Claudia is yours.
Thank you. Hi everyone, my name is Claudia Osagie and we're going to talk about Burnout today.
So let me first start sharing my slides.
One second. As some of you guys have probably seen this talk before,
just note that this material also contains today's talk, that means, has new stuff in it.
So I'm looking forward to sharing this with you guys.
So let's dive into this.
Now, the first thing to note is that this might be an emotional talk for you guys.
So if you are starting to feel like heavy emotions or you need to take a pause or whatnot like that,
I recommend doing the following steps, which is to take six breaths within the one minute.
So breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth or vice versa.
Do that six times within a minute and that should help calm your nerves.
It is a good trick to have when you feel like your anxiety is pretty high.
All right. So welcome to the Art of Balancing a Burnout Talk.
If you're wondering why the art of balancing, because burnout usually happens when we're not balancing our personal life and our work life.
On top of that, it also happens when we don't take care of ourselves.
So let's dive in, shall we?
So if you don't know who I am, my name is Claudia Osagie once again.
I'm the VP of Strategy over at Point Three Security. And when I'm not that, I'm an ethical hacker advocate.
In other words, I'm trying to push for rights for us.
That means changing legislation, updating it and so on.
Also notifying the media if they have our image down wrong or using the wrong term, such as hacker.
And so what they should be using cyber criminal for any terrible malicious acts.
But also trying to do my best to also help the community.
If that means pushing for mental health. Also, that means trying to bring diversity inclusion into the field a little bit more.
And with that, I'm also president and co-founder of ROSAC, which is Women of Security.
And when I'm not doing that, I'm also the founder of We Are Hackers, formerly known as Women Hackers.
I'm also the Hacker Book Club organizer.
We basically read a new book every month. And every week at Tuesday at 5 p.m. Pacific Time, we all meet virtually to talk about what we've read.
Yes, the authors do attend. And yes, people mentioned in the books do attend as well.
If you're wondering why it's called the Hacker Book Club, it's because we actually read books written by people within our community.
And, you know, the hacker community reads them with them. So it's pretty fun.
We're going to be doing the Tribe of Hackers Red Team Edition coming up next. So feel free to join us.
Also, ITSP Magazine's Uncommon Journey podcaster. I do this with Phil Wiley, which I think he spoke a little bit earlier with you guys.
And also Alyssa Miller. That is my website. If you want to find out anything about me, it's most likely on there.
I include my personal details. My Twitter and Instagram is there. Feel free to follow or like to reach out anytime my DMs are open.
Now let's dive into this stuff. I'm going to pick some scenarios for you. And these are experiences that you may have gone through.
But this is usually a good way to know whether or not you are dealing with burnout or you did have burnout at one point of your time.
So these examples, I want you to try to pretend that you're in this situation.
So the first one I want you to think of, pretend you're driving in your car.
And while you're driving in your car, you need to merge into the left lane.
And at that moment, you think to yourself, should I look at my side mirror?
Because maybe if I get in a car accident, I don't have to go to that place.
Or I don't have to get that task done. Or I don't need to do that project. Or I don't have to have that awkward moment.
I would feel so much better if I just get in a car accident.
The one thing you should note is that burnout causes this feeling of being trapped.
And most of these examples are going to demonstrate that.
Or perhaps you're one of those people that it used to take you a few minutes to respond to an email.
Now it takes 10 minutes, maybe 30 minutes, now an hour, maybe a day.
Maybe days, sometimes weeks to just respond to a short little email.
Next thing you know, your inbox is flooded and it's overwhelming.
And every time you get in your inbox, you have this feeling of being trapped.
That this is all that you have and you have to do it.
And you're so behind on everything.
But you don't even have the energy or the rush to try to get through your emails.
Or perhaps you've been in this situation before.
Where you have friends and families or colleagues.
They call you but you decline their call.
Not because you're busy.
It's because you see them as another task.
As another thing that you have to complete.
Or a thing that you need to get done.
And you just don't have the bandwidth for it.
You can't hear them talk about their emotional stuff.
Because you're emotionally not doing well.
Something's off about you.
And you can't really do anything.
And you're also concerned that they're going to ask you to do something for them.
When you can't keep giving anymore.
Because you're not doing well yourself.
So burnout causes these feelings.
Where you have sudden sadness to sudden anger.
Like for example, you see a tweet.
And you're like, are you kidding me?
And you just get suddenly really angry.
Really fast.
Or you get sad by watching a commercial and there's some puppy in it.
And you don't know why.
But you just feel like you're hopeless.
And once again, that term trap comes often.
And you feel maybe empty.
You might be experiencing more anxiety or depression as well.
You just feel like you're all over the place emotionally.
Or you just don't understand why you're reacting so harsh.
Suddenly.
Or perhaps you've been in a situation where, you know, something is due.
But you procrastinate to the last minute because you can't focus until then.
Yeah, I've been there before.
Definitely in college.
I'm like, you know what, I'm going to write that essay the night before.
