The Road to Recovery: Overcoming Workplace Burnout and Finding Balance with Michael Levitt

Does this sound familiar? Have you ever been told to push through the burnout, work harder, and ignore the pain? But despite your efforts, you still feel exhausted, stressed, and overwhelmed, and it’s taking a toll on your well-being and work-life balance? It’s time to break free from the cycle of burnout and prioritize your sleep to achieve improved well-being and work-life balance. Let’s explore effective strategies that can help you reclaim your energy and vitality.

In this episode, you will be able to:

• Discover effective strategies for overcoming workplace burnout and reclaiming your work-life balance.
• Uncover the incredible benefits of quality sleep in effectively managing stress and improving overall well-being.
• Learn how to set healthy boundaries to nurture your mental health and enhance your professional and personal life.
• Explore the impact of financial stress on your well-being and gain insights into managing it effectively.
• Embrace the importance of hobbies in reducing burnout and enhancing your overall sense of fulfillment and happiness.

 

My special guest is Michael Levitt

Michael Levitt, the founder and chief Burnout Officer of the Breakfast Leadership Network, boasts a diverse background in HR leadership, executive coaching, and burnout prevention. With a compelling personal journey as a burnout survivor, AI solutions consultant, and global thought leader in HR, Michael’s expertise is evident in his impactful media content and his latest book, “Burnout Proof: How to Establish Boundaries to Avoid the Negativity of Stress.” As a dynamic storyteller and renowned keynote speaker, Michael’s insights into overcoming workplace burnout and achieving improved well-being and work-life balance through better sleep are both insightful and relatable. With a focus on practical strategies and a down-to-earth approach, Michael’s contributions are sure to resonate with employees seeking to navigate burnout and cultivate a healthier, more balanced work life.

Connect with Michael Levitt:

Website: https://www.breakfastleadership.com/
Pinterest: https://ca.pinterest.com/bfastleadership/_saved/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bfastleadership/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeldlevitt/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@bfastleadership
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@breakfastleadership
X: https://x.com/bfastleadership
espeakers: https://www.espeakers.com/marketplace/profile/41976/Michael-D-Levitt

Connect with Dwight Heck:

Website: https://giveaheck.com (Free Book Offer)

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/give.a.heck

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dwight.heck

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Giveaheck

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@giveaheck

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dwight-heck-65a90150/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@giveaheck
X: https://x.com/give_a_heck

Chapter Summaries(Full Unedited Transcript after Summaries)
The key moments in this episode are:
00:00:02 – Introduction to Michael Levitt

00:01:05 – Tenacity in Podcasting

00:03:34 – The Power of Storytelling

00:05:56 – Michael’s Origin Story

00:12:58 – The Year of Worst Case Scenarios

00:13:21 – Recognizing the Symptoms of a Heart Attack

00:16:01 – Surviving the “Widowmaker”

00:17:25 – Finding Humor in a Challenging Situation

00:23:36 – Taking Ownership of Adversity

00:26:10 – Finding Serenity in Loss

00:26:45 – Overcoming Burnout

00:27:41 – Self-Reflection and Rebuilding

00:29:13 – Sharing His Story

00:30:35 – Impact of Burnout

00:36:48 – Empathy and Self-Care

00:40:12 – The Impact of Past Experiences

00:41:23 – The Trapped Feeling of Burnout

00:43:17 – The Importance of Sleep

00:45:39 – Recognizing Burnout

00:49:59 – The Impact of Small Changes

00:52:55 – Recognizing Warning Signs of Burnout

00:54:36 – Financial Stress and Its Impact

00:57:02 – Overcoming Personal Desperation

01:00:30 – Embracing the Present Moment

01:05:53 – Scheduling Self-Care

01:07:15 – Budgeting for Enjoyment

01:08:55 – Burnout Prone Personalities

01:10:23 – Gender and Burnout

01:15:43 – Healing through Writing

01:18:28 – Overcoming Burnout

01:19:09 – Deeper Work for Recovery

01:20:33 – Embracing Life’s Exploration

01:23:39 – Reflecting on Life

01:26:57 – Designing Your Ideal Life

Full Unedited Transcript of Episode:
00:00:02 – Dwight Heck
Good day and welcome to Give a Heck. On today’s show. I welcome Michael Levitt. Michael is the founder and chief Burnout Officer of the Breakfast Leadership Network, a media firm dedicated to addressing burnout and improving workplace culture. Michael’s expertise stems from his background in HR leadership and executive coaching, which now informs the impactful media content produced by by his company Michael enables thriving workplaces. He is a burnout survivor, AI solutions consultant, global thought leader on HR and wellness therapist, keynote speaker, author, executive coach, and host of the Breakfast Leadership show podcast. Michael has authored books on burnout prevention and his latest is the Burnout Proof. How to establish Boundaries to to avoid the Negativity of stress. I’d like to welcome you to the show, Michael. Thanks so much for agreeing to come on and share with us some of your life journey.

00:01:05 – Michael Levitt
Well, I really appreciate this opportunity, Dwight. Looking forward to our conversation today.

00:01:09 – Dwight Heck
Yes, I’m excited, listeners. In our prior conversation, prior to Hitting Record, Michael was telling me how this started out as a podcast where it wasn’t going to be daily. And it’s pretty much got to daily. Man, that is incredible. Michael, I’ll tell you, some people aren’t tenacious enough or have that kind of energy to do a podcast where you’re posting almost daily and interviewing all those people. I’m going to ask you a question before we get into your origin story, which I normally start out with that somebody asked me the other day, can you remember some of your first guests in detail or as you go through that many, do they start getting to be a blur somewhat?

00:01:55 – Michael Levitt
I’ll be completely honest, some of them definitely can be a blur where I’ll, you know, look at, you know, past episodes and I’ll look at a name and it says if somebody hit me with the Men in Black pen and I’m like, who? And it’s like, I would listen to it, then I’ll remember the conversation. But yeah, when you get to the point where you start interviewing a lot of people, it’s just like meeting people in life. There’s going to be some that are going to stand out a little bit more than others, and that’s just because something they said or a conversation you had with that individual sticks with you. Like, I think of an interview that I had, oh my goodness, you know, almost seven years ago with Roger Nirenberg, former conductor. He’s a leadership consultant now, and I love the work that he does. He brings a small orchestra with him into teams and, and does demonstrations about leadership and orchestras and all that kind of Stuff, and his method is really unique. And I had, you know, great conversation with him. It’s like, you know, never thought in my wildest dreams that I would be chatting with a conductor of, you know, an orchestra. So those stick out. And then, you know, I had a conversation the other day with somebody. Their father was an assassin. So it’s like, okay, that’s unique. Let’s have that conversation. And that conversation took a different turn than I thought it would. But, you know, of course that one’s fresh because it just recently happened. But my hunch is I’m not going to forget that one. So, yeah, it. When you have conversations, just like in life, there’s going to be people you meet that you’ll forget, and they’re going to be people that you never will.

00:03:30 – Dwight Heck
Yeah. And it all ties back to. Because I was reading yesterday, too, and you’re quite. You’re like me. You really like somebody that’s great at telling a story. And from reading about you, obviously you educate and teach on that as well and are a great storyteller. And. And when I think back on, obviously, I only do once a week for the last four and a half years. So I’m 200, and you’re my 245th, I’m pretty sure, episode. I think the ones that stand out the most are the ones that are good storytellers. And it’s not just about people that are listening. Storytelling isn’t just about reading something or just being monotone. It’s about how you inflect your vocals. It’s about everything. Even if you’re on a phone talking with somebody, you have body language, which affects your story and resonates with emotions and. And I think some of the most profound ones for me have been the same thing. It’s. It’s great stories, touching stories, ones that hit me in the feels.

00:04:28 – Michael Levitt
Right.

00:04:29 – Dwight Heck
And, you know, it doesn’t have to necessarily be personal. It can be a business relationship story. It can be anything. It’s just how it’s delivered. So we’re both on the same page. That’s exactly what I told the person. Right. You know, like, what are you. They asked me and I said, well, interviewing Robin Williams chef was amazing. Where he told me about how I just burned down Robin Williams kitchen, you know, or interviewing the lady that helped her family run a Kinder transport train that helped Jews escape. Escape Germany in the underground, and just stuff like that. And I’m not discounting the other guests, they were great, but some of them just. There’s no way that it’s leaving my poor. My forefront of my thoughts.

00:05:14 – Michael Levitt
Right.

00:05:14 – Dwight Heck
Because it’s just, it was, it was so emotionally tied. So you would agree then the more emotionally tied it is, the more it’s easier to remember. But I can imagine 900 episodes. Wow, I look forward to getting to that someday, but I don’t think I’ll do it daily. So I’ve got a few years to go yet. But I think I’ll remember our Zo because it was quite amazing to read through your story and find out the information about you. And I think our, our listeners and viewers are going to enjoy it as well. So one of the things I started off with, I mentioned to you is the origin story. Because I find those that are new to the show, watching or listening, I, I consider the origin story to de facto standard of getting to know anybody. Even if I meet them face to face in general conversation, most people will say, well, tell me something about yourself. Tell me about your, your, your life. At least if you’re a great conversationalist, not like, how’s your day? Most people, even if they’re having a crappy day, aren’t going to tell you the truth anyway, right? They’re not going to be genuine and straightforward. So the art of conversation, a good storytelling is something I think everybody needs to practice and I do all the time. So I look forward to hearing about your origin stories and what key things from your childhood to adulthood to led you to where you’re at currently.

