Burnout doesn't just happen at work - fix your home life

00:00 Burnout isn't just a work-based problem. For the majority of men, the stress and struggle we experience at home is far more likely to cause us to be burnt out. And when that happens, it ruins everything. In this episode of the Johnny Jensen Show, we're going to break down what burnout at home looks like, how you can fix it, and just how many men are going through this right now. Rolfy. Welcome to the Johnny Jensen Show, where modern dads discover how to create the true riches, relationships, and results they deserve.

00:41 Get your high-value man blueprint and join our community at highvalue manproject.com. Let's go. Hello, man. It is good to have you back here in the Johnny Jensen show. Whether you're watching on the video or tuning into the podcast, it's absolutely great to have you here. Be sure to subscribe, share, leave us a review, and help us spread the word of this show and of this podcast. We are the High Value Man Project. We're supporting men around the world, dads, midlife, modern men, dads who want to create the life they desire, not one they feel stuck in, so they can be the man they want to be rather than struggling and suffering through it all.

01:24 Okay. This episode is very important. It's obviously, I'd like to think they're all important, right? But this subject comes up for so many men. And it was actually something that I got completely wrong in my life. I misunderstood it. I didn't really know what it meant. And I certainly didn't think that the cause of it was my home life rather than what I figured, you know, I thought it was a work thing. I didn't realize it was a chemical imbalance in our body. That prolonged period of stress and strain for any reason, it can result in burnout. So we're going to unpack all of that. My objective for you today is for you to see something for yourself, perhaps, you know, in a way that you're feeling, and perhaps in some of the ways that you're trying to get through each day, or whether you're managing your relationship in a particular way, probably being quite hard on yourself, thinking,

02:20 I just need to get through this. I should be able to cope. I don't know, maybe like, or you could be blaming other people. You could be blaming circumstance. It wouldn't be like this if she wasn't like that, or it wouldn't be like this if I had a different job. The reality is that a prolonged exposure to stress will have an impact on your body that is a chemical reaction. Okay, our body is geared towards survival, you know, as well as, you know, creativity and procreation and love and laughter. Probably one of its most fundamental functions is to keep us alive. And so the adrenaline and the cortisol that we create in our body when we are under stress or in danger is

03:07 there to help us. It's there to help us get out of the way or to get somewhere safe. But in this modern world that we live in, we're really not in danger of too many saber-toothed tigers or, I don't know, whatever else. Well, it's good killers. I don't know. Biblical rain or winds, which actually was what we've got all around the world right now. But anyway, far more likely that this topic of burnout, we think it's work related, but it's probably happening at home. And I want you to recognize it for yourselves. So what happened to me? I'll tell you what happened to me. During my marriage, right?

03:46 And this isn't about her, it's about circumstances. It's about the unbelievable series of events that we experienced almost unexpectedly. You know, no one would expect to go through what we went through one after the other. Losing our jobs, both of us got made redundant on our honeymoon. Coming back as a young married couple, we hadn't really known each other a great deal of time, certainly not lived with each other. And then we, and got a stepson in with the deal, was sharing a house. She didn't really settle in Brighton. Then we get pregnant and decide we're going to move back to Maidstone. There's a lot of upheaval there, you know, reconnecting with old friends, trying to find our way.

04:29 Couldn't get a job, started a business, trying to make enough money, avoiding bankruptcy. Then we have children and you think that things are going to get better. And to start with, they do. But of course, we're then tired and trying to work out what it means to be a parent of a baby. Then three miscarriages, then there's just a load of other sort of health stuff in our family. And when the second Rose was born, didn't, you know, my wife was poorly and I was really scared that she was dying. And like all of this stuff just built up and built up and what I didn't realize for myself was that the mental and physical toll of that

05:09 was not just exhausting but it was leaving me incapable to a certain degree incapable of achieving what I wanted to achieve to be the man that I wanted to be and so ultimately when my brother sadly took his own life it ended up being the end it was the last straw and starting to understand that as I did as I went to the doctors as I rebuilt myself I started to understand more about exactly what had gone on for me personally in those preceding four years rather than thinking it's work it's her it's life it's something that I've got to push

05:53 through it was like I was driving around in a car with two flat tyres and no matter how hard I accelerated the car just didn't do what I wanted it to do and worse because I didn't address the two flat tyres the car got more and more damaged other problems started to occur which made it even harder to drive in that metaphor of life if I'd fixed the tires arguably a lot of the other stuff might have been easier now I don't know whether we would have navigated our way out of it as a couple or not but I would like to think that I certainly wouldn't have crumbled had the breakdown

06:33 and the you know the ultimate chaos that it caused as I had to put myself back together so that's what I want for you out of this is to be able to recognize and avoid what exactly that I went through the chemical reaction that goes on right it's about these two chemicals in our body cortisol and adrenaline like I said these are both our fight and flight chemicals right it's we're wired for survival these short bursts of of high focused attention and and an acute sensitivity right but when stress is constant like when a relationship is is

