It's NAPFA Genesis webinar sponsored by LLIS in Tampa, Florida. LLIS is the exclusive sponsor of NAPFA Genesis, bringing you these webinars, national conference and symposium scholarships, social events at the NAPFA national conferences, plus two Genesis webinars per year on the latest in insurance and risk management. And I'd like to welcome our guests today. Many of you may already recognize the face of our guests today, but Arlene Moss is an executive business coach at XY Planning Network. She works alongside by side with XYPN members, so how many of you may be on the call today, to coach them through the trials of business ownership from the preparing to launch group training, which Arlene facilitates each week to team and solo coaching engagements. She works through management and hiring challenges with those firms as they grow. So thank you, Arlene, for joining us today. I'm so excited to be here. Thanks everybody for joining us. We were talking about how summer, it's a little hard to get excited about webinars in the summer. So hopefully I can bring you a little bit of content that's going to brighten your day and give you some thoughts. Today is we're talking about breaking the burnout cycle, which sounds like a real downer, but this is not about being a pity party. It's about knowledge and using that knowledge to reclaim some power over your lives. So what I want to do is translate a lot of research into concrete action that you can take. So now you already know who I am, that nice little intro. So we're going to skip right past this bad boy. I do want to check in, and this is why I opened up the chat. I'm used to, at XY, we always have the chat open because we're just used to people can't pay attention in class and have to talk to their friends. But I do want to check in on a couple little things before we really launch. Just kind of raise your little virtual hand, throw in a, oh, heck yeah, or nope, never heard it in the chat for if you've ever felt like you just can't keep up. You're working on that inbox and it goes down, and then all of a sudden, plunk, it's filled up again. Or you've got your to-do list and you mark some things off, but then, whoosh, you add some more on and you never, ever get to zero. Another thing I want to see in that chat is if you've ever felt tired. Even after a day off, a good night's sleep. I live and die by like, how did I do? Did I sleep okay? We got our little watches that'll tell us how we slept, all kinds of things. But sometimes you still feel tired. Have you ever dreaded going to work or meeting with clients? Now, this one, I get it, especially if you got a coworker on the call. You might not want to raise your hand on this one, but just kind of think about it in your head. It's okay to admit that. I absolutely love my job and there have been days where I just don't want to do it. And there have been client calls where I'm just like, I don't think I have the energy that I need. And that's okay. Have you ever felt easily annoyed? Oh, this one, I loved this one because I was like, wait a minute, have you been in my office easily annoyed or frustrated by either the people you're working with or the tasks you're trying to do? I'm going to tie all this together to kind of, with other factors, to show if you are experiencing burnout. Michael, I'm so happy for you. That makes me really happy that the engineering switched to financial planning has you feeling none of these things. So you might be able to just read your email during this podcast or excuse me, during this webinar. But most of us have had experience with one of these things at one time or another. But what we're seeing is across the world, across industries, whether it's engineering or financial planning, it's gotten worse. The pandemic added to it, the rise in technology and how that impacts our lives is increasing this. So today, what we're going to do, remember, no pity party. We are going to make sure we have a shared understanding of what burnout is and what it is not. That's kind of critical to this. Then we're going to look at some symptoms and causes and we're going to talk about healing and preventing future burnout. So that's going to be a biggie. Now you might wonder why in the world I'm doing this as an executive business coach, it's not exactly practice management, but I have been working with The Only Planner since 2004. Holy cow, so I've seen some things. I've been through a few bumps in the road and I love helping advisors live their very, very best life. But when we love what we do, it can be a double-edged sword. And I suspect many of you, Michael especially, love what you do. It can be so fulfilling, so rewarding, but that passion that drives you can turn ugly. The very thing that drives you forward can make you obsessive. And that dark side, that other side of that passion and that obsession is burnout. And that's what we're going to be looking at. I understand it from the perspective of working with all of you, but you of course are seeing it from the perspective of working with your clients. Some of you might be experiencing it as business owners. I was looking through the participants as you popped in. I think some of you are business owners, some of you are just starting out and some of you are total strangers to me and I don't know. So we're going to talk a little bit about both sides of those. But over here at XY, COVID brought home the meaning of burnout. Oh my goodness. XYPN, much like many companies, many organizations did, and perhaps the firm you work for did this, we approached the pandemic like a sprint, not the marathon that it turned out to be. Here in Colorado, I can never remember if this was national or just Colorado, but we had this thing that was two weeks to flatten the curve. And we just laugh at that now, that we thought we could all just extend spring break and magic would happen. But by fall of 2020, I didn't even know who I was anymore. Like I was a mess. I didn't know what direction to go. I didn't know how to help people. We had just been turning, turning, turning. And my resilience was non-existent. By 2021, I had nothing left, nothing left in my tank. And you, my friends, are possibly in a similar situation. You are all in this delightful or hideous intersection that is ripe for burnout. Even if you're here and you're not a firm owner, you might just be doing your thing, associate advisor, wherever you are on this path, you still have some intersections here. If you're