114: Burnout Recovery with Jennifer Bassman
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Summary:
Jennifer Bassman, The Witty Entrepreneur, joins us talk about avoiding burnout, setting healthy boundaries around email and phone calls, and her three principles of saying No. Whether you pass out into a pizza or just lack patience with those around you, burnout looks different for everyone. Jennifer encourages us to stop playing by other peoples rules and start setting healthy boundaries.
Topics on this episode:
Burnout vs compassion fatigue vs depression
Recovery from burnout
Stop getting bossed around
Voicemailus Emailus Dreaditus
Principle of saying “NO”
Main take away? Don’t make someone else’s crisis your emergency!
About our guest:
Jennifer Bassman is a leading authority in recovering from burnout and compassion fatigue. She is a Certified CliftonStrengths coach that teaches others how to create boundaries, get past their feelings overwhelm and fear of failure, so that they focus on what is right - instead of what is wrong. Her book, "Stop Being A Doormat" teaches others to create and enforce boundaries to help tame the overwhelm and guilt. It is available on Amazon. (It will be available in paperback next week!) . Jennifer has owned and run pet care businesses for nearly 20 years prior to offering her wit and wisdom to others struggling with burnout Currently, Jennifer resides in Dallas with her husband and 3 rescue dogs – Cooper, Herbie, and Ranger.
Links:
Contact info: Jennifer@JenniferBassman.com
The Witty Entrepreneur Facebook page
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
burnout, people, business, clients, emails, burned, pet, voicemails, boundaries, deal, person, job, day, problem, fear, expectations, question, business owner, word, constantly
SPEAKERS
Collin, Jennifer Bassman
00:17
I'm Collin and I'm Meghan. And this is Pet Sitter Confessional,
00:21
and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter
Collin 00:24
brought to you by time to pet. This year certainly has been very interesting. And while it might not seem like it right now is an excellent time an excellent opportunity to set ourselves up right for the future. One of the things that we can be doing right now is setting good habits for ourselves to avoid burnout and compassion fatigue moving forward. Today, Jennifer, Bassman, the witty entrepreneur joins us to talk about burnout, setting healthy boundaries around things like email and phone calls. And her three principles for saying, No. Let's get started.
Jennifer Bassman 01:03
Thanks Collin for having me, I am so glad to be here. I am a leading authority and recovering from burnout and teaching others how to create boundaries. I love helping other business owners work through and get past their feelings of overwhelm, get past their fear of failure so that they thrive and they feel confident to conquer the world and their business on their own terms. I am a certified Clifton strengths coach and also a business owner that works with other business owners to rebuild their businesses so that they cater to their strengths. And they end up doing more of what they love. I'm also an author now, and I have a book coming out. beginning of September called stop being a doormat.
Collin 01:54
Oh, and you actually also in addition to all of that you also have a background in pet care, too.
Jennifer Bassman 02:00
Yes, that is part of my long history of business ownership. I have owned pet care businesses for the last going on 20 years now.
Collin 02:09
When did you realize what what was the trigger? What were some of the cues that that told you? Ah, I I'm burning out whatever that is?
Jennifer Bassman 02:18
Well, I literally passed out in a pizza. I'm so tired. Um, I fell flat first face down in a pizza. And so that was a big cue that something was wrong. But I literally could not function anymore. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't think I couldn't make decisions. I was just not friendly to people, which I'm normally very friendly to people. I love people. So, you know, I was also quick to anger are quick to get frustrated with things. Just very unlike myself, especially when I initially started my business, I was a far cry. Instead of growing into the season. Wise business owner, I was a fatigued, worn out struggling business owner and struggling in the sense of I just couldn't get it together. I was tired. My decision making skills stunk. They were terrible. Even simple ones.
Collin 03:27
Well, I unfortunately, I feel like a lot of us in the pet care industry can relate. I don't know how many people have collapsed into a pizza. But I'd love to hear if somebody else has because what a coincidence. But you know, like those feelings of frustration, the decision making concerns that you may have of man, this is really hard for me to focus right now. It's really hard for me to do these, these tasks that I used to do or maybe I used to enjoy and love. Yes. So how do you define burnout?
Jennifer Bassman 03:58
burnout in simple terms, is basically just overworked to the point of diminished function and exhaustion. You just really couldn't take one more step or do one more thing. And burnout is usually found among highly motivated people that work long hours or work over long periods of time, in situations or environments that are emotionally demanding. burnout also shows shows up with very low job satisfaction could have been a job that you even if you didn't like it in the beginning, it wasn't like your dream job. You end up just miserable. And burnout definitely relates or ties back to job, you know your job or to working in some form or fashion and a lot of people feel a lot of overwhelm. They feel a lot of disorganization. They feel powerless. I've definitely felt all those things, you know, just kind of felt like I had to do it all. And I couldn't trust other people to do it. Not that I was the greatest delegator to begin with, but just even simple things, you know, running, running up to the store to pick something up that we, you know, just, we were out of, now, I better do that, because they might get the wrong thing. You know, just simple stuff. And it's really hard actually, to hear myself say things like that, because it's like, you really shouldn't trust people. That's terrible. But yeah, it's it all. The key thing about burnout, is that it It ties back to your job, it ties back to working.
Collin 05:51
Yeah. Well, and, you know, I have a follow up question here of how common it is in the pet care industry, but listening to you describe and give your definition and some of the signs of burnout. It's it's a no wonder it's so common in the pet care industry of young highly motivated, highly passionate people working long periods of time. Yes, that's, that's what pet care professionals do. Right? That's, that's our
Jennifer Bassman 06:14
Yeah, yeah, it's incredibly common. And that's why I have created a coaching business that focuses on burnout and compassion fatigue, because I just really was it was breaking my heart watching so many of my colleagues burn out and leave the industry. And that includes veterinary you know, medicine, you know, that techs and veterinarians that I've worked with for years, just kind of up and say, I'm done. I can't do this anymore. And you know, there just haven't been resources out there. For people like me that burned out, and I decided to create those resources. Yeah, and but some of them as
Collin 06:56
well. And I did want to spend some time doing some some disambiguation of terms here because Oh, excellent, because people throw out burnout, compassion, fatigue, depression, the blue Yes. So how would you define or how would you differentiate compassion fatigue from burnout? Or how are they similar or linked?