Or I'm going to stay for the exam the night before.
Actually, I'm going to study like two hours before I take the test.
The thing is, though, is that when you're dealing with burnout,
you will do whatever you can to push out a date.
So you're like, well, I don't really need to do that
because I can just keep pushing it out. It's fine.
So you might be late for your work.
Or you might be late for trying to attend something.
Or you might miss things because you don't want to be there
or you just can't do it.
Because once again, there's this feeling of hopelessness
and you feel like overwhelmed and that you are drowning pretty much.
You're just in that water just trying your best to breathe.
But overall, a lot of times when people think of burnout,
it's just that they feel so tired.
No matter how many hours of sleep a night you get,
you just feel so tired and exhausted.
And it's just like you reach maybe more for caffeine.
But the thing is, you just feel so tired
and there's nothing you can do to change that.
One of the things about burnout you should note about is
it's very similar in some ways to stress.
Where when you're stressed out, what do we tend to do?
You might reach for, you know, to get high.
You might reach to get a drink.
And by a drink, maybe more than just one drink, let's be real.
Or maybe you're like, you know what, I think I want to go back to smoking.
Or you're smoking a little bit more.
Or you're drinking a lot more caffeine.
Now the thing is that when you're burned out,
you're trying to compensate for the fact that you have no more energy
and you feel burned out already.
So how are you going to do that is by going to different things.
So for example, wanting something salty or sweet.
So snacking a lot more than usual.
Or the fact that you crave cigarettes a lot more often.
Or getting high is something that you need to do
at the end of the day to just feel better.
Or perhaps drinking a lot more than usual.
Or also drinking lots of caffeine.
So one thing that I'll definitely tell you is that
when I know that I'm starting to do too much,
I tend to crave more caffeine.
So I'll drink like five cups of tea versus just two cups of tea.
And that usually lets me know that I'm entering
like some sort of burnout phase if I don't take care of myself.
But also snacking is something that we do when we're stressed.
We binge eat. Some of us. Or we don't eat at all.
Instead, we go to other substances.
Overall, burnout just feels kind of like this image
where you're just like, I just can't do this.
I can't do this. I need a break.
I need to take time off. I can't focus. I can't do anything.
I just feel like I'm not myself anymore.
Overall, burnout, how it feels, it's like a battery.
You're like a device. You're like your cell phone.
But you haven't charged it for quite some time and it's dying.
And it's on red and whatnot.
That's what kind of burnout feels. It's like you have this battery,
but it's kind of depleted.
I want to start diving into, now you've seen these examples,
and hopefully, or maybe, they might resonate with you.
It's good to see if something connects with you.
That's the first step to making sure you get better
or take the preventative steps as possible to get better.
The first thing I want to let you guys know is that I'm not a therapist,
but I have dealt with burnout.
The first time I dealt with burnout,
and here comes a personal story,
was back in 2013. I did Teach for America.
I was supposed to be a special ed teacher.
When I first started, the thing is that
how it works is that you go to school for like four weeks
before you start being an official teacher. That's right.
You probably have had no experience with kids at all
and you haven't ever taken courses on being a teacher,
but for those four weeks, they try to train you in every single way possible
how to be a full-time professional teacher.
The thing is that once that training was over,
I went into Oakland School District
in the East Side.
One of the things was that I was stationed at one school
and I had a caseload of 20 students,
and students that actually witnessed
their parents being stabbed multiple times
or having kids that have undiagnosed
mental health issues, but they didn't know
what to do with them in the system, so they just put them in special ed
when they don't have dyslexia or any of those things.
The thing was that they weren't getting proper
mental health coverage or anything like that.
And then a few months down the road,
at the same time,
I had to go to another school district,
not another school district, another school within the school district.
So now, at a caseload of 30 students,
now it's approaching 80 students.
Someone who isn't licensed yet, someone who's had no training
or no experience in special ed.
And at the same time, every one
or two days per week, I would have to go
continue my education at night.
And the other thing was that
Teach for America didn't tell me
all these things up front. So what happened
was that you basically
sign an IOU, which is basically
if I were to leave this program within the first
two years of it, I owe them anywhere
from $60,000 to $80,000. As a teacher,
you're making anywhere between $32,000 to $40,000.
And you're barely getting by in the Bay Area
paying for your rent for your apartment.
So if you think about it, at that moment, I wasn't doing well
because I wasn't trained to take care of kids
and their mental health issues because I wasn't a psychologist.
I was someone who was taught how to teach
people that were dyslexic or ADD or ADHD
students. And the thing was that no one
taught us this and no one taught us how to take care of
ourselves. So at that time, I remember
I was driving in my car
and I felt so stuck because I tried
to get out and Teach for America said I couldn't
leave. If I did, I would owe them a significant
amount of money and I would go in debt.
And I remember when I was driving like, okay,
maybe I won't look in my side mirror because if I don't look
in my side mirror, then I don't have to go
to this program. I could get out and then maybe
I can then find another way how to try to push
for them to accept the idea of me leaving
earlier from the program because I'm not doing well.
