The Burnout Gamble: Achieve More by Beating Burnout and Building Resilience

By Hamza Khan

BURN BRIGHT, NOT OUT.

Stress has been called the "Health Epidemic of the 21st Century" by the World Health Organization. It is estimated to cost North American businesses more than $320 billion a year, and studies show we are working longer and harder than ever before, leaving very little time for much else. With everything competing for your time, energy, and attention, stress is unavoidable.

But how do you manage stress without sacrificing the things you want to achieve in life and work? The Burnout Gamble is full of stories, tools and strategies to teach you how to conquer stress, beat burnout, and stay motivated.

THIS BOOK HELPS YOU:

- Recognize the 12 stages of burnout (and which ones you're going through).
- Understand the negative consequences of stress on yourself and others.
- Control your stress and recover from burnout.
- Prevent burnout and achieve more using a simple 6-step solution.
- Build resilience.
- Learn from the mistakes of real entrepreneurs, executives, and employees just like yourself.
- And much, much more!

Imagine a version of yourself that is thriving, productive, and motivated. The Burnout Gamble will help you become that version of yourself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hamza Khan
• Release date: Aug 8, 2017
• ISBN: 9781773700472

Book preview

FOREWORD

By Dr. Tayyab Rashid

In 2014 on a spring afternoon that was still strapped with layers of Canadian winter, Hamza Khan sat across from me in Downtown Toronto. Steam from our Thai soup drew a thin veil, allowing Khan to articulate his question. He looked in my eyes and said, Tayyab, in the last three years, I have achieved what many dream of. But, I don’t feel like myself.

As a clinical psychologist who weighs strengths equally with symptoms, I was tempted to reassure Khan about how rare it is to see a young, creative, and committed man become a star on the national post-secondary education scene—one who has dazzled us with his insights and shown us innovative ways to reach the hearts and heads of young people through social media. Before I could articulate my own thoughts, Khan said, Tayyab, I have almost everything that one could hope for at the age 27, but I am not happy. I am not feeling it.

In retrospect, I believe Khan began conceptualizing this book the moment he began unpacking his observations and asking more questions. What you have in your hands is the result of Khan’s persistence in unravelling the central question of how often our passion hurts us.

As the steam of the soup drifted, Khan and I began traversing the terrain and tracks of his work journey. While I spotted many milestones and labelled many accomplishments, Hamza appeared bemused. He reiterated his inner emptiness. He wanted to seek meaning and fulfillment. As afternoon slipped into evening and our discussion matured from busyness at work to purpose of work—from career to calling—it became abundantly clear to me that he was experiencing burnout. Without losing his desire to do good work, he wanted to know what he could do differently. He did not want to lose his vitality, his passion, his creative pulse, or his ability to transform this ember into a firestorm of ideas. But, at the same time, he wanted to rekindle an emotional connection. He wanted to feel his impact intrinsically. Months following our dinner, his burnout intensified. But, he started a new journey of self-awareness and made bold changes.

In 2017, nearly three years later, I am delighted to write the prologue to Khan’s book, The Burnout Gamble. He has skillfully curated his insights about emotional disconnection—a salient sign of burnout. Making good sense of personal experience, his book challenges us—millennials in particular. He shows that relentlessly working with the assumption that it will ultimately fulfill our dream may give us success in objective terms but will most likely burn us out as well. And, we may never completely recover.

Given the ubiquity of stress and its consequences, we have to pay attention to what Khan is exploring in this book. Burnout is the manifestation of our motivation gone awry. Hanging on to perseverance and persistence as virtues, we overextend ourselves, imposing high demands on ourselves. Indeed, it is true that it’s exceedingly difficult to get a job and even tougher to keep it, especially whenever newer technology brings reorganization and realignment. These pressures escalate from self-imposed performance pressure. Demands are shaped by external expectations and also by our real or perceived fear of being criticized by others—especially by our superiors. Furthermore, we are raised on this steady cultural diet of striving for perfection. Simply speaking, people don’t feel like they are enough.

On the other side of that coin, we derive deep pleasure from being perceived as detail-oriented and delivering perfect, flawless, entertaining, and informative performances or products. Khan reminds us that this is not necessarily unfavourable. But, when it is prolonged—day in, day out—we experience the burnout he described to me on that fateful spring day.

