Q & A Episode 8 - Avoiding Burnout and Preserving Mental Health as a Builder
Episode #8 | Q&A with Mark D. Williams | Avoiding Burnout and Preserving Mental Health as a Builder
Mark Williams shares strategies to avoid burnout and preserve mental health as a busy builder, emphasizing the importance of establishing daily routines, setting boundaries around work hours, and regularly recharging through exercise, time in nature, and quality time with family. He also shares personal examples of policies and practices he has implemented in his own construction business to prevent burnout and maintain a healthy work-life balance.
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About The Curious Builder
The host of the Curious Builder Posdast is Mark D. Williams, the founder of Mark D. WIlliams Custom Homes Inc. They are an award-winning Twin Cities-based home builder, creating quality custom homes and remodels — one-of-a-kind dream homes of all styles and scopes. Whether you’re looking to reimagine your current space or start fresh with a new construction, we build homes that reflect how you live your everyday life.
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hello curious listeners I want to share more about CB USA's group purchasing organization as a member there are so many benefits that go beyond earning rebates and lowering material costs one of the biggest perks is having the chance to network and share ideas with other like-minded builders who are on the same Journey as you CB USA's Minneapolis chapter is about to get going and I'm excited to work with some of the best builders in the Twin Cities my friends Katie and Jesse from jcat design build as well as Jamie and Morgan
00:00:26 Moler from construction to style are on board to join and it's going to be great great there's so much more we can do together as a group than we could ever do on our own and I'm looking forward to the opportunities it's going to bring to learn more about the benefits of cbusa and apply for membership go to CB usa. uslearn that's CB usa. uslearn additionally if you want to hear me interview Ryan lip from cbusa that's episode 26 on the Curious Builder [Music] podcast Welcome to the here Builder podcast I'm Mark Williams your host and
00:01:02 today is Thursday where we're going to take a question from the audience and do our best to answer it so today's question was how do you recharge and avoid burnout and how do you preserve your mental health this is a massive question and um it turns out it's a good timing I just got back from a little uh three-day vacation I'm training for uh an ultramarathon which is actually part of what I'm going to talk about today and I hadn't seen my sister in a while so I went out to Tahoe she's out there
00:01:30 for a 4-month detail she works for the forest service and uh spent a lot of time out in the mountains which is kind of a happy place for me running uh hiking spending some time with my sister and just kind of unplugging um you know spending you know eight nine hours a day out in kind of No Man's Land uh just kind of get in tune with nature and so the reason I'm bringing this up uh I can only speak of how I avoid burnout and I've definitely been burned out multiple times uh maybe I'll start there you know
00:01:57 I would say I'm kind of coming out of a burnout from about a year and a half ago and I think it coincided with two difficult clients and also just um just a lot on my plate young family trying to balance uh kids work I started the Curious Builder podcast in all its various platforms uh going through over some internal turmoil with employees and just seemed like it was just a lot and I would have to say that while I was burning out uh a big part of it was rediscovering what energizes you and so you know it's kind of like that old
00:02:31 football adage the best defense is a good offense and I find for myself personally that the best way for me to avoid burnout is to be really passionate about something to be really you know curious about something so specifically for me it was starting the podcast uh that really helped um energize me I kind of feel like it was sort of like jet fuel to my engine and after a couple years now of having the podcast and uh creating its different things I'm now at a you know different level in terms of I
00:03:01 know what I'm doing I've I've created a bunch of things and I'm still innovating which is really exciting so I would say you know whether it's a podcast or building or you know sometimes people really get energized by you know reshaping their company whether it's employees or you know changing your operations I think those are all things that can help you get passionate about what you do I think what I want to speak about mostly today is maybe some personal parameters that I've set that have really helped me over the Long Haul
00:03:29 avoid burnout and for me Athletics is a huge huge part of my life it always has been and hopefully it always will be uh and I for me I really resonate with this um this slogan or this this this little quote that I've been saying a lot on the podcast recently I've asked my guest to respond to it and it's boundaries create freedom and so for me that means beginning the day where it's pretty much the only part of my day I can control so it starts with actually going to better early and I honestly can't remember when
00:04:02 I started doing this it's got to have been maybe five six years ago um so I usually go to bed probably around 9:00 9:30 and I wake up at 5: pretty much every day and 5 to 7 is kind of my time for you know right now I'm running a lot so it's usually every day I have something different planned whether it's weights or running or you know I run with a lot of other people so I'm maybe driving out to a hill or a trail meeting people and then running or I bike a couple days a week for cross training so