Jennifer Bassman 07:16
Oh, yeah, that's a great question. So and I might even include depression in my hopefully, I can clear them up, don't you know, split him up clearly. But compassion fatigue is very similar to burn out. But it is more towards it stems more from emotion. And it's it's primarily just a decrease in sympathy towards, you know, tolerating the strong emotions and others and dealing with their difficult stories. You do see more or I should say, I see more compassion fatigue on the veterinary side of the pet care industry, and more burnout in the pet, you know, actual like boarding dog walking side. But it's more compassion. Fatigue is more emotional, it deals more with the high level of empathy that you're constantly having to respond to. It makes sense why you would see that more on the veterinary side of things because of those intense emotional interactions that they're having with other people to have.
Collin 08:29
Yeah, those those hard decisions those hard choices the pain that people go through. Yeah, while the burnout being more focused on the job the the motivation, the long hours on the dog walking and pet sitting side.
Jennifer Bassman 08:44
Yes, yeah, definitely. And then depression, you know, just to further complicate everything, hopefully it makes this makes it easier but burnout or depression I'm sorry, is is also stress related, or it can be stress related to but it is more of a loss of loss of interest in pretty much everything your family, your friends, your hobbies, your jobs, I mean, you literally are uninterested and dis disassociate, disassociate yourself from all of it. You just don't have any interest in going to work and it's not not necessarily a sense of dread going to work or going to spend time with your family you just not interested in it. That holds no you just can't muster up the motivation for it and depression has a very quick onset, whereas burnout is a very slow burn.
Collin 09:43
All three of these are linked you know and and how in going through your job and the experiences that you have, if you aren't having healthy ways of dealing with these emotions, dealing with these times having boundaries kind of things, how you could See the each one of these could independently crop up in in someone's life and in their business?
Jennifer Bassman 10:06
Definitely. And what's, what gets a little scarier and confusing for people is that you can actually have two or all three of these at the same time. Wow. Yeah.
Collin 10:20
Yeah. And and I feel I probably would would would be joined by many other people who said, Yeah, you know, actually, that I could understand that I mean, with, if you're in the business a long time or even a short amount of time, right? You You can you can get to the point where you, you hear all of these kind of almost trigger words of emotions and feelings that people have experienced and go, Well, I felt that I felt at least part of that, or man, I was really close to that. So it is burnout, when we if getting back to burnout here is Is it the same for everybody? You know, and how they experience it? And what are some of the signs of someone, you know, looking looking at themselves?
Jennifer Bassman 11:02
Yeah, I wish that there was an easy answer to that question. But no, they, not everybody experiences burnout in the same way. And not everybody experiences it to a severe degree, you know, I would call my case of burnout and extreme case of burnout, it took me years to come back from that. Whereas you can have, you can have less extreme, far less extreme cases, you can have a light case of burnout, where, you know, you've just completed a project, and you were putting in a lot of long hours getting that project completed, or in the pet care industries case, the quickest thing I can compare your project to is you just had a two week job or you know, a long term job, that, you know, just you're constantly having to perform, and at the end of it, you just kind of collapse. And, you know, a short term project like that, or, you know, what could be considered a short period of time, you know, you can bounce back from that relatively quickly. But extreme cases take months or a year, even years to come back from, and some of the symptoms, you know, they look the same, whether it's burnout, compassion, fatigue, or, or depression. But, you know, some things to look for with burnout in particular is you can only accomplish simple tasks, you can't really get into complicated things, you just don't have the focus for it, you aren't able to concentrate. complicated issues frustrate you quickly, that was a big sign that one was a big sign for me, because I love problems. I love solving problems. I don't love, you know, love profit, I love solving problems. I'm a very solution oriented person. So the fact that a problem, even a simple one of a dog being out of food, just sent me from zero to 100. And, you know, a matter of seconds. You know, you're always focused on what is wrong, everything's negative around you. Nothing's right. Nobody can do anything, right. You can't, you can't even do anything, right. There's a lot of negative self talk going on. No patience. You're not sleeping, or you're unable to stay asleep. Or you, you know, you and or you refuse to take a break or any time off.
Collin 13:36
And in, you know, the term burnout, it can come across as being so simple. But, you know, the level of that you're describing here of it was it's hard to make an accomplish simple tasks. And if you are going in and out of people's homes, trying to remember, did you lock the door? Did you not lock the door? Yes. Right like that, that level of thing. So when people say, when we say the burnout affects your job performance, it's not just that you're tired, or that you're kind of cranky, like the tasks that you're being paid to do, can and do become impacted. Once you start reaching this these levels of burnout?
Jennifer Bassman 14:15
Yes. Oh, absolutely. Your job performance. The quality of the work that you do, definitely suffers, people notice. And that's one of the things somebody that's really truly burned out. They think that other people can't see it, or they don't notice and I will admit In the beginning it is really easy to hide your burnout. But the longer it goes on, and the worse that it gets. people notice. And it shows in your demeanor, it shows in your willingness to do things. It also shows up in the quality of your work. You know, if you're somebody that used to make sure that house was sick and span before you walked out, you know, walked out the door and you no longer do that. Because you're like, Who cares? You know, I'm too tired anyway, they know how to wipe down their own counters, or they can vacuum that up really quick. They're not, you know, those things start showing up. And your clients do do notice. So to say that it doesn't affect your job or doesn't affect other people, is completely untrue.
Collin 15:21
Right? Well, and I know, so I know that the listeners of this podcast, none of them have ever experienced burnout, none of them are approaching it. So maybe they have friends, though. Maybe they have that friend experiencing burnout. Yes. What are Yes, what are some steps that we can do from the outside to come along and help support them or resources that we can give to them along the way?