In a well-reasoned and logically arranged sequence, this book first raises our awareness. We may not even notice we are experiencing symptoms of burnout. Khan argues that we—millennials and post-millennials—are a flammable generation. Doing more things faster and more perfectly has become the ethos of our time. We want instant gratification and glorification—mostly adorned on the walls of our social media accounts. We often get what we want but at a dangerous cost: burning the candle at both ends.

Exploring burnout, Khan reminds us that it is merely a symptom of the underlying source—stress. Stress is ubiquitous in most of our urban and diverse centers. It is woven into the fabric of modern living. Soaked in social media, our fingers swipe more and write less; our eyes gaze more at screens but sleep less; we succeed more but savour less. These sources of stress, Khan contends, contribute to burnout.

The symptoms of stress bleed, often silently, and surface in the form of emotional exhaustion, resource depletion, cynicism, and feeling inadequate or less accomplished. We sometimes exacerbate our underlying problems by drawing comparisons with the very best personalities and paragons paraded in media. We tell ourselves that we can accomplish anything we put our minds to. We work hard, then harder, then even harder than that.

Our goals become the gauge of our worth. We remain preoccupied with these goals and renew our motivation for these goals by recalling various rules (e.g., Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours). Few are able to maintain a healthy balance between work and life. Some give up early on. A sizeable majority—Khan’s target audience—persist. But, the persistence comes at a cost. They pay with sleep deprivation, coping with stress by acquiring unhealthy lifestyle habits, and—above all, as Khan points out—a conflict between what they presumably value and what they actually do.

Ironically, we burn out while chasing goods that contribute very little to the good life. A good life has positive and healthy relationships—in person as well as online. A good life, and the happiness that comes with it, comes from knowing and using strengths such as love, kindness, hope, curiosity, and gratitude. These strengths, as evidence shows, are robust contributors to meaning. Money and other byproducts of sheer output don’t necessarily create meaning. They play but a small albeit necessary part in creating and sustaining the good life. Khan reminds us that we need to burn bright in the radiance of our strengths, not burn out to accumulate incomplete definitions of success (especially material) that contribute only partially to our happiness.

Dr. Tayyab Rashid is a licensed clinical psychologist at the Health & Wellness Centre, an associate faculty member in the graduate psychological clinical science program at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC), and an adjunct faculty member in the Executive Master’s Program in Positive Leadership at the IE University in Spain. Trained with Dr. Martin Seligman at the Positive Psychology Centre, University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Rashid‘s research expertise includes positive clinical psychology, strengths-based clinical assessment, resilience, multicultural counselling, and the mental health of young adults in postsecondary settings.

Dr. Rashid is co-chair of Canada’s National Campus Mental Health Community and is the inaugural president of the Clinical Division of the International Positive Psychology Association. Dr. Rashid has worked with victims of severe trauma, including survivors of 9/11 attacks, the 2004 Tsunami, and refugee crises.

Currently, Dr. Rashid leads Flourish, a preventive mental health initiative, at the University of Toronto Scarborough. This program has been recognized with two Excellence in Innovation Awards and has also won a large grant for implementing the program at multiple sites.

PREFACE

I work in marketing. It is an industry predicated on perception, meaning that day-in and day-out, I’m thinking about the importance of brand consistency. In order for a brand to work effectively, it must reconcile the gaps between how it sees itself, how others see it, and how it wants to be seen. Throughout my career, I’ve developed a reputation for being extremely focused and productive. If you want something done, give it to Hamza, was a sentiment expressed in my former workplaces. And, I loved it. It became my thing. The nicknames I earned over the years would make my circuits tingle: cyborg, robot, machine, etc. But, in order to keep my industrious brand intact—to keep that perception gap tight—I had to erase from my narrative the events of November 10, 2008.

The ancient Roman philosopher Seneca is credited as saying, Luck is preparation meeting opportunity. Inspired by blockbuster films and big-budget music videos, I spent my teenage years and early adulthood learning photography, videography, graphic design, web design, and an array of creative multimedia skills. I honed them by making short films and music videos while finding ways to promote my work across the burgeoning social web. During this time, I took a keen interest in music marketing. I soon picked up freelance gigs creating music videos for up-and-coming rappers and cutting small business and nonprofit promotional videos. As an English student at the University of Toronto, I felt insecure about my career prospects and enlisted in a bridge-to-business program at the prestigious Rotman School of Management. Our final assignment required us to create a marketing plan for an up-and-coming Sony Music Artist, Zaki Ebrahim.