00:06:33 – Michael Levitt
My childhood is amazing and you know, I’ve gone through therapy and I always recommend people, everyone should have a therapist in their life. It doesn’t mean you have a trauma that you need to work through, but there might be something that’s kind of holding you back a little bit. So it’s just a side note, you know, get a therapist and work through some of those things. It’ll. It’ll make a huge difference in your life. But my childhood was amazing. And again, working through, you know, therapist. I look back, I’m like, okay, is there anything that I’m suppressing? Is there anything that I’m like blocking? Because I know many kids unfortunately did not have the greatest childhoods. And I have no complaints, none. I think long and hard, okay, what can I complain about? And nothing comes to mind. So very thankful that my parents did everything that they did with the circumstances that they faced from an economic standpoint, you know, having parents that grew up in the Great Depression, you name it. So, you know, the odds were stacked against us being Able to, you know, live the life that we did. But we did. And thankful for that. Adulthood, you know, it was. Was good early on, and then it started to take a little bit of a twist and turn. You know, worked in a variety of different industries. Originally was in accounting. I worked as accountant in a CPA firm for almost eight years. So at the time, this recording, it’s still tax season. Got a few more weeks to go. So my former fellow accountants, you almost got this. It’s almost there. Don’t worry, because those are some long hours. And growing up in Detroit, uh, it’s a surefire way to have winter go by really quick because you’re always inside in the office working, because the hours were just nuts. So I always, you know, even though I’ve been out of that field for decades, April 16. I still feel this lightness in my shoulders. I feel better. It’s like, why am I feeling so relaxed? I’m like, oh, yeah, end of tax season. That’s in muscle memory now. But from there, you know, I did a lot of different things. I went into it, rode the it.com wave that was absolutely zany being a part of that. And then, of course, it crashed. And then I’m like, okay, I guess I better go back to counting beans or doing something else. And found some roles that were kind of a hybrid of it. And then back in 2007, stumbled on an opportunity to lead a startup healthcare organization. And. Which was really interesting for me because I didn’t have any healthcare experience. I was. I use the healthcare system from time to time, but I never ran a healthcare organization, never recruited physicians or hired nurses or handled, you know, medical equipment ordering or any of that kind of stuff before, but I was thrown in there. And ironically, I was with the organization a year before they told me why they hired me. Because that’s not a question we usually ask when you get a job offer. Do you usually ask them, hey, why are you hiring me? No, we’re like, where. Where do I sign? You know, I. I’m not. Why you. Because you. You don’t want. You don’t want to introduce any buyer’s remorse. At least right there, you know, they might have it later. But, yeah, I did. I did. I didn’t ask that question. So we were at a, you know, year celebration type of thing. And. And they told me the reason they hired me was because of my startup experience and business experience. And. And they knew that I would, you know, pick up and I would learn everything I need to do, and I did, but it was a lot of work and a lot of hours, which was something that I should have been a little bit more aware of, but I wasn’t. Because even though I was an employee and this was a startup, I took it upon myself to make this organization mine as if it was my business. So as entrepreneurs, we all know we put in a lot of hours in our businesses and I did that for this company, even though I was an employee and not not the own. And I was pretty much working 6am to 11pm seven days a week for two solid years and burned out like you would not believe. Check all the boxes of all the signs of burnout. I hit them all and I didn’t realize I was burned out. Everyone around me knew I was, but I. I didn’t know. And then it all came to what I could call a crashing halt in May of 2009, where I had what I refer to as my year of worst case scenarios. So May 2009, I was, I worked that day. I got home and it was springtime, so it was time to, you know, mow the lawn. The lawn was getting a little furry. So we had a small front lawn and our backyard was more of an old swimming pool, but then we had a playhouse for our kids and a swing set and all that kind of stuff. So the lawn, there wasn’t a lot of lawn. And gas prices were expensive back then. So we picked up an electric lawnmower and the thing was bulky and heavy and just was hard to turn and all of that. So I’m mowing the front lawn and I mow the first row and I go to turn and I feel the sharp pain in the center of my chest and it hurt. I mean, literally it was. My knees buckled. It was that much pain. And I’m like, ow. And I attributed to that piece of garbage lawnmower. And I couldn’t finish mowing lawn. So I was able to get the lawnmower in the backyard, went inside, took some pain medication, and the pain eased up and went away. And then went to sleep. And then next morning, you know, went to work. Everything was fine. But I noticed that that pain that I had, it was a stabbing pain, would come up anytime that I lifted anything heavy with my right arm. Now I’m typically left handed, so I tend to use my left hand more than my right. But so I don’t tend to use my right hand to lift things a lot. But occasionally, the way that my office was set up, my bag was always on my right. So I’D always pick it up so it would happen. And, you know, didn’t think much of it. And I figured, okay, I pulled the muscle. Well, you know, I’ll just take some pain medication if it gets, you know, too problematic, and we’ll just keep an eye on it and no big deal. So fast forward to Thursday night. My wife and I go out to dinner. And this was right around our wedding anniversary. And we went to a place, local restaurant, and they had an all you can eat special. And I was willing to take them up on that offer. And I crushed it. I ate so much fried, you know, what editing and everything, and washed it down with a few adult beverages. Life was good. So eat, go home, go to bed. About 10:30, I wake up with that pain that I had from Monday night, but it was at least 10 times worse, if not more. And it was just like literally this pressures crushing my chest, and I’m like, oh. And I pretty much thought, okay, this is, you know, gas buildup from all the garbage that I ate earlier. So I went into the bathroom and, you know, I took some Tums and was able to go back to sleep. Wake up Friday morning. That pain that you’d have occasionally when I lifted anything up would, would. Was just permanently there. It was always there. It was a dull pain, but it was there. So I get into work. I’m there about 45 minutes, and then, you know, I reminder I work at a medical clinic. So, you know, I. I talked to the lead physician. I said, tim, can you come in here for a minute? I got a question for you. And I explained what had happened. He said, well, you know, let’s listen. It’s probably nothing. He probably did pull something really bad. Listen. So he listens to my heart, and he goes, it’s probably nothing, but, you know, we’ve got the portable EKG equipment here. Why don’t we run a test? So I’m like, all right, let’s go back in the procedure room and we’ll get you all hooked up and we’ll run some tests just to make sure. There’s nothing that would be ordinary. So I go back there, you know, I get undressed and all that kind of stuff. And then the doctor and a couple nurses and a couple of medical assistants are in there, and they’re all cracking sexual harassment jokes because their boss has taken his clothes off at work. And, you know, so they were just having a. Having a field day with it. I’m red as a tomato not thinking anything of it. So they hook up The EKG equipment, they run the test, they look at the results, and they’re like. All of a sudden, the laughing stopped. And they looked and like, you know, we haven’t used this machine a lot, but those results look really, really strange. So we’re gonna. Let’s. We’re gonna disconnect everything and put new leads on and connect everything back up again and run the test. Well, they did that, and the results came back the same as the first one. So they sent it off to the hospital. A few minutes later, Dr. Gina, one of the cardiologists at the hospital there, called back and says, tell Michael to get his butt into the hospital right now. And he cannot drive. So I was like, oh, okay. So I had had a heart attack, probably a couple of them. A mild one on the Monday and a more severe one on that Thursday evening. I had blockages in my left interior descending artery, which, if you’re familiar with cardiology world, that artery has a nickname. It’s called the Widowmaker. Because usually people that have blockages in that artery and have a heart attack, statistically speaking, they don’t survive. It’s March 2025. I’m still here. So one of the fortunate ones. So I was in the hospital for almost a week. The. The procedure, it was funny because of licensing for what cardiologists could do, because what they did is I had two cardiologists actually operate on me. One the day before. I was on a Wednesday, did the angiogram. And what that is, is where they go in and they take a peek around and see what’s going on. And then Dr. Morsi did the angioplasty, which was putting stents in the artery to open things up. So Dr. Morrissey comes in on Thursday to do that. So I’m in the prep room getting all ready to go, and he comes in. You know, it’s the first time I’ve ever met him. I’ve never talked to him before. He comes in, doesn’t say hello. He comes in, looks at the chart, and he looks a couple things. And then he looks at me and he goes. He leans in, he goes, you know, you should be dead. And I looked at him and I said, I see you skipped Bedside Manor class in medical school. He laughed, I laughed. My then wife and my mom were on my right side. They start bawling. So here we are, we got a doctor and the patient cracking up, laughing, thinking, life’s great. They’re crying like crazy because they got the news that, yeah, I should Be dead, but I’m not. He said, okay, all right, so probably gonna put in a couple stents. We’ll get in there, we’ll see what’s going on. Literally, I mean, the procedure took like five minutes and did it and all that. I was sent home the next day. So I am fresh off of this. I was off of work for 17 weeks. So from going and working all those hours every day to nothing. And that was, that was a real hard shift for me. And I think it’s a hard shift for a lot of people where that are always going and doing things and all that that don’t take any time off. When your body goes, you’re taking time off and shuts you down. It is, it’s hard on you both from a physical standpoint, but even a mental aspect, because what I found was, okay, this, this is a wake up call. Literally. What am I going to do with this? So for those 17 weeks I did, I didn’t work. I just kind of relaxed. I took things very easy. Read a lot of books. I’m so thankful for Thomas Nelson Publishing. Michael Levitt was the CEO then and they had a book club, so I was a book reviewer. So I was reading a ton of books and. Which I used to love reading when I was younger and then college and work. I stopped doing it and then. So I was reading a ton of books which helped me kind of heal and get. Get back to feeling better and all of that. And then after the 17 weeks I get cleared to go back to work and the company decided they wanted to go in a different direction, so they laid me off. Remind you, this was 2009. Anybody remember the Great Recession? I was in Windsor, Ontario, across the border from Detroit, Michigan. If you remember. The auto sector had to be bailed out by the government because I know General Motors and Chrysler both filed bankruptcy during the Great Recession and did the same thing in Canada. So. Well, there was a Great Recession for a lot of places in that region, it was a depression, so there was no jobs to be found. So here I am, fresh off of a heart attack and now unemployed in an area where there’s not going to be a lot of jobs. So it took several months for me to be able to find a new job. And I went on interviews, kind of felt like the Buffalo Bills because I came in second so many times for interviews. It was, it was getting frustrating and you know, like, I gotta land one, come on. But, you know, I was just. And I was going anywhere. I was looking in the Us I was looking in Canada because, backstory, my first wife is Canadian and I’d immigrated to Canada in 2004 and became a citizen in 2011. So I can vote and screw up two countries. We’ll leave, we’ll leave it at that. I won’t, I won’t tell people who I vote for or anything like that. But especially right now, it’s Especially, Especially to a Canadian. Yeah, to a Canadian.