00:04:30 it's but it's always in that time from 5: to 7 and so I don't ever have to think about what I'm doing there's a lot of actually mental freedom in not having to think about what you're going to do every morning I I know I heard one time somebody say that uh if you can remove every hurdle that would prevent you from doing something you don't want to do it's easier to do it so if you have a hard time getting out of bed to go running um I've heard of people literally having shoes at the base of their bed so when they get out of bed
00:04:57 they put their feet right in their shoes and then they have right outside and they just start running and so whatever your hack is uh having a habit uh I think it somebody said takes like 30 days 45 days before your habit is set and it's kind of interesting I noticed last year when I was training for an ultramarathon that after I finished my race in October out in Montana I kind of I thought you know I'm gonna take a week or two off and it took me like a month to reestablish a new habit I think this
00:05:26 year I'm not going to change my habit I I always wake up at that time but I'm going to keep it within different activity whether it's basketball or whatever and the reason I'm bringing up so much of this is really this is what keeps me energized it also forms a form fitting habit if you're going to wake up early you've got to go to bed early and sleep is one of the things that we don't talk enough about um I read a book a couple years ago called H why do we sleep and that really talked a lot about
00:05:51 um I think it was like Tom Brady Lance Armstrong and um forget who the other super athlete was oh Usain Bolt I think like two hours before he broke the Olympic Rec record he took like an hour nap or something like that but they basically said outside of like EPO or testosterone or steroid doping that sleeping is still by and far the the best quote natural drug you could ever take for performance-enhancing drugs and that's how powerful sleep is and so one of the first things you can do for avoiding burnout is making sure you get
00:06:20 enough sleep and for me it means going to bed earlier because I always wake up at the same time uh after that it's you know family time so I'm home every day at around 700 uh get the kids up my wife usually makes them breakfast I get them ready for school and brush their teeth and then we're off to to school for drop off I always do drop off every day so that's kind of that seven to eight time and then obviously you work during the day and I I don't really get burned out at work because there's so much going on
00:06:45 I was just recently talking to my office manager you know at some point in your life you think man I I wish the day would go faster I think way back in maybe high school or college or you know when time is just slowly ticking by and you're looking at the clock you're like oh my word I can't believe it's only 10 o'clock in the morning I have the whole rest of the day but as an adult and I've never thought about this I don't know when it switched but there is never enough time in the day like right now
00:07:11 I'm recording this it's 3:30 on a Tuesday afternoon I'm like what it feels like it's 9:00 am how in the world has the entire day gone by already and so I feel like if you don't have these habits you are going to burn out and so by having a habit to sort of protect yourself from yourself um I think it's really helpful I've just recently I've sort of always been a slave to email because I'm a uber Communicator I really like to communicate it really bothers me when I can't respond to people quickly
00:07:38 and I don't know I don't know if I'll ever be able to completely kind of lay this sword down but I think just not responding all the time right away and letting some space and letting it breathe a little bit would probably benefit me so that's something I'm actively working on uh I've talked about this on the podcast before but um and this is really something I have to thank my wife for because every day I'm home at 5 o'clock maybe 5:05 depending on traffic we have dinner every night at 5:30 and because
00:08:07 I'm a morning person uh almost exclusively my clients will never see an email from me at night or my team I just don't work at night I'm too sleepy I'm just I'm with my family after I put the kids to sleep um I usually go to sleep so there is no time for me to work at night and this is actually benefited me in ways that I didn't realize until years later and this was really because I've always Wanda you know I grew up in a family that we always had dinner together it was very important to me and
00:08:34 it's very important to my wife but you don't realize it till you're a parent um you know I have eight six and a four-year-old and you don't realize till you are a parent of a how much energy it takes and B how thankful you are for that time you know we kind of go we' like to do the rose bud Thorn thing around the dinner table it's that's really your recharge time to avoid burning out you have to recharge and you have to have some downtime and you know if you're single maybe that downtime is going for a walk with your dog in the
00:09:01 evening maybe it's reading a book crossword puzzle you know whatever it is that you are recharged by you have to find it I think make it part of your daily routine if not multiple points in your day because if you're always just going to be stressed out you AR just going to wind yourself up and explode um so for me and I learned this from another Builder here in Minnesota uh I used to when I was single and also before I had kids you know if someone called in the evening you know obviously I would take the call I'm an
00:09:29 entreprene that's thought that's what you did um you know I grew up my dad was a builder and that was well before email so I saw that culturally that you know yeah you answered the phone at night when people rang in fact that was one of the reasons why I didn't want to become a builder uh early on when I was a teenager I remember you know the phone ringing at like 2 o'clock in the morning it was raining and the next morning asked my dad like what was that and he was like oh that was a plumber or you