And I mean, thankfully, no car hit me when I did
do that. But the thing is, is that it was a realization
moment. The fact that I was willing to lose my
life because of debt was something
that I could not believe happened.
And I remember going to my parents and saying,
I'm not mentally doing well. I've never felt this way
before. And this is the first time I've ever heard the
term burned out. It got so bad that
there was no support. And when I went to approach them,
they make me feel guilty for how I felt
saying, don't you care about your kids? But the thing
was that they kept using the term kids instead of students
to remind us that by quitting, we're
quitting all the people who are
failing ourselves and them and that no
one's going to watch over them. And it's your fault. It was
constantly your fault when in reality, they didn't teach us anything
and they were just putting in this program, fixing
a basically a very, very broken school system
with a bandaid that didn't help anyone.
And I just remember just at that
moment, I had to leave and I quit.
And when I quit, I was they then
put a lawsuit against me, forcing me to pay
more than $10,000 for leaving for
health reasons. And I and
those are the things that I want you to know is that
with burnout, when you leave unchecked and you don't
have support, it puts you into a really, really
bad place where it can take you many, many months
to sometimes years to get over and to get
back to normal. So I just wanted to
share that with you is that don't let burnout dictate your
life. You've got to invest in yourself when you know
that something is wrong. Here are the symptoms. Here are the
things that you can do. Okay, so let's go to the next thing.
Another thing to remind
yourself is that if you're feeling burned out, you should
go see a doctor. And the reason for that is they should test
you for your vitals. So for example,
getting your blood checked when you're feeling low in energy
is probably a good thing because sometimes that's a sign of having
low iron or low vitamin D. So I highly
recommend you guys getting checked out on those kind of things.
So do go see a doctor, get your vitals checked if you
can, just to make sure that there's nothing else wrong
because sometimes people that are burned out low in energy,
there's something else happening in their body. So remember,
mental health is totally connected to your body and so forth.
So what is
burnout? So burnout is a state of emotional, physical,
mental exhaustion caused by an excessive prolonged stress.
It occurs when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained
and unable to meet constant demands. Now,
there is a quiz right there for you. The
burnout index, which is wonderful.
But I have to let you guys know that if you love your job and
you love what you do, chances are that quiz isn't going to work really well
for you. It tends to work better for those that are
a little bit skeptical about whether or not they like their job
or don't like their job. I highly recommend checking out.
It's a good way to kind of check to see if you are
already there. Now, the thing to
note about COVID-19 I want to talk to you guys about is because
even though burnout is something that us in the hacker community
have dealt with before, COVID-19
with COVID-19, it puts on a whole different
side where you have emotional burnout as well.
So emotional burnout with COVID-19,
these are usually the signs that you get.
I don't know about you, but what happened was
that right when COVID-19 started coming about,
I didn't feel burned
out at all before then, but I started feeling
a little bit... I don't know how to describe it.
I just didn't feel good
in a sense. What happened was that
I went to RSA conference in San Francisco
this year, and I decided just
to be on the safe side that I would stay at home
and basically kind of just
make sure that no one gets it in case if I carried it
or anything like that. And I was like, okay, 12th day, I'm like,
all right, I think I'm okay.
That changed drastically.
By the day 13,
suddenly I felt like as if there was a hand on my chest
putting down pressure. And I remember
it just felt very weird.
And then I got really lethargic and I got headaches,
like body aches everywhere.
And I was just like, okay, this is weird.
How could I have gotten this? And I guess I got it from RSA
and everything like that. But I remember
having to try to call a doctor at that time
because you couldn't get checked out unless you had a
pre-existing condition, which
I did not fit those terms. So I remember calling
around, asking to get tested. And it
took three hours, but no one really knew where
for me to get tested. Not even the doctors, not even my insurance,
not even the emergency room at that time. And I just remember
just being like, this is terrible. We have nothing set up.
And at the point
of being sick for like five days, symptoms went away.
And then a couple days later, a new symptom came in, which was
just this dry, dry cough for about five weeks
out. And still
at that time, though, I kind of figured
at that point, like way before, when I started getting the
symptoms of body aches and everything, I was like,
okay, I need to revisit my will. And then other things,
I couldn't sleep because all I was thinking was like, is there any chance
that my parents got it? And I'm
pretty sure maybe some of you guys also have been freaking out
about someone else, your loved ones, getting this. And it does
keep you up at night. And it's really hard because you're also
having to work through the emotions with yourself.
It's not something like, oh, you can call a therapist
because a lot of therapists right now are full.
And so it's really hard at this moment. And, you know,
I just want you guys to know you're not alone.