00:20:33 – Dwight Heck
Canadian.

00:20:34 – Michael Levitt
Yeah. Well, I, I, Dude, I am. Like I said, I’m, I’m a dual citizen and I am like, I’m like, can’t we, can’t just, can’t we get along? I’m like, what? Come on, guys. This is, this is hurting me because it’s, I, you know, and I’m not going to get into a right or wrong. I, I think it’s all wrong, but that’s another subject for another day. But so for me, you know, and, you know, thankfully I had my cardiac event in Canada because I, I didn’t have to file bankruptcy for that. Like, I would have had to in the US for sure, but, but getting back to it, I finally found a role, ended up recording, requiring, excuse me, a relocation to Toronto. And so moved up, you know, my family was still down in the Windsor area. I was renting a room until we found a place to rent. And then we were going to put our house up for sale down to Windsor, which was going to be a challenge to say the least because, well, recession, not a lot of things moving. You know, the realtor is like, the house is perfect, I can sell it. It’s move in ready. Because we made sure to take care of it. It was, well, it was moving ready. The whoever bought it didn’t have to do a thing, you know, unless they wanted to remodel or do something or change something out. But it was ready to go. And we had, you know, done repairs and had people help out and we, because we knew we were selling it. So it’s like, well, let’s get it, let’s get everything tidied up and make it look really good because we wanted to make sure that that house was a blessing for the next person like it was for us. So we did that. And so I’m up in Toronto and I was in my new role for a couple of weeks. And then my daughter, who was 10 at the time, called 4:08pm was on Wednesday and she’s crying. I couldn’t understand the things she was saying. And finally I got from her that the bank had come and, and repossessed our family vehicle. When you have a cardiac event and you lose your job and you have unemployment coming in which doesn’t cover very much, and you’re on heart medication and you have no insurance coverage and that medication could cost you $1,000 a month out of pocket, you got to make some choices. You got to pay for food, you got to obviously feed your family, gas for vehicles to get to and from and all that good stuff. And the medications of course. And we had worked with the banks and the creditor and they were all extremely gracious, as much as they could be. But if you remember, this is a recession, there’s a lot of people doing that too. So the banks exercised their right and they took the vehicle. And I don’t blame them. I didn’t make payments. I was going to start making payments but ran out of time and they took the vehicle and I don’t blame them. I didn’t live up to the bargain. So throughout all the things that happened to me, the heart attack, the, you know, the, the job loss, the car repossession, I never blamed anybody for it. Who was responsible for it? It was me. So I took ownership of it. And so thankfully we had another vehicle that was paid off which I had up in Toronto. So we had become a one vehicle family. And then a few weeks later finally found a place to rent for the family, moved them up, unpacked everything, realized we forgot the bunk bed ladder for our kids bed. So I was going back to wind the following weekend to close up some business accounts and stuff down there and visit with some friends. And then I was, I’ll swing by the house because we were getting ready to list it the following week and I’ll grab the ladder and anything else that we may have forgotten when we were moving up. So I did all the visiting, closed the accounts and all that stuff. Go to the house, go to the front door, open up the screen door, see the biggest padlock I’ve ever seen in my life. You cannot buy this padlock at Home Depot. They don’t sell it there. There’s a sticker on the door that says foreclosure. I don’t know why we never received notices from the bank saying hurry up, we’re going to foreclose you last warning. We did get letters saying please make a payment. And we had worked with them like with the others, but again there’s a lot of people that are losing their houses and they again exercise the right to take the house, so called, you know, Called my spouse, said, yeah, about the bunk bed ladder. We’re not going to get it and explain what had happened. And then I called the realtor and said, you might still be selling this house, but you’re not going to be working with us. You’re going to be working with the bank that just foreclosed it. And they’re like, oh, I’m so sorry. I’m like, but here’s something I say to people, and it throws them off like, no. Tomorrow, when I open up the screen door and I see the lock and I see the note at that moment in time, and to this day, I have never felt the level of peace that I felt at that moment. It was such a serene moment because I realized that everything that I’d gone through was done. I was like, what else can they take for me? You know, I. What else is there? I’ve lost everything that I was going to lose. I’m alive, I’m feeling better. I have a place to live, I have a job, food on the table. All that. And it was like, just. It was such a serene moment. I could hear the birds chirping. The neighborhood was really quiet at that time of day, which was weird. It was normally not that quiet. It was really serene. And I remember that moment, and I’m like. And I just, you know, did. I just kind of put my hand on the brick side of the house and I said, you know, may this house be a blessing to whoever gets it. And I closed the screen door and backed out and headed to Toronto. And that was kind of the infancy of the work that I do today, because my burnout was catastrophic. You know, obviously, it’s the worst case scenarios. All the things you could. If we had a dog, we probably would have lost that, too, but we didn’t. So it. Because it kind of sounds like a country song if you think about it. You know, it’s like, lost my car, lost him to health. Awesome dog. You know, it kind of has that vibe to it. So for me, it was a moment where. And I could have gone a couple different ways on this. You know, I could have went, hey, I’m Superman. I survived all that. I’m still standing. I’m just going to continue going on way I live, because nothing’s going to stop me. But I didn’t think that. I’m like, okay, no, this was very important for me to learn this. What can I do from it? Well, first, like, let’s. Let’s get me back to who I can be. The best version of me, let’s scale things back. And I always tell people that are burning out or burned out, you don’t have to reinvent your life. In most cases, I chose to. I went, I’m throwing this out. This. No, I got to go about this. Completely different. And worked through it and, you know, dug back, going, okay, why was this so important for me to work all those hours? What was I trying to prove? Why did I want to be a pillar in the community? What was I trying to accomplish? What. What was the. What was the motivators on all that? Ego was a big, big component of it, of course. You know, I wanted to be viewed as this great person and did all these great things. It’s like. And there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that. But for me, I did it to my own detriment. And having gone through all that, you know, I’m like, all right, let’s. Let’s rebuild. Let’s. Let’s start again and, you know, become a better version for myself. And got off a lot of the heart medications and, you know, a lot better. Lost a lot of weight. I feel a lot better. I went back into health care. My parents wanted to have me committed. They’re like, are you nuts? It’s like that industry nearly killed you. And I’m like, I’m going to go about it and do it better. And I did, and I went back, and I was in that field for almost eight years afterwards and did really, really well. Made a lot of impact in a lot of different areas. And. But when I was working in healthcare, I started noticing a lot of my peers going down the same path I did. And it scared the crap out of me. I’m like, we can’t have this. And this was like, 2014, 2015, you know, burnout, of course, is, you know, hot button topic now. And one of the things that it dawned on me is like, okay. And I wasn’t prepared to share my story at that point, but I’m like, I gotta warn people. Kind of felt like Paul Revere, like, I got to warn people something’s coming up if they don’t do something. And I decided, okay, let’s. Let’s start doing something. So I started doing some talks at some health conferences and started writing a blog. And then from there, you know, colleague of mine said, hey, you know, maybe you got a consulting business here. Maybe you can help some people. So launched something on the side, started writing a little bit more. Another colleague said, do a podcast. I’m like, I don’t want to do a podcast. Well, eight years later, I’m still doing a podcast, so I don’t listen to people until they tell me to do it, and I do it. So. But long story short, that’s kind of the origin story of why burnout is this thing. For me, I hate seeing what it does to people. I know what it did to me. I don’t want anybody to go through that, or even a tenth of that, because it robs society of great people doing great things. And we need society to do that. We need society to be. Be good, be their best, because then they give their best and then we receive their best and makes our businesses stronger, families stronger, health stronger. It just improves everything. And I consider myself obviously very fortunate to be here, but also equally fortunate that I get to do the work that I do because I feel it’s important and somebody’s got to do it. And as much as I’d be thrilled if burnout went away, I don’t see it going away anytime soon.