the owner, oh my goodness, you've got them all. You're the entrepreneur. That makes you ripe for burnout because setting boundaries, saying no, cutting yourself off and stopping is really hard. But financial services, people are looking to you for answers when there aren't necessarily answers. The market, the world, what should I do with my investments because of the election? What should I do because of wars? What should I do because the market seems to just be up and down and I'm not sure? All of these things, people come to you for support on things you don't really have control over. And helping professions in general are very susceptible to burnout. And so here you sit right at the intersection. But please know you are not alone. I don't, that's one thing I want you to take away from this call is that this is very real. It's not in your head and you're not the only one. On a recent NAMI, National Alliance of Mental Illness study in 2024. So this year, 52% of employees reported feeling burned out in the past year because of their job. 37 were so overwhelmed it made it hard to do their job. We're gonna talk about that in a minute. This is also on all levels. There's a little more if you're an experienced person, you've been around a while or your manager level than if you're in an entry level position. But everybody's experiencing it. All the way back in 2019, FPA did a study and found that extreme stress was one of the main reasons folks closed their firms. They just gave it up. 71%, holy cow, almost three quarters of advisors experience moderate or high negative stress. And negative stress is that chronic never ending stress. That's what leads to burnout. There is such a thing as positive stress and that is situational that can drive you forward, that can help you achieve a goal, but then it goes away. That might be as simple as am I nervous before we start this webinar? That if I'm a little bit nervous, that's gonna give me a little jolt and help me bring my A game. Situations like that, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about that chronic never ending. This made me almost want to cry. 84% of millennials have experienced burnout. This did not come with back out on why, and I'm so curious, I'll dig into that on my own time. Like, is it because their jobs are crap? Is it because their parents didn't help raise people who were resilient? I don't know, and I'm so curious about it, but it's still a horrible stat. So it's part of this, like, you're not alone. 44% of folks in the US, this is from a SRAM, Society of Human Resource Management, mental health study in 2024, 45% feel emotionally drained and 51 feel used up at the end of the workday. Now, I just want that word used up. Like, I have nothing else to give, period. That made me so sad. Burnout is real. It is not in your head. You are not alone. It is actually defined by the World Health Organization. It is an occupational phenomenon and it happens in the workplace. Now, we will casually throw this term around, right? Oh, I am so burned out on politics right now. I'm burned out on the news. And like, I did a great big hike, did a lot of training. By the end of that hike, I was a little burned out on hiking. We use it casually, but the World Health Organization says, no, no, this is resulting from chronic workplace stress that hasn't been successfully managed. So today I want you to think about what you can control. If you are a firm owner or a leader in your firm, please use today to think about what power you have and what changes you can make in your workplace. If you're an associate or some other role in the firm, I want you to look into what you can control about your life. So some of these suggestions, you're going to say, I can't do that. I don't have that power. And I understand that, but I want you to see where you do have power. And that's what's so critical to your progress. Also, let's talk about what burnout isn't, right? Because again, we use it. Oh, I'm so burned out on politics. Like I swear I hear that every day. Maybe that's just me. Maybe I say it every day, but what it isn't, it isn't just exhaustion, right? There's exhaustion and you can get tired out and that's fine, but that's not just to be tired of something is not burnout. It is not necessarily easy for you to notice. And it's definitely not easy to catch early. It's insidious. It kind of sneaks up on you. And then all of a sudden you're like, oh man, I'm a hot mess. And that's where you are. It is not something you can push through. The reason being that its origin is in the workplace. Its origin is in things you don't necessarily have immediate control over. So you can't just keep on shoving. It's been described sometimes as hitting rock bottom, but going on, or running your car on empty and just rolling that car along, even though there's nothing in the tank. This next bullet, I want you to realize how intentionally I use this double negative. Burnout is not, not a big deal, okay? It is a big deal. In 2015, get this old data I dragged out like nine years ago Stanford researchers estimated the economy loses 125 to $190 billion every year. Billion with a B and that's $2,015. So I don't want to know what the number is today because it's not good. It's lost due to absenteeism, low productivity, healthcare. At that time, 8% of healthcare could be related back to workplace stress. So there are real impacts here. So please know that this is not an individual problem. It is that workplace problem. It is bigger. So it can't be fixed with a bubble bath, my friends. Not that I have anything against a good bubble bath or a massage or a trip to the spa, whatever it takes for you to do self-care is a-okay. I am not trashy talking that. I am also telling you that's not going to necessarily get you a long-term solution to burnout. It takes a while to fix. So let's look again at what it is. And I want to hear from you. So get ready to start throwing stuff in the chat. But I love this description. It is a collection of workplace-related, work-related depressive symptoms. I think that brings the power and the importance to that definition that we can very glibly ignore in other circumstances. When we say they are depressive symptoms, you hear this is serious. This is something we need outside help to solve, whether that is therapy or real change in the workplace. When we state it this way, it adds magnitude. So therapy and counseling can help with a deeper impact of burnout. We're not