Diary of a burnout survivor: managing overwhelm in marketing

Table of Contents

• 1. Burnout is Widespread in Marketing
• 2. The Role of Work in Identity & Self-Worth
• 3. Warning Signs of Burnout
• 4. Structural Challenges in Marketing Careers
• 5. How to Prevent & Recover from Burnout
• 6. If You’re in a Toxic Environment with No Support
• 7. Practical Takeaways

1. Burnout is Widespread in Marketing

• 70% of marketers report experiencing burnout in the past year.
• The always-on nature of marketing, constant measurement, and lack of alignment with leadership contribute to burnout.

2. The Role of Work in Identity & Self-Worth

• Rita’s burnout was driven by a deep need for achievement and external validation.
• She tied self-worth to productivity, when she wasn’t performing, she felt like a failure.
• Many marketers experience this cycle of overworking to ‘prove’ their value.

3. Warning Signs of Burnout

• Increased workload leads to neglecting personal needs.
• Overwhelm and negativity replace optimism and motivation.
• Physical symptoms such as hair loss, sleep issues, and emotional exhaustion.
• Losing passion for work and feeling disconnected.

4. Structural Challenges in Marketing Careers

• The pressure to justify marketing’s value leads to overwork.
• Leadership often misunderstands marketing, shifting expectations constantly.
• Digital marketing is data-driven, but proving ROI repeatedly can be exhausting.

5. How to Prevent & Recover from Burnout

• Redefine Productivity: Focus on thinking and prioritising, not just ticking off tasks.
• Rethink Confidence: Build internal confidence rather than relying on external validation.
• Set Boundaries & Prioritise: Identify work that moves the needle instead of saying yes to everything.
• Separate Work & Identity: Care about work but invest in relationships and hobbies outside of it.
• Be Courageous: Say no, push back on unrealistic demands, and advocate for yourself.

6. If You’re in a Toxic Environment with No Support

• Identify whether the issue is the company culture, lack of prioritisation, or a personal mindset.
• If leadership expects constant overwork, change may not be possible, leaving might be the best option.
• Therapy, self-reflection, and external support can help manage burnout while searching for alternatives.

7. Practical Takeaways

• Success doesn’t mean saying yes to everything, focus on impact, not hours worked.
• If your work is not tied to a clear KPI, it’s easy to fall into endless to-do lists.
• Confidence should come from within, not from promotions or external praise.

This was a powerful, emotional session that resonated with many attendees. Rita’s honesty about her experience and practical guidance on navigating burnout in marketing made it incredibly impactful.