00:30:57 – Dwight Heck
Yeah, no, neither do I. I’ve. I’ve experienced it myself. Very. Go. Very driven myself. At one point in time, we have a lot of. We have some overlap, obviously. I was a. I was an I T. Consultant, owned an I T. Service company and a retail store, and I literally would work days on end without sleep and people would, you can’t do that. Oh, I got to make money. I got to do this. So, you know, when it’s that mindset, you’re thinking, you got to keep up with the Jones and the Smiths and oh, I got to keep up with my brother in laws or, you know, everybody has all these high expectations of me. I went to school and did this. I went into electronics engineering. And instead of doing that for very long, I left and went into it and, and you know what I mean, it just, it. It got to a point where I was my own worst enemy. So I understand that burnout sort of thing. Thank goodness I didn’t have a heart attack, but I used to have panic attacks, extreme anxiety. It was just. It was terrible wearing that mask, you know, living a. Living a life of going up and down because I’d have good years just like you. And I was in the IT industry back when it crashed in 2000, into 2000, you know, two years. 2002 was finally starting to recover somewhat. I went through that too. Struggled to hold on to a home. Went through, you know, back in 2000. And fast forward up to 2000. I shouldn’t say 2002. Sorry. Listeners, 1992 and is when I got into the IT industry after I graduated from electronics engineering. Fast forward to 2002. I’ve been in my consulting industry working too many hours, literally not sleeping, burnout. Everything happens for a reason. I ended up leaving that industry because of my health. Got into finance. And then in 2008, just like you were saying, we had to follow the markets. And we. Look at what happened in my industry. Do you think people were investing or do you think they were taking money out? They were taking out money hand over fist. Right. And I was stressed because I was doing the same. Next thing you know, I’m in, you know, robbing Peter to pay Paul. Right. So I could have easily had what happened to you happen to me. Right? Quiet desperation, going to bed at night. And I write about it in my own book and just not wanting to get up. And. And I was a single dad of five kids. I. In 2008, I got full custody of him. And I put on a mask, literally a virtual mask. And I put it on and I come down smiling and, hey, dad, we need this or we need that. And I’m thinking, oh. So I had to get. I had to start doing what I had been doing for my clients, but be more educational toward my kids, showing them budgets, educating about needs and wants and all those other things that we don’t necessarily get taught. And I know those in the medical industry. I have a lot of. I. I know a lot of doctors. I have clients that are. That are doctors, dentists, the list. Go on. Professionals, accountants, lawyers. And they all. When I look at it now through your story, and I’m thinking to myself, who could I reach out to to stop this for them? How can I approach them? Wait a minute. I’m not the expert. I’m going to lead them to this podcast and lead them to you. Why would I want to be an expert in that field that I’m not? Even though you took your challenges and experiences and created that into an expertise that now helps others. I’m not going to reinvent the wheel. How many people try doing that, though, right? Look for others that can help you that are already gone through that journey. Right? Those different processes in life where they’ve experienced it, where they’ve had a lock on the door, where they’ve had creditors. I used to do that, brother. I used to back. I remember back in weight. I paid the one utility company. I’d wait and I would pay those, and I’d wait on the other one until they’d Send me a disconnection notice, right Then all of a sudden I stopped paying the other one. Catch up on this one just so that I wouldn’t have. And I remember coming home one day with my kids. This is probably, I don’t know, let’s say 2009. And there was a disconnection notice on the door saying they were going to disconnect my water. Right. Well, I’m freaking out trying to figure out how am I gonna. Because that was one of the companies I hadn’t paid in a couple months and making all these phone calls and a person come with these big poles, they’re gonna go and shut my water off at the front of the house, right? Because I live in a cul de sac and telling them, you know, begging them, listen, I’m on the phone and I was, and they say literally gave me. I had till 4:30 that day. It was about 3:15. I had to get to downtown the city of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, where I live, to give them cash and then they wouldn’t disconnect my water. Can you imagine? Four kids, no water. You know, like, yes, back in the day they had to, they had to pump for water and stuff. But in today’s society we’re so used to those needs, right? That’s not really a want, it’s a need once you’re, you’re used to it and grow up with it. So I can definitely relate to your pain except for the heart attack thing. Thank you God for not allowing me to have that. It’s, it’s. We have a lot of commonalities, but do we actually look at other people and other circumstances of what they’re going through when we communicate with them? Do you think that that’s part of the problem is, is the lack of communication that causes all that internal strife?

00:36:48 – Michael Levitt
Oh yeah. And it seems just to get worse and worse where, you know, people are so short fused. And I know the last have been really, really hard for people from the pandemic to trade wars, to elections, to you know, inflation, cost of things. There’s no shortage of things to cause issues. And it’s just, I think a lot of, especially with the pandemic, I think there’s a lot of unaddressed trauma from that period of time. It was a traumatic experience for everybody. I mean for some people more than others, but I think a lot of people really have not address that trauma. So it’s kind of just lingering there. And our ability to kind of seek to understand what other people are going through, it’s not our, our first line of defense or offense, quite frankly. It’s like we don’t think, especially if somebody cuts us off in traffic or they say something and you’re like, we don’t. And it could be a relative or could be a complete stranger. We don’t understand what people are going through unless we know. And I, I just, I default to the base of everyone is going through something that might be really challenging for them. So all I can do is, you know, make sure that I don’t make it worse for them. You know, what can I. If I can help them in a way that doesn’t take away from me? Because I think what. That happens too often, especially for people that are driven and goal oriented and all of that. We often give too much of ourselves and we don’t leave anything for us. And then we ask for help and they may or may not be able to help. And you know, all of a sudden you’re like, but I helped you. And it’s, it’s, it’s one of those things where it’s like you, if you take, really take care of yourself and make sure that you’re doing really, really well when you do help people, they’re getting an amazing version of you. And I think that’s something for people to remember is, you know, take care of yourself. Is it being selfish? Yes. But you’re, you want to be the best version of you. And whether that’s a friend, a partner, a dad, a mom, you know, coworker, whatever, you know, we, in life, there’s so many things that we can, you know, use as excuses that cause us to behave or react the way that we do. But there’s. We can control our attitude, we can control our emotions. And when we get more in tune with how we are and how we exist, the better we’ll be. And I find time and time again, and I’m sure you, you do as well, is so many of us are just completely unaware of who we are because we don’t look within, because we start looking within. And what do we do? We automatically go to the, the mistakes or the bad decisions or we don’t like the way our nose is or who knows, be all kinds of different things. And we shouldn’t do that. You know, we have to figure out a way how to really love ourselves because you’re never gonna spend any more time with anybody on this planet than yourself. So figure it out. How. How do I like, you know, spending time with myself? What. You know, if there’s areas that bother me. Okay, let’s, let’s flush those out. Why do they bother me? And again, it could be, as you mentioned, you know, earlier, you know, with, you know, someone that mentioned, you know, going back to when they were five years old and you know, going all the way back. I mean, there’s some people that have had some life experiences that go back.

00:40:29 – Dwight Heck
Decades, learn behaviors, learn teachings that they don’t even realize.

00:40:36 – Michael Levitt
Yeah, they carry that with them.

00:40:38 – Dwight Heck
And even that Noah’s comment you made, that could be because somebody in their family said something about their nose or, or said something about their own nose. And we are so driven in society today that we deflect and are hard on others because we don’t like ourselves and we really don’t know ourselves. So we get stuck in poor associations that, you know, confirmation bias. We read or we listen to things that are going to make us feel the way we are already feeling because we don’t think we’re worthy enough, because we don’t understand. We get trapped in addictions and on a hamster wheel. It’s just, I can really see how burnout happens so often is. Because we feel trapped, right?

00:41:22 – Michael Levitt
Yep. Yeah, we feel trapped. And it, it’s one of those things where especially for go giver or go getters and people that are driven, it can happen innocently because sometimes we over commit ourselves. Well, sometimes we do it all the time. But what happens is we make decisions and they’re good decisions. We’re like, yeah, you know, this, this is a good idea. I should do this. But what happens is we don’t have boundaries of how often we say yes to things. Because what happens is we just start overwhelming ourselves and then we, we, we kind of fool ourselves and say, well, you know what? I, I can get through this. I can get this done. I’ll, I’ll be able, I’ll just work a little bit longer on this. We’ll get this done and then I’ll. It’ll be easier. Well, what happens is we just continue to add on, add on. And if you work for somebody and you happen to be that all star employee, a lot of managers unfortunately do a great job of over delegating things to their superstars. And again, it makes sense. I have this project that needs to get done. Who, who can do it? Okay, Dwight can do it. He, he’s awesome at this. He’s done this. He’s crushed it. So here, Dwight got this project for you. And forgetting that I gave you a very similar project, that’s Very time consuming, has a short delivery date, already gave you one last week. And all of a sudden you get dropped on this and you’re like, wait a minute, how am I going to do all this and this? And it’s like, okay, I, I got to remember I have to take, you know, my third child to the doctor appointment on this. There’s a dentist appointment on Thursday. Soccer practice is Wednesday at 7. Okay. Hockey practices. This. Okay. Oh, there’s a parent teacher conference in this. And all of a sudden you’re literally, your brain’s going, how do I put all these puzzle pieces together? Well, in many cases they don’t fit really well together and you overwhelm yourself and then you extend yourself and then you don’t sleep. And if you don’t sleep, that’s a big, big problem. If you’re. It starts impacting your sleep, then you’re really running a risk of some significant health and mental health issues. Because if we don’t get good sleep, our bodies aren’t repairing the damage we do to ourselves on a D. And you know, that was my situation too. My sleep was garbage for a couple years and you know, so the body just wasn’t able to repair all the damage I was doing to it. And arteries get clogged. And then you get cardiologists that skip bedside manner class making comments about me being dead. And, and.