And please wear a mask. I cannot
push that enough. Please wear a mask because
it is not something you want to get. And it's definitely something that
you don't want to give to someone else, even if you don't show any
symptoms, because it does sneak up on you. Like I
said, I didn't feel anything until the 12th, 13th day
of nothing. So
please be careful by wearing masks and, you know,
try to get your, convince your friends and family and colleagues
to also wear masks because I'm not kidding you, it's
not fun to go with. It took about two and a half
months to get back to normal. So be careful
with each other. Love each other and everything possible.
Please wear a mask. So let's go into the next thing.
So usually when we go to like how to prevent
burnout, usually people recommend, you know, exercise,
eat a balanced diet, practice good sleep
habits, ask for help. But the thing is, is that at the end of the day is that
exercise is wonderful. However,
your gyms are closed or maybe for you, you
can't really go walking around because
your health is in jeopardy. So
I do recommend like, you know, listen to music, find some other ways
to find exercise. There's plenty of YouTube videos
to try to do that. Eating a balanced diet is also very
hard when you're burned out because the, remember when I said
when you're stressed, you're going to probably stress eat. So you're
going to go for like the salty sweet things or
you might not even want to eat. Like you have,
you don't crave any food and that does happen.
So you want to do is kind of keep kind of a record of
how much calories you're taking in and making sure you hit
your correct amount of calories. And I hate tracking calories
and you shouldn't have to do that. But if you're one of those people
that like you're, you're really struggling to eat,
do keep basically track of your calories, making
sure you've hit it at least because when you have low calories, you're more
susceptible to having a lower immune system. So it's
really smart to like try to make sure that you're eating
proper amount of calories, but also make sure
that it's healthy. We know what's healthy, right?
It's not candy or junk food. So just remember that.
Practice good sleep habits. It's very hard
because like I said earlier is that
dealing with COVID-19, the fears of losing
someone or you giving to someone and they die,
it's something that's really hard or not
knowing when things are going to change because humans
are kind of silly in some ways because we feel like
we could pretty much predict every day. We can predict
that we can go on a vacation about three or four months. Nothing's
going to happen. The thoughts don't even cross our mind. But now
we're in a situation where we don't even know what's going to happen the next
day. And because of that, that can cause us to have
insomnia. It can make us even feel more stressed out, more
anxious. It can also cause episodic
depression as well. So it's really important to
try to remember is to try to stay as happy
as possible during this hard time. And
there are ways how to do it. One trick that I do is
I think of three things I'm grateful for
first thing in the morning and when I go to bed and switch
up, don't do the same ones. But that really does
help because it reminds you that you have something that's good in your
life. And that's the thing that we need to be reminded of more
today than ever before because it seems like the world's on fire.
Asking for help is something I can still do no matter what,
which is great. All right, so let's dive
into first the self-awareness. So the difference between stress
and, you know, burnout is there's two different
things. And I like to use this example often.
When you're stressed out, you're like, OK, I'll feel better if I
take a bubble bath or I'll feel better if I do some yoga
or I'll feel better if I have that glass of wine.
When you're burned out, you can do all those
things and more and you still don't feel any
different. So that's the difference. Now, self-awareness
is the hardest part. The good news is that you now know of
the term burnout, which is great because by knowing
what the word is and the symptoms, you're
able to have a better idea if you're entering that
zone. So the ones I tend to
find most often is when I'm
doing my inbox. If it takes me longer than
10 minutes to respond to an email and I'm not
busy, that's a sign. No matter how much
hours of sleep I get, that's a sign. When I'm drinking
more caffeine, that's a sign. And when
I decide I want to have another glass of
wine or a couple more, that's
a sign. These are all types of
signs that you can realize from all those previous
examples. The other thing is knowing that your emotions feel kind of all over
the place a little bit. What's really important is to
try to identify if you're feeling trapped or you feel overwhelmed.
That's going to be the first step
because once you have that self-awareness that you're entering
into a burnout phase, you start
realizing immediately that these are the preventive ways that you can
do and prevent it. Also, there are ways
how to reduce it significantly and fast.
So the first thing I always
tell people is to journal because the thing is that we're not able
sometimes to listen what's going on in our own head and our own
body and how we're feeling deep down inside because let's be
real, we are kind of
at a point where when we're not feeling well, we put on the TV
or we listen to music or we
go on social media or we do those
kind of things or read a book. The thing is we're constantly
escaping from what's knowing what's actually happening on in
here. So journaling is really good and I recommend
doing it by hand because it's something that is a little bit more
therapeutic versus typing if you can.
So here you get to see my journal.
Little prints, of course.
What I do is I tend to journal at least once
a week and I don't have any music
playing. I need to have my own space to do so.
And usually it's when the pups are
sleeping, to be honest.
But journaling is really good because what happens is that when you write
in there and you go back in your previous pages, you'll
find trends and patterns. And we
love trends and patterns, right, in InfoSec. And so when you're
able to pick up on those trends and patterns, you're able then to realize
you have a situation and you need to deal with it.
One of the things that I realized when I was dealing with burnout
or felt like I was getting close to burnout, I kept
seeing the term trapped or felt like
pretty much it was the word trap that kept showing up in a couple
of them. And so I realized, OK, I need to do something
about that. So it's really important to journal,
recall a diary, whatever works for you.