07:16 is difficult you know like when you're going to bed upset when you're waking up anxious for the day ahead your cortisol and adrenaline levels stay elevated that really that in turn means that your heart rate your blood pressure your glucose levels they all rise muscles tense the digestion slows libido drops immunity weakens these are all impacts of the stress response you know switch being stuck on it then leads into disrupted sleep your circadian rhythm is all out the window so you don't know whether you're

07:55 coming or going tired or excited like your body then starts to you know starts to face basic autoimmune conditions your liver and kidneys struggle to clear toxins because they're processing stress and hormones instead adrenal fatigue what's it called like the thyroid like all these things start to get impacted because you've got this toxic level of unhelpful chemicals in your body you literally start running on empty brain fog fatigue irritability setting you start snapping at the people closest to you and your relationships get drained even more at the

08:35 time where you should be coming together and working this through and supporting each other and feeling like you've there's a safety net there you feel more and more isolated and then bizarrely instead of doing more for yourself or seeing more people we start to adopt more distraction-based habits and activities to put that thought from as far away out of our mind as possible the thing that's stressing us out so we might start drinking sniffing or you know smoking weed too much like porn gambling like real negative addictions because we're just looking for that dopamine hit it's kind of why men and women in times of

09:15 trouble at home end up having an affair you know it's easy for people to say oh that asshole he went and had an affair but if you can detach yourself from the emotions of that slightly there was probably something going on that felt so bad and awkward that the pretty much one of the solutions was i'll have an affair because it feels good it's the feel good that we want feel good better than feel bad not excusing it but it does start to become more understandable another aspect of of our bodily functions is that when we do good things when we're feeling connected when we're having healthy positive relationships, when we're sleeping right, when we're feeling positive for positive reasons, then our body will produce serotonin and dopamine,

10:05 oxytocin, like all these feel-good chemicals that our bodies require for us to relax and sleep well and to love, they actually get suppressed by high cortisol levels. So the chemicals of happiness and motivation diminish whilst these high stressor chemicals proliferate. They surge through our body. So it's no wonder that we struggle. It's like having your phone on 1% and then thinking you can go out and make a video and edit it and publish it and stream it and, you know, do all sorts of cool stuff.

10:41 It's like having a boat that you expect to function beautifully and get you to the destination you're headed, but it's got a hole in it and it only just chugs along. It's not going to work out. And so we have to address what's going on. So for me, realizing all this came a bit too late. My rock bottom after the breakup, after my brother had died, after the four years of struggle, the rock bottom moment came when there was nothing left. It was my rebuild that had me realize that the actions I was taking were actually what were healing me, actually getting me better.

11:24 Partly based on the doctor pointing out, Johnny, you ain't working your way through this. The extended period of prolonged stress has caused a chemical imbalance in your brain. There's no amount of hard working your way out of this, which perversely is what I thought I could do. If I could just keep everything going, we'll all be all right. I didn't realize I was already on my knees. Before my brother's death finally took me out, I was already on my knees from the weight of it all. But it was as I started to put myself back together when all the toxic elements were removed by circumstance. And what I was left with was, I know what I'm going to start doing. I'm going to start doing the basics.

12:07 I'm going to sleep right. I'm going to eat right. I'm going to get to the gym. I'm naturally going to start calling friends and seeing family more often. I'm going to focus my time with my children on having fun and adventure and real quality time and the things I was reading, alone therapy and the antidepressants. But this is like a holistic approach that was free of the bullshit, free of the stresses. So whilst the stress chemicals were going down, the positive ones were coming up. And that's the point I'm illustrating here. That is the rebuild. That's the recovery zone.

12:50 Okay. And it was been doing that that I realized the structure that I put in place was actually a blueprint for all of us, combined with the 20 previous years of personal study and coaching and leadership and everything that I'd learnt along that way. But actually then doing it for myself, I was like, oh, this actually works then. What's they say? To know, but not to do is not to know, right? So it really was that, that for me. But it's the psychology of the high value man principles of having the clarity and vision in your life and then going after it.

13:29 That's where fulfillment is found. And actually fulfillment is turbocharged by dopamine, right? The experience, the feel-good factor of fulfillment is partly driven by dopamine. Dopamine comes in our body from consistent wins, from completion, from progress, from knowing that we set out to do something and did it. It's like that feeling of getting to the end of the day and completing a task and sitting back and feeling good about it. Gaming companies and gambling casinos, they thrive off this little human quirk of ours. TikTok is obviously a classic one because kids are getting that quick, short hit of entertainment.