00:43:55 – Dwight Heck
I, I’ve experienced poor bad side, minor too. But at the end of the day, we have a responsibility to ourselves because when we give too much, like Michael when I was, you know, going through all the court stuff, we had to finance collapsible. We’re in court fighting, fighting to, you know, at temporary order to have my kids full time, waiting to three years of all that, plus, well, all the financial breakdowns. I used to take my kids to their extracurricular, have to cook meals, try to find time to not let my practice fall apart because there wasn’t any work, but there was work for money to go out the door. People suffering, you know, people closing their accounts down, didn’t want to lose their houses. Every night around 8, 8:30, I’d finish cleaning up the kitchen, kids to start homework. I’d say, okay, I’ll come down to help you in about 30 minutes. Dad needs to use the washroom. I didn’t necessarily need to use a washroom. I went up to my second floor of my house, into my bedroom where I had a master bathroom. And sometimes, Michael, I would just sit on the floor and I’d have my Head in my hands and I’d just be like, trying to gather my thoughts. Like you said, your brain’s just all over the place emotionally and trying to suck it up one more time, right? Live that. Put that mask back on. Live in quiet desperation inside, hold it in. Not like what I seen. Not sleeping properly, and I was sick all the time. When I think back of that, I had colds all the time, and I was run down and. And I’d have to use more energy than normal to not snap at people or circumstances, right? So burnout is a, you know, like a real thing. I was looking it up just for the heck of it, to see what the World Health Organization. So those listening or watching, they recognize burnout as an occupation. Occupational. Occupational phenomenon resulting from chronic workplace stress that has been not successfully managed well. You know, I also look at this situation too, that occupational burnout that’s happening at your job, and you did touch on that. It comes into our home lives, right? It comes into everything that we do. Even if we’re part of a, let’s say a voluntary volunteer organization, we’re volunteering our time. Everything is about pleasing everybody else, but pleasing ourselves. So what. What would you say is something that an individual can. Can know that they’re experiencing burnout? What are some of those signs that they should look for and who should they look to help them through that? Besides somebody like yourself, obviously, but in their local community, is there something they can do right away to avoid that crash that. That you’ve experienced and I have as well.

00:46:45 – Michael Levitt
Yeah, it’s important I mentioned the first one is sleep. You know, focus on getting the best sleep you possibly can. You know, And I remind people, it’s like, you know, I ask him, have you ever gone on a vacation and stayed at a really nice resort or a really nice hotel? And, you know, I asked them, you know, what was the bed like? What was the pillow like? What was. What was that experience? He said, oh, it was. It was just, you know, heavenly. It was just. The bed was so comfortable. Sheets were amazing. The pillows, the blankets, everything was just absolutely amazing. I said, what. Describe your. Your bed at home and your. Your pillows and blankets and things like that. And is it the same? No, no, I just got a real pillow. I picked up a, you know, a $2 pillow, Walmart. And, you know, it’s like, okay, so first things first. It’s like, I. I know this is hard, but start squirreling away a little bit of money and start investing in better bedding and, you know, create that Heavenly environment that you experience at the hotel. You can get those mattresses at home too. You don’t have to get from the hotel. You can go to, you know, a bedding place and find the best comfortable bed. Because if you think about it, where do you spend the most consecutive hours of your day? In one spot. That would be your bed. So it’s important for you, excuse me, to be able to, you know, have the best night’s sleep. Because again, when you get good sleep, you repair the damage you do yourselves on a daily basis.

00:48:10 – Dwight Heck
Oh, my goodness. Yeah, a good night’s sleep. I’ve had two, three different sleep specialists. I actually had. I’m trying to think of his name now. I had him on about a year ago. He’s a doctor in the US and he actually has sleep clinics and he teaches people about sleep and every sleep special. I had a sleep specialist on from, he was from California. And then I had another sleep specialist on prior to him that was from Toronto. And, you know, you learn so much about sleep. It is our number one thing that we require. And a good pillow, like I love you saying all that stuff, a good pillow is so important. You know, comfortable, not too hot, not too cold. Like, he taught me all these things. And literally after that was probably about a year ago that he was on, he told me to get blackout curtains. And I says, why? I says, I like when the sun comes up. He says, it’s never consistent. So your body gets thrown out of its. Of circadian rhythm, I think he called it. He says, he says, get blackout curtains. He says, your body won’t care if the room’s dark and you’re getting proper sleep and you’ve set an alarm. Are you a person that normally wakes up before your alarm? I said, yeah, I do. He says, it’s not going to change. He says, your body, you’re going to bed, it’s 10:30 or whatever time it is, and you’re going to get up at 7. Your body’s gonna wake you up still. But that dark room is gonna give you a more comfortable, relaxed sleep, right? And man, has that ever made a difference in my life. Just putting blackout curtains in my bedroom where for all my life I didn’t have that. You know, just little things like that. A good pillow, Good, good, good mattress. Like you’re saying, spend the money. Blackout curtains. That made a huge difference in my life. And my Apple watch records on my sleep. And I started watching and looking back and how my sleep got better. I was having deeper core sleep, deeper REM sleep. It was just amazing. The changes, just little changes that he mentioned I should do.

00:50:14 – Michael Levitt
Yeah. I use a sleep mask and it blocks out everything. It’s like. It’s jet black. It’s like. And it’s. It’s absolutely amazing. And yeah, you’re right. You’re. My body wakes up, I. Do I have an alarm? Yeah. But I usually am shutting the alarm off after I’ve already been up and doing some things. So sleep’s the one thing. The second one. Yet. This is really important too. When people are burned out, they start cutting out the fun stuff in life. They stop going to the games. You know, let’s say, you know, you’re a mini season ticket holder to the Oilers or, you know, and. Or, you know, if you’re in Calgary, that team, you know. And by the way, I’m not a Leafs fan, so you don’t have to worry about that. I’m originally from Detroit. It’s. It’s legally impossible for me to be a Leafs fan, apparently. So. Yeah. But yeah, I’m not a Leafs fan. Well, and I always joke, it’s like, you know, the original six NHL cities which I’ve lived or worked in five of them, ironically. Wow. Montreal is the last one. And Montreal’s a tough nut to crack because. Not easy to work in Montreal for a variety of reasons. But long story short, the Maple Leafs is the only. You know, their last cup was in 1967. So, you know, whenever you look at the photos of the. The original six in their last Stanley cup victory, it’s the only photo that’s in black and white. So. Just saying, it’s been a bit. But, you know, maybe one day. I don’t expect to see it in my lifetime, but maybe one day. But what happens is when you’re burned out, you quit going to those games, you quit doing things. When I was burned out, I was, you know, I said in the Detroit area and I was a season ticket holder for the Detroit Tigers. And this is back in 2006, 2007, 8, 9. They were really good. They were going to playoffs every year. They went to the World Series in 06 and in 2012. So they were a really good team. And I had season tickets. And when you buy a season ticket package, you have the tickets. Food voucher, beer voucher, parking. You just gotta show up. You don’t. You don’t have to bring your wallet. I mean, bring your driver’s license. You don’t have to bring anything. You just show up and I quit going Because I was burned out. I didn’t like, I’m too tired, I’m like. And I love baseball was my first love. The reason why I went into accounting as a kid or as an adult in my career was because the back of baseball cards, calculating the stats and all that stuff, I was really enthralled with that. So that, that was my first career because of baseball cards. So I love that sport. And I quit going. And that should have been the biggest red flag, neon arrows pointing, hey, hey, wake up, wake up. I didn’t, I was completely oblivious to it. So if you start cutting out things in life you like doing, even if you’re working a lot of hours, if you start cutting those things out, that is a big warning sign. So you gotta, you gotta check that. Also, you know, check your eating habits. You know, have they changed? Because if you’re so, if you’re working so many hours, you’re not giving yourself enough time to actually sit down and eat a meal. So you’re basically, you know, consuming fast food or, you know, quick prep meals or things like that. And that of course will take a toll on yourself as well because you’re not eating and getting all the nutrients that your body needs. So your body will, will say, hey, let’s clog up those arteries. So you gotta watch out for that. And another thing that jumps out too is what happens. And you mentioned this earlier too. When you’re burned out or you’re overly stressed, your fuse shortens up quite a bit, so you start getting angry and set off by things that should not set you off, but they do. And because it’s because your body is so just wound up and frustrated that any little thing can throw you off. And as a parent, you know, your kid, they’re not doing anything wrong at all. But they say, dad, we need more cheese, we need more of this. And you mentioned the financial struggles which. Fully aware of that and you know, you know, an American stat, and I know it’s not much different in Canada, you know, seven out of 10Americans are really underwater in debt right now. It’s, it’s bad. And it’s like, okay. And the cost of living is this, salary increases. This, it’s getting worse and worse. And it’s of all the stressors. My personal opinion, I think financial stress is probably one of the worst because I don’t think any of us really love paying bills, but I know we do enjoy the ability to be able to pay a bill. And when we don’t have that ability and you shared, you know, your, Your story on what that was like. And I’ve been there, too. The shell game of trying to figure out, you pay them. This, do this, this not fun. You get creative, but it’s not fun. You’d rather not. You’d rather just say, all right, you know what, that bill’s coming up. I’m gonna go ahead and pay it now so I don’t forget it. We’d rather do that than go, oh, crap, where am I going to come up with this? And you’re. You’re negotiating with the people that are out front, you know, getting ready to shut off the water. Been there, done that. And it’s not a fun experience. And so it’s. These things all take a toll and it’s. And they happen over sequence, over a period of time. It’s like decisions that you make end up creating the scenarios that end up putting in the situation. Yes, there might be external things. You get laid off, the economy goes down. You know, it’s. You know, for some reason, they can’t find any oil in Alberta anymore. You know, that’s going to be a problem. I’m not going to wood. That never happens. But it’s. You know, there’s always little things that can change that are outside of your control. So what’s important is control the things that you can control. Be prepared for things as best you can. Make sure you do things in life you enjoy doing, even when things are tough and you’re busy, oh, my goodness.