The thing is that this is a time where you need to know
what's going on emotionally for you, especially if you can't see a
therapist at this time. At least keeping
some sort of record with yourself. And I do recommend
trying to do it daily if you can. If not,
weekly is totally fine on that front.
Now, the other thing that I tend to do is I do
a break. I take a break from InfoSec at least
once a week. For one day a week, I
take a break from my devices. So
phones off, computers off, and I will
do anything that's not InfoSec related. If that means
volunteering, that means volunteering. If that means
going for a hike for the day, that means going
for a hike for the day. If that means visiting family, that
means visiting family. Or if you ever wanted to learn
how to paint or draw, this is the perfect time to do so.
But taking one day off from InfoSec is really, really important
for you to start trying to get that balance
and to keep that balance there.
And if you are one of those people that you can't stay away
from your devices in case of loved ones contacting you or
whatnot, that's okay. One of the things
that I tend to do is that I will let them know
that I'm going to be taking a break between these hours and in case
of an emergency that you reach me, this is where they can contact
me. It's really important to do that, to let
them know so that they're not worried about you at this time.
But doing it every week is really good, even if it's just
for four hours. Still, it's very
good because you want to do preventative. And yes, you have
to take a break from InfoSec Twitter.
I know it's hard. Believe me, it is hard.
But you have to do it once a week.
And no, I don't mean you have to throw your phone on the ground
or whatnot. Don't be silly. Even though there's
times where I read something on Twitter and I'm just like,
are you kidding me? But anyway,
the other thing to do besides journaling is to keep
a to-do list. So I have...
I have a to-do list. And basically what I do is that I
write down everything that I need to do, any
tasks that I need to be on top of, and I write
it down. And this could be personal stuff. This could be work stuff.
But the thing is, I take this list everywhere I go in the house.
Also, if I was on the road,
I'd take it on the road. The reason for that is because
it kind of empties out space in your head so you're able
to think about other things and become more connected to have that
self-awareness of what you're going
through. So it's really therapeutic to write
down all these things so you feel like you have more space in your head.
It unclutters it. It's also really good
if you are someone who struggles to sleep at night. Having a
to-do list is going to be really helpful for you. Once again, it's something that
has to be written by hand.
And there's a reason for that because sometimes we have a to-do
list on our phones or on
our laptops. And that's great and everything, but the thing is,
you know when you're about to fall asleep and you're
like, okay, I'm going to go to sleep. And then suddenly you're like,
oh my god, I forgot to send that email.
Or, oh, that was such a great idea. I need it.
And then you just keep thinking about it over and over
and over. And this is the reason why it's harder
for you to fall asleep. So one thing to do is have a to-do
list. So have it by your bed in case in the middle
of the night you wake up like, oh my god, I forgot to do something. Just write it down
and you'll do it in the morning. Review that list in the morning
too when you're ready. That means, you know, when
you're drinking your coffee or your tea or afterwards.
Whenever you feel like you're in that space to remember what you need
to do. But it's very good because when I first started
I was very, very overly anxious
thinking that this is going to be
hard. Because it is overwhelming when you see
that list. But think about this. When I first
started it was five pages long usually. And that's
when I realized I got to fix something about myself.
And also I need to fix my situation
that I'm in. So now it's at one page.
So it's always that one page now. And that's
the thing. It's just be on top of it. And plus it feels really good to cross
out things. You're just like, yes!
So I really recommend this. Plus your
memory might not be so great sometimes. So it's really good to
remember it that way.
Now, be a good manager is one of those things I like to tell people
because if you're a bad manager
you're going to make your people feel terrible
too. What that means is you should
be doing everything possible to understand
mental health is an issue.
Even if it looks invisible. And if you're wondering what do you mean
by invisible? For example, if I had a broken arm, I would have a
cast on. You would see I have a broken arm and you would understand
that there's something wrong. The thing is
with mental health is it's not visible usually.
And because it's not visible, they think
that you are making it up sometimes or they just
don't consider it as a high priority versus because they can't
see it. And so that is one of the issues with mental
health and for offices to take it seriously
is because it's invisible. It's an invisible danger.
And so the thing is also to note about
the invisible danger. I'm very glad
that COVID-19 is forcing companies to finally
recognize mental health, especially burnout.
If you're a good manager, what you should do is make sure you give
one mental health break day per month. And I ask
to do it on a Friday or Monday. There's a reason for that.
It gives them a chance to have a three-day weekend
because we love three-day weekends. It's a good time for us
to catch up on all the things you want to.
So doing something like that is really beneficial to your employees.
It's giving one day off per month for everyone.
And you can call these
self-worth days or something. I don't know.
You can figure something out. But basically you give an option saying
you can either do anything that will
help you in your career or you can take the day off to relax
and recharge. That's really good. The other thing is having
one-on-ones weekly with your
employees. About 15 minutes to
20 minutes per week should be good enough.