going to go down that road too much today. We're going to talk about a few other things that we can be changing. But if you are wondering if you qualify as burned out, these are the three biggies. Have you felt exhaustion? And that can be mental, physical, or emotional. And that's one, I'll be really honest, that's the one that hit me. I knew I was mentally kind of burned out in that late 2020 timeframe, but it was the emotional exhaustion that made me finally throw up the red flag, the white flag, whatever kind of flag I was throwing up to be like, I'm a mess, somebody help. Cynicism, this is the sneaky one. It could be detachment or easily annoyed at work or resenting things in the workplace or just that like, yuck. And that one, ooh, that one raised its head in the classic meeting that could have been an email. And now we all have that on occasion. Somebody accidentally schedules a meeting and then they realize like they could have done it in an email, but when it's that cynical, eye roll, insidious kind, that's when you know you're starting to get there. And inefficacy, are you just not getting the job done? You can't get productive no matter how hard you try. You feel inadequate no matter how much you try. You just can't get the work done. To beat burnout, you need all three of these. There's the trick, okay? We can all experience some of these sometime and then it's just like, yuck, you're having a bad day. But classic, real burnout is all of them at once. And what is tricky is they show up in different ways in different people. They show up at different levels. One person might have more exhaustion, less cynicism, vice versa, but keep an eye out. And if you've got all three of those at the same time, you have experienced burnout. So take a sec here, and if you're comfortable throwing it in the chat, I would very much love to see it there, but I wanna just give you a moment of silence to think about when and if and how you have experienced burnout. Maybe even scribble some notes on a pad in front of you. Okie doke. I'm going to move on, but I want you to keep this in mind because it's nice to have these examples in your head of real life things you've experienced. And don't forget, if I'm kicking up any questions, you can throw them in the Q and A, or you can throw them in the chat. Let's take a look at what the heck causes all this. We're not going to be able to fix something if we don't know the causes. So a team of researchers out of UC Berkeley came up with six causes of burnout. Workload. I think that's one we all hang our hat on, right? I just, I've got too much. I don't have enough time. I don't have the resources to get it done. That kind of connects with the lack of control, which might show up as lack of autonomy. I can't even control my work hours so that I can work at my best time of day. I don't have the tools and resources I need to get the job done. And yet you keep giving me more job to do though. Lots of different things. These, this one is a kicker. If you're working for someone else, because it's reality that you can't control everything, but we're going to talk about what you can control rewards and recognition. This, if you are not feeling appreciated or cared about, or getting any kind of reward, whether it's just a pat on the back or a quick Slack message that says, hey, thanks for doing that. That can really wear you down. Social support. This one, hey, look, you are in a means of social support right this minute. Napa Genesis is social support. Community. If you don't have that, if you are in a firm that has high conflict and it's poorly resolved. And so you don't have trust for where you are and feel safe. We want you to feel safe and feel as if you belong. And those things can create a low level stressor. That's going to lead you to burnout. Dealing with fairness in the workplace. If you've got inequities, whether it's workload or pay scale, or just how much people get called out for when they do something good and you don't feel like you're getting called out as much or just handling disputes badly, all kinds of fun workplace drama falls into that social support and fairness. And then that last one, and it's a rough one is values conflict. If you're working in a firm, this might hit you. You might see some things that seem like a conflict with what your values are. So we are going to talk through a lot of these on how you can take control and see what you can do about them. Now, I know at this moment, it might seem overwhelming and frankly, just out of your control. So we're going to work through these. I'm going to dig into each of these areas, but we're going to focus heavily on a couple and less. So don't freak out when you see how much time I spend on workload. Don't freak out. It's got a lot. The rest don't have as much. So don't worry. But I want to work through each of these. Real thing on this one, I really just wanted to use the watering can to show putting out the little matches from the previous slide because I thought that was pretty creative. But mostly this slide is for you to look at later if you need to. I don't expect you to read all those words. We're going to go through them individually. So here we go. Workload's the biggie. This one is going to be if you're if you're a boss, you're going to really have to dig in and be in charge of what you can be in charge of and also pay attention to it for your subordinates. But regardless, I want you to be strategic about your workload. Everything cannot be number one. Everything can't be urgent. Take time to be strategic. For those of you that own a firm, that means annual retreats, quarterly time, really making sure you know what your goal, your visions are. But even if you are a cog in the wheel, if you are lower down in that firm and you're part of the team, you still need to have a real view of who you serve, who you don't serve, and if the work you're doing is essential and if you're prioritizing it well. So really take the time to do that. We're going to dig into the second one a little deeper on the next couple slides because I want you to know that no is a full sentence. You don't even have to always justify your no. How about that? When you're talking to clients, we're going to soften it, okay, because we don't want to be rude. But if you're saying no to yourself, you get to be really rude. You can be very ruthless. No, I will not be doing that. So how you talk to yourself can be a little bit different. But no is also