00:56:24 – Dwight Heck
Even going to the local park with your kids or just go for a.

00:56:28 – Michael Levitt
Walk or go to the library.

00:56:31 – Dwight Heck
Purposeful living is which. Which is what my book is about, right? How to. How to live life on purpose and not by accident. It. It takes work, it takes coaching. It takes empathy towards yourself and from others to give it to you to say, you know what? That is the. Michael, I hear who you are today, but we’re going to help you take baby steps so that you’re going to evolve and continue to climb in life so that you realize that money is not the root of all evil. Money’s got no personality. Money is a tool that we need to utilize that we’ve never been taught to utilize properly. And I’m going to help you. Plus, I’m going to help you with your 6 inches between your ears. Why are you going to do all that, Dwight? You’re a finance guy. Why do you care about life? Lifestyle coaching? Why do you care about that? Because they said nobody cared about it for me. And I lived in so many years of quiet desperation. And it’s not a fun place to be. And I think everybody deserves to live a life whatever level that is. I don’t need to be the local pillar of the community, as you mentioned earlier, that leader that everybody looks at to. I just want to be somebody that my family looks up to and most importantly, I want to be somebody that I look at in the mirror on more, more than one day of the seven days of the week where I’m proud of who I have become. I acknowledge who I was and I know that I never want to get back there again. But I know if I slide backwards because I’ve had those up and downs value to spare, I’ve had it happen more than once in my life. But I have the tools and continually work on the tools and the associations and the network of people that I know that will get it, will listen when they need to listen. They’ll give advice when they need to get advice. They’ll kick me in the butt when I need to get kicked in the butt. But it’s all based on the fact that they’re trying to help me. They’re not trying to make their hide from their own existence by making my existence worse, if that makes sense. Right. We have those associations that are terrible, that their lives suck. So they want to make our lives and, and all the drama worse so they can avoid their own drama.

00:58:39 – Michael Levitt
Yeah, a lot of people unfortunately project and when they see somebody that’s doing well, they, they want to bring them down, not, not to attack them per se, but it’s just like they, they, it’s just, you know, a reflection of themselves and how they feel and they feel like I’m, I’m being robbed of this. And I’m a big proponent of. There’s more than enough for everybody. Yes, it takes work. You got to figure out who you are, figure out what’s important to you. And that changes over time. You know, the, the version of me, even from 2010, when I was healing and getting better, is completely different than who I am today. And I’m thankful for that. And 10 years up with. Yeah, 10 years from now, I’m guessing I’ll probably be even different than I am now. I know I’ll be older, that one’s a sure. But other stuff is like, you know, things that are important to me may be different. You know, there may be new interests or new hobbies or new things to do. I, I don’t know what that’ll be, but I, I can I can kind of set the tone of what that would look like. And, and by doing that I was just, you know, being my best version of myself day after day, set myself up for success.

00:59:56 – Dwight Heck
Yeah, I don’t blame you. Do you have time for a couple more questions?

01:00:01 – Michael Levitt
Of course.

01:00:02 – Dwight Heck
Awesome. But yeah, you know, to add on to what you were saying, at the end of the day, you had a heart attack. And even if you had been a multi millionaire and had passed away and missed all the memories, creation of memories because of burnout, because of working too many hours, because you’re a people pleaser and trying to take on more than you possibly should, you know, at the end of the day, people life is in session. Yesterday’s the past, tomorrow is the future, today’s the present. Just stop and breathe. Even if you do something as if you have a smartwatch like an apple watch, set it up where it reminds you throughout the day to do breathing exercises or reminds you. Mine reminds me to stand up as well. Just to get up out of the chair. Right. You have to be. And move around and, and open the window out and look outside or just do anything. Like I realized here about. Because I was, I had a bad chest cold. I’m just finally at the end of it for over just about two weeks. And my son come in to the house and he says, dad, it’s beautiful outside today because one of my adult kids lives at home, home. And he says it’s gorgeous outside, you need to step outside. Yeah. Why? It’s just because dad do it. And I did. I stepped outside, had my 25 year old son, you know, give me a little bit of a mental slap saying it’s whatever, just stand outside for a few minutes. And I did. And I was just like, I’m looking around, I’m heard, hearing the birds chirp and I look over and along my ones because I have a big backyard, I have this squirrel running along the fence and just I’m loving it. But we forget about that. We forget about the simple things, the walks, spending time with family, all that money doesn’t mean nothing to you. Even if you weren’t in a circumstance with your house and that you still had at that moment in time you had your family to hang on to. Thank goodness.

01:02:00 – Michael Levitt
Yeah.

01:02:01 – Dwight Heck
So many people like I know you said you had, you mentioned, you know that there was, that was their first relationship, I believe. Right. First marriage. Things happen. Right? It happens. But at the end of the day, if we love ourselves, we can love others more. So work on yourself. People like, honestly, take that baby step. Just stop and realize that you should stop and smell the roses. I guess that phrase is a little overused, but it’s true. Right? We need to appreciate what we have every day.

01:02:35 – Michael Levitt
Yeah. Yeah. There’s. There’s intent with the pause, you know, and it’s just. And just kind of take a pause for a minute and kind of look around and see what’s around you. And, you know, you’ll. You’ll see things and hear things, and you’re like, how long has that been there? Well, that’s been there since we’ve lived here. Like, oh, okay. That’s a. That’s an indication. Like, yeah, you. You. You’re in your head too much instead of in the world, and sometimes you just have to step outside of it and just. Just take in what you see.

01:03:05 – Dwight Heck
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Like, I. I tell people, look on your. Are you a person that likes taking pictures? Yeah. Look on your phone. Look in your photos app and whether. I don’t care what kind of phone it is and tell me when’s. Where’s their pictures. I don’t care what age you are. Maybe it’s pictures with your adult kids, your. Your own young kids. Maybe it’s your adult kids with grandkids. Or maybe you don’t have kids and it’s just hanging out with friends. Right. Maybe it’s you fishing. What are the dates? How long has it been since you’ve had a memory creation? And it makes people stop and think, because a lot of times, if they’re too driven and they’re in that burnout phase or approaching it, maybe they’re not there yet or they’re a candidate for it. They don’t have any memories. They can’t tell me stories about stuff. They’ll tell me about accomplishments, but the journey up to that accomplishment. They can’t tell me anything about it except that they work, work, work, work, work.

01:04:04 – Michael Levitt
Yeah.

01:04:04 – Dwight Heck
And that’s the society that we have today. It’s just sad.

01:04:07 – Michael Levitt
Yeah. It reminds me of an exercise I do when I, you know, do workshops or, you know, keynote events. And I have time. I’ll. You know, it’s one of those things where it’s important for you to schedule things in life that you enjoy doing. And. And what I’ll do is this exercise. I have people take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle of it, and on the left side, write down all the things in life they enjoy doing. It can be big, like going on trips or golfing or fishing. Or going to the hockey game or, you know, doing whatever, you know, whatever they enjoy doing. You know, be as complete as they can. They can always add to this list later, but list all those things out that they enjoy doing, and then after, you know, give them a few minutes, it’s okay. Everybody pretty much got a list together.

01:04:48 – Dwight Heck
Good.

01:04:48 – Michael Levitt
Okay. Okay. Now, to the right of every one of those items, write down the last time you did them. And I usually hear moans and groans and nervous laughter because all of a sudden they feel really convicted at that point. And they went, oh, my. Like, yeah, why? And I asked them, okay, why aren’t you doing these things? These are things you love to do. Why are you doing them? And I wait for somebody to say, I just don’t have time. And if they have an iPhone, that’s when I go, all right, let me look at your Ibinky. That’s my brother’s nickname for my iPhone is Ibinky. Because I’m always on the thing like a pacif. So I, I, I said, okay, let, let’s open up screen time. Let’s see how many hours a day you are playing on your phone. And it’s usually north of six hours for most people. Like, okay, any of these things on the list over here could you do in less than six hours? And usually a lot of them are, yes. I said, okay, do me a favor. Pick a couple of those things on the list. Let’s go out in your calendar. Let’s go out 10 or 21 days. Just, you know, go out, schedule one of those things, put in your day. If you have to take a day off work, a half day off work, do it. I don’t care. It’s just money. Do it and go do that. Don’t change that appointment. That’s a very important. It’s. Imagine that’s the biggest appointment you’ve ever had up to this point in your life, because it’s you taking care of. You do that. And get in the habit of starting to schedule things in life you enjoy doing. Even if you’re working ungodly amount of hours, you can still do something. Even if it’s like, if you love sitting in a coffee shop, you like going to second cup and you like sitting because they’ve got a sweet balcony and you like sitting there. It’s like, well, I’ve been working so much. Can’t do that. Could you go and sit there for 10 minutes? You know, now the weather’s starting to improve a little bit. Can you do that? Yeah. Even if instead of the half hour, do 10 minutes, just sit.

01:06:55 – Dwight Heck
Baby steps.