Transcript

hello everybody thank you all so so much for being here um I just want to pick
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out a few comments from the chat already uh because I can see some lovely lovely human beings there um but Ellena in the
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chat says woohooo first live webinar I’ve been watching recordings up until now so Elena uh this is for you big
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hello and welcome and then also Erica who’s a regular at our webinars says
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it’s 34 degrees in Cape Town today uh so uh color the rest of us very very jealous uh so thank you it’s miserable
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outside uh my office right now um but but it’s so lovely uh to see you here
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today if you haven’t already uh do drop in the chat uh where you’re watching
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from just like Rachel uh Amy uh so many more amarie perver Anna
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Alex Michelle it’s so lovely to see you all here today and if you haven’t already uh do switch your messages to
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everyone so everyone can see your messages uh we got Emily over in Atlanta which is amazing um so all you need to
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do to switch your messages so everyone can see it head into your chat feature as many of you have already uh and
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you’ll see a little toggle if that presently says hosts and panelists switch that over to everyone so everyone can see and uh just like Al has nailed
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it in Walter ons uh then uh there you go you can everyone can see your messages
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which is so lovely today we have uh just someone like it’s a Rita is a new friend
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uh but is someone who uh immediately just like FS whether it’s a written word
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or a screen full of energy and positive vibes and just so much humility and
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Humanity I I’ve really en enjoyed a very short series of interactions with Rita
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over the over past couple of months Rita is the head of Academy over at se rush
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but uh today just comes as like a wicked human being um and is today going to be
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speaking about burnout which is like one of those so preent issues in marketing there’s some stats which point to 70% of
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marketers reporting burnout in the past 12 months it almost doesn’t matter what the specific number is what it means is
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that there’s a lot of folks out there who feel this way and today we’re going to explore this with someone who uh in
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capules warmth itself um if you have questions as today’s session goes on
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please do uh pop them in the Q&A uh that’s uh found Down Below in your
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little Zoom window uh we’ve got Rachel just saying she’s a wicked human being
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and she’s in Vienna right now so so jealous about Rita um do pop your
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questions in the Q&A as we go out through our today today’s session uh a last couple of things for
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me before we get going properly so the first is say thank you to our featured sponsor this week who are plannable now
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plannable are a content and social media sh in platform they’re the ones that we use at the marketing Meetup and right
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now on Thursday rather they’re going to be running a webinar with TMM favorites
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Sophie Miller all about uh building successful and growing successful agencies in 2025 so if you’d like to be
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part of that we’ll pop it in the followup email there’s a link right there too also a big thank you to
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frontify story block Cambridge Martin College Redgate scor rap they’re fabulous and uh need a lot of praise and
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support uh for supporting our community they’re the reason why we can keep on bringing these sessions to you with all
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that said uh now is the time H to pass over to Rita so Rita thank you for being
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such a legend uh Joe thank you for having me and for those very kind words
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you almost maybe start crying and I haven’t even started telling my story so I don’t to do that so yeah thank you
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in a good way in a good way um no thank you so much for having me and I was telling Joe earlier I’m grateful to be
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here with all of you but I’m also grateful for the opportunity to tell this story because um if anyone in this
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audience has suffered from burnout um at least like this particular episode of burnout for me was quite significant in
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my career it’s something that I have Revisited time and time again in actual journals and Diaries some of which I
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will actually share as part of my presentation uh but I hadn’t really sat down to sort of put it together in a
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full story so that’s what I did for today and I hope um you all not just enjoy it but maybe you see a little bit
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of your own experience in it and I would love your comments and feedback in the chat I’m watching it right now so I’ll try to also uh react to your comments
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and suggestions as I’m going through the slides so first let me share
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those um and just go full screen got it that wonderful okay I actually cannot
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see the chat right now so Joe just interrupt me if like something comes in and like that I should clarify or dig a
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little bit deeper into but okay so hi I am Rita I’m so happy to be here so nice to meet everyone I love this picture of
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be it’s very sort of happy and optimistic um a little bit about myself I’m actually from San Juan Puerto Rico I
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don’t know if there’s anyone from San Juan in the chat like hola WEA um I’m
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very proud to be from the Caribbean it’s a core part of who I am um I did meet an
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Austrian when I went to Business School in Virginia and ended up marrying said wonderful Austrian and this is why I
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live in Vienna Austria and uh we have two hilarious um overwhelming amazing
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children uh and then the last thing is that I love my job um I’ve been in
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marketing for quite a long time I was very lucky to stumble upon this industry
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and this career right out of college and it was just like love at first sight from the beginning and in fact I love
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myob job so much that like it really has gotten me into trouble in the past so this picture which I had for this
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presentation I had to troll my iPhone and I just like went into I had to like bug my husband to get all the passwords
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to like these iCloud accounts to get all the old pictures from back in like the two earlier 2000s but this is actually
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my last day at a company called Zillow which um is a very large actually the
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largest online real estate uh brand in the US and I was I worked there for four
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years I will tell you the story of my sort of progression in that company but this picture I took on the last day my
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last day in that company and this what you see here is a Puget Sound it’s a beautiful view um and I know that it
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looks it looks amazing you can’t really see my face here and even though it feels like a very inspirational
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beautiful moment it actually wasn’t like I was not in a good place when I took this picture um funny enough in my photo
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rooll in my iPhone this picture shows up like just a week before I quit Zillow I
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was going through um just a very difficult time um some of the symptoms
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that I experienced that I can speak about now with lightness but at the time were certainly not a topic of lightness
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for me I was losing hair uh which I have very thin hair I don’t know if you can see I mean I do a lot of volumizing but
