. But supply and demand, if the demand is there, it’s going to justify that the cost is going to be this much a square foot or whatever.

Michael D. Levitt: And there’s definitely an imbalance because you have areas that, you know, want people to come in and work, you know, big cities and all of that. And they’re like, But we can’t afford to live there. So then you go, well. How do you get people to go into work and then they live in a different area? So they’ve got longer commutes public transit, not a strong suit of our country.

Michael D. Levitt: In certain areas, maybe a little bit better than others in New York, Boston, yeah, Chicago. Yeah. You know, I, I, I took Metro. I was on the loop when I, when I lived there. And so, yeah, but other parts, you know, Detroit, where I’m originally from, Oh, no, that, that, that is, you know, using a German phrase, DAS is verboten, you know, the, it’s a, you’re not going to get public transit in Detroit because that cuts into their meal plan, which is the auto sector.

Michael D. Levitt: And I understand that, but it, it, it. People can’t even afford cars. So it’s like, okay, how do I, you know, get a job? I don’t have a car. I can’t, there’s an Alice Cooper song that touches that. I can’t get a job cause I don’t have a car. I don’t have a car cause I can’t get a job. And it’s, it’s an older song, but it’s, it’s true.

Michael D. Levitt: So a lot of people are struggling and really upset about it and stressful. But again, there’s certain things they can control and there’s certain things that they can’t. And the sooner you get closer to. Understanding what you can control, and, and finding the things that make you happy. Which is comes from within spoiler alert, you know, figure out how figure out how to make yourself happy from within that.

Michael D. Levitt: It helps minimize the stress a little bit. And if you don’t have prolonged stress, you won’t burn out. So a lot of the work is internal. You know, we try to outsource everything. We want everything quick. We want to order something, have it delivered to us and, you know, not wait to get it. 10 minutes, two weeks to flatten the curve.

Michael D. Levitt: We want things to be quick and certain things in life just don’t work that way. So it frustrates us because we’re so instantly gratified with the way things are. When we don’t get it, it frustrates us. We’re like, why isn’t this working? It’s because it’s not supposed to work that

Erin Marcus: way. Well, and one of the things you said that I, I, I totally agree with you.

Erin Marcus: Like the stress is caused by focusing on things we can’t control and we feel that we can’t control. And yet I watch, I have, I’ve had, it’s weird how these happen in chunks. I’ve had so many conversations in just the last couple weeks, maybe they knew I’d be talking to you today, where the thing that somebody wants to control is another person, you know, is another person.

Erin Marcus: And as soon as that happens, you’re out of luck. Like that’s, You can control whether or not you go keep that job, you can control whether or not you live here or there. There’s sacrifices to be made, there’s adjustments to be made, there’s choices and decisions to be made and actions to be taken. But as soon as you want one of the things you get to control to be another human being, you’re doomed.

Erin Marcus: Like, that’s just not a thing.

Michael D. Levitt: Yeah, you can’t you can’t do that and I’ve worked you know for bosses and they’ve been great and I’ve had some that were Frustrating but a lesson that I learned much later in life, which I wish I would have learned earlier But at least I learned it was you have to understand things from their point of view and I think that would help in all Kinds of aspects of life, you know seek to understand what their point of view is on things instead of just this black and white You Trump versus Biden, you know, it’s like seek to understand the other person’s point of view, why they feel this way on a particular matter, not saying it’s going to change your mind, but it just, just like, you know, if you have your own personal beliefs and thoughts and how you feel things should be going to be careful about should, you don’t want to shoot all over yourself, but how you, how you perceive things, Could be again, that’s one of those things where is that in your control or not?

Michael D. Levitt: And when it comes to honestly,

Erin Marcus: should it be like, I’m always, I think that’s a big one for me that I don’t know if this was work that I’ve done on my personal journey or my natural, leave me alone personality. I don’t know where this comes from, but I. I really have never understood why anyone cares what anyone else is doing.