01:06:55 – Michael Levitt
Yeah, yeah. And all of a sudden that, that 10 minute, they feel good and then they go, you know what? I. I’ve moved some things around. I can actually stay for half an hour today. Awesome. And it’s just getting in the habit of taking care of yourself. And that’s what taking care of yourself is.

01:07:12 – Dwight Heck
And you can do it. You can do it relatively cheap too.

01:07:15 – Michael Levitt
Oh, yeah.

01:07:16 – Dwight Heck
Many clients that. Well, we’re underwater financially. Well, you still have to have a date night with your spouse. You need to stay connected. You need to go to that hockey game. You need to do things. You have to. There’s needs and wants. Because I do a lot of extensive budgeting with people. You can look at stuff and say to yourself, well, once a month, our entertainment budget is as a want. It’s not a need. Wait, no, it’s a need. Eat. When’s the last time you and your spouse did anything? When’s the last time you took your kids to even the park and just made a picnic? It doesn’t have to be very expensive. When’s the last time, like you said, you went to a second cup or, or Tim Hortons or Starbucks and just sat. And we’re just. In your own thoughts. People watch. That could be fun too.

01:08:05 – Michael Levitt
Oh, yeah, right. Yeah, right.

01:08:07 – Dwight Heck
It could be fun to watch people. One of the questions I wanted to ask you is, is there a certain type of individual that experiences burnout more than others?

01:08:18 – Michael Levitt
Having worked in this space for as long as I have, I, I do see some trends that in many cases, the type A driven personalities, the successful people that want to accomplish great things for this world can definitely be prone to it because they, they give so much of themselves. If they’re a people pleaser, that’s. And I identify as a reformed people pleaser. It’s, it’s definitely a trait that is deep in my DNA, understanding, you know, what my ancestors did in their lives. It’s like, okay, this, this is not just something I picked up because it seemed like the right thing to do. This is deep within. But I think, you know, those type A personnel is driven that are like, yeah, that’s a great idea, let’s do this, do this. And they keep, go, go, go, go, go. But they don’t, they don’t stop to kind of, you know, check the tank and see how they’re doing. They’re just like, no, let’s just do it, do it. And again, a lot of the choices they make and the decisions they make and the things that they take on are good things. It’s not like they’re taking on stupid things. They’re taking on really important things that would actually make a huge difference for their company or their business or whatever. But unfortunately is they start taking shortcuts in other areas of life and that catches up. And then you’re not your best self. Your cognitive abilities start to decline. So you’re not being as productive as you could be because you don’t feel well. You’re not feeling well mentally or physically, and it takes a big toll. So I tend to see a lot of times it’s those driven people, but it’s not exclusive to them. But time and time again, at least with the people that I’ve worked with, it seems to be those really successful driven people that kind of go too far down the road and they need to kind of go in reverse a little bit. And like, let’s try this a different way. You’re still going to be able to accomplish a lot, but not to your own detriment.

01:10:15 – Dwight Heck
Is, is it at all gender driven? Is one gender more susceptible to burnout than the other?

01:10:23 – Michael Levitt
Everything that I’ve seen, you know, the, the, you know, my unofficial studies and then actual official studies, it tends to be about a 50, 50 SP. Yeah, it’s, it’s surprising now. I, I, I honestly thought that it would be a little bit more on the female side. And I’ve seen it kind of leans that way a little bit, especially if it’s a situation where, you know, they’re, you know, a higher level leadership type of role and you know, so is their spouse and there’s children involved and, you know, navigating all of those things and all of that, that can do that. But as we see, you know, it’s harmonizing and I think, you know, with, you know, half the population, you know, being divorced, you throw in that aspect of it too. And it was one of those things where we saw, you know, parents were of both genders, were definitely having a rough go of it during the early days of the pandemic because they were all working from home and they normally worked a 9 to 5 type of role. And then they realized really quick, hey, wait a minute, I’m homeschooling now and my kids are in school when I was at work, how am I going to do this? And they realized that they couldn’t real easily. So that’s when you start seeing people getting up earlier to do work and then helping their kids with school during the day and then waiting for the kids to go to bed, and then they’re doing some work at night. So those were some long days for people. And that was one of the reasons why we saw such a huge spike in burnout during the pandemic, which. Which was the opposite of what I was hoping to find and see. But that was just kind of the nature of the beast of, of what. What happened, unfortunately, especially in those early days of the pandemic.

01:12:09 – Dwight Heck
Yeah, the. The divorce circumstance and situation is. Is a pandemic on its own, which I don’t think is ever going to end. And it has to do with the way we’re. We’re raised. That has to do with learned behavior, societal pressures of what our expectations are. And all of a sudden people get divorced and they still want to get. Still live at the same level, when all of a sudden now they just have one income each and maybe they have joint custody, like initially I did. And it was. It was a. It was a struggle, right? It was. It was tough. We weren’t taught that, oh, what we were taught is for better or for worse, and richer, for poorer. We weren’t taught, oh, it might not work out. Out. Now here’s the tools you might need for this, or, oh, if things don’t work out, come to here, we’re going to be a good government organization. We’re going to have things that you can plug into that are going to teach you how to live frugal or live apart or live, you know, you’re going to have to live differently now. And instead, what do we do when we don’t? I know myself, and I didn’t have my kids, I worked more hours so that when I did have my kids, I knew I couldn’t work as much. You know what I mean? So it was. It was a roller coaster for the month. One week. Up, down, up, down, up, down. And how many families out there are doing that right now, Michael?

01:13:32 – Michael Levitt
Yeah, and just way too many. Yeah, way too many. And. And, you know, no, no one wins in this situation. It’s not a it. And there’s always dynamics and reasons and all of that, but, you know, no one wins in it because it’s not a, you know, financial gain for anybody. Everybody loses in it. And it’s. It’s sad to see. I’ve been through it. You’ve been through it. It’s. It’s not something that I would wish upon anyone. But I say this tongue in cheek, and some people may, like, you know, laugh at this, some People may not like this, but, you know, a joke that I heard years ago was, you know, why are divorces so expensive? Because they’re worth it. But you know, that’s, that could be taken a lot of different ways. And for me it made a lot of sense to have it done. But do I wish it happened? Absolutely not. I wish I wouldn’t wish that upon anybody because it’s a devastating, devastating thing and can cause stress and burnout as well.

01:14:41 – Dwight Heck
And you still got to go to work. Even though you’re dealing with, with this, the soon to be. And you’re dealing with lawyers that, that have the empathy switch turned off. Their bedside manner isn’t always the best. I’m not saying all lawyers, I know some good ones, but majority of them have dealt with thousands of similar cases as yours have heard it all and they have no choice but to shut it off or they’re going to take it home.

01:15:06 – Michael Levitt
Yeah, right.

01:15:07 – Dwight Heck
It, it’s just, it’s, it’s, it’s a hamster wheel of, of life. Life. One of the things I want to talk. The last question that I want to ask you in regards to your, your life would be you’ve written a few books. Your latest, as we mentioned earlier, Burnout Proof. How to establish boundaries to avoid the negativity of stress. I know myself writing my own book, I found it very cathartic. I learned things that I, that I had compartmentalized and put aside or things that I realized but I didn’t really give myself credit credit for. How was writing your, your last book or any of the books, how did it affect you? Did you find it to be a healing situation or, or an awareness situation?

01:15:47 – Michael Levitt
Oh, it was definitely a healing situation because, you know, I would, I would write, you know, I’d say, okay. And how I wrote was, okay, I’m gonna do this chapter by chapter. Especially, you know, when I went through my, my 369 days of worst case scenarios and you know, mapping what happened with the heart attack, the job loss, car loss, you know, home foreclosure and you know, I wrote all of those, you know, separately as they happened. And after I had write it, you know, I would, I wouldn’t go back to read it yet. I would just kind of, I would sit with it and go, okay, I’m going to come back to this tomorrow and see if there’s anything that I missed. But also, is there any lessons that, because I, I released, you know, that first book about, you know, what had happened to me in 2017. So it had been, you know, seven years since what, everything went down. And for me, it was. It was very therapeutic and helpful for me to go back to it because I wanted to. It wasn’t like, I want to suppress this. I’m like, suppressed is not going to help me heal by any stretch. And I thought that I had healed with a lot, but I discovered in writing that there was things that I had not healed from. And, like, I worked through them. I’m like, okay, let’s flush this out. You know, what, What. What am I. What am I seeing? What am. What am I looking at? What, what. What do I need to do to kind of move forward from this? Not move on, but move forward. Because some people say move on. It’s like, how can you move on? It’s like, there’s certain things you just don’t move on from, but you can move forward because it’s. It’s different. But it was very, very helpful and therapeutic. And it was a way to say, when I wrote it, I’m like, okay, is this coming off when, you know. And I try to put myself in the reader’s seat and like, I don’t want this to be a. A victim type of situation. I want people to at least understand where what had happened. I’m sharing it as a. Is kind of a connecting point going, okay, I. I have something that happened similar. Not to compare, you know, because I don’t want to compare anything. Well, my loss is bigger than your. No, I don’t want to do that. That doesn’t serve anybody. My hope is that. That if you see somebody else has gone through some challenging times, that it can give you hope. Especially when you are going through things and you’re trying to rebuild or get better at something. It’s like, okay, people have gone through this. We all have, and we will continue to go through things. So life’s about. It’s to go through things that refines us every day. We get refined. And for me, it was very helpful. And I’m like, okay. But I. The premise of it was I want this book to be. Give hope, give a warning, and, you know, maybe tip somebody off going, okay, if you’re going down that path to burnout, you don’t have to continue going. You can. You can turn around. And I highly suggest you do. And here’s some things you can do to kind of make it a little bit easier. You know, get. Get to the point where you go from being almost burned out or overly stressed, a more normal, ish state, and Then from there, you know, the deeper work for people, especially if they have burned out, is to figure out, okay, why did you burn out in the first place? You know, what happened? What were your decisions? What were your choices? What were your behaviors? What were your beliefs? Was the language you were telling yourself that’s a deeper dive. And a lot of people don’t want to go down that road. And I understand because they look at that as like, that’s kind of scary and like, like it can be. But how I did it, and I’m thankful this worked for me, is I. When I was going through the recovery, I, I basically when I was asking myself, why was this important? Why did I do the things I did? I approached it as if I was a five year old version of me. I was curious, you know, why was that important to me, you know, what does this do, you know, and, and not judgmental, not beat myself up because, well, I’d already been beaten up. I don’t need to do any more to myself. Just, okay, why was that important? Okay, if I would, if I had an opportunity to do this again, what would I do differently that would help prevent going through what I just did? And I’m just like, okay. And it’s, it’s like experimenting. If you, if you cook in the kitchen, you know, playing around with different spices, you try some things and you go, okay, this is all good. That’s all right. You know, and you know, you know, and thankfully in these modern times, if you screwed up really bad, dad, you know, ubereats or doordash is just a phone call away and you can get something delivered if you screw up your dinner. But life is meant to be toyed with and explored and played with. And the more we do that, I think the more fun we have and the less likelihood we’re gonna burn out.