about boundaries. No can be not me. No can be no more. We want to talk about what's good enough and we don't work on it anymore. That last one is booking time for leisure. That doesn't have to be fancy pansy vacations, so don't come to me with your budget. That's fine. But it has to be recharge time. And this is everyone. Everyone. It really has to be, and I love this definition of leisure in case you think it means fancy pansy vacation, freedom provided by the cessation of activities, especially time free from work or duties. It's just being. Now, you get to think of this not as an escape from work, but a recharge and preparation for going back to work. Being outside, even in small doses, will help you. Experiencing awe creates this sense that you aren't that important. And in the big scheme of things, you are small, and that will actually help you. Feeling insignificant can actually help your mindset. And this is going to look different for each of you. You get to pick how you want to detach, how you want to get away from things. Also novelty, doing something new and unexpected actually will slow down your perception of time. It feels as if time is moving slower when you're doing something new. I do not understand how that can be, but I believe the social scientists that say that is true. So please work on disconnected. So let's circle back though, to say a no, because everybody kind of freaks out on that one. So first lesson, I want everyone here to hear, especially women on the call, because we're more prone to it. But saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I can't help you. I'm sorry. You don't need to be sorry. You are protecting yourself and you are creating a space where you will be a better person. So we're going to come up with different words. Unfortunately, I'm not able to support you at this time. It's a lovely way to say, yeah, it's unfortunate. I'm not sorry because I'm doing what I need to do, but it is unfortunate. Thank you for thinking of me. It's a nice little intro. Thank you for thinking of me. But unfortunately, I'm not able to do that right now. Okay. Unfortunately, I'm at capacity. Another one I like to say, it's important to me that you, here's one I use a lot in this context of financial planning. It is so important to me that you get an excellent onboarding experience. And in order to do that, I cannot onboard you until mid-September. And you're telling them why they have to wait. They have to wait because they matter and their experience matters and the other people you're onboarding matter. And so you are pacing yourself. So you're not just saying no. It's important to me that you get the most value out of our relationship. And because of that, I'm going to be restructuring my planning process a little bit. So no, I can't meet with you six times a year is perhaps what you're saying, but you're giving it a little bit different tone. No, but is also a nice way to soften things. You know, we live in this society where a lot of times we're learning to say yes, and yes, and, and I love it. I'm a big fan. But no, but is also a great one. It softens it. No, that is not something I actually offer. But I have a colleague who specializes in that. Let me give you their contact information. No, that is not something I have capacity for. I would love to talk to you in April, if that works for you. And I will tell you fun fact, what cracked me up is I realized as I was working on these slides that that's actually what I used on Zach when we scheduled this. I don't remember the original dates that were offered, but they were hilariously busy. I had zero bandwidth for this, but I did. I was happy to help. I am happy to help. So I said, sure. How about fall? And we ended up with, I think I gave August, September, and here we are. So there's also, and this last one, oh my gosh, yes, I'd love to. And, okay, I would love to help you. And I'll need some guidance on extending the deadline on this other project is to make room for that. Or I would love to help with that. And let's talk about how I can shift part of my work to someone else on the team who might be able to do that. So that's also part of that. I'd be happy to help if both of those are kind of, they're all pretty similar. It's just a matter of what you're going to be comfortable with. And interesting fact on this, this is something I mentioned earlier that X, Y, P, N had major burnout situation. And it wasn't just me. It was like our poor little team was just wrote hard, put away wet. You know, we were just not looking good. So we had a session at all team meeting where they actually made us practice saying no to our bosses and the I'd be happy to help if, and the yes, I'd love to. And both of those come into play. If you're talking to someone higher up, okay. I imagine I'm your boss. I come to you. I give you a big project. Um, we want to do a presentation at a conference and I need you to develop it. And you say, I would love to work on that. I would be happy to help if I can extend the deadline on this other project, or if someone else on the team can take this off my plate, that's how you're using both of those. And I will admit it was really weird to practice and it was really nerve wracking, but there we were the CEO of the company is in front of the room. And there's, I don't know, 75 of us practicing it with one another, and it becomes a cultural thing. And then you can say it more comfortably because you know, your boss also agrees with this concept of, I'd be happy to help you if. So for those of you that are down the rungs a few, but you get to take this back and mention it. Okay. I know you don't have the power to change it. If you're in the room and you're a boss, uh, then please, please teach your team how to do this. I want to pause a sec. Cause I see some chatting going on. Um, Oh my goodness. Oh, Michael. Yeah. That 4.00 AM. Like it's a version of the Sunday scaries. It, you know, things are not good when you've got the three o'clock wake up call and you've got something specific spinning. Oh, Oh my gosh. Okay. Michael, thank you for your openness. This Michael, thank you for your openness. This is so generous of you. I experienced panic attacks at work and had constant attention headaches that I don't, if you haven't ever had a panic attack listeners, they are not good. They're terrifying. If you weren't already having a panic, panic attack, they scare the crap out of you. I am happily only had two in my whole life and I can remember them vividly and I don't, they're horrible. They're so horrible. So Michael, I really appreciate you being so generous. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Life is too short to be miserably miserable on a daily basis. Yikes. Um, wow. That was really powerful. So yes, I want you for the sake of whatever you're going through, I want you to try and embrace these methods of saying no and methods of setting boundaries. Um, remember that most people are going to take no better than we expect. Um, what's funny, not funny, haha, but funny. Hey, watch out for this is sometimes it can startle you. You get such a positive or non-negative reaction that then you cave. I was like, wait, no, no, you did a great job. You said no. And they accepted it. Just, just hold on to it and keep going. That's it. You're done. You don't have to, you don't have to cave. So one thing I want you to think about, this is kind of when we get to say no to yourself, because that's when I want you to be ruthless. Think about why you're saying yes. If there is fear or shame or guilt, then you need to pause. You need to give yourself a minute for some curiosity about why in the world you're saying yes. I want you saying yes, because you're excited about something and you want to do it. I do not want us to be making room for fear or shame or guilt. Let's move on to lack of control. Now this one, I know you might be sitting there thinking I got no control. I'm not my own boss, but you have a little bit. So do what you can. First one for all of you using a scheduling app is a gift. It will help you enforce boundaries, but you can set specific meeting times. You use your calendar to block your time. So you can say, Hey, on this particular time, I'd like to do meeting prep. This is when I do creative focus. This is when I do whatever little things need to be done that don't take up much bandwidth because my brain is tired. That's a great Friday afternoon block. You deserve mental space to do creative work that your firm requires. This is absolutely critical for knowledge workers and you are knowledge workers. If anyone tries to tell you, you're not, you send them to me because you absolutely are. That second bullet may sound obvious, silence your notifications, but be the boss of your phone. Be the boss of your apps. Have you ever noticed you download an app and it wants to send you all the notifications. Shoot. I go to a website and it wants to send me notifications. And it's like, you know what banana Republic get over yourself. I don't shop that often. I don't need to know every single thing that goes on sale. Just step away. I'll be there when I'm there. And you can do that. Take work email off of your phone. If you want to keep it limited so that you're only doing work email at work at the very least turn off the notifications. We all go get our email. Like there's no one I know who's like, oh, I totally forgot about email. No one does that anymore. We check our email. We don't need to be notified that boop, you just got another email. Boop. Here comes another email because first off email isn't really used for urgent things. You want to also make sure you communicate that with your team. So, you know, and coworkers, it talked to your boss about it. Like, Hey, here's my plan to make myself more productive. I'm going to check my email in the morning. I'm going to time myself. So I do no more than like 20 or 30 minutes and I'm just going to clear out the junk. And I'm going to see if there's anything emergent. And then I'm going to time the other stuff. Then I'm going to do a little deeper dive midday. And then I'm going to check it again before I go home. How does that sound? And your boss is going to say that seems fine. Or maybe they're going to say some other method, but you're talking about corralling and taking charge of your own stuff. For those of you that use like teams or Slack or, you know, basically text messaging for work. I have Slack on my phone. I do not let it notify me. I want to be able to, if I'm waiting in a doctor's office or something, be able to check in, but I don't need to get pinged by work on my phone. I'm here. I'm at my desk. If somebody needs me, you can Slack me on a computer. It's fine. So start to think about what you want for all of your apps, all your email, everything. And don't be afraid to remind people. They will break your rules. And I use air quotes very definitely on that, just because they forgot, not because they're trying to break down your boundaries. So you can use your status messages or something to reinforce and remind people. Set those boundaries and just reinforce them as you need to. Oh my gosh, Matt. Yes. Taking work email off your phone. I have it on my phone, but I have to really think about it to get to it. And that's great. It makes me happy. Again, it's like if I'm somewhere and it's work hours and mostly it's that kind of doctor's appointment thing where like, yeah, I had to go do this during work hours. So things might be happening. And I'm sitting here in a waiting room. I guess I'll check my work email. I love that. That's fine. What I don't want is Friday night, I'm out with friends and my phone goes ping. And I found out somebody who's working late is messaging like, nope. If you're working at six o'clock on Friday, my friend, that's a Monday Arlene's problem. That's, that's not a Friday night problem. So this leads me to make sure, you know, boundaries are stated, not implied though. Ooh, a work email ruined a vacation. Yay. Greg, that is such a good example. Oh my gosh. Because if it's urgent, if it's truly really, really bad, they're going to find you. They're going to get ahold of you. So that's the thing to remember is we're not saying I'm going to take these notifications away. And if the office burns to the ground, I'm never going to know we're not doing that because those really bad things, people are going to figure it out, but, oh my gosh, I'm sorry that happened to you that, oh, that makes me very sad though. Okay. So remember boundaries are stated. They're not implied. Do not assume that people are going to know what you want them to do. A way to do this with clients is an engagement letter. We're not going to dig too deep into this. If you don't have one, find one, ask your friends, look on the forums where you're associated with your, if you're an XY member, we've got one. If you're a NAPFA member, which obviously you are, cause we're here on