00:09:51 know a roof leak I had to get a hold of the roofer I'm like man who wants a job where they're calling you at 2 o'clock in the morning and you know now you have teams of people you have you know warranty departments potentially how big your company is um or you might you know call your roofer directly uh maybe that's a shout out to the roofers you guys are on standby all the time but I remember not wanting to do that and so for me I don't answer my phone call phone at night but then again nobody
00:10:15 calls me either so it's pretty easy um and I think by having those parameters and not working on weekends so this other Builder one time said that he wanted this big job let's call it a five six7 million home a huge career move for him but the home homeowner only could meet or said he could only meet on Saturdays at 11:00 a.m. and for two years this Builder met with this client and he said he had young daughters and he said he would it was the biggest mistake he's made of his professional life and hearing that story I've
00:10:44 mentioned it a few times on the podcast has been hugely um helpful to me and it's really shaped my mindset and how I want to do and it's not always perfect I mean we have something in Minnesota called the pray to homes or the Artis and home tour where you know that you know the fall or the spring I'll work because it's important for me to work in my own home so for that month let's say of June you know I'll work three weekends Friday Saturday and Sunday from 12: to 6: and my family knows about it's
00:11:11 not a lot and so just because I don't normally work at night it seems like a lot to them but in the grand scheme of things that is a very acceptable um you know uh you know excuse in my opinion to do that or not excuse is the wrong word but you know about it it needs to be done there are certain things that you know or extenda circumstances or like a client dinner at night something like that but in general if you can create some parameters that allow you to recharge uh the hard part for me is I am
00:11:37 an extrovert so it's I actually get uh excited and engaged and charged up by other people but I get my best ideas when I sort of can collaborate with people but sometimes it's like you collaborate with people and then when you get kind of some downtime especially the quiet time if you're exercising for me that's a lot of the times when the when the thought's kind of pourn when there is quiet it's like it's been you know kind of percolating my brain all day or all week or all month and all of a sudden all these ideas will come out
00:12:06 sometimes I need a person to sort of spark that idea but I do definitely benefit from kind of that downtime um anyway this Builder uh going back to the Builder that said he wouldn't work Saturdays he said that you know every Saturday Saturday was broken up and he missed so much of his of his daughter's growing up year two years there because of that and so as as because of that he wouldn't ever do that again and because of him I actually wrote into my contract that there's no texting to my employers
00:12:32 or to my employees or myself you know after a certain time range you can email us anytime you want because obviously then you can check those emails when you when you operate but I also it's a normal thing I'm not sure at what point in building we thought we were an ER doctor where we were always on call and here's a news flash I have plenty of people I know that are ER doctors and they work like four days on and five days off they work three days on and four days off this is an are doctor like
00:13:00 they need downtime you cannot be a triage surgeon or you know running triage on a a gaping neck wound 247 you will absolutely fry out and they talk about you know some of the most stressful jobs in the world er do is one of them uh EMT and a air traffic controller and I think building actually we could do a whole podcast on this is somewhat similar to an air traffic controller because a general contractor you're constantly being interrupted you're constantly directing you know quote traffic in multiple directions
00:13:30 I've never thought about this before but an air traffic controller is a perfect analogy for a general contractor and if you don't align things right you're going to have quote you know some collisions you're G to have some collateral damage it's not quite as catastrophic as two airplanes in each other I certainly hope not but uh it it there's a lot of stress involved I think project managers are very undervalued in all Industries uh that those an event planners they have a their glunts for punishment this episode is brought to
00:13:56 you by Alpine hardwood flooring they've been our partner now for over a decade installing all our wood floors on all our new homes as well as our remodels and on a personal level Adam and Anthony Jen a lot of the owners are just absolutely amazing people they've been so supportive of my career as well as doing anything we need to make sure that our clients are happy and they work so well with our other vendors and trade Partners at not only protecting their product but also ensuring everyone else's looks great so if you're looking
00:14:22 for a wood floor or for a refinish I highly recommend Alpine hardwood flooring going back to the avoiding the burnout question so those are some things that I do to avoid burnout I think you kind of need to do them daily I also think you need some pauses um I interviewed Jackson Schwarz from hennipen made about a year and a half ago we did a live event and it came out that you know most people give their employers uh or sorry their employees the week of Christmas off um and we've you know the last couple years