Erin Marcus: I just never, like, as long as we’re not har you know, we’re not murdering people, we’re not stealing from people, why does I never understood that. And I see that being the cause of so much stress.

Michael D. Levitt: Mm hmm. Oh yeah, you see what’s

Erin Marcus: Right, you’re trying to control what somebody else is doing. It has nothing to do with you.

Erin Marcus: It has no impact on you. It has no effect on you.

Michael D. Levitt: Yeah, you know, it’s like when people, if you’re driving and somebody cuts you off, you get mad at that person. Like, you know, they’re, you know, that person is not trying to cut you off. They don’t know who you are. That was not

Erin Marcus: personal and odds are they didn’t see you.

Erin Marcus: Like, and I think the brutal truth that we all have to learn is the, it’s not about me. Yeah. And that’s worth it. Oh, sure. It is. Oh, sure. That the world is not about me. That what everybody else is doing is not about me. What they’re saying is not about me. That nine times out of ten, whatever they’re doing, they’re projecting something about themselves.

Erin Marcus: If they’re even involving me and everyone’s on their own little journey

Michael D. Levitt: and they’re just they’re just trying to navigate through life They’ve got their own situations in the brain Yeah, exactly you’re up against neuroscience the negative part or you know negative thoughts of our brain was the first one To get developed to when our brains started developing.

Michael D. Levitt: So we have a tendency just to go, yeah, just going that way. And we have to, you know, use the other parts of our brain to go, no, that’s actually not true, but you have to, you have to kind of pause. And again, that sometimes is in the heat of the moment. And we, we don’t feel like that, you know. I get cut off, it’s like, okay, I hope they get to where they’re going without hurting themselves or anybody else.

Michael D. Levitt: Maybe they slept in, maybe they had a bad outing. You’re nicer than

Erin Marcus: I am. I take a slightly more sarcastic approach to letting it go.

Michael D. Levitt: Oh, so, so, so you basically, so, so you basically, you know, lay on the ska music when they cut you off, right? My, my,

Erin Marcus: no, I don’t get mad. It’s kind of a condescending, so I’ve, you know, again, from Chicago, so I’ve had my parking spot stolen as I’ve tried to back into it, and I actually said this out loud to somebody once, if that’s the only thing you have in your life that’s making you happy, I don’t want to be the one to take that away from you.

Erin Marcus: People don’t appreciate So again, same thing, it’s released, but with a slightly more sarcastic condescending

Michael D. Levitt: approach. It’s a very sarcastic, jeddak, Chicago approach.

Erin Marcus: It is. Hey, if you’ve gotta get in front of me in that lane, and that is what your self esteem hinges on, don’t let me take that away from you.

Erin Marcus: If that’s all you’ve got, I don’t want to take that.

Michael D. Levitt: Yeah. Oh yeah. And, and you just let them, you know, stew in their own misery and you’ll be like, you know what? You’ll end up finding a spot that is actually easier to back into,

Erin Marcus: you know,

Michael D. Levitt: or, or you’ve got one of those cars that does the parking for you, which

Erin Marcus: I have a mini Cooper that fits in a motorcycle parking spot.

Erin Marcus: That’s true. Yeah. You can probably

Michael D. Levitt: sneak it in some bike lane. Oh yeah, I can

Erin Marcus: totally parallel park it behind my brother’s garage in the south side of Chicago.

Michael D. Levitt: There you go. Yeah, exactly. No, no parking problem for you. No

Erin Marcus: parking problem. So, okay, so questions for you because we really, like, if people aren’t picking up on this, we really talked about not trying to control other people, focusing on the things you can control as ways to help you avoid burnout.

Erin Marcus: What are some of, like, My whole thing is, and I mentioned it, like you’re up against neuroscience and then a lot of things when we’re trying to move forward in life, you’re kind of up against neuroscience, so you can’t change the way your brain works. So to speak to me, the goal is catch it faster, fix it faster.

Erin Marcus: Can I just catch it a minute faster? And can I just. Turn a minute faster. What are some of the other things that you know are triggers or people should look out for or hacks or however you want to phrase that?