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like my hair is very thin so at the time this was like quite tragic for me uh I
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would would find myself crying all the time like I would be like walking to work which I did every morning and
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suddenly I would just start crying and I just couldn’t control I could I couldn’t control it um I wasn’t sleeping well and
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I think the worst symptom for me was that I was overwhelmed with a kind of like Doom and Gloom negativity about my
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job which is incredibly uncharacteristic like anyone that knows me it’s like I have this sweater behind me I’m like
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sunshine yellow person eternally optimistic so I just I had become a different person
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which is why I ended up quitting this job so I want to tell you the story of how that happened to me how I went from
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like the very top of my career to really feeling at the very rock bottom of it in a matter of four years and the lessons
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that I’ve learned and the things that I’ve reflected on almost a decade after that happened to me so I have to take
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you back to 2016 all the way back in the little time machine so I uh I graduated
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from an NBA program where I met my wonderful husband and we decided to do
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longdistance so I moved to New York City and started work there my husband moved to Seattle and at some point this long
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distance became very annoying and we made like an Excel list of like all the things that we did in Seattle and all
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the things we did in New York and we realized that actually all I did in New York was spend money on
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brunch so we decided actually you know what Seattle is a better place like we’re out in nature a lot we’re doing a
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lot of like things that don’t involve spending money on EX Benedict so let’s
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let’s just relocate let’s just do Seattle so I was randomly looking for jobs just applying honestly like very
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mindlessly like applying and I got an interview and ultimately a job at this
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company called Zillow so at the time that I joined Zillow it was a very tiny company of like maybe 500 employees and
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I was the first B2B digital marketing hire so um there were some pieces in
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place for B2B marketing but like I it was a green space for me I had the opportunity to build this thing from the
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ground up the team was super smart very creative weird in the ways that I am
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weird in that we could just like talk about black holes at like 900 p.m. on a Friday night and then go have a beer in
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the corner it was just it was a lot of fun so um I joined at a period where my
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work was supporting this product that you see here called agent this was the b2be product that Zillow sold also the
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primary source of their revenue and so the product is basically an advertising product that is sold to real estate
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agents in the US so that was my product I was the main person that was marketing
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this product and you can see here like in the time that I was leading this team which is like 2016 it was experiencing
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the highest revenue growth it was like Peak for that product and of course there were many things that were
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influencing the growth of this product but I had something to do with it I
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would never say that it was me of course it was not me it was a as I said a very very talented driven team of people and
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the product and the brand were amazing but all the changes that we made in the marketing organization we we just built
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like an incredible like lead generation machine so this line that you see right here that I this is actually I pulled
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from a presentation that I did back in 2016 you can see like when I joined in 2013 this was the marketing driven
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driven Revenue that was attributed to us and then in by 2016 that thing had skyrocketed like almost in parallel of
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as you can see with the premier agent growth so marketing became like a huge driver of Revenue so I was like super
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successful and I felt so good about it I felt amazed like this this little pictures you see like I felt really
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proud and really good about my work so things just were going great like I felt
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for the first time in my life like I had been very burdened by imposter syndrome early in my career I now felt that I had
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worked at enough places that I could really feel confident about my knowledge and marketing like I could show up at a
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meeting and not feel like oh my God why do I have this job like I knew my place in that meeting I started showing up in
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random lists of like like follow Rita she’s a marker to follow even though I wasn’t posting anything online I was
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just like I was just like doing a really good job and networking with a lot of people so it really felt like I was oh
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okay sorry this I meant to mute that but in addition to all the sort of work stuff like I was just having so much fun
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at work this is the 2016 Zillow talent show and I choreographed this entire presentation
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and we won the talent show I just have to wait until you see this look at how cool this was this was my team and so
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not only were we like crushing it but we were just we were having so much fun at work it was amazing so like when I look
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back at those first years at Zillow it really felt like I was like flying like these beautiful seagulls in maybe the
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Puget sound like it really felt that way that I was like Invincible I could do anything and I also kind of felt like a
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rock star honestly like I I I was able to like walk into a meeting and people would actually listen to what I had to
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say like I was a trusted source of like marketing wisdom and knowledge and I felt great I thought I had achieved like
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a really high degree of self-confidence and then then all of this all of this like my happiness my
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joy My Success all of this led to me being promoted to director in three years so I I was promoted every year and
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the third year I became director and I don’t know how you all feel about the term director but like to me it felt
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different like I somehow suddenly felt like oh my God like I’m like that’s like really serious now like I’m like
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director now I’m not like a senior manager I’m not a manager I’m a director
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there was some there was a certain type of heaviness that I felt or like a sense of urgency responsibility that I felt
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came with that title that didn’t come with previous promotions and so
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um I liked it I felt a little bit like I went from like this Winnie the the Pooh
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to like fancy W Winnie the Pooh like I was suddenly in a different level and needed to operate differently and I
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picked this meme too because I felt like you could see that there’s a change in the facial expression of Winnie deoo and
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I think he looks a little smug I certainly don’t feel like I was smug but there was a change in me that I felt
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from that promotion um call it urgency call it like a need to prove that I
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deserved it that I really was worthy of that title um so it felt like in essence for
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me at that point that success in this role was really not optional I was given all this trust to like build out this
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entire like new team and I didn’t want to fail and the job
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was very big and I I did not want to fail so this started a process um that I