Little did I know that I had been preparing for this opportunity my entire life. As a wide-eyed child enthralled by the films of Steven Spielberg, then as a teenager inspired by the music videos of Hype Williams, and finally as a young adult driven by the success of moguls like Diddy, I brought years of accumulated passion, insight, and experience to this project. I bested a cohort of wicked-smart and highly accomplished peers to win the case competition and earned myself a rare internship with Sony Music’s Director of Partnerships. Growing up in a lower-middle class Muslim household, the son of hard-working Indian immigrant parents, only served to intensify my imposter syndrome. For a number of reasons, an opportunity like the one I had been presented seemed foreclosed to someone with my multiple identities. But, there I was—I had beaten the odds. I had earned my shot. There was no way I was going to let it go to waste. I was committed to squeezing every last drop out of this opportunity. Eager to please my boss, I regularly went above and beyond the call of duty. I gradually pushed my personal boundaries until a few months in, when I worked through three straight nights—all while juggling full-time school, part-time work, freelance graphic and web design, and volunteer commitments.

My days would start at 5:00 a.m. when I jolted awake after a short power-nap. Fuelled with my first of many coffees, I’d hurl myself into playing catch-up on the cascade of tasks I was being crushed under. As the day progressed, I’d trade my coffees for energy drinks. I’d start each of those days by going to university, sitting in my classes, and working on graphic and web design projects while partially listening to my professors. I’d then take a 1.5-hour bus ride to my internship, where I’d clock in 5–8 hours of work, followed by another 1.5-hour bus ride back to either school or home, where I’d resume my freelance projects or tackle some schoolwork. To earn some extra cash, I was also picking up shifts at a department store as well a health foods store. With what little time I had to spare, I was involved in two volunteer opportunities—one a volunteer consulting network and the other a business workshop for priority neighbourhoods. Insecure that I wasn’t living up to my parents’ dreams of me becoming a doctor, lawyer, or engineer, I committed myself to overcompensating. Consistent sleep wasn’t an option until my body decided otherwise—which finally happened on the morning of November 10.

I started that particular day at the Sony Music Entertainment offices, eager to complete media kits for a band whose show I worked the previous night. I remember sitting at my desk. I was dizzy, and an intense wave of weariness suddenly came over me. My vision began to cloud, and a haze of reddish-orange began to occlude my vision. I felt nauseous and short of breath at the same time. I stood up and felt my legs buckle. Losing my sense of balance, I stumbled out of the office and into the corridor toward the bathrooms. I hobbled into the handicap bathroom and locked the door behind me. I stared at my reflection in the mirror. I could barely recognize myself. The face looking back at me was that of a stranger’s: ghastly pale, eyes completely glazed over—the face of someone who had less than an hour of combined sleep over the past 72 hours. Feeling extreme heat course through my body, I stripped off my shirt and laid down on the bathroom floor. The time was approximately 9:00 a.m.

I woke up some time later to the sound of incessant banging on the bathroom door. Fuzzy at first, the knocks become sharper and more urgent. I slowly fidgeted for my phone to find over 50 messages and missed calls.

Hello! Open the door! a voice from outside yelled.

I groaned in pain. My joints were stiff from laying on the cold and hard tiles, and there was blood-filled vomit on the floor and on my sweat-soaked shirt. It was an ugly and embarrassing scene. It took a few seconds to register where I was and to come to terms with the fact that the unsightly mess on and around me was of my own making. I remember feeling disoriented and afraid. I looked at the clock: it was past 10:00 p.m. I had been out cold for more than 12 hours.

The frantic banging continued.

I opened the door to an infuriated janitor.

I’m so sorry, I mumbled. I immediately dashed back to my desk, grabbed my things, and went straight home. The only other person in the office at this time was another overachiever, an overworked video editor who was so dialed into his work that he didn’t seem to hear the door opening and slamming shut or my heavy footsteps running to and from my desk.

I can’t tell you what exactly happened to me that day. The truth is, I don’t know. I’ve described the episode to various doctors in the months spent writing this book, and the explanations range from extreme dehydration to a silent heart attack. I was barely 23 at the time. I felt afraid and ashamed about what had happened. On the bus ride home, I committed to repressing that memory for as long as I could. In my self-talk, I vowed that nobody could know what had happened—not my boss; not my family; not my friends.

If you want something done, give it to Hamza. This needed to be the story. I was relieved that nobody other than the janitor (and maybe the video editor) saw me that night. I was able to concoct a flimsy excuse for my boss as to why I disappeared during the day. In doing so, I kept my reputation as a hard worker intact. Rather than tell him what had happened, or seek medical help, I brushed the episode off as a fever dream and slipped right back into the patterns of overwork that led me to that breakdown in the first place.

I chose to remain ignorant about what collapsed my system that day, and I persisted through smaller episodes of system failure until six years later, when the demon finally caught up with me again—only this time, I couldn’t ignore it or banish it to the depths of my memory. I had to stop running from it. I had to stop hiding from it. Once and for all, I had to confront it. I began by learning its name: the burnout gamble.

And, shortly after, I learned how to beat the odds.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book wouldn’t have been possible without the guidance, support, and encouragement of a number of people:

Julia Maano, Latifa Abdin, Bailey Parnell, Kareem Rahaman, Dr. Tayyab Rashid, Theo Koffler, Dr. Diana Brecher, Waleed Ebad, Maddy Falle, Lucas Ford, Zarina Mohammed, Rashid Mohammed, Shohra Adel, Lauren Krouse, Dr. Su-Ting Teo, Bianca Marryshow, Gauri Sharma, Asia Aoki, Jasmine McShad, Anelia Gorgorova, Joshna Maharaj, Sadaf Virji, Drew Dudley, Ayisha Khan, Mustafa Khan, and last (but not least), you—the reader.

Thank you for picking up this book and supporting a first-time independent author. You helped this project transform from an idea into reality. I am forever grateful to each and every one of you.

INTRODUCTION

By the time you finish reading this sentence, approximately 10 people around the world will have died because of stress. By the time you finish reading this book, that number will be approximately 18,000. Make no mistake about it: this is the dark age of stress. People are burning up and burning out in horrific fashion. In fact, the World Health Organization has called stress the health epidemic of the 21st century.

How did we not see this conflagration coming? The answer is discouraging. In reality, burnout as a phenomenon has probably existed at all times and in all cultures. The verb to burn out was used by Shakespeare at the end of the sixteenth century. The term burnout has only been around since the seventies. But did the concept as we now know it exist before? Alarmingly enough, yes. Medical literature described the happening years before, in some cases as early as the 1920s. A publication from this period details the case of Miss Jones, a disillusioned psychiatric nurse, who is probably the most prominent (and often-cited) example of burnout. In this publication, doctors describe how Miss Jones’ burnout occurred once the working conditions of her hospital began to deteriorate (resulting in overwork and demoralization):

Miss Jones was now caught in a vicious circle: the more depressed and disappointed she felt, the more she failed, which in turn nourished her depressed mood and disappointment. Her depressed mood got worse. She felt exhausted and became callous and indifferent, particularly towards her patients. Then, Miss Jones only saw the negative sides of her job, and she withdrew from social contact with patients and staff. Her job seemed meaningless to her, and she started to be absent regularly.

The term burnout as we understand it today appeared for the first time in 1974 in the United States, when it was used by psychoanalyst Herbert J. Freudenberger. This is when the first few articles about burnout in contemporary terms also appeared, giving this experience a name and showing that it wasn’t just a few deviant people who were suffering from it. Freudenberger described it as such:

...the extinction of motivation or incentive, especially where one’s devotion to a cause or relationship fails to produce the desired results.

Freudenberger was employed by an alternative healthcare agency. He noticed that many of the volunteers with whom he was working underwent a gradual emotional depletion and a loss of motivation and commitment.

At first, burnout was relegated to the physical and psychological breakdown of (usually) volunteer workers in alternative aid organizations such as free clinics, therapeutic communes, women’s refuges, and crisis intervention centers. In 1969, without mentioning burnout explicitly, a contemporary of Freudenberger’s, a scientist named Bäuerle, gave a very accurate description of the phenomenon resulting from her experiences supervising social education workers and social workers.

In one of her publications, Bäuerle described the workers’ symptoms as follows:

...the reduction in psychological resilience only halfway through their career; the appearance of a resigned attitude and resentment as a consequence of having more demanded of them than is humanly possible; the formation of an authoritarian character structure and a tendency to repressive behavior as a consequence of

Reviews for The Burnout Gamble

[alengaluvai · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A nice read... was taken aback by the cursing though...