NAPFA Genesis. I bet they have one or at least your colleagues will. You're just kind of setting, this is not the contract. Obviously we have the ADV, we have the contract. This is the next thing that's like, hey, here's how we operate. We return email in this amount of time. And we answer our phone in this time period. And we allow, we will let you text, but hey, we're never going to respond to a text on a Sunday or whatever they might be. And you make it a two-way street so that you have the behavior you are promising and you have the behavior you're expecting. I want to pause for just a sec because I do think the client boundary concept is kind of important. So what are some boundaries that you either, I wrote this slide as in what do you think is important, like what do you think is important that you've done or what are some boundaries you're struggling with with clients? Anything there? Okay, you're not a chatty bunch. I can tell this is not part of the Genesis culture so we'll keep cruising. Teammate boundaries, same thing, similar thing, communication. If you don't, if you don't tell people your boundaries they're not gonna know and if you don't ask people you're not gonna know. So like this is, we got to go both ways here. If you are hiring folks, please clarify kind of what your team culture is during the onboarding process. For instance, we have Slack at XY, pretty busy. I am, I am very good at saying I'm not working, I don't care about Slack. So it isn't a big deal for me, but not everybody is like that. So I actually got a talk into one time because I had slacked someone off hours, I happened to be at a conference or something, I don't even remember what it was, and they said don't, don't slack somebody who's on vacation. And I was like, well I just figured they'd see it when they got back. And they're like, well for some people it really stresses them out. Don't do it. So we set this culture of scheduling our Slack messages. If somebody's on vacation, you can schedule it for when they get back. So I tend to do it for the Tuesday after they get back so that it's not pouncing on them, you know, at eight o'clock on Monday morning. But I found that fascinating. We have, you know, different values and there was, I'll admit, there was a part of me it was like, that's their problem, they need to quit checking their Slack. But then I decided I'd be a nice grown-up and not have that attitude. So I changed it and used the tools. But talk with your team about this. See how people feel. Allow for different expectations. Okay, let's move on. And remember I said don't freak out. I'm gonna go into some in more detail than others. Okay, that was the more detail. We're blasting through these last few and then we'll get to Q&A time. Oh, on rewards. Please, please, please create reward systems if you have the power. And they don't have to be fancy. I'm not talking about bonus structure here. I'm talking about like Friday shoutouts or just whatever creative thing you can think of. If you are not in what you consider a position of power, then start positive gossip about your teammates. Talk to, when somebody does something great for you on your team, tell everyone. It's as simple as that. Make time in weekly team meetings or quarterly meetings to celebrate the wins. You can't always be, okay, let's think strategically and figure out what's coming up. You've got to take some time to celebrate what's been going on and what's been going well. Quarterly retreats, I think this is absolutely a must for every team to take some time and review your progress and your KPIs and celebrate what you've done well before you hunker down and keep going on to the next thing. If you are all by your lonesome, again, you know, lean into that, that social group, whether it's on an apogenesis conversation or it's a Facebook group, or it's just your friends, just celebrate yourself, reward yourself, create some milestones, some incentives, and reward yourself because you're the final person who's going to have control over how you feel and you need to be able to say, holy cow, I crushed it in that meeting today. I really helped that client. They had no idea how to do X, whatever it is. Okay, so please work on your own internal reward system. Social support is this part I'm kind of alluding to it. All these things are a big network, right? But if you're not already in one, get yourself a study group. Get some colleagues who will be there when things are bad and things are good and help support you. The more you can connect as human beings, the better. Don't worry too much about if your study group is just like you. Sometimes you'll get a study group or a mastermind group, whatever you want to call it, where you're all right in the same space, but that doesn't have to be. Also, make sure you're going out to networking events, whether that's virtual, setting up phone calls with folks every once in a while. Make sure you're getting in on those forums, making use of all that, okay? Heidi's like, I've got a link for you. Yes, you are part of NAPFA, which is a wonderful, wonderful support network. In this space, not to go too far, too far afield, but we have to remember we are a very small part of the finance industry. Fee only, even if you're good old school AUM, which has been around forever, the concept of being fee only is still a very small portion. And so you got to support one another and lift one another up and practicing vulnerability is going to be so valuable to you. I know it's hard, but when you practice that, it creates more of a bond. It helps you address your fears, your concerns. It supports the fact that you're part of something. You know, Michael was frankly super brave to share with us and that I love that so very much. And that's going to be really helpful to you. This next one, yikes. I, I wish I could just jump over this one and be like, Hey, guess what? Everything's great. Everything's always fair. This is one of the hardest ones because if you're not the boss, you have so little power. And I acknowledge that. I hear that as you are able, discuss your expectations with your manager and your team, raise those needs, those concerns, talk about it as much as you can. That is the critical phrase there. I have been in situations where things are very, very unfair. And the very fact that you mentioned they are unfair, just gets you labeled as a troublemaker and then things are even less fair. So I see that. And I, so take this one through