I have had several conversations lately about burnout. I have had three pretty high profile burnout / meltdowns on API Evangelist, beginning with the summer I spent with Isaiah, which was different than the other two, which resulted from me working with StreamData and Postman. Both the conversations I had this week about burnout emphasized preventing the fourth one, which I actually don’t agree with all that much. I think the damage can be minimized from burnout, and I can definitely make better decisions that make them less frequent, but honestly I don’t think they are avoidable and are my fault as an individual.
The speed at which my brain moves is fast. I work hard. I like it. I need it. I really enjoy working on large complex problems. I need to work and stay busy. First I need to make a living and pay the bills, but I also need to keep my brain working, otherwise it can be difficult to maintain balance. Me working a lot of hours, or producing lots of work isn’t the problem. I know when I need to put work down. I know when I am reaching the point of exhaustion and when burnout is accumulating. I am very skilled in knowing when things aren’t sustainable, and I take breaks, step away, and I rest.
Where I have burned out is when things are outside of my control shift and change. In 2016 with the summer away, it was life getting in the way, and I stepped away to help Isaiah. In 2019 I burned out, and put down API Evangelist, because I had worked myself to a point of exhaustion and the two companies I was working with, both Streamdata and Axway were playing games and moving the ground beneath my feet. The same happened at Postman. This is when I burnout. This is when things become untenable. This is when I crash. When the game changes beneath my feet and I do not have control.
While I am working to have my control in my work at Naftiko, I still operate in a capitalist market where I don’t have control over everything. I am a passionate individual and hard worker. This is always a recipe for burnout. I just see it as the way things are in a capitalist system, where value is perpetually being extracted from hard working people like me. I continue to steer myself towards situations where I have more control to minimize the extraction of value from my hard work. It is why I did API Evangelist in the first place. It is why I started Naftiko. To have more control. To hopefully minimize the ground moving under my feet.
I also think the market is extremely unpredictable and volatile today. I think Trump has made this 100x worse. This is why I invest in open storytelling, standards, and tooling, as I feel these are stabilizing nutrients in a very extract market. I tell stories to minimize burnout. I invest in standards to minimize burnout. I invest in tools to minimize burnout. I am doing all the work I can to minimize the burnout, and me driving Kin Lane into the ditch. I am not going to slow down in my work, ideas, and storytelling. I should be able to work at the speed I need. I just need to minimize the obstacles in my way, but more importantly the ground moving underneath my feet by working with people who are straightforward and honest in how they work, and will speak truth to what is going on rather than playing games.