Michael D. Levitt: Yeah, I’ll go with, I’ll go with some hacks and we’ll kind of blend in some things. Probably the biggest one for me is just making sure that you just focus on your sleep.

Michael D. Levitt: Really invest in getting good sleep, and that means the best mattress you can afford, the best pillows, the best sheets that feel comfortable to you, room temperature, I use a sleep mask it’s been a game changer, you know, if, unless your room is completely dark then fine, but the sleep mask, it takes a little getting used to, but Just adjust it so it’s not like sucking your brain out of your head, you know, that’s a little too tight, you know, loosen it up a little bit.

Michael D. Levitt: It stays

Erin Marcus: on, but doesn’t give you Yeah, it’s like, you know, it’s like, you you know, when you wear

Michael D. Levitt: glasses, sometimes you get the little dention on the node, all of a sudden you got these lines on the side of your head and easier for me to see because it doesn’t mess with my hair doesn’t get in the way. So.

Michael D. Levitt: Yeah, the sleep mask is a thing, but just focus on your sleep room temperature. Now, if you sleep with a partner, it’s statistically impossible that you will agree on the temperature of the room. So adjust accordingly. It’s, it’s interesting, especially with those programmable thermostats. Everybody’s grabbing their phones at night and adjusting the temperature to preferred flavor while no one notices that we don’t have to get out of bed.

Michael D. Levitt: But I always tell people, you know, keep the smartphones out of the bedroom too, because the light, the light triggers your brain into thinking, Hey, it’s, it’s time to be awake. So it just makes

Erin Marcus: noise even when it’s on silent.

Michael D. Levitt: Of course. Yeah, exactly. Especially those Amber alerts and they’re like, Oh man.

Michael D. Levitt: Yeah. It’s like, Oh, I mean, you should feel bad. You know, someone’s, you know, kids missing. But you know, again, it’s like, Oh, I’m just trying to sleep, but it’ll keep the technology out of your room and, and really focus on good, consistent sleep. And it’s just like anything you schedule other things. And you say, you know, some people are pretty free flowing, but other people are.

Michael D. Levitt: Sure. You know, really, you know, strict on their calendar and their schedule on certain things. Same thing for your sleep. Make sure you’re, you’re getting that optimum amount of sleep for you. I’m not going to tell you it’s eight hours. You got to figure out that for yourself. But if you focus on that, then what that does is your body then gets to get good sleep and repair the damage we do to ourselves on a daily basis.

Michael D. Levitt: I

Erin Marcus: don’t think people realize. You know, so when I was younger, I used to do competitive powerlifting and bodybuilding, and we used to use the phrase, feed the machine. And I don’t think people real, like, eat in order to perform better. And I don’t think people realize between sleep and hydration, that’s what you’re, like, your brain cannot, all the other stuff.

Erin Marcus: Right from the neck down with cardiovascular problems, whatever, but without sleep and hydration Your bat your your brain shrivels up and just doesn’t work.

Michael D. Levitt: Yeah, but you know the the our brains Change, you know the gray matter and all that stuff can change just basically on how we’re living and we’re not talking about Concussions or head trauma or anything like that.

Michael D. Levitt: We’re just we’re just Based on what we consume. And it’s so important. You know, that’s a side. Another tip is you really figure out what foods are right for you and that I used a couple of years ago. I got a fruit, excuse me, a food intolerance test done and they test. They tested me on over 250 types of foods and a lot of them.

Michael D. Levitt: I knew I had an intolerance to a bunch of things. Side. Did not know and I was consuming those foods a lot. So I started adjusting my nutritional plan down a bit and I started feeling better. You know, I had less inflammation. I just was resting better, feeling better, and then occasionally I’ll say, you know what?

Michael D. Levitt: Sounds good. I’m gonna have something like that that I know that I know I’ve got

Erin Marcus: nothing to do this weekend. It’s Friday night. I have two days to recover, get my schedule back. I can go do, eat the thing that’s gonna wreck me for a couple of days.