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actually pulled this at the actual symptoms of burnout but they really for me this was exactly the path that I
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followed uh number one being like my promotion to to director led to this
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like urgent need that I felt to prove myself and the tasks that were in front
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of me were not easy they weren’t like change this landing page or send 10 emails they were restructure an entire
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team like make these two teams that don’t collaborate with each other not only work together but work together
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effectively they were big sort of like t t tectonic shifts that I had to make in
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this role so I did what I had always done which is to work harder so every
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time I I wasn’t meeting expectations or I felt like I wasn’t doing good enough I would just put in more time
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and more time and more time ultimately neglecting my needs um like it affected
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my personal mental health it most certainly affected my relationship with my husband and with my friends who were
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like where are you we at karaoke and I’m like I’m in the office I have to figure out how to fix this entire
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company um I felt like the picture that I shared very early like at that point I
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definitely had was feeling like I just was not myself at all I was a very different person not optimistic not
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Sunny um felt empty Despair and then for sure I reached number 12 which is the
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total burnout which is where I sort of like Circle back to this picture which is where I started this is like one year
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in only one year into my director job I quit because honestly I didn’t know what
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else to do and I’ve Revis Revisited this many times if this was the right choice
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because as I said like I love loved this company and I loved my job so quitting
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was a really difficult decision for me but I still stand by it because I I think at that point I’m not sure that I
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could have sort of un taken myself back from the edge of this like Crisis
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without physical distance from this office um so what caused this what what
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did it um this is again the product of like almost a decade of reflection so I’m I would be curious also to hear what
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your all your experiences is with burnout for those of you who have unfortunately experienced it but there’s
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a part of my burnout that was definitely not me in my mind that was definitely marketing and Joe you mentioned this
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before the sort of terrible stats that we’re seeing about 70% of marketers experiencing burnout this industry is
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hard um and there have been many changes that have happened shifts that have made it in some ways more interesting there’s
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a lot more opportunity I think for marketers today than when you think back to like you know Madmen Madison Avenue
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1950s advertising agencies but some of these changes are quite hard can be very
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hard on Mental Health I think the first one is that marketing isn’t always on
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job now um in the past like you would show up in an office and leave and go home and now especially people who do
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social media management this job can follow you at home it can be with you at
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all times and it it’s very difficult oftentimes I think for marketers to separate uh your life from your work
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especially now that a lot of us or many of us work remotely I think the other thing that I’ve I think a lot about is
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the fact that um in the past marketing was a a field that was not really measurable you know people would plan
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amazing advertising campaigns and yes at least in the US there were these neelon things that you had on the television
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sets and they could measure kind of how did but you weren’t able to really measure things at a very granular level
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and of course now we do you can measure every every click every impression every interaction and so while this adds a lot
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of value to the work that we do it also means that in certain circumstances particularly when things are not going
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well marketers are constantly trying to justify their existence like we’re we’re
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in a place where we have to leverage and use data as a way to prove our value within an organization and oftentimes
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prove it again and then do it again and then one more time and in my mind like I
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you know attribution models of course Ser serve their purpose but they could also be like quite like leaders of
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overwork in my mind and then the third thing that I would say is this complexity like of being always on of
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this plethora of channels that feels like it’s expanding constantly of all
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this data and like everything being able to be measured has led to a sure
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disconnect between the work that marketers do and the SE Suite like leadership in a company and when you
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look at those stats they’re like quite impressive too that there’s very few
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CEOs with actual marketing experience and for even those who have marketing
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experience there’s a massive like disconnect of like what marketing is in
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the organization are we brand stewards are we digital growth drivers are we Salesforce en en labelers like
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relationship and all of these different things that you see in this diagram there’s like a lot of miscommunication
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about so CEOs and CMOS are not always on the same page and I certainly have
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experienced that in the past where the person that I I was reporting to at the time and the person people that I’ve
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reported to in the past don’t have a strong alignment or understanding of the role of marketing within the
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organization and that role keeps shifting so that makes our jobs as
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marketers quite hard um I I would say that my burnout was not just though like
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marketing I cannot blame marketing for my burnout I will also not blame Zillow or anyone that like managed me or was in
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my team there was a huge component that really was me it really was and I say
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this kindly um but it really was me so this is a picture of my family uh they
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both my parents came from Cuba they moved to Puerto Rico when Fidel when the
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revolution happened in Cuba and um they they started from zero both of my
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parents so I was raised within a household where good grades and
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achievement were not an option they were I must do this and from a very young age
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I felt that I wanted to do work that would almost justify my parents
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sacrifice in me so I felt like from a very very young age that success was
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really kind of the way that I achieved love in my life it’s the the way that like I achieve connection with other
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people I achieve more I am loved more and my parents were not intentional about this obviously I’m I’m a mother
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now and I’m sure that a lot of the things that I do and say will be sort of interpreted and taken differently by my
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children so there’s no judgment to my parents here but I certainly as a as a young girl from the very like Elementary
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School level like I equated achievement with love and then I equated hard work