It's a good time to visit all the things that
you have to do, all the assignments, and work with
your manager to prioritize which things are more
of the things that need to get done
or put more attention to. So it helps with prioritization
but also is a good note to know how the
employee is doing. With burnout
and all of that, this is also a good way to note also
if your employee isn't responding
to emails as fast as usual
and they seem a little bit different
emotionally on a phone call or something like that,
this might be a good time to remind them like, you know,
you can take time off if you need to take time off.
It's important for you to do that.
Another thing that you can do is to enforce
a no meetings day policy per week.
So every week at a certain day, no one can book
meetings on that day for anyone on the team.
So this is a day kind of like to catch up on anything or to
focus on certain things that you need to get focused on.
So no meetings, so you're able to focus on whatever you need to
get done for that week. It's really beneficial.
So those are some good tips I have for you. And also,
just be a good person.
If you do have an employee that comes to you saying,
I'm not doing so well emotionally, I need to take some time off,
don't discourage it. Don't guilt them into
well, what about your team?
That's not your response. That's not the right response to do.
The right response is to be like, okay, what days
in the next one to two weeks work best for you?
And to remember that if the person needs
to take a break, you don't have to always
let them tell you why they need to
if they need to. Otherwise, don't ask
right now at this time because chances are it's an emotional thing.
I think that's really important is to
try to remind your employees that it's
okay for them to take a break if they need to.
So now we're going to talk about how to bounce back.
Those are all preventative things that you can do if you're starting to feel
like you're getting burned out or you want to avoid burnout.
Now we're going to talk about what to do if you're already burned out.
You have to take time off.
I hate to break it to you, but you have to take time off.
That means you have to take at least three
business days off to recharge your batteries.
How bad it is, that means like a whole week.
And the reason I say three business days
is because you want to take it near your weekend so you actually get
five days off, right?
It's really important for you to get the time off that you need
to recharge. And I know that we tend to feel guilty about
taking time off because our team members
need us and all that. But let me remind you is that when
you are burned out, you're not 100% you.
You're not even close
to the percentage of usual you. And because
of that, taking time off is really important because
you need to recharge your batteries so you can go back to being
who you usually are. And this is good for your team.
Taking time off is so important on this
and other things I know that we stress out is like, well,
I'm going to come back with so many things and it's going to be overwhelming.
I'm going to give you some tricks. So the first trick I have
for you is to make sure that when you
have your out of office message,
put it as your date two days later
than what you're actually returning. So for example, if I'm returning
on the 14th, I'm going to let people know that I'm coming back on the
16th. This gives me two days of having to
respond to emails. The other thing that you should do is
put a hold on your calendar for the first two days that you're back.
So no meetings at all. Just block it
so then you're able to catch up on everything.
If you can do two days, great. If only one day, just do it.
It's going to help you so then you're able to bounce back.
I did take my first vacation ever for one week
in the past two and a half years.
And I made sure to block that and it worked really,
really well because I did return to like, I think it was
definitely over a thousand emails. But it was definitely stressful
when I came back. But I also felt better so I was able to respond
a lot faster. When you do come back though,
I do recommend in the afternoon on your first day
back is to message your teammates and ask if there's anything
that is urgent that needs to be done. So you're able
to kind of prioritize and get everything done
and also you don't get lost in your inbox. It's also important to let
people know is to CC you
in everything and to keep it on one communication
channel. Meaning, if you have something that I need to be aware
of, keep it via email. Don't do it by Slack
because having multiple places to check for communication
around things while you're gone is really stressful
for everyone because things are, you're probably
not going to catch that. It's going to be too much because
there's just so much different types of communication. So just keep
one long email chain for each thing.
Also having a project management system is really important
too to help you be able to prioritize
and know what is on your plate. Now before you take
the time off, just note for the first few days or that week before,
you will probably have to work a little bit extra to make sure that you have that
zero inbox if you can, but also be on top of any
assignments that are kind of needed to be done within the week.
Those are my tips that I have for taking time off.
Also learning to say
no. So when I had that to-do list the first time
it was five pages long, I realized I had to learn
how to say no because
constantly over juggling every
different thing is very exhausting.
So it's really important to learn when is a good time
to kick on something new, when is not.
I know that sometimes when we have a job or whatnot,
we need to accept assignments, but if it's not part of
your job, you do not need to accept those assignments. And if they give you
problems with that, let me tell you how you do this.
Keep an email chain. Keeping your
paper trail of all the emails is
really important. And I do recommend that also when you tell your
manager you need to take time off, send out a quick email saying
thanks for meeting with me and talking to me about this.
I really appreciate that and I'll take off these days.
You want to keep a record of all your conversations
if you definitely have a terrible workplace
because this will protect you in case HR needs to get involved
for you to be like, where are you talking about? You knew about my issue.
Here's the paper trail. Here you go.
Also, whenever someone puts a task under you
that's not part of your job, remind them politely.