00:14:50 especially with young kids and now where it's lining up with schools it's like why are we even working the week of you know 26 through the 1st Nobody's around you call someone they don't answer their email says they're traveling it's like nothing actually gets done you're going to the office and what are you doing you're twiddling your thumbs you know I guess you could work on some operational things or some goal setting which is fine but you probably don't even need to be in the office to do that so I
00:15:12 starting last year or maybe the year before um we've just made it a Mark Williams Custom Homes policy that we are closed for the week of Christmas and the week after we're shut down uh we let our clients know ahead of time now if there are some projects that are you know in construction you know we do let our team teams know about it ahead of time our trade Partners or subcontractors and you know the project manager is like hey if there's an emergency you know let me know um you know if they're around if
00:15:38 they're not around then I guess they're going to call me and but the point of it is is you kind of set the expectations ahead of time you don't just you know set your out of out of office email and just surprise everyone you kind of give them a little heads up and then the other thing that came out with Jackson is that he actually shuts down um it's a handmade glass company that's amazing company hen up and made shout out to them but they closed down the week of the fourth of July and I took me about
00:16:01 six months to a year to actually incorporate it so this last Fourth of July we did it for the first time we shut down the week of the fourth and again we let our our clients know we let our trade Partners know that we just kind of for a mental health break making sure people are energized and it was great people came back all excited and so I'm bringing this up because I feel like it's hard sometimes to say like right now if you said Mark um take next week off o that's going to be hard I have a lot of meetings but if you go out
00:16:29 for four five six months and say book off a week W that's way easier well then how much easier is it to do more like 10 days two weeks you know multiple points in the year you can really start planning out so you so you don't have to you know worry about scheduling so I would really encourage somebody to look at their family look at their life and you know start you know start actually booking these times out this will all help you avoid burnout because what good does it do if you if you want to have a
00:16:56 you know a 30 40y year career but you burn out at 20 yeah I you lost 20 years on the table uh both in earning income mental health I mean and and plus you know you still want to live during the day it's a little bit like you know if if you are just living for retirement you know I'm sorry to say you're not really living and I like what one one of my clients one time said he goes if you're constantly thinking about retirement perhaps you've chosen the wrong career and I've always really appreciated that he said that because if
00:17:23 you're passionate about something it's not hard to work and I think a lot of people listening I know I am like I I do love to work I love I love my job I love people I love who I work with and well not every day is the best day ever I in general I really like what I do and therefore it's not hard to work so a lot of these parameters for Burnout is sort of to protect ourselves from ourself you know for me I I wouldn't even be aware enough without my wife and without my family structure to even think about
00:17:52 some of these things and so you know being thankful that you have people on your team whether they're employees or your you know your inner family your immediate family whatever it is having people sort of give you perspective will help you you know last longer and if you can now let's say extend your career or extend your happiness you know you might not even retire you might find it's so enjoyable and you have such a good balance that you know what is retirement what does that even mean um and then I
00:18:17 would say um you know checking out to check in so I like this saying because you know my dad who I've had on the podcast I interviewed him uh last December he one time said that uh it was the 4 day the three and four day weekends that sort of prolonged his career he had a heart attack when he was 52 he said a lot of it was due to stress you know this is way before you know cell phones and and email and things like that to communicate and so they worked a lot of nights they worked a lot of weekends because that's just what you
00:18:46 did in that generation I feel like if there's ever been a generation that is more open to flexible hours especially since covid it'd be the generation we're in right now I think people especially our clients really resonate when you say you know when you tell that you know we don't we don't meet at nights we don't meet at weekends you know if you want to go see you know your dentist it's not like you get to go at 9:00 at night on a Thursday like that doesn't happen or you want to meet him one o'clock on a Sunday
00:19:11 like that doesn't happen so again why is this normal in construction you know you'll have clients sometimes that will come to you and say you know I'm XYZ you know I can't I can't work during I can't meet you during these times you know you might have to say this then I'm not maybe your Builder and maybe there's some somebody else that wants to do that you know different phases of Life uh we had a client that I've spoken about before where you know they did not have children and he wanted he had a very
00:19:39 busy practice and he said he's actually one of my favorite clients I've ever had and but he said um you know I want to meet at night and I want to meet at weekends and I just talked to that other Builder who said you know don't meet on weekends so I was luckily it was fresh in my brain because it was a big project and I had to be willing to lose it and I said I'm sorry I said I have a young family and I said I'm not willing to give up my nights and weekends for two and a half years but I said what I will