your own lens, do what you can. But the more you can share your feedback and call out and pay attention to things that are happening, the better off you'll be. But I know this is the hard one. And then, oh yi, the last one values conflict. Two different things here. It's very hard. This is, maybe I should have done these in the opposite order. So we started with the really hard ones and ended with like, and set up your calendar. Make sure as you are struggling, if you are struggling, that you are connecting with your own purpose, who you are as a person. What's your why? What are your goals in this industry? What are you doing for clients? Because even if you're in the midst of a firm that you are not happy with, there's something good. You're doing something good. And I need you to get back to yourself. Okay? I do want you to try and talk about it with your manager. And here's one of the big reasons, not so you can just be like, Hey, I feel like we're doing crappy things and I think we should stop. That is not my approach. If you feel there's a disconnect talking to someone about it, sometimes you will learn about things that are going on behind the scenes that you cannot actually be privy to. Sometimes changes are being made, things are being addressed. And so on the surface, it looks like there's a values conflict because you don't yet realize what's happening behind. And I couldn't even come up with a good example of this that I could actually tell because the only few instances I have where it was a good thing, I can't talk about them. Isn't that? I know that's a terrible webinar thing to say. Like I know stuff, but I can't share on this webinar, but just trust me on this. Sometimes there are HR issues, there are privacy issues. So talking with your manager and getting as much information as you can might help you see where they're working through a values conflict. Another thing is to talk about it and perhaps your company or someone will say, Oh wow, you're right. That was crappy. We're going to fix that. And then you allow for a company to do things better. X, Y, P, N has made mistakes in the past. We have not been perfect, but I tell you what, every time we make a mistake, we learn from it. We do better the next time and we keep on going. And I haven't seen what I would consider real values conflicts there, but I did have a job one time where I had a horrible, it was a nagging values conflict. And I will admit to you that some days you're going to get to a point where you're like done and dusted. I will not be a party to this anymore. And I hope you never have that experience, but that's when we go back to our colleagues. That's when you go back to your study group or your friends and you have someone who can support you and be a sounding board. This exact thing happened to me and I could describe it like it was yesterday. And I had been feeling, feeling something, feeling something, feeling something. And then there was the absolute classic straw that broke the camel's back. And I was like, Oh no, we're finished. That may happen, but most likely it will not. You will do the first two things and you will talk about things and you will work through, and you're probably not going to have two really, really huge issues. So let's pause here for a sec. Go back to the beginning. Essential, essential takeaways. You have more power than you think. No matter what your role in the firm, you have power over your own life and you can make these changes as you are able. Communication is the absolute cornerstone to all of this. So please work on disconnecting. Please work on saying no. There's nothing else you can get out of this day. Please go back to the slides on how to say no and practice the nice ways to say no. And set those boundaries. Now there's a lot here. I have blasted through an hour's worth of stuff. There's a boatload of books and things for you to access to work on this as you need to and as specific things happen and you need help. Reach out to me. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm quite easily Googleable. And my email address is also really boring. It's just arlene at xyplanningnetwork.com. If you have specific things you want to mention or share with me, please don't hesitate to reach out. I know this is a topic that could perhaps kind of bubble around in your head the rest of the week and over the weekend you're thinking, oh wow, I see what she meant. So please reach out. I would love to chat with you more if you need that. We have a few minutes for questions. I don't think we actually have anything in Q&A, though. Yeah, thanks, Arlene. This has been fantastic. But yeah, folks, if you do have questions, feel free to type them in the Q&A or the chat. We can address those questions now. So we'll give a second here for folks to type those in. I do have one, Arlene, that I can add to while we're waiting for folks to type those in. So one of the things you mentioned was prioritization. I think one of the maybe unique challenges to this business in particular is that everything feels pretty high priority, especially when you're a junior associate or a junior advisor, because you have clients calling to ask you things. And it's very important, the things that they're asking. And in a lot of cases, when you're working, especially at a smaller firm, the other person giving you tasks is also the one that signs your paychecks. So that's kind of unique to a lot of businesses. So how do you recommend, or as you're coaching younger advisors, as kind of the Genesis Group is, how do you really prioritize when everything feels like the number one priority question? I think if you're really young, I think you get to say, can you help me prioritize? If you are really fresh out, it is absolutely fine to talk to your boss as you're learning the ropes and say, this is something I struggle with. I want everything to be first, and that's not real. Can you help me learn how to prioritize client needs? So that's one thing to throw in. Other thing I tell folks a lot with clients, because a client will call you or email you or whatever, because it's in their head. And I am exhibit A on this one. I do it all the time. I'm terrible. I should time my emails to my financial planner. But I will email on a Sunday, because Sunday is when we go for a long walk, we talk about the money issues, we talk about the things. And then I'll be like, oh, we got to ask Eric about yada, yada, yada. And then I shoot off an email