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with achievement so it’s almost like you know you can do the what is that transactional uh like rule or whatever
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but like these two formulas like really drove a lot of my My Career Success in
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many ways but they’re fund there’s a fundamental problem with them that I think was kind of at the core of a lot
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of what I experienced at Zillow so I said in the beginning that this was a diary so like Joe I told you before the
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session I went I just went I I do a lot of journaling um not consistently but
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when I’m not feeling well I will just like write down what I’m feeling because I think it helps me clarify my thoughts
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so I pulled all my journals from like when I you know quit Zillow and around that time when I was experiencing burn
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burnout and I think this one says I really like to perform and I can’t help it the problem is when I get when I get
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my happiness from external factors that’s not cool okay I’m going to go to bed that’s probably what I need to
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that’s probably what I need to do to Fe feel better or something like that so um I mean there’s a lot of Truth
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in this little paragraph for me at least like I most certainly like to perform
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and it’s taken me a very long time to sort of like disassociate like my my love for performance from a theatrical
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standpoint and my love for performance because I love people thinking that I’m
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great and this that has been a journey that can be a separate webinar but not
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sure that we want to go into that but um I realized like upon reflecting on this
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episode that and like so much of my selfworth was pinned to my success and
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my productivity so me not being able to succeed as a director was not just about
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well I I was unable to do it and now I’m moving on I felt like I was a fundamentally flawed human because I
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wasn’t able to succeed which made made it so I would just continue to work
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harder and take on more tasks because I I I F I needed to succeed not just in
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order for Zillow to succeed as a business I actually needed to succeed so that I could feel good about
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myself and this is quite problematic as you can see this is another page from my journal um I don’t know what it says in
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the very top I think it says something similar it says since my sense of
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self-worth is pinned to my uh productivity suddenly I I cannot have
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an unproductive day or I think I’m a terrible person so you can see in this graph it’s you know I put like this is
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my sense of selfworth and these are the tasks that are completed and it’s like a bell curve like I complete a lot of
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tasks I feel great I feel great I feel great I feel great and then there’s so many tasks and the task BEC so heavy
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that I can’t complete it and then I cannot complete them physically there’s not enough time in the day then suddenly
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sense of selfworth would decline like as you see in this little bell curve um so
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okay the other part of my personality which maybe some of you can also relate to is that I feel like I’m very much a
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Labrador Retriever like I just love ideas you can convince if you come to me with with like any kind of energy for
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anything I will sign up to do it with you like this is like my Achilles heel
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like I will do it it doesn’t matter what the idea is I just want to be part of it and I would just want to have fun so you
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know this is not great like you have someone who is like a Labrador and you combine that with this sort of not just
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like pension for achievement but kind of like a need for achievement as a matter of like self-de and self-worth and I
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would say that I’m just like a prime candidate for Burnout like really just like Prime Primo candidate for
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Burnout um okay so here’s what I have learned
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from like marketing you know there’s some things about marketing that lead to burnout there’s some things that I myself like have had to work on that
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lead to burnout and and these are these are the things so Rita yeah before you
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you carry on there I don’t do this often but like one of the things is that you can’t you can’t see the chat feature and
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and you’re speaking about need for achievement and I don’t want to I just I don’t want to feed that no please no I can’t see it so yeah please I just
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wanted to say that this is so fantastic and um I think I speak for everyone when
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I just say how appreciative we are of you sharing this so um it can feel like
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speaking into a black hole sometimes if you can’t see the chat feature so I just wanted to say that the res thank you all
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I that means a lot I really I’m trying not to cry um I’m a
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crier sorry I’m a labrador who’s also a crier I’m a crying Labrador Retriever um
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no for I I am I’m glad that other people feel this way I think that that many of us feel this way and we just it’s maybe
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we just don’t talk about it enough um I’m a crier too so like we could both
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cry on but I didn’t want into up your flow too much but I just wanted to um as
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you Ed into this next section I just want to say thank you because it’s yes gorgeous so it’s really appreciated yes
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I’m I as I said I’m I’m just grateful to be able to tell the story because I actually have never told it in this way
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I’ve told it with like you know in hysterics at my husband many times but
27:28
never in a sort of linear more calm way um okay so things that that I work and I
27:37
work on this daily like I am not out of the woods when it comes to um when it
27:43
comes to burnout by far not like I think I’m I’m at a place I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that story of like you
27:50
know the progression of getting get I feel it’s getting better at something but at first you fall into a hole and
27:56
you don’t even know you fell then you fall into the hole and you learn how to get out and then eventually like the
28:02
ultimate thing is that you see the hole and you you just don’t fall into it I feel like I’m still falling uh into the
28:09
hole sometimes so I’m this is not said as like from the perspective of someone who has figured out how to manage this
28:17
like it’s a daily practice for me um the first thing is rethinking what
28:23
productivity is like we live in this world where productivity is equal equals
28:29
like I got all of my to-do list done um I I managed to sort of like control my
28:36
job um this uncontrollable situation I managed to somehow rein it in and do all
28:42
of these things and one thing that I did not do when I was promoted to my fancy
28:47
director title is that I never whenever I was I had any kind of
28:53
downtime I felt so guilty because I felt like I was being productive so I was
29:00
constantly trying to do more things when actually if I could go back in time what
29:06
I I should have done what I wish I had done was to really stop and take a step
29:11
back and really allow myself the opportunity to think I think that like a lot of
29:18
marketers right now myself included feel guilty about thinking about just sitting
29:24
and think of like all those scenes if you’ve ever watched Madmen how much time those marketers spend alone in an office
29:30
just thinking and we have the we’re in this like daily publishing schedule
29:36
where we have to also send the email and also do the webinar and record that video and do that podcast there’s so
29:43
much activity that I think um we can do a lot to avoid burnout by just thinking
29:49
a little bit more and then identifying the things that actually matter so um I
29:55
also think that uh we also don’t talk about this offer I I certainly don’t there’s a big difference between being
30:01
an individual contributor that is crushing it and managing a team and I think as you rise
30:08
up in organization you are tackling bigger challenges and doing more work like
30:16
being more active in like task oriented work will not necessarily mean more
30:21