01:20:39 – Dwight Heck
Yeah, A linear living isn’t what any of us want, right? Just to be, just to be coasting and camped in life and. Yeah, I love that. That’s, that’s, that’s so true. I know with my, my book too, it’s the same thing. Started out with my origin. I didn’t want it to be a pity party, but I wanted people to understand what I had realized. I guess like you had said as a five year old and I had to sit in that stuff and sometimes I’d be looking at the chapter and I’d be reviewing it after come back from the editor and I’d start and I cry. It was just like, what that, you know, and I Never ever released that in the past. And, and, and I had to start really looking at stuff and going, why was this so impactful in my life? Why. Why did I not realize that, oh, there was other things going on in your life with your family or, you know, your dad was. My dad was a successful business owner. He was always on the go. Go, go, go, go, go. And you know, just putting all these puzzle pieces together and having those aha moments was just amazing. Right. And you probably had a lot of those yourself.

01:21:52 – Michael Levitt
Oh, definitely.

01:21:53 – Dwight Heck
Right. I’d recommend anybody that wants to, to, even if they don’t write a book, journal, journal your life.

01:22:02 – Michael Levitt
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I’m a big fan of journaling. And I look back to you when I launched my business in, in 2015 and 2016, I still have the journal journals from back then. Occasionally I look at them and I, I look and I go, I am shocked how naive I was on some things. And there were other things. Yeah, there are other things. I’m like, oh, I didn’t do that. I’m like, do I want to do that now? No. All right. I’m not losing any sleep over it, you know, which is such a difference than what my old version would be of me where I’d be like, that’s unfinished. I got to go back and fix that. No good enough. Yeah, it’s not, it’s not an issue now. It was then. It’s different now. You don’t need to do it, but maybe you will down the road. I don’t know. But yeah, I still have a ton of journals. Actually. They’re bookshelf back there. No, I moved them. But yeah, occasionally I’ll, I’ll grab one. It’s like, let’s, let’s review this. And it’s a lot of times door, you know, I do a year end kind of, you know, review of things and. Okay, what do I want to do in the next year? What are some things that I want to celebrate? What did I learn that share what, what do I know about myself that’s different how, you know, where am I at in my, my overall goals and just, you know, take some time to do that. And, and it’s a, you know, a year end celebration kind of thing. And, and, but, you know, I’ll look back at, you know, journals and read a favorite book or a variety of different things just to kind of, you know, put, put a nice bow at the end of the year and, and, and make sure that when I enter in a new year, I’m Refreshed. But, you know, I. You don’t have to wait till the end of the year to do that. You can do that at any time. And I actually highly recommend that you do it, period.

01:23:44 – Dwight Heck
I do it. I do. I, I do reflection on my day. Every day. Every day. Now, I had to get to it, but it’s a habit that I created, of course. And I do it in bed, right. And I get up in the morning and I reflect on what’s going to happen in the day. Right. When I go to bed at night. Oh, for me, I’m a praying person, I’m a Christian. And I’ll literally say, you know, how grateful I say, God, thank you for this amazing interview I had today with Michael.

01:24:14 – Michael Levitt
Wow.

01:24:14 – Dwight Heck
Did I ever. Did it over, open my eyes. Thank you for blessing me and bringing them into my life. Right. Just simple things. And reflect. Oh, I had a person act like this today when we had a conversation. Did I have any part of that? Oh, I think I did. What am I going to do tomorrow? Tomorrow I’m going to reach out to that person and find out, because I want to have a compassionate heart and I want to make sure I’m eliciting happiness and picking people up, not pushing them down and owning my own crap. Owning that, that maybe I said something wrong and maybe they say to me, oh, no, you didn’t do anything wrong, Doyle. You know, you just said something that triggered something in me and, and I, and those emotions come up. Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that. You know, maybe if I would have been more cognizant of your body language, you know, and then I become a better student of human nature and I’m just always trying to grow. And those people watching or listening, I am not perfect. I have those, those, those character building moments throughout my day where I’m not at my best. I time myself out, out, come back. It’s about all I can do.

01:25:25 – Michael Levitt
Right.

01:25:25 – Dwight Heck
Beating ourselves up gets us nowhere, right, Michael?

01:25:28 – Michael Levitt
Exactly. No, it’s. Life does a good enough job of that. We don’t need to do it to ourselves.

01:25:34 – Dwight Heck
So, last thing, Michael, if you had to give our listeners one last closing message, what would you tell them in regards to giving a heck and never giving up?

01:25:44 – Michael Levitt
You know, just really establish boundaries on how you live your life. You know, figure out what your ideal life looks like from, you know, your ideal day, your ideal week, your ideal month, your ideal year, you know, from where you live. You know, I’m not a big, you know, material guy kind of Thing. But if that’s your thing, I’m not telling you not to, but, you know, set up your life to be your dream life. You know, what. What would it look like if you lived your dream life? And what. What does that look like? What does that taste like? What does that feel like? And then, you know, where. Where are you right now? Okay. And let’s connect the dots and just take steps, you know, and each day do a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more. You’ll get there. And when you. Because everybody wants this quick fix, but much like anything, like, you know, quick weight loss kind of thing. Oh, it’s like, oh, I dropped 10 pounds. Well, guess what? This is all water. Guess what? In a couple days, it’s all coming back. But if you change how you do things, you get a little bit more active, you change your food intake a little bit over time, you’ll lose that ten pounds. And guess what? It’s stained. That’s what you want. You want something sustainable in your life. You want your ideal life. Well, when you design it and then do it. And is it hard to do? Yeah. And it’s also easy not to do. And you just have to determine, you know, what. What do you want in your life? Do you want your life to be a life of struggle, or do you want your life to be a life of what it was designed to be? Be the best you could absolutely be, because you’re here for a reason. When everyone is here for a reason. We need you to be the best version of you because there’s things you do that’s going to make things better for all of us. So that’s my hope and prayer for everybody, is to be the best version of you. Because when you do that, the ripple effect of that is beyond comprehension. So just be the best version of you. You. The. The impact you’ll have on this world will be astronomical. So just be the best version of you.

01:27:50 – Dwight Heck
Awesome. That’s a fantastic closing message. Thanks for that. So our time is up. I want to respect our listeners in your time. What’s the best way that people can reach out to you? Michael?

01:28:01 – Michael Levitt
Yeah, just go to breakfastleadership.com there’s links on the site, whether it’s to the podcast. I write a ton of blog articles on most of the social media channels you can find me. Usually if you look up, beat the letter B and then fast leaders do not put that on a license plate, people. That’ll get you in trouble. And you’ll get to meet the police services all the time. If you have some plate like that. But just breakfastleadership.com and reach out to me. More than happy to have a chat with you about anything and everything.

01:28:30 – Dwight Heck
Right on. And for those new to the Give a Heck podcast, go to giveaheck.com at the top you’ll see podcast. Click on it, you’ll see a picture of Michael, you’ll see the show notes. I’ll ensure all his social media links links are in there as well as his website link. And there’ll be chapter summaries of our of this episode as well as a full unedited transcript. If you’re a person that wants to go and read as opposed to, you know, listening to the podcast again, maybe there’s a specific section you’re looking for and the chapter summaries will help you as well. So just again go to giveaheck.com and to the podcast section. Any last final comments before I wrap up the show?

01:29:11 – Michael Levitt
Well, I really appreciate your time today, Dwight, and I really appreciate the listeners for giving us your time. Time is that one commodity that we spend it and it’s gone. We never get it back. So I really appreciate you and I want the best for all of us because the world deserves it and we deserve it. So go out there and and crush it. So thanks again for this opportunity to be on the show.

01:29:32 – Dwight Heck
Yes, and thank you for investing your time with with me. I appreciate it. So, so thanks so much for being on Give A Heck, Michael. I appreciate your time and sharing some of your experiences so that others too can learn. It is never too late to Give a Heck.