Hey, I already have too many things and this is not usually part of my job.
I recommend you reaching out to this person instead.
So hopefully that person is your manager. So you have to learn to say no.
And it is hard if you're a high performer because
the chances are if you're a high performer, they're going to be like, oh great,
you got that done. Here's some more stuff for you.
It's a great reward, right? So just keep
that in mind. I will definitely
also share with you is that if you're someone who
feels like there's no one on the team
that looks like you or acts
like you on your team, that there's a part of you that
feels like you don't belong and you constantly have to prove
over and over that you belong to be there, you're going to get
a little bit more burned out because chances are they're going to
always see you as someone else.
And if you're wondering what do you mean by that? Okay, so
I had one of my jobs.
I was, you know, a marketing manager
or whatnot. But every time I would go into a meeting,
the executives would turn to me and say,
Chloe, you got that? You got the notes down? And
I remember just being like, why am I taking down
notes? And you're like, oh, can you go get a glass of water for me?
Oh, can you get me a cup of coffee for me? And the thing
was that I kept doing those things because I knew
that I could lose my job if I didn't or if I
caused a problem because they were already seeing me as that
woman who causes problems if I were to speak out.
So if you're in that situation, please note that there
are plenty of companies out there that would love to have you
and you should not be working there.
And what I meant on that one is
like some of us we deal with, we have to be perfect because
we're worried we're going to lose our job. So we accept whatever
treatment, we accept the extra job duties on top
of a job that isn't supposed to have anything to do with those
things. We're constantly on being bombarded
with projects from our teamwork. I mean,
our team, basically our team members,
we constantly have to accept it because if we don't,
we're really worried we're going to lose our job.
And that's a real fear, especially right now with the economic
situation. We're constantly like, I have to do whatever
I can to keep my job. I have to do everything I can to keep my job
because there are hardly any jobs out there and I can't
afford that right now. I have to make sure I take care of someone
at this time. I can't handle
all this. I have to do whatever I can.
Please note, you're in InfoSec.
There is definitely a shortage of personnel and there are
definitely openings out there. And if you're looking for
a role, DEF CON is the place, once again,
to look for that. There's plenty of us that have connections
that can help you get in the door. You should not be putting
up with that. And if you have that fear of losing your job
all the time, that means you're not working in a good
collaborative environment or you have a really bad manager.
And which is the case, we need to talk about, you need
to start learning how to invest in yourself.
One of the things about burnout is that when we're not
balancing our work and personal life, it also means that we're not
investing in ourselves. We're not taking care of our needs.
And that's a really scary thing because if we're
constantly doing everything we can bend backwards for our
team members or for our families, our friends,
the thing is, is that you're giving so much
that you forgot to take care of you. And right now
you need to invest in yourself because clearly you
already are in burned out at that point.
So it's really important to invest in yourself. Take some time for yourself
daily. Put limits to different,
if you need to call someone and be like, okay, I can talk
for like this and this time, but I need to take it.
I need to make sure that I get off the phone at this time
for personal reasons. Then just let the person know ahead of time
about that. It's really important that we start
really respecting other people. If they
seem like I can't talk right now or like I
need to take a break, respect that at this time
because chances are they're trying to figure out how to reinvest in themselves
and your manager should invest in
yourself. So if you have a manager that isn't investing in you,
I want to just also let you know about that is that a good
manager wants you to thrive. They want to see you go
be on them. And if you don't have that type of manager,
it's time to look elsewhere and
you can still work at the same job, but also look on the side,
reach out to some recruiters. They're always looking to
help people find something and also people in the community
and InfoSec Twitter. It actually helps out quite a bit.
The main takeaways from this
I hope you have is when you feel overwhelmed, do a device detox.
Remember, you want to do more than four hours per week.
Get away from InfoSec once a week.
Do other things. When you feel overwhelmed, invest in yourself.
That means do something that's going to make you feel happy
and better because the chances are you're feeling
burned out or you're getting close to being burned out is because you're not
taking time for you. When you feel overwhelmed,
ask for help. InfoSec Twitter is an amazing place
to ask for help. Defcon is a wonderful place to ask for help.
Mental Health Hackers is a wonderful place
to ask for help. The thing is,
I wouldn't be where I am today if I didn't ask
for help. And so that's really important to know
is that the community has your back. They are there to support you.
So ask for the help. It's okay. And I know
it's scary to ask for help sometimes, but just do it because
they're there for you too. When you feel overwhelmed,
write it down. Remember, have a to-do list. Do your journaling.
This is going to be really helpful for you. Do it by hand and paper.
Please don't do your computer or your phone
or whatnot like that because that is not going to help you at all
because what happens is that when I pick up my phone, I'm like,
I'm going to get this email done. I'm going to go to another app
and then another one and then another one. Next thing you know, it's been an hour
when I was only planning to spend maybe like five or ten minutes
on my phone. So the thing is, make sure you do that.