success in those roles so it’s another thing that I think about um the second
30:26
thing I think about is rethinking my confidence and where it comes from I think probably the biggest thing that
30:33
came out of that experience for me is realizing that my I I always thought I was an incredibly confident person I
30:39
really did because I can go to a meeting and present really well and I thought okay I’m really confident and people
30:45
would tell me you’re really confident but I will tell you I was not confident I mean I’m I’m still in this journey and
30:51
many ways I’m still not confident I still my self-worth is still not fully
30:58
uh driven by what’s inside but at that time it was like in very shaky ground uh
31:04
this is part of my job was like doing this big conference in Vegas so this is me in like full burnout but you can see
31:09
me there it’s like I look very confident but I was not well but the ground that my self-confidence stood on at that
31:16
point was fully on other people’s opinions how much success I was having
31:22
the Applause like metaphorical or not or not that I was getting whether or not I was promoted and this is dangerous right
31:29
because if you if your sense of self-worth is like T to other people then you will always take on more work
31:36
you will always do the thing that’s going to get you the Applause even if that thing is ultimately not great for
31:41
you or will lead to burnout um the best way that I like to describe it and I
31:46
actually think this is this comes from my husband um that he says like I was I was almost like like if you are managing
31:54
stock you’re like the CEO of a company and your stock is is at the very Peak
31:59
what if you thought your company is awesome when the stock is at the peak and then when the stock goes down you’re like my company sucks like you you would
32:06
never be able to manage that company and that’s kind of how I always felt like I’m being praised like all my projects
32:12
are doing well I’m amazing oh my God my projects are not working I can’t fix this this is a really big problem I’m
32:19
not amazing I actually suck that that’s kind of where my mind went and it’s like what I work on honestly on a daily basis
32:26
to know I don’t even know why I put this picture in here now I can’t remember um
32:32
but I I on a daily basis seriously I work on understanding or analyzing
32:38
myself like when when I am reacting to something because I’m feeling like I need to impress someone or when I’m
32:44
doing something because I genuinely want to and I work on like building this like
32:50
self-confidence that is so strong that it feels more than a poncho it feels like a night’s armor you know where I
32:57
could be running a company that is like everything is you know in chaos exploding and not working and I can very
33:05
calmly look at the situation and say well let’s try these other things but it’s not about me it doesn’t Define me
33:11
it’s just the situation is is hard it’s not me um and then La lastly I would say
33:17
like the role of work um I don’t know if anyone can relate to this but I when I moved to Seattle my work was everything I moved
33:25
there with no connections so all my friends friends were from work like
33:30
everything sort of revolved around my social life everything was around my job
33:35
and then when I left that job I was like oh my God I have nothing here i’ I have
33:40
nothing left in Seattle I realized the importance of building Community not
33:46
just in work but outside and investing in yourself outside of your job um I
33:52
will forever like care oh the picture is gone that was me covering my children
33:57
and my husband’s faces maybe it’s like in the smaller oh okay I will add it later oh here it is
34:04
okay here it is um so since Zillow you know I which was something that I was
34:11
very afraid of doing but I decided to like delve like move in the direction of like building a family and like
34:16
investing very heavily emotionally financially from a Time perspective in
34:22
other aspects of My Life um to sort of remove the pressure that this job or
34:28
what I do for a living needs to Define me in this like really big way it still
34:33
does I’m not saying that your job is not important we spent a lot of time at work so I really I really care about my job
34:40
but I care about a lot of other things too and I’m very mindful on on like how much time I spend at work versus
34:47
building like Community both like within my house with my children and my husband but also outside in Vienna where I live
34:55
and I’m still struggling to learn German so you know that’s a whole it’s a whole other topic so I focus really on like
35:04
this is like the last I hope this is not too cheesy for everyone but like it really is the truth for me of like how I
35:10
my my sort of strategies for not being a burnt out marketer the first one is to be freaking courageous because you know
35:18
what it takes courage to tell your manager listen this is unrealistic let’s
35:23
talk about how we can prioritize this for a future time or how we can like
35:28
extend the timeline or whatever it is it takes courage to take a step back and it takes courage to like not fully freak
35:35
out when like things are not going well in a job um I think it also takes courage to pursue and prioritize the
35:42
work that you find playful and fun because that work is not necessarily the work that’s going to lead to a promotion
35:48
or lead to other people to more money or lead to other people being like you’re amazing um but I’ve been since my
35:55
burnout episode not immediately after because it took me two or three years actually to get back on my feet but I
36:02
I’m very intentional about spending a lot of time doing the things that feel
36:08
fun um I I prioritize self-awareness so I’m still a labrador but this Labrador
36:15
is no longer playing with a stick it’s like sitting on grass which means that it’s reflective and it’s thinking before
36:21
it leaps so I try to be very mindful of because as I said I will take on a lot
36:27
and I’m very excited about everything so when I start taking on too much and work
36:32
starts to feel very heavy I tone it back so it’s almost for me it’s almost like a
36:38
radio dial that I have developed in my brain where I’m like love it more work
36:43
more work love it this is so much fun and then suddenly it’s like oh my God I can’t do it I’m so stressed I can’t
36:48
sleep and I know I need to sort of tune that radio dial so it’s not like a like
36:54
a hard boundary for me it’s like a tuning thing that I’m I’m constantly working on so uh there’s some I’m sure
37:01
you have your own Clues but for me I’m a big big reader of fiction so when I can’t read fiction I’m having I have a
37:08
problem that I I need to tone back because my it means my brain is all over the place so learning the signals and
37:15
then finally this idea of like working on real confidence that like really comes from inside me and not from like
37:22
external factors and I’ll end with this which is a great like book that I recently discovered it’s called
37:28
meditations for Mortals but Oliver burkman says quote or perhaps you tethered your self-esteem to the most
37:33
crazy making standard of all realizing your full potential which means you’ll never get to rest because how can you
37:39
ever be sure there’s not a little more potential left to [Laughter] realize this is so this like really
37:46
speaks to me both at work but in general um is you know I’m trying to always
37:51
impress my parents till the day I die but uh yeah it’s it’s a work in progress
37:56
Oliver birkman definitely part of that work in progress but yeah that’s the end of the story how long was that I okay 40
38:09
minutes that was just so so wonderful we got we got in
38:15
the chat saying so good in capital letters and like you haven’t been able to see the chat feature throughout the
38:21
duration of today but um you know let me let me uh let me just take a
38:28
let people say thank you so nice you’re so welcome thank you for being here and
38:34
for like listening to my story I I do not take that for granted it’s it’s something really
38:40
really special truly um just just I think there’s just so much power before we go into the Q&A because I don’t want
38:46
to sort of dilize it by immediately starting asking you questions I think there’s just so much power in being seen
38:52
and and and there is the Practical guidance that you gave at the end there but just like
38:58
you wouldn’t have been a to see it so I’m going to send it afterwards but the amount of people who just sort of said you know this is me or you know I can
39:04
resonate with this or sharing experiences off the back of it and uh well hopefully you see it in the
39:10
chat feature right now you know these are these are people sort of saying saying these things um and that’s that’s
39:16
truly special um before we get into the Q&A I want to give folks the opportunity to if they haven’t already sort you out
39:22
to to to find you LinkedIn uh right there because uh you said let’s chat so
39:29
I mean it you know I I believe it too having having had the benefit of hearing you
39:35
speak so thank you um let’s head into the Q&A there’s there’s 14 open
39:40
questions from from the community but folks if if you would like to give a thumbs up to any questions that you
39:46
would love asking uh love me to ask or uh if if you’d like to add your own
39:52
questions then please do and let’s uh let’s go from there um
39:59
so you know I guess there is a c out here at the beginning of the Q&A as well before we get started which is like you
40:04
know read you shared your story today and I don’t think either of us Come From perspective of like deep psychological
40:10
sort of experience in s yes doing all this but what what we what we can share as experiences so hopefully that sh that
40:17
helps so um let’s uh get going with the first question uh so it says uh how can
40:25
you be a high performer and and really care about your job but still have balance and switch off to do the things
40:32
for yourself and your family too so I imagine part of the answer based on
40:39
what youve just said is is you know it’s a work in progress um but love to know
40:45
yeah question comes to you what hits your mind yeah um I there’s a really famous quote from Steve Martin uh he