00:20:03 do is anytime you want to meet you know between 5:00 a.m. and 5:00 pm I'll meet you and by the way um I'm going to pair you with an architect who I already knew he was the right architect for this client whose kids were much older and he did like to work nights and weekends and that was his choice and so it worked out really well that the partner that you know this client could work with was very flexible and accommodating and actually enjoyed sort of working you know at those hours and so it worked out
00:20:32 perfect the client had a great experience he's one of our biggest supporters loves you know just helped us you know throw this big charity event recently just an amazing person him and his wife and they had a great build and I think just being honest with them that you know we need to Pro protect ourselves from burnout and also protect our you know our mental health and I think speaking about mental health going to run out of time on this particular episode to talk about mental health and I can't say I'm an expert other than we
00:20:58 need to find ways to to rest I think I've spoken about that quite a bit already but we also need to find ways to be energized I think again going back to a good offense as a good defense if our mental health if we're excited about something like if we have a lot of positivity you know that mental health is going to really protect us maybe it's like good cholesterol um you know that the good cholesterol is going to keep you away from the bad cholesterol and so I think of different things it might be
00:21:25 your faith it might be you know reading the Bible it might be reading eting quotes in the morning it might be as I've already said it might be health and and uh Fitness and things like that it could also be you know people sometimes you know uh for instance every year I usually in the fall will take like four or five days off and I'll go to The Boundary Waters which is in northern Minnesota and it's canoeing and battling and camping it's not very comfortable a lot of people would be like why are you
00:21:50 going in the woods to you know live like a neanderthal but it's so cathartic there's no cell phones that you are completely you know in rhythm with the sun when when it sets and when it rises and life slows down if anything I wish I could stay up there for like a week we usually go for about 3 4 days and it's only about the last day that you really start you know just that calming sensation and so I would encourage people to get outside and to just put their phone away even if it's only for an you know just just go on a walk go on
00:22:20 a run leave your phone behind even better if you can do like a whole weekend without it we're excited to announce that we've opened up another curious Collective for the last year we've had the Cur Builder Collective we now have the Cur Builder Collective for designers the first ones will be happening in September all the details are going to be on our website we have 30 spots available half of them have already filled We additionally have eight spots left in the Builder Collective if you're interested in
00:22:45 getting together in small groups of nine with local Minneapolis based Builders and designers in separate groups and talking about your business talking about your Brands asking those questions that you wish you could ask another business owner then this the place for you details can be found at the Curious Builder podcast.com one of the things we haven't announced it I guess we're announcing it now um I've sort of hinted at a little bit but very shortly we're going to be announcing the Curious Builder boot camp and really what this
00:23:13 is is I've resonated with enough other builders that this is definitely going to happen there's enough people that want to do this where I've gotten so much help of you know getting out in the wilderness whether it's trail running or canoeing or camping or just mountaineering just getting outside and being away from your phone has been such a huge help for me in fact being out in the mountains last week made me want to put something on my calendar quarterly just to fly out for like a 3-day weekend
00:23:37 even you know take the kids whatever just I need to be in the mountains it's kind of my happy place that's where I recharge and so next May uh we're going to go to Zion National Park we're going to limit it to 20 people and it is going to be you get off the airplane you check in your phone there's going to be no phone no alcohol and we are just going to be outside we're going to have some regular rhythm there's there's going to be some journaling component some quiet parts of the day um there's going to be
00:24:02 some exercise whether it's running or body weight exercise some Mobility exercise and then we're just going to be with other builders and entrepreneurs from around the country I'm really excited about it it's going to be just a great way to share something that I'm really passionate about and I think we as a society need to get back in touch with to stay energized and to avoid burnout and to make sure that our mental health is great so hope you enjoyed this episode uh please share with your friends and family and other colleagues
00:24:27 if you find this episode interesting and we'll catch you next [Music] week thanks for listening to the curus Builder podcast if you like what you listen to please give us a five-star rating and write us a review it really means a lot it's a great way for us to just understand what you like about the podcast and what we can keep doing so like and review and please share with your friends and family find out more at curiouser podcast.com [Music]
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