Jennifer Bassman 15:43
That's a great question. Because the recovery, the recovery from burnout doesn't look the same for everybody. And, you know, a lot of times people think that it's just a basic vacation or, you know, day off, or, you know, taking a lunch hour, it's going to fix everything. It won't, it might help, but it won't. And what I will say to that, you know, to the friends that want to help their burned out, friends do, do still offer those things, because those are important, but manage your own expectations that you're not fixing them right away that when somebody is truly burned out, it's going to take more than a vacation, it's going to take more than, you know, a day off or a day at the spa. But those you know, it's, it's not going to be just one activity, or one thing that's going to take care of your burnout, it's going to be a combination of activities. So, you know, definitely, you know, start, you know, asking them to spend time as a friend, you know, going to movies, doing things that have absolutely nothing to do with work aren't related to work, you know, recognize that they have something inside of them that needs to still feel busy and still feel productive. So if you can come up with an activity that still feels productive, but gets them away from their job, that's also helpful. I actually had a friend that would add, and I put it in quotes dragged me away from my job to go volunteer. And that feeling, I felt very fulfilled after volunteering, even though it wasn't rest for my body. It actually filled my soul. And you know, helping somebody else. It felt nice to give to somebody else. So those are, you know, that's a different way to ask somebody to take a step back, you know, by asking to go volunteer and help out somebody else.
Collin 17:45
Yeah. And what I like about that is it's not just a job because you're taking somebody who is chronically overworking and over focused on on a task and multiple tasks, to rip them out of that and go now go sit on the beach and enjoy yourself for a week. Right? Like, like they, they won't know what to do with themselves. No, they won't, they will not be comfortable. And they'll be come back more anxious. Yes,
18:09
yes.
Collin 18:10
I love that idea of going, Hey, let's go volunteer. Let's go give out some meals, let's go door to door doing these things. Let's go do these, you know, still doing active productive things, but completely wholly unrelated to to pet care? Yeah,
Jennifer Bassman 18:26
yeah. even getting out to exercise, I had a friend that would drag me out to the lake. I say dragging a lot like this was torture, but it wasn't it. But you know, they it did feel like they were dragging me away from my job at the time. But, you know, they would take me out to the lake for a walk. And that did a couple of things that gave me some exercise, it gave me some fresh air. And, you know, the approach that people took, you know, took with me or that I take with others that are burned out is basically one with kid gloves, you know, you know, they a person that's burned out thinks that they constantly that, you know, their business or their job can't go on without them. You know, them not being there, something's gonna blow up. So, you know, maybe start with shorter periods of time so that that burned out person can see Oh, look, I was gone for 15 minutes. 30 minutes. Nothing broke. Nothing was lit on fire. Nobody died. We're okay. Okay, I can do this again. Do it again for 45 minutes. Yeah. So sometimes it might take some baby steps.
Collin 19:30
Well, and along the way, as you mentioned before, is managing those expectations for that recovery time. Like Yeah, did you didn't burn out overnight, you back out of it is not going to be an overnight thing. There's no quick fix to this.
Jennifer Bassman 19:43
There isn't and part of the problem is is that it's there's a root there is a root of a problem somewhere inside of you and you have to figure out what that root is. And for me, and I keep you seeing myself as an example, primarily because I know myself best, I know what I went through. And I hate using other people and making assumptions. But for me, there was just something inside of me that wasn't letting go, that a nap wasn't going to take care of vacation wasn't going to take care of because that thing that I wasn't letting go of was still inside of me and still affecting me when I got back from that vacation. So that's why I say it's going to take a combination of solutions or tools to get you through that burnout. And one of the tools that I found to help me was the Clifton strengths or Strength Finders assessment. And that assessment actually led me right to the very problem that I had the assumptions that I was making about myself and other people, the expectations that I thought mattered or other people had of me, and help walk me right to that spot and say, that's the switch that needs to be flipped off.
Collin 21:05
Wow. And that process of whether it's through that assessment, or just doing some, some inward looking and thinking can really be really uncomfortable, which is why I think a lot of us can push it off. Because we absolutely like looking in the mirror too long, right? We we make sure the person in the mirror is still present. And then we often because we're busy, right? We have a lot of things to do, we don't have time for this, right? Instead of sitting there and really, really taking some big deep breaths and facing those issues.
Jennifer Bassman 21:34
Yeah, it is. And it's not like you have to do some deep psychological dive. I didn't. You know, I think that, like you say, that's very scary to start asking yourself how you operate and what makes you tick. And, you know, you have to go, Well, what do I value? What's important to me, and, you know, asking those questions of yourself requires some time and effort. And I think that scares people off. But to truly effectively, deal with, you know, the burnout and manage it, so that you can recover, you're going to have to take a step back, and actually go through those steps yourself. And, you know, have that introspective conversation, where you're saying maybe I do too much, maybe I need to have some more realistic expectations of myself and other people. Maybe my boundaries aren't that effective. And I need to learn how to enforce them. You know, they're tough things to go through. But when you go through them, and you actually fix those issues, and you deal with those issues, you come out the other side, a whole other person. I mean, I know I did, I, you know, I was very scared to go through some of those introspective moments. And I learned a lot about myself, and I learned a lot about other people. And my business has become 10 times better because of it. Right?
Collin 23:03
Well, and I like putting things into perspective here. It's like this where it's not we're not going okay, we have to go on a five year long vision quest and the will find ourselves right. I know, I can ask myself some questions why take a walk around the block or while I'm, you know, laying in bed at night, like there's these little, it's these little things that we start, you know, taking kid gloves to ourselves, not just how people deal with us, but being okay to make that first step and go, I'm going to ask this question, and I'm just gonna think about it. You know, and I might not have an answer right now. But at least I'm asking myself, myself these things.
Jennifer Bassman 23:41
Yeah, absolutely. And the less you deal with it once the better. You can't fix everything at once. And like you said earlier, it didn't happen overnight. So trying to take that big of a bite is going to be really frustrating. And actually very, it's, it's going to be very self defeating, too. So, you know, start with little things. I started with little things. The first thing that I've looked at which it may sound and what my definition of little things may be different than other people's definition of little things. The first thing I looked at was the number of hours I was putting in to my job. How can I change that? How can I fix that? So that you know, I wasn't working as long and as hard every day. Which, you know, led me to some other questions of Okay, are all the things that I'm doing every day absolutely necessary? Is there somebody I can delegate this to? Or is this something that actually absolutely has to be done? You know, one question kind of leads to another and don't go to the next question until you answered the first one.