40:53
says be so good they can’t ignore you and I I believe you know definitely sort
40:59
of LinkedIn culture right now tries to paint entrepreneurship or becoming a
41:05
Creator as the only key to Freedom it’s like the only way that you can actually control your time but I do think when
41:11
you are you are really good at your job you’re able to set boundaries make more
41:19
demands and stand up for yourself more confidently and strongly than when you are not so um I’ve I I I definitely
41:28
invest a lot in that and in being good at what I do but I think the other thing
41:33
um in addition to that that’s more macro the other thing for me that I work a lot on is defining priorities like thinking
41:41
a lot about what is it that I am doing that the team is doing what will be the
41:48
impact of this work and spending enough time to understand like things that will
41:54
actually move the needle as opposed to and and that requires as I said like taking a step back from like the
42:00
day-to-day turn and the day-to-day like content posting and you know K like very
42:05
fast Cadence of like most modern marketing jobs but I find that if you’re able to identify the work that is very
42:13
impactful and execute on that work incredibly well you will most likely hit
42:19
your goals and most likely be very successful and also in a way that you
42:24
can also protect your time and spend time with your family and have very strong boundaries easier said than done right
42:33
that’s why I included the word courage there because it takes a lot of Courage like for me when I even when I set
42:40
priorities and I’m so sure that this is like the right strategy if my manager comes to me and says like we need to do
42:46
this other thing this is urgent the CEO wants it they wanted it yesterday they wanted it a week ago it’s really
42:52
difficult for me to say no in that moment and I think we all fall into to
42:57
this trap like what if you say no then your career might suffer so it’s hard
43:04
but I think if you work in a place where like there is a mutual understanding that you’re really very good at your job
43:11
and where your priorities are clear and hopefully respected you have the best chance at strong like burnout prevention
43:18
and successful career that and I don’t know if that you can relate to that Joe at all that makes
43:23
sense I absolutely can the the priorities word you know the fact that you you’ve chosen to repeat that in your
43:29
answer there I think is so strong and like I guess I would relate this to my own world a little bit you know at the
43:36
moment so you know for me the things that I care about in my life you know
43:41
business family not in this order by the way a business family and fitness and
43:47
what I found for me was that I set myself at a high standard on each of those things and when say for example
43:54
two two were going well but one wasn’t going so well I’d find myself beating myself up and to the point of your word
44:00
about priorities because I was putting each on the equal waiting then when it came to
44:05
actually like you know being able to perform in each of those things it wasn’t actually physically possible for
44:10
me to do that you know whether it’s time whether it was energy whether it was commitment or whatever it may be and so
44:18
it became an issue of prioritization for me and so that you know at the moment for me like you you know I have I have
44:24
kids and and so I’m like I’m just going to be a good dad you know and I’m going to do my best for my community right now
44:30
I can’t run an ultramarathon you know and that’s fine you know and so that third thing is not prioritized you know
44:36
but the other two are and so like when you’re using that word you know I think priority is is is
44:43
huge part of that as an answer for me um and of course I think so too and I someone asked in the chat Kya like how
44:49
do you learn to set set priorities um I think if you work in an organization or
44:56
in a role where your job is not being measured based on a kpi where you don’t
45:02
have an assigned number that you’re trying to hit then that to me that is a
45:07
red flag in a role because it means that you will not be able to control the
45:13
amount of work that you do you you’ll be in a in a role that has a strong task orientation so success in a job without
45:20
a kpi that’s yours means that you are facing an endless to-do list it’ll never
45:26
end if you have a job where you have a kpi you have to hit this many followers
45:31
you have to be able to increase the open rates for your emails to 50% whatever that might be that means that you are
45:39
able to like much better control your time and your priorities you might be able to hit that goal with like two
45:45
projects that take up 20 hours a week or you might be able to have to work 60
45:50
hours a week for a couple of months in order to hit them and Depends right but I think like fundamental thing that is
45:57
NE needed in order to set priorities is a goal which is incredible I think in talking to a lot of early career
46:03
marketers I often times see that they that this doesn’t exist in all
46:08
organizations and if you have a job that is Task oriented with a massive to-do list like that to-do list will not get
46:15
any shorter that’s so interesting you know I’m reflecting so it’s so it’s interesting because uh you know maybe
46:24
this is part of the founder life you know and stuff like that but I definitely reflect that we don’t we kind of set ourselves goals but we don’t
46:29
really you know but there’s an interesting thing there which is we’ve got a new starter starting next month
46:35
and there is a danger that if we don’t set them goals you know that they don’t have the same privilege that we do as as
46:41
Founders or or responsibility so you know that’s really set something off in my brain so thank you so much that’s I’m
46:47
so glad really really a little firework a tiny little firework app that uh let’s let’s go to
46:54
the next question uh so next question like always comes from Anonymous who asks um what do you do when you know
47:00
you’re in a you are burnt out in a toxic environment but there’s zero support I know I need to leave but it’s hard to
47:08
secure another job and I don’t have the energy to look and I I guess that’s
47:13
there is that uh practicality to these things I think it’s sometimes easy for people say you know you need to leave
47:19
you know but the market is what it is you know the world is where it is and so it’s not always easy I mean yeah yeah
47:27
and I think your caveat before this is very important like this is I am not a doctor or a therapist or a mental health
47:33
professional I will say that as a result of my burnout episode I started weekly
47:39
therapy and that helped immensely for me um I should have actually also included
47:45
that that was like part of my recovery plan um but I will say I I could just I
47:51
guess like from my own experience uh in the burnout story that I just shared if I if I could go back in time obviously I
47:58
chose to quit um but if I could go back in time I think I would have spent a little bit
48:04
more time reflecting on why the real why why this was happening why I was
48:12
actually feeling this way I’m not I’m not sure of course that I would have been able to to see it at that
48:19
point but I was very quick to say my
48:24
manager doesn’t understand me I have too many projects on my plate this is impossible this whole job is impossible
48:31
this company is like this is a chaos I cannot handle this chaos and in like
48:36
with time I’ve become a little bit less reactive I guess in moments where I feel like I’m nearing burnout I I just turn
48:44
more to self-reflection because often the the it’s a complex thing of course it could be the company it could be your
48:50
boss it could also be me and the way that I’m managing certain situations so
48:57
um that is always my first sort of like go-to and again it’s not medical advice and it’s not perfect and for the whoever
49:03
asked the question I’m so sorry that you’re experiencing this because it’s so painful um and as I mentioned to you
49:09
earlier Joe it feels also there’s a lot of Shame associated with burnout I think because you think okay like this is a
49:16
very small problem in the grand scheme of things I should be grateful that I have a job I should be grateful for all these things but you still feel awful so
49:23
I’m sorry that you’re feeling that way and I hope that that that helps at least at least a little bit yeah hang on you
49:29
know you know we we did mention that before we went live and also the thing
49:34
that you know I responded to in this situation but I think will hopefully resonate with folks is that it’s
49:39
incredibly normal to them feel guilt about feeling bad which is just this
49:44
endless cycle of uh stuff which you know is you know we know that by relative
49:51
standards a lot of us you know even by virtue of being on this call you know are sitting in
49:57
a relatively as in relatively against the global population privileged position in in in some ways if you
50:03
choose your metrics and and so uh feeling guilt about feeling bad uh is is
50:09
is is a real thing you know but I think sometimes allowing ourselves
50:15
forgiveness against that is is is is just really all right and in fact really
50:20
important to there as well so yeah thank you uh let’s go to the next question from Amanda um just an encouragement to
50:28
that person who asked that question if you’d like to get in touch and if there’s any way that we can help then of course we’d love to I’m sure between the
50:34
whole Community then there’s some help that we can give in one way or another um but like you I’ve also been on
50:40
therapy and uh it’s really helpful yeah uh so let’s let’s go to Amanda uh so
50:46
Amanda asks uh Rita as an optimistic person did you feel like you had to put on the armor of being positive all the
50:52
time uh did that drain you even more yeah for sure um I mean I I felt I had to pretend that
51:01
everything was okay all the time and then I would I mean when I said earlier
51:07
that it affected my relationships I think the main way that it did is that I just could not stop talking about it
51:13
after work like at work I would sort of like keep it all in just keep it in just pretend everything is fine and then as