Michael D. Levitt: Yeah, and, and I’ve done that, but then it’s, and this is again, everybody’s different on this.

Michael D. Levitt: It’s, I’m, I’m working and currently. You know, as, as we speak, I’m currently working on my relationship with food and going, all right, what foods do I know I feel good and nourished after I eat and I don’t have any type of side effects to? Even though I know I love the taste of this, it’s like, it’s the, the taste buds seem to be the boss a lot.

Michael D. Levitt: And you’re like, no, I don’t want you to be. I think that’s

Erin Marcus: habitual because I feel when I eat clean for a while, when I eat clean for a period of time, First, it starts out with intention, right? I have to pay attention and do the prep work to make sure I, but after a very short period of time, I completely lose my taste for the foods that are bad for me.

Erin Marcus: You, it’s just a different habit gets created.

Michael D. Levitt: Yeah, exactly. And it’s

Erin Marcus: not, you know, if you can get over the 10 day hump, it’s amazing. It,

Michael D. Levitt: it gets in healthier too. One of the things I started doing was making my own breakfast sausage. So the ingredients, I, you know, I mix it up. I try different things and all of that.

Michael D. Levitt: And, you know, maybe I’ll fry an egg. Maybe I won’t, you know, put it on a biscuit or homemade. whatever and, and eat it and fine. And then the other day I went to a fast food establishment and ordered a breakfast sandwich, ate it and was lethargic all day. We used to

Erin Marcus: call them icky biscuits. Yeah. Because they tasted so good, but they did such a number on how you felt all day.

Erin Marcus: Yeah. That we used to call them, you know, do you want to, Yeah.

Michael D. Levitt: Well, it makes sense. And it’s like, at first you go, wait a minute, how is this possible? But it’s, it’s all about, it’s all about the ingredients. When you’re making your own food, you, you can control what you put into it.

Erin Marcus: And I don’t think that people are quite, you know, we hear it.

Erin Marcus: But I don’t know that and I absolutely agree with you. So I just put this in a personal perspective. I had a very rough last half of 23. I had issues with my business that I really wasn’t expecting. We were doing amazing things and great things and great partnerships and so excited about everything and then So much of it didn’t work, right?

Erin Marcus: So there’s that frustration. I have my mom is very sick and has had a series of surgeries that had a series of complications and she’s halfway across the country. My dad had a second heart attack. He’s fine. She’s fine. Everybody’s fine. But we’ve got a puggle in this house that has her nights and days mixed up because she is 17 years old.

Erin Marcus: And so we’re getting 45 minute blocks of sleep at night. And I spent my holiday break Doing nothing. And I’m a very hyper, very driven person. And I am telling you, I didn’t move for probably three weeks. And I read crappy stuff on my Kindle. And I watched crappy TV on television. And I ate crappy food. It was really good food, but it was very bad for me.

Erin Marcus: And I, I mean, Probably for a good three weeks and I, and the reason I asked you in the beginning, burnout, are we overusing it is that was, I would call that a depression, not burnout.

Michael D. Levitt: Yeah.

Erin Marcus: Frustrated. I was not, I don’t feel burnt out. I felt unhappy and stuck and frustrated and all those things, right? Yeah.

Erin Marcus: So here we are now, a couple weeks into the new year and for the last two weeks, I have focused on my food exercise, like I’m back to doing, taking care of myself physically. I, I really had to stop and think, okay, what’s the one domino? What’s the first domino to fall, right? What has to be that first domino to fall?

Erin Marcus: And it, I could have said, well, I need to be on the phone making sales calls every day, but that’s reaction mode. Like I could have, you know, I could have come up with. A million different things, but when I really looked at it, I was not taking care of myself. And the first domino that had to fall was that.

Erin Marcus: And it is remarkable to me, the difference in just two weeks.