so I won't forget. It's not urgent. It's only I don't want to forget So you can come back to the client and say, that is a great question. I will do some research on that. But I would love to just add that to our agenda for our next meeting, if that's okay with you. Or if you need it quicker, please just let me know. And then you're giving that client that way of saying, Oh, no, no, it's not urgent at all. I didn't, I just didn't want to forget. Or they say, actually, it's really been bothering me. If you could, if you could get me an answer, it would help me sleep better. And then you say, okay. For example, I sent a question, I can't remember what it was, but it took Oh, okay. Well, it doesn't matter what it was. How about that? I, it was complicated. And I knew when I asked, it was complicated, because I was like, could you research this? And in my head, it was like, could you research this by the time we talk in the fall? But I got an email back that said, Oh, wow. Yeah, I got to do some research. I have a lot of meetings this week. I probably won't get to it till Friday. Is that okay? To which I could then reply? Oh, yeah. October is actually good. Like I don't need it that quickly. We're not fast movers. So that again, communication, we're just asking questions. So I love that. And just practicing with yourself, as you have your priority list, and I and I have to do this. I mean, it's not like this is just a young advisor problem. This is a human problem. I will have a list, you know, it's got 10 things on it, because I want to remember to do 10 things. And then I look at like, okay, I got to work and what am I doing tomorrow? What's you know, what are my priorities? And sometimes it's date based, I need that by that meeting, I need that by close of business. Sometimes it's that one's keeping me up at night, and it's bothering me. So it gets ranked. So you get to play those those games and try to maneuver your your own your own needs. Awesome. Thanks. We did we did have one question coming in the q&a. On the topic of fairness. Maybe you could just give a couple like examples of what you would consider fairness problems that cause burnout. Interesting. I like that question. Because I think fairness, how much fairness bothers you and stresses you out is going to be a bit in the eye of the beholder. I, I had a situation at work, and it was just bugging me. And it's funny now because I look back and I'm like, why was that bothering me? Well, it was bothering me because I was burned out. So it's, you know, late 2020. And I got something under my skin. And I remember going to a colleague talking to her saying, Hey, I need to talk to you about something work related, private, blah, blah, blah. And I told her what was bothering me. And no lie, she laughed, she laughed out loud and said, I cannot believe you are letting that bother you. You're too you're too good to worry about that. So it's in the eye of the beholder, because it really did bother me. I think it's fairness. I mean, it's fairness as it impacts you. On one hand, I didn't get a promotion I was supposed to get or I wanted I don't know, I can't think I can't think of a good example. But also fairness for others, if you are watching a colleague be treated badly, that can impact you don't feel as if you're not allowed to have feelings over some other unfairness, you see, it's very much a first cousin to a values disconnect, right? It's, it's very, very similar. And it's, it's going to be really personal how much it impacts you. And how much that low grade impact is going to wear you down. Awesome. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. We have one final question in here, because we're a little bit past our time. So we'll, we'll end with this question, and then we'll wrap it up. But kind of talking about the for those that are kind of in the throes of burnout, right, that are deep into it. And, you know, frankly, things get dropped when you're kind of in that situation. So what tips or tricks or strategies or suggestions that you have for somebody that's maybe coming out the other side, but now needs to re-engage with all the stuff that got dropped or missed or those tasks that they need to pick up? Let me read this one again. Burnout can be create a vicious cycle where tasks or items can be dropped or forgotten, then it's an extra barrier to re-engage. Oh, yes, yes, yes. What I find happens then is you almost have to start again on assigning its due date and its priority. I have had things where, you know, you set a priority or a date, a due date, and it just it doesn't make it to the top of the list. And, and I will have this with clients as they have, they say, Oh, yeah, let's create an action item for such and such. And then it doesn't get done. And it doesn't get done. And eventually I have to say, let's look at why this isn't getting done. Do you not care anymore? Do we need to look at the, the reason you were going to do it? And is it still valuable to you? And if so, let's set a new date. And we just sort of start again, rather than having all those red tasks, you know, that are just a real downer in your CRM or, or wherever. Sometimes you just have to say, you know what, I screwed the pooch on all this. I gotta, I gotta do it over again. Probably that was a good webinar language. Sorry. But, you know, I just need to regroup. Do I care? Yes, I do care. When is it important? And just start fresh. I hope that was helpful. Super. Yeah. Thank you. Well, Arlene, we are a few minutes past here. So I really deeply appreciate you taking the time out of your day and doing this presentation for us. And on behalf of Napa Genesis, I really want to thank you for this, this program. I think it was super helpful. I know I got a ton from it, just sitting and listening. So thank you. And thank you everyone for attending. Thanks, everybody. Yeah. So everyone that's still on, if you can just make sure you fill out the survey that pops up after the presentation is over. Again, this recording will be available on the Napa Learning Center. So please take a time, go back through it. Arlene said a lot today. You probably missed something. So go back and listen to it again and again and again and again, as you are going through your career. And Arlene, thank you so much again for being here today. Thanks, Zach. See you later.

NAPFA Genesis

Arlene Moss

XY Planning Network

burnout

business coaching

management

hiring

work-life balance

mental health

strategies