Collin 24:55
approaching this topic of boundaries here you have this really great line that I love you say we didn't become the boss only to be bossed around by other people or live by their rules. Yes, I just I need that on a T shirt or a poster or something. So what? What are some action steps to stop being bossed around by others?
25:20
Well, first you wear the T shirt.
Collin 25:21
Okay, step one cut.
25:24
Just a moment placing my order.
Jennifer Bassman 25:27
Yeah, you know, that? I don't think it occurs to us that when we are giving in to other people, you know, kind of saying yes, when we should be saying no to people that we are actually being bossed around by them that we are beginning to play by their rules. And I literally, I don't know anybody that ever went into the into business saying, gosh, I hope I get to play by everybody else's rules. Everybody I know, goes into business to do things their own way they think or they know they found a better way to serve others or to do something better. So you know, if you just play by other people's rules and do what they want all the time, you may as well go work for somebody else. Right? Right. So, you know, one of the first steps is boundaries, boundaries, boundaries, create some boundaries, we forget that we need those as business owners, and that we actually deserve to have boundaries. And you have policies and procedures in place for a reason. So stick to them, which I think is hard, because we don't like to say no. And, you know, we often find that we're find ourselves managing and operating from a place of fear. So it makes us do things fear makes us do things that we typically wouldn't do. You know, we fear, we're going to make somebody mad by saying no to their requests. We fear that we'll lose business if we don't bend in every direction. And we fear that we're going to fail if we don't make our customers happy, or keep them happy. And, you know, I do address a lot of this in my book, stop being a doormat, but you know, creating those boundaries, so that you remain the boss of your business, you remain the boss of your life is imperative. You know, so that you end up running an efficient and an effective business, the best way to look at it as boundaries make you an effective person and effective boss.
Collin 27:27
I love that idea of going fear makes us do crazy things. I think many of us have looked back at our schedules maybe a month ago or you know, we've looked back at previous bookings and gone. How many clients? I didn't say what, what kind of person would do that? I don't even but we forget our mindset of why we booked too many, right? And yeah, gosh, I'll never do that again.
Jennifer Bassman 27:52
And then we do it again.
Collin 27:54
And again. But that that that fear is very real. And and one of those things of going of admitting to ourselves, I did that because I was afraid. I was afraid of losing clients I was afraid of going under I was afraid of not being able to pay my employees if you have them like, Yeah, not acknowledging that fear based decisions, make us do crazy things.
Jennifer Bassman 28:20
It does. And I've got news for everybody listening to this to this podcast to this show. We're all afraid, we all do crazy things out of fear. And we all make crazy decisions out of fear. And that was something I felt very alone on as a business owner for a long time. I thought I was the only one that was scared and afraid. And, you know, I just I want to say that because I don't want other people to think they're alone in that sentiment.
Collin 28:51
Yeah, your your apps. Absolutely true. And we all have things that that frighten us. Yes. You know, whether that's in our business and personal life, and that's just part of being human. And that's real. And that's that's healthy to have some of those fears. It's absolutely right. Like we but when you start operating out of fear, yes, instead of out of strength or out of 30 you know that that's where these kind of decisions start coming into play. Exactly. Now another one of the boundaries that you've you've written about and you talk about is the condition that you have and I think I have it to his voicemail. Yes, email. Yes, dread itis. Which I think I've been diagnosed with for a very long time here. So what what role does managing voicemails and emails and all of that side of what it means to run a business play in setting healthy boundaries?
Jennifer Bassman 29:46
Oh my that's a great question. Um, I should tell people where the voicemail is email is dread itis came from? It just came from, you know, I worked very like many other pet care business owners I worked with Very early mornings and very late nights, and there was nothing I dreaded more than coming in, you know, this was when I owned my dog, dog daycare, coming in and seeing the voicemail light blinking. It just my heart would skip a beat. Because I would wonder, I immediately was like, okay, who's calling in sick? Who's quitting? Who's, you know, immediately went to some kind of negative, you know, who's calling with another emergency? You know, it's not good when the voicemail light is blinking at five or 530 in the morning,
Collin 30:36
right? I always think, okay, who's calling to yell at me? right?
Jennifer Bassman 30:39
Exactly. Exactly. I mean, that literally is okay, what is everybody's problem already, you know? And, I mean, I literally became it almost became a phobia, you know, to answer to listen to those voicemails or, you know, look at an email because it was just like, you know, when people, those are the two, at the time, were the, probably the two most common formats of people delivering crappy news, right, or something I didn't want to hear. And so it just, it got to a point where it was just, I just, you know, it was like shaking, almost when I was hitting the, you know, button to listen to my voicemails or opening my outlook to read emails, but that your question is around, you know, how to develop healthy boundaries and healthy relationships with our voicemails and our emails. And, you know, took me a long time to have that healthier relationship. But I also, you know, was, I used to be a person that was constantly connected, that was also the other problem that was happening at the same time is that, you know, I would read emails in the middle of the night, I would check my voicemail at all hours of the day and night, there was no, really no boundary to it, there was no cutoff, really, to my day, and I think a lot of busy professionals experienced this, now that we're at 24, seven news cycle or 24, seven, you know, we can be reached anywhere at any time, for any reason, you know, anywhere in the world. And a lot of it was creating a boundary of I am only answering or reading my emails between and voicemails between this hour and this hour, you know, basically business hours, you know, so that it couldn't, you know, invade a dinner hour, couldn't invade time with my family, you know, didn't interrupt a movie. Or, you know, it just I allowed it to creep into everything if this you know, if that makes sense. You know, where you're just kind of sitting at dinner, and I'm just going to check my emails really quick. And you check it and bam, there's an email from a client complaining about, you know, hair their pet did or didn't get. And just, you know, you're, you immediately your brain goes into another world and it ruins the dinner ruins, you know, what was supposed to be a relaxing evening, or, you know, just time away from work. And everything just kind of starts to blend in if you don't have boundaries of when you're going to check why you're going to shock. So I basically won't answer my, you know, my phone, emails, texts, even check them outside of the hours of about 730 in the morning, and about eight o'clock at night. So that gives everybody a solid 12 hour window to get a hold of me. And then I might do just one more check about 930. You know, just because that seems to be about the time, I tend to have a tendency to remember Oh, crap, I forgot to do something or I forgot to tell somebody something important. And if it's something that needs to be dealt with in that moment, fine. I deal with it in that moment, but nine times out of 10 it's something I can deal with the next day, and I've really trained that muscle to say you're doing this tomorrow, go to bed, go read your book, whatever you were going to do.