Michael D. Levitt: Yeah, it doesn’t take long. If you start taking care of yourself, it doesn’t take long and as somebody that has both been burned out and suffered with depression I I know the there’s a lot of commonalities between the two but you know, the biggest difference for me anyway was that I just I I know I can do it I just don’t want to

Erin Marcus: complete apathy,

Michael D. Levitt: which again is a strong Gen X trait, but, you know, being one, I kind of know it, but you have to kind of gauge like, okay, what is this?

Michael D. Levitt: Yeah. And, you know, it, for me, it was like, okay, there’s, there’s things definitely not right. Because there’s things that. You know, I, that normally energized me and I look at it with no, I didn’t

Erin Marcus: feel like doing it. Right. And, and to me, it always goes back to the decision. Like my tagline for my business is be in charge, take action, get results.

Erin Marcus: And because the first thing always has to be that decision, nothing happens until you make that decision for something to happen. And I did the same thing you did. I’m like, okay, what is this? What is this? How long? And then the next question was, how long was I going to be willing to allow it to continue?

Erin Marcus: And

Michael D. Levitt: it boils down to the theme where it’s, it’s ultimately up to you, the individual. You can’t Which goes back

Erin Marcus: to your idea on control.

Michael D. Levitt: There was nothing that

Erin Marcus: said I needed something external.

Michael D. Levitt: It was all right. It’s all, it’s, it’s all within. And you, you work on yourself to be the best version of you. And, you know, Then the dominoes will fall, but they’ll be for, you know, positive reasons and you’ll get, you know, energized and you’ll have the discipline because discipline eats motivation for lunch.

Michael D. Levitt: The discipline you get that right when you don’t feel like doing something, you’re going to do it anyway, you’ll, you’ll, you’ll thank yourself for it. And then, then it usually kickstarts motivation to try something in addition to carry forward. So it’s, it, there, it, It’s a lot about life hacking and, and, but, you know, more importantly, figuring out who you are, and that’s sometimes a very scary question for people to ask themselves.

Michael D. Levitt: And the

Erin Marcus: discipline is so true because Instagram would have you believing it’s all an easy, you know, everything’s just an easy button. Motivation does kick in, but there is, there is always work first. There’s always, it gets easier, but there’s always work first. Absolutely. So if people want to continue this conversation with you, I see your book right there, Burnout Proof, which I love.

Erin Marcus: Oh, In your background, you’re like, I don’t know what you’re actually looking at. But if people want to continue this conversation with you and learn more about how to pull themselves out of this, what can they do? What can be within their control? What’s the best way for them to find you?

Michael D. Levitt: Just go to breakfastleadership.

Michael D. Levitt: com and there’s links at the top or enjoy that rapid haul. There’s all kinds of things up there. If they want a free PDF copy of my book, just go to breakfastleadership. com slash burnout book and drop in your email address and I promise I won’t spam you and I’ll just send you a PDF copy of the book and some other templates and resources that I reference in the book to hopefully help people kind of get back in control of their life and and live their best life.

Erin Marcus: And the thing that I love about this topic is Humans get very stuck in all or nothing thinking, but there’s a lot of little tiny tweaks you can do that make big differences. You’re not, this doesn’t have to be hard.

Michael D. Levitt: You don’t need, for most people, you don’t have to reinvent yourself. You just make a couple adjustments here and there and you’ll see huge results.

Michael D. Levitt: And then from there you can determine, okay, what other aspects of my life do I want to examine? Don’t try to do it all. Just figure out where you’re at. And there’s a lot to be said about, okay, I feel pretty good right now. Good. That’s, that’s good. Ride that wave, you know, ride that

Erin Marcus: way and get that first domino.

Erin Marcus: Absolutely. Thank you for joining me today and sharing your story, your insights. I highly encourage people to reach out. This is realizing this has been. Probably the foundation of what I’ve been able to accomplish. And I know so many people who this is the starting point of changing everything for them.

Erin Marcus: So it’s very near and dear to my heart. So thank you. Thank you for sharing your insight with me.

Michael D. Levitt: Thank you for having me.