When you feel overwhelmed, take a break. Remember, if you are
starting to feel like you're getting burned out
or you are in burned out, make sure that you take at least
three business days off. Also, making
sure that you take a weekly day off for that
device detox. That also means getting away from social media.
And I just want to put out here beforehand,
if you're going to take time off
for work, that means you've got to get off of social
media and InfoSec Twitter. That means you need
to get off your devices too. So how burnout
works when you want to get back to normal,
you actually have to take those days off as if you are
doing a huge device detox.
I've done it. It works like a charm.
Let me tell you, two days of just a device detox and I felt
100% almost better. So I really do recommend it.
When you feel overwhelmed, put yourself first. And I want to really
let you guys know about this, is that
when you're not taking care of yourself, you cannot be there for others.
When you're mentally not well, you cannot be mentally
there to support someone else. That's why it's
important, if you care about the person that you're trying to be there for,
you also need to keep yourself in check and have that self-awareness
and do whatever is needed to make you feel happy.
And if you're wondering, I don't know what makes me happy anymore
these days, write... I'm all about writing.
I do a T-chart. So basically a T-chart
like this. And I have one column that is
things that I love about InfoSec, things that I love outside
of InfoSec. And then I look over it and see
what are things that I'm doing, what are things I'm not doing.
And the things that used to make me happy, I try to
do those things all over, or I try to learn something new.
There's plenty of things to do out there. I mean, YouTube,
Google, it's all there. You can find out anything and learn
how to do anything these days. When you feel
overwhelmed, know that you're not alone. I really want to push this
forward. It is so important for you guys to know that
you are not alone. There has been
one part in my career where
I felt very isolated from everyone
because I didn't know Twitter or InfoSec really existed yet because
it was my first year in InfoSec. But I remember
feeling very isolated and alone and wanting to leave
InfoSec permanently because I didn't know that there was
such a great community here that has each other's back.
And when I did find that community, oh my God,
it was like as if I've seen
everything like black and white and gray shades and
everything and then suddenly became something like HD in color.
The thing is that there are so many great organizations
here and everyone has your back. At the end of the day,
there are a lot more good people in the world than bad people
and I try to remind that quite often.
Most importantly, though, how you can tell
if you're burned out is always to ask the question,
am I balancing my work and personal life? If not,
take the steps to fix it. If that means that
you only have two devices, so for example,
having two different phones, one for work, one for
personal life, I highly do recommend if you can do that
because what you can do is stay away from your personal
device and then during the times that you usually work,
you only have your work device near you. And
when you're done with work for the day, take a
one hour kind of like break to yourself, do whatever you need to do
and then go on your personal device
and take your calls, text and do all that.
I do this so I separate my personal
life from my work life. It's really good to try to separate
the two because it does help with understanding how much balancing
I'm doing. You want to make sure you're doing more
personal hours or the same amount of personal hours as your work.
And
I just want to let you guys know, I did have burnout.
I've had burnout a few times. You can definitely
get back to normal
with your break. It's just important to
remember these preventative techniques and whatnot.
And also, if you're already burnt out, now you know what to do.
And if you need any help, I'm here for you.
I'm also here to do Q&A for you and everything.
And also, I ask for
one favor from all of you guys. If you guys can take a
quick screenshot copy of this page,
you don't know you might be helping or saving someone else's life
by simply just sharing this. It's good for you to have
this wherever you go. Have it on your phone.
Have it on your computer or whatnot. Send it to your loved
one so then they're aware that they have this because maybe
they don't need it, but maybe someone that they know or are talking to,
they now know these. These are really important resources
to have, especially at this time.
This was a list basically provided from
the CDC, so please go ahead and use it. And last but not least,
I just want to also let you guys
know, a lot of questions I tend
to get are about drinking. How much is drinking
is okay? How much is not okay?
And I do recommend doing the following things,
which is don't ever drink by yourself,
meaning have a virtual one-on-one
or be on the phone with someone else who's having a drink with you.
Never drink by yourself. Set certain days as the day
that you can drink and never go past two drinks
for that day. Don't drink, of course, during
any time of work hours, but do it
in the late afternoon or evening, it's okay.
So please remember, that's how you
practice good drinking habits. If you want to drink,
definitely on that front. And
just remember, if you're drinking or you have the urge
to drink a lot more and
maybe it's a time for you to look for help
or to tell someone about that because
I know it's a hard time right now, but
drinking is not going to solve that for you. If anything, it's going to
make you feel worse, especially if you are burned out.
I hate to break it to you, but alcohol is just going
to make you feel 10 times worse
afterwards because you have this drop
you experience a drop of and sometimes you get
experiencing like this kind of like depression symptoms.
So I really recommend you not doing that.
Anyway, I just want to say thank you guys for
existing. If you have any questions at all, feel
free to reach out to me. I am here. I'm also here to take any
live Q&A. I'm going to
turn off my slides so then I can
you guys can, I don't know, well, we'll just
I'll turn off my slides now. Hold on.