Collin 34:14
Have you heard about time to pet Chris and from raining cats and dogs as this to say
34:19
becoming a time to pet client has been a game changer for us. We can give our pet services clients real time, cloud based information they never imagined they'd be interested in. And most importantly, to me personally, I can better manage my company and look forward to more and not a small thing. times a pet is responsive to my requests for new features and modifications to existing ones.
Collin 34:44
If you are looking for new petsitting software for your business give time to pet a try. listeners of pet sitter confessional get 50% off their first three months when they sign up at time to pet.com slash confessional What I've noticed with a lot of emails that we get is, they're just like one line, maybe two lines. And so I'm go, how long did it take that person to write the email? Probably 30 seconds. And now I'm going to be stressing over that for the next, how many hours
35:17
raise? Right? Yeah,
Collin 35:18
like, recognizing that there is a differential in the amount of work and energy it takes into emails and just making that decision of going, I can't let that rule and dictate how I'm going to feel emotionally for the news, you know, so that I can enjoy this life. And those those kind of boundaries have a hard cutoff of going Nope, my email hours are between here and here. And knowing Look, there's always going to be more, right, you're never going to get to zero in your inbox. Exactly. There's always going to be more so if you don't get to it today. You've got tomorrow to start attacking that and and making those decisions going, Okay, did this email come in? If I'm looking at it? Is this going to take five minutes? Or is this going to take three hours to do? Well, I don't have three hours. So that goes on my tomorrow list.
Jennifer Bassman 36:06
Right? It's about finding more reasonable and realistic delineation or, you know, reasoning for dealing with something or not dealing with something, everything can't be an emergency or surprise, you're going to wear out, you're going to burn out. And you know, when somebody I think one of the things that we forget with emails with voicemails, especially with text messaging is that everybody doesn't deserve an immediate response. You know, everything moves so quick right now. And our expectations is, you know, of, you know, texting somebody, especially texting. I find that more texting than I do with voicemail and email now. But you know, that if you don't answer that text within minutes, or even an hour, what's wrong with you? Why aren't you listening to me? Why are you ignoring me? And what I've really gotten into the habit of doing is really trying not to answer texts very quickly, so that I start training people and managing people's expectations of me. You know, if I start answering text messages or emails at 10 o'clock at night, I've trained people, and to think that it's fine to email me text me or call me at those hours of the day. Because I've responded before, so obviously, I'll respond again. So it's, there's a lot of, you know, you know, managing other people's expectations, that also goes into this of saying, Hey, I know this is something you're used to, or something you would do, but these are my rules. This is my boundary, I, you know, anything that comes in after this hour of the day, I don't deal with until, you know, the next day. Yeah, and we've, you know, it happened. The most common phrase that I'll say to people is don't make your crisis, my emergency.
37:59
Yes.
Jennifer Bassman 38:02
And I think we all have a lot of those clients that do that. But we've allowed them to do that everything, you know, is a hair on fire 911 kind of moment, and we've trained them to believe that we're going to handle all those situations, and we're going to be available for all those situations. And in the beginning, it's really tough to retrain these clients that you're not. But they get the picture pretty quickly. And you know, just as soon as you stop answering right away, or you have a conversation of Hey, you know, you have this habit of texting me at 10 or 11 o'clock at night. Just under it's fine to text me Go ahead, just understand. I'm not going to answer. At least not until the next morning. So
Collin 38:49
and I know and I know, it looks different for everybody, and everybody's system is going to look unique. But yeah, one of the things that you said there was not every email, voicemail text is an emergency. Correct? Right. So So stop treating it like that. So that the real emergencies, the real, necessary ones that have to get handled at that exact moment, can make their way through, right, yeah. So that you can handle those in the most appropriate way when they come up. Because they're going to come up. It's just you have to be able to have those filtered out of all the other text messages of all the other emails. Yes, you can so that you can know oh, this one's actually important. I need to deal with that right now.
39:29
Yeah, definitely.
Collin 39:32
And part of what we've been talking a lot about here is and I know we've both talked about it is you know that dirty two letter word in Oh, right. We don't we don't speak it. We don't say oh boy, because it's it's it's just terrible.
Jennifer Bassman 39:46
I happen to think it's a beautiful word. And I'm going to go ahead and say it No.
Collin 39:52
ears are bleeding across the world now. How do we get better at saying that? How does that become a More, how do we exercise that muscle of saying no more often in the appropriate situations?
