PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

Ian Robertson
Hey Jay, did I tell you that I came up with a new slogan for your company?

Jay Wynn
Oh, no, no, you haven’t. What is it?

Ian Robertson
Yeah. So