14:12 It feels good. But you can generate that and trigger that for yourself by structuring your life around small, consistent wins, your habits and routines, having a goal that you're working towards and knowing that you're actively achieving it. So in the area of your body, your focus, your health, sleep, diet, maintaining a positive existence for yourself there is going to naturally lead you to feeling better, sleeping enough, not drinking all the time or sniffing, you know, really ever, pretty much for that. But, you know, if you're smoking weed and the things that are.

14:49 are going to like have you feeling groggy yourself put those a little bit to one side your morning workouts journaling meditation positive practices drinking enough water hydrating eating good food these are all things that are going to leave you with the feel-good factor for yourself seeing yourself as a man who's creating his life serotonin is stability and and and confidence right you get this from feeling proud of yourself from good sleep from getting outdoors from vitamin d from gratitude and connection these are like the basics of the love and support partly also induced by your mindset oxytocin you

15:43 know you commonly get talk about oxytocin when you at nct classes you're talking about what can we do here to to bring on the on the on birth right but they come from touch from from laughter from being around friends and family from intimacy that's why the people that you spend time with the positive energy in your relationships is absolutely vital completely the opposite of the rejection you feel during in a broken relationship the stress and drama that comes from arguments and constant disputes with you with your missus

16:21 and then endorphins energy and euphoria things that you feel from having fun from from following your hobbies and passions from getting out and playing um i don't know a game of tennis or everyone's playing paddle these days from joining park run and completing it like that sense of accomplishment laughter dancing throwing yourself in cold water like what does it take to get out of your comfort zone to wake your body up this is where you generate the energy and euphoria that endorphins are generated by

16:57 so you can see that if you're living a shitty life at home then none of these things are going to be happening when you actually structure yourself when you actually address the problems that are going on you have the opportunity to address the burnout that you're experiencing another aspect of why this is so important it's certainly something that i did was that i thought that it was my work that was causing the burnout i had it completely upside down it was the stress at home that was making work almost impossible if i had addressed the burnout the stress the drama the tension at home then my work would have been a lot easier my performance would have gone significantly up my ability to manage my team to to generate leads to close sales all would have improved had i addressed what was going on at home properly first and foremost in that situation

17:49 had i made sure that i was still thriving at home that i was looking after myself so that i could then address all the other stuff so you know the fire code fundamentally the high value man system for living as it is which is a 3xc formula in the fire code is about putting a structure in your life where you know what you're going after you're actively moving towards it you're removing the toxic stress and drama from your life that's caused by not having the conversations that matter that not standing up for what you believe in or what you strive for or you know holding people to account when they cross your boundaries

18:30 that is where you set the scene for you then to execute the habits and routines that are going to create the life that you desire the day-to-day positive routines that are going to give you the results that you want because when you start showing up like that a little bit of adrenaline every now and again is going to be a good thing because that's the balance that's where you perform at your highest level and then you go back to the other area of the other feel-good stuff that gives you the balance that has you fall asleep at night and say yes I'm absolutely winning here in life

19:10 where are you at in your levels of stress and drama one of the questions in the dad check-in when we when we bring new men into the high value man project is how much stress and drama do you have at home how much stress and drama do you have at work and that ranges from a hell of a lot it's unbearable through to totally handled not really very much where are you on that scale in terms of your ability to sleep well in terms of your connectiveness to the people around you in terms of the amount of peace and harmony and satisfaction you feel in your life if these feel out of reach like there's nothing you can do to generate those things then you're likely going to be in a state of burnout if this has been for a prolonged period of time you're probably not just going to fix it on your own

20:03 you might even need to go and see your doctor just as i did You can't give from empty, right? You can't pour from an empty cup. So no amount of trying to be the man you want to be from a foundation of burnout is going to work. Bring yourself over to the High Value Man Project. We have got a range of free resources in there, which will start you on the process to creating the structure and harmony you want in your life. And then there's the invitation to come and join the inner circle and the accelerator work that we do together, or even in Elite 101. If you go to the highvalue manproject.com forward slash group, that will get you in at the free level or whatever that currently is free at the moment on the founders rate.

20:48 As the group fills up, then it will likely be some level of nominal fee. So get yourself in there now whilst you absolutely can. Thank you for listening. I appreciate you massively. Share this with other men in your life. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I think I'm pushing harder for Spotify, to be honest. I would love to see the reviews going up on there. You can share really easily from Spotify just by clicking that little arrow thing and passing it on to your friends, whether that's through WhatsApp or Facebook or whatever is your social media channel of preference.

21:24 Until next week, I look forward to seeing you inside the High Value Man Project and finding out exactly what your experience of home life has been and how you put structure in place to show up as the man that you want to be. Let's go. Thanks for tuning in to the Johnny Jensen show. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with fellow dads. Creating the life you deserve starts with you. Get your high value man blueprint and join our community of motivated modern dads at highvalumanproject.com. Let's go.