51:20
soon as I stepped out that door it would just be like did you see this thing did you see that email did you see that
51:26
Slack message can you believe this can you believe that and even my husband who
51:31
was incredibly patient generous wonderful human I think at one point just was very got very tired of it I
51:37
think you know the the partners and the friends of people who are experiencing burnout symptoms also have quite a
51:44
burden um to be the listening ear to I think what at that time was quite a repetitive like NeverEnding Litany of
51:51
problems so yeah I would say for sure that um keeping it professional and
51:57
keeping it in during the work days and then even worse sort of like feeling like I was emptying it all out like
52:02
shelling it all out at my friends and loved ones after work was was definitely a hard part for myself and my loved
52:09
ones I totally know what you mean like you know I’ve been open about uh my
52:15
journey around anxiety and depression and like there was like like having those chats with my wife for maybe the
52:22
thousandth time yeah I feel bad and I don’t know why you know I feel bad in face of the
52:28
evidence etc etc uh you start feeling guilty about that right so it’s a lot it’s a lot so you
52:37
know um yeah yeah that that that thing that we that’s where it was really nice
52:42
to have a therapist because it was a person yeah that you’re you’re you know
52:48
better or worse like you’re paying this person to listen to you sure no absolutely I fully agree and I don’t
52:55
know whether this is the right time bring up this particular quote but I just thought there was something so profound and you um right towards the
53:02
end saying I care a lot about my job but I I care a lot about other things too and I found that really like as a
53:10
statement like it’s a sentence but there is so much that goes into that and So like um I just wanted to highlight that
53:17
possibly in relation to that answer but like also more widely how impressive I found that and I think I think there’s
53:24
something that a lot of us can work in if we’re able to say that sentence out loud I think that’s uh pretty pretty
53:30
bloody incredible so I think so too and I think I don’t know if uh you’ve heard this before in moments that you’ve
53:36
struggled at work but a lot of my of the people that gave me advice in that time
53:42
would say you care too much stop caring
53:47
just stop caring it’s just a job and you know it was said with the
53:53
best of intentions right it is a job like by definition I receive monetary
54:00
compensation to do this job but I think part of like who I am as a person is
54:06
that I care about where I spend my time and a job means more to me than just
54:14
like a paycheck I’ve always felt that way and some people don’t I have friends who are like clock it in clock it out
54:20
and I enjoy my life is what happens outside of work but absolutely not me I
54:26
want to work and feel a certain way and like like what I do so for me it like
54:32
that binary of like don’t care it all just like phone it in forever and like
54:38
your job is everything when you have a passion for something you should do that forever and you’ll be happy forever
54:44
those are the options that are presented to us and like I cannot relate to either
54:49
of those I think it’s both like I as you as I I said and I guess you said afterwards it’s just true like I I love
54:57
my job but I love other things and that’s okay you can love both you don’t need to hate your job I fully agree you
55:04
know I hope people don’t mind me responding to your question usually I just ask them but you know I resonate
55:10
with this so much is like last week I had a conversation with a leader who I really admire who had that attitude that
55:17
you were able to uh you spoke about there where they were like you know I
55:22
care about this job right now but if it goes away it’s right I’ll find something else type of thing yeah yeah and I
55:27
remember coming back to my a coach that I worked with and sort of saying I quite am my that you know because I can’t do
55:32
that you know like I I really really really care about this thing and I think about it a lot and
55:38
uh the coach s of came back and said you know that’s them and this is you you know and you don’t need to be that
55:44
person you know no you may admire that but actually the reason you do what you do the reason you care about what you do
55:50
the reason you get where you get to is because you do care and so like you can admire that in other people you don’t
55:56
have to be that person you know you is enough you know and you are doing all right type of thing so yeah yeah I think
56:03
it’s a you know I often think of artists whose work is a reflection of their being and who they are that’s one end of
56:10
the spectrum like I’m not there but I my work yeah but I think you probably can
56:16
relate to this your work is in some way a reflection of you and it matters in that way it’s it’s more than just like a
56:23
a paycheck absolutely hang on let’s take one more Rita um and then we’ll we’ll
56:29
close out today’s session um so the last one that has the most up votes uh is and
56:36
you know a little bit of the Crux of of what you speaking about today but um how do you stop working harder and more when
56:43
all the people above you are constantly working out of ours yeah yeah I think I mean it goes
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back from a very tactical standpoint it really goes back to what I was mentioning earlier ear about owning a
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number and have and setting very clear priorities that will help you move that number ultimately if you are in a job
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where your goal is to drive 10 sales and you drive 10 or you drive 11 there will
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be no questions about what time you’re working how many hours what is your what
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are your projects I think you know the problems come when when like we don’t
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have clear kpi and then clear priorities to help us get there and so it leads to
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quite a lot of churn it’s not perfect I mean I I
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certainly I’ve been in jobs where I’ve been able to manage this and then in
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jobs where I just haven’t been able to because the pressure from the top is just too
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much and ultimately if the pressure is so much that like you are being demanded
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to be online at 11:00 p.m. that’s a that’s like a cultural thing about this company that you’re very
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unlikely in a marketing role to be able to change and so those are those are the
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things that I would I would recommend based on my own experience to really reflect on like what is it is it my own
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is it am I lacking the courage to like set the boundary is it the fact that I don’t have a clear kpi and clear
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priorities that I’m communicating to my manager and so they’re freaking out and like throwing all this work at me or is
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it just that the culture of the company is to work 247 and like depending on the answer to
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that question I think you can make a a decision determination of like what is it that you need to do in some cases you
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need to leave I really believe that in some cases like there’s no other way like but I think in many cases I think
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we have as as employees in a company as again with Steve Martin what Steve
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Martin said if you’re if you bring value to an organization you have more power than you think
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love that love that so much uh Rita thank you thank you Soulful uh enriching
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hour you’re you’re so appreciated uh folks if you haven’t already Dro Peter a
59:11
message to say thank you then uh there’s the opportunity right there with the the
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QR code on screen but uh truly truly wonderful and thank you for sharing so openly and honestly it’s it’s like it’s
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really profound uh what a a session so thank you thank you Joe for having me and thank you everyone for your
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attention and your time you could be doing many other marketing things and you are here I do
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not take that for granted it’s just wonderful um with with all that said you
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know just one last shout out before before we go uh if you would like uh to
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attend planable session later this week please do QR code is on screen um and
59:54
also a big big thank you to our sponsors they make it possible so we can have these conversations and we can bring
1:00:00
these things uh to you so with all that said uh we’ll see you next week and
1:00:05
thank you to everyone I haven’t said this yet but thank you to everyone in the chat as well for making it absolutely incredible um really really
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appreciate you all well that said hopefully see you next week uh for something brand new from the marketing
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Meetup uh a workshop session uh rather than this webinar format and uh yeah I
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hope to see you there in the meantime have a great week and and uh we’ll see you very very soon take care