Jennifer Bassman 40:06
Oh, yay, I love to hear you use the phrase no as a muscle? Because it is it is a muscle. And I am the biggest fan of the word no. Now I say no, like, it's like I'm handing out candy. But, you know, I think one of the things that helps is coming to terms with the word itself, because the word know has such a negative connotation to it. And it doesn't have to, there's just a lot of emotion that's associated with such a small word, it's kind of amazing. And I'll be honest, I still have trouble saying it to my dogs. But I have no problem whatsoever saying it to people these days. My dogs, I'm a total sucker for they get whatever they want. That's why I'm like a dog nanny and not a trainer. So I do recognize that there are some limitations for some of us. And there I'm admitting my limitation with the word but I was the word No, I, I have three foundational principles that I operate. by it. I had a long discussion with myself one day about the word know, like, why am I scared of it? Why don't I like to say it? What am I afraid of? What is the reaction that I'm afraid of which was really, what it came down to is, I was afraid of what other people were gonna think of me. I was afraid that they wouldn't like me, I was afraid that they would get mad at me. And that just couldn't be further from the truth. I just couldn't be. What I recognized after having that conversation with myself and actually, with some very close friends is that by always saying yes, I'm not a very respectable person, I come across as more of a sucker. So, and I thought that was really interesting feedback. And if you have some honest friends, those are the people to talk to about this stuff. Because the people that can't possibly fathom saying the word No, they become the biggest doormats. And, you know, that's what my book is about not to keep bringing that up. But that's one of the reasons I wrote it is because saying no, and having boundaries, it's one of the most common things that I coach in my coaching business, it's one of the most common things that I coach, when it comes to burnout. is people not being comfortable with saying the word no. And I have three foundational principles that I operate by, I kind of made three criteria is maybe another word, another way to think of it around the word no. And one of the criteria is that it's okay to say no, and you know, what, a lot of people expect you to say it, you'd be surprised. And for the people that that don't expect it, or don't like it when you say no, that's their problem. That's literally their responsibility. And before you think that it's easy for me to say something like that. I really sweated it out in the beginning when I was saying no to people. And I really did begin to notice a difference between the people that respected me and the people that didn't respect me, because the people that respected me, I kind of saw a little bit of an eyebrow twitch like, That's new. Okay, good for you. I mean, and some people didn't notice at all, I should say, some more often than not people didn't notice at all. It was just more Okay. Well, you know, because I would, when I say no, I generally follow it up with a different suggestion or a different solution. And that generally bring, you know, make saying the word a little easier for the other party to take. Because when you just give a straight, no, and then walk away, you don't give the other person much to work with. You know, it still it makes it a lot harder for them. But people that have a hard time hearing the word now, please understand that is on the other person that is totally on them. That is their responsibility. And it's not your responsibility to quickly turn around and change your mind and say, yes, that is their problem to deal with. The second criteria or principle I operate by is I can't change other people. And I can only control my reaction. I can't make somebody do something, I can't make somebody feel a certain way. I can't control the way that they're going to feel about something I said or something I did. I can only manage and control how I feel about it and how I'm going to react to it. And hopefully that statement, like it did for me takes a lot of responsibility off of your shoulders. Because when you just kind of let it go and say you know What, that's not, for me to, that's not my burden to bear, things get a little bit easier for you. Because we our natural tendency, especially when we're caregivers, you know, we want to take on other people's burdens, other people's problems, you know, and kind of work through that emotional baggage. And the third principle or the third Foundation, foundational principle or criteria that I, you know, use around the word know, is, I teach people how I want to be treated, I have to remember that and everything that I do. So I always ask myself, if I say yes to this, what am I teaching that other person? And just like I mentioned, a few minutes ago, when we were talking about the emails and the voicemails, and you're training somebody, if you answer the those voicemails, those text messages, those emails at 11 o'clock midnight, you're training other people to expect that from you. And so you have to be very aware of the things that you say, and you do as a business owner, in particular. You know, because people use that to manage their expectations of you. They use that to create a standard around you. So if you're the type of person that's always saying, Oh, yeah, I'll do that, oh, yeah, I'll do that. And in your head, you're thinking, Oh, my God, that means I have to cancel my plans with my family, or my friends, or I don't know how I'm going to make X, Y, and Z work. Because now I just told this client that I would do, make, make that visit or help them with, you know, their animals that day. You know, you can make things just a lot easier on yourself. If you just said to that person, you know, I want to help you. But I can't because you know, you don't even really have to give an explanation. What might make you feel better in that situation? And would actually make you say better than make you look better than saying yes, all the time is, you know, that doesn't really work with my schedule. But here's what would work instead. You know, negotiate it a little bit. But yeah, you teach people I don't think we really realize how how, how we teach people who we are and what we expect, and what we want by our actions. And by never using the word No, no, is not a dirty word. It is not a negative word. It's just a simple two letter word, that commute helps communicate a message. Yeah. And we give it entirely too much weight and entirely too much emotion. And, you know, if somebody can't handle you saying that to them, those people shouldn't be be in your client base.
Collin 47:49
Right? Well, and I hope that as you are talking in describing these kind of interactions that people are going through the Rolodex of clients in their mind going, Oh, I say yes, to these couple people, these handful people all the time. And they're, they're actually the ones that I feel like, are the biggest weight on my shoulders, right? I can, like so taking that we're talking about uncomfortable conversations with ourselves, what role How have I taught my clients to disrespect me, because of how many times I've have told them? Yes. And I always tell them, yes. And I tell them, yes, the more than anybody else. And yet, you know what, they walk all over me? Yeah, there's a relationship there. Right, that that is the expectations, they're meeting your expectations that you've set for that relationship?
Jennifer Bassman 48:38
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, and I think some of us have had experiences in our life to where, you know, we've said no to somebody and we've had a bad reaction to it. And so we've kind of subconsciously put it in our mind somewhere that we're just never going to say no to people again, it's in my best interest to say yes to everything. And that just isn't, isn't a great or a healthy solution to anything. You know, we just we have so much guilt and so much baggage that goes along with that word, and it's it's amazing, you know, and that self introspection, I'll be honest with you the hardest person to say no to is myself. Jennifer, you shouldn't know you can't have that. That ice cream. I mean, try dealing with me when I can't have ice cream asked my husband's awful. You know, it's, I don't think there's been a client in my Rolodex over the years that comes close to the temper tantrum I throw in my head when I'm being denied ice cream. So, I mean, if we have to, you know, be reasonable and be realistic about some stuff, you know, if somebody is gonna yell at you for saying no or come down on you for saying no. Why do you even want to deal with this person? In the first place, right? And you bring up a great point, too, and I talked about this on a Facebook Live the other day, you know, just those, why do we keep these difficult clients, and it goes back to that 8020 rule in business that you spend 80% on your time and 80% of your time on 20% of your most difficult clients, you know, that whatever that however, that works out, and we all do it, you know, I'm just as guilty as anybody else. And but I think it's well worth your time to really ask yourself what it costs you when you say yes, and what it costs you when you don't say now, because there is definitely a cost to both of those answers.
Collin 50:45
Mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, and just being just being honest with yourself about that, and looking at the role that in responsibility you have in setting that right, like new clients and existing clients are, are going to be who they are. And part of you know, that they have like, Look, it's it's on them for how they react, I can manage my reaction and and go on from there and set my expectations appropriately. Because I want to be in this business for a long time. And part of that is building a culture building a relationship and setting expectations that are going to allow me to do that. And and that means saying no, a lot of times,
Jennifer Bassman 51:26
yes. Oh, yeah. It does. It absolutely means saying no, a lot. And I I get made fun of a little bit now in my house with my husband, you know, because he's starting to start sentences with I know you're gonna say no. And a smile creeps up on my face. Because I'm like, that means I've made it, I've done it. I, I know how to say no to people, and it's okay. Look at the expectation I've sent I've sent in my own home. But it's baby steps. You know, I mean, I didn't start I didn't run out of the gates with my hair on fire screaming No, with everybody. And you know, I don't answer my phone going, nope. This is Jennifer. As much as I want to some days sure. But you know, I you know, you got it's a muscle and you out, you know, when you're building muscle, you start with a lightweight, right? You start with easier exercises, and you you know, make it more difficult as you go along. And so to practice saying no, and to build that no muscle, I love that term that no muscle. Start with something simple. Like I said that I made the wrong choice of trying to start with myself saying no, but you know, start with something simple. Do you have a client that, you know, you get along with really well, you know, that you guys generally see eye to eye on something. And, you know, start start with an easy one, you know, softball, or start saying no outside, in, in situations that don't have anything to do with your business. You know, if you get the wrong thing at the restaurant, and you wouldn't typically, you know, send your food back. There's a great opportunity, you know, to say, Hey, I actually ordered something else. Or this didn't come out correctly. And, you know, just find those little opportunities to start building that confidence in yourself. And notice people's reactions. You know, when you say no, or you turn something down, or you ask for something to be fixed, or to do something at a different time, you're gonna be shocked at how it really truly does not faze people, we make up these stories in our head of, you know, just these awful situations and build it up into something that, you know, isn't going to happen. To talk. It's almost like we're trying to talk ourselves out of you know, the situation, giving ourselves every excuse in the world to just say yes to everything, instead of dealing with reality of saying no, but the reality of saying no more often than not is it just doesn't face people that you said it. It's just okay, well, let's do this instead.
Collin 54:22
Yeah, well, it's, it's, it's almost like how we, you know, when we're getting dressed in the morning, or, you know, we're like, oh, everyone's gonna notice that this there's this little string here on my shirt that I can't get off right now everyone's gonna notice that my hair is not perfect today. And literally nobody does. But yeah, it's just it's just part of being a person in the world is the word no exists for a reason. It's because people use it. So become some of those people.
Jennifer Bassman 54:46
Yes. And the Who was it? I think it was Warren Buffett has a quote that the most successful people in the world didn't get to where they are by saying yes to everything. The most successful people in the world got where they are. By saying no. consistently and constantly So, you know, it does have a direct correlation to you being successful and reaching your goals thinking
Collin 55:10
about and given the 2020 has been 2020 so far.
55:18
What a year.
Collin 55:20
And maybe we've already touched on a few of these, but I am curious and want to pick your brain here as far as what are some things we can be doing right now in the context of the year that is 2020 to prepare and avoid burnout move in the future?
Jennifer Bassman 55:37
love this question. And I also have to admit, I have a very unpopular attitude when it comes to quarantining. Of course, I'm not happy about the pandemic, but I loved being quarantined. I don't think I've been that productive in years. I, and I tried to coach this and I continue to try and coach this because I don't even know if we describe the current situation we're in as being quarantined or not, I, I don't know what you'd call it. But we're kind of in this weird Limbo, period. But this is still a great time for you to work on your business, not work in your business, but work on your business. Because you're not as busy as you would typically be. And I know that that is really scary. And I'm very, very well aware that, you know, a lot of pet care businesses are suffering and having trouble, you know, paying their bills. And I'm not telling you not to get out there and try and build your business and market your business. But what I am encouraging you to do, because we have such an unprecedented opportunity, that will never happen to us, again, to slow down and work on the mechanics of our business, because that's, for a lot of people slowing down working on the mechanics of your business is not sexy, it's not fun, but it's absolutely necessary to do it. But you know, you don't have people bombarding you with calls. There aren't constant and consistent emergencies. You know, because, you know, our client bases are staying home, and people aren't traveling. So this is a fantastic opportunity to reconfigure your business to do things a little bit differently, to take a look at what wasn't working before the pandemic and fix it. You know, because the people that are going to kind of businesses and the people that are going to come out of this pandemic, in this quarantine period thriving are the people that took the time to have an introspective look at how they were operating prior to the pandemic, I can guarantee you that there were things that you were doing that were burning you out, because they weren't working. They were things that weren't a fit for you personally, or professionally. They were things that weren't a fit for you fit for your business. And so this is a fabulous time to take a step back and ask yourself, what hasn't been working? And how can I change things around? Because it's a lot harder to do that when you've got more employees and more clients and more problems and more money flowing and more craziness going on. So take advantage of this quieter period to do those things. Because, you know, when you figure out what, you know, processes aren't working for you. Maybe it's a task list that needs to finally get made for your employees so that they're consistently cleaning, you know, your facility or consistently going into homes and doing things the same way every time. Maybe it's some bookkeeping tasks that need to be fixed and cleaned up, maybe you need to hire a bookkeeper. This is a great time to pull back and say, Okay, I want to do things differently. And it's it's so interesting to me because I see that a lot in Facebook groups that I'm in different business Facebook groups where a lot of people during quarantine, oh my god, this periods been fabulous to take a step back and I'm actually getting to sleep or sleeping and my phone isn't ringing and I'm not constantly being bombarded with text messages or employee problems and you know, then business starts to pick up again and they were doing things the same way that they were doing before and they are just building on that misery again. And they're being reminded of, oh my gosh, this is why I was so tired or this is why I was burnt burning out or you know, any one of those negative thoughts creeps back Again. And so I just I can't stress it enough, you know that you get basically, you're getting a clean slate right now, because you've had clients that have haven't been using your services in a long time, guess what, if you don't want them back, don't invite them back. This is a great time to let some clients go, that weren't working for you or weren't working for your business, and we're just driving you nuts. Right, um, if there are employees that just aren't a fit for the business, again, it's hard. You know, I hate firing employees, it's the worst part about being a boss, quite frankly. But you know, at the end of the day, you got a business to run, and you have an opportunity to make it even better. And if this employee is getting in the way of making things better, this would be a great time for a compassionate release.
Collin 1:00:52
Well, and as you mentioned, like if we were on the cusp of burning out, or if we were frustrated with how things were operating and ready to call it quits before the lockdown. Yeah, and we didn't do anything during the lockdown coming outside of the lockdown. Why would we expect anything to be different? And so if we need to be honest with ourselves to go, I didn't like it, then I've have this opportunity. Now let's make some changes. And and actually do them?
Jennifer Bassman 1:01:22
Yes. Doing the same thing the same way gets the same results. So you need to do things differently. It's literally that simple. Shocking, right? Right. Right. And it's it's such a hard concept for us to, to get a grasp on because our excuses get in the way we start thinking well, you know, we're not making any money right now. I don't have as many clients, how can you say get rid of clients when I'm struggling? To get clients, you know, as it is right now? Well, when you keep the door closed, or keep something blocking that that door, you know, so that you can't open it, it's never going to open. And it's never going to open to new opportunities and to new clients. Because you can't I mean, think of it this way, you can't do two things at once. So if you're dealing with ugly client over, you know, on your left hand side, you have no idea what's happening on the right hand side. So why not free yourself up to go over to the right side and see what's happening over there, and what fantastic clients you can find there, this is a great time to redo your marketing, or even start marketing. I know a lot of business owners don't do it. But it is imperative to do on some level. But you know, one of the biggest drivers of burnout is fear. And if you're constantly afraid of not being able to make money, or you're constantly afraid of your business failing, you're going to burn out. But you can stop that fear, you can actually put things in the way of that, you know, and get rid of that fear by doing the marketing by going out and looking for different clients by approaching a different group of people. You know, for employment or you know, to be clients. So, doing the same things and going down that same road or sitting there wringing your hands. isn't going to help anything.
Collin 1:03:25
Right? Yeah, no, I love that. Absolutely. Because there are there are things to done there to do, there are little things that we've all thought about. Maybe deal and being being open enough to go. Okay, I won't do that right now. I now I want to take this opportunity, as I love what you had said of not working in your business working on your business. Yes. And the great opportunity to see this as an opportunity to take that by the by the horns and just run with it.
Jennifer Bassman 1:03:52
Yeah, and I, I will admit that 10 years ago, I wouldn't have looked at this as an opportunity, I would have looked at this as Oh my god, this is a crisis and everything's coming to a halt. But, you know, at the end of the day, it's all about the perspective that you you have. And if you have a negative perspective, and a attitude of this isn't going to work and I'm going to fail, then that's exactly what's going to happen where your attention goes your energy flows. So if you're constantly going down that negative, you know, negative Nelly path to saying this is all you know, we're all doomed and you know, this is going to shut my business down. It doesn't have to right. And I you know, I I get in trouble because I I'm very literal in the way I talk and I tell the truth and I tell things like they are. So I hope I'm not offending anybody but it is the honest truth. These are I tell I talk about things the way I wish somebody would have talked about them with me. Because I think for a lot of people sugarcoating isn't helping Yeah,
Collin 1:05:00
no, no, it's not. And it's again, if we, if we do the same thing and expect different results. You know, there's a saying about that for sure.
Jennifer Bassman 1:05:08
Yes. somewhere you can find it on the internet. Oh,
Collin 1:05:14
well, thank you, Jennifer, this has been a real pleasure. This has been a real joy and so refreshing to talk about these this topic of burnout and and things that we can be doing and boundaries and saying no, and I really appreciate you coming on being honest about that, and some of your own struggles. And I hope people feel empowered and feel energized to go out and start making some much needed changes in their businesses. If people want to reach out to you get connected, follow along, get a copy of your book, How can they do that?
Jennifer Bassman 1:05:46
Well, thank you for asking. Now, this is a very deep and very big topic. And I do like I said, this is my focus. And so if you have any questions, or you want more information, you can always find me on my, my website, Jennifer bassman.com. Or Jennifer, Jennifer bassman.com is my email. I've also got a Facebook page where I do regular Facebook Lives. And definitely Collin needs to come on and do a Facebook Live. And Megan, as well. Because I think, you know, this is a topic that is very relevant to so many of us. And like I said, I tackle it head on, it's not something you know, we really want to talk about or think about it, we wish it would just go away. But it's here to stay until you deal with it, unfortunately, as I found out.
Collin 1:06:40
Well, and thank you for that invite, that would be be lovely, we hope, hopefully be able to stay in touch and continue to carry on this conversation and other avenues as well. You betcha.
Jennifer Bassman 1:06:51
Gotcha. Thank you, Collin, I appreciate it.
Collin 1:06:54
I hope that this was a good reminder of that your business is your business. And that part of running your business is not letting other people tell you what your boundaries should or shouldn't be. And that saying no is just part of an expectation that people have. And I loved her quote of saying by always saying yes, I'm not a very respectable person, what we say no to what we say yes to speaks to who we are as people and what we expect from others in the world around us. We'd love to get your feedback on this topic and how you're dealing with compassion fatigue and with burnout. You can send us an email at feedback at pet sitter confessional comm check us out on Facebook and Instagram at the same thing. We are so thankful that time to pet a sponsoring this this week. Head on over to time to pet.com Ford slash confessional for that discount. Thank you so much for listening this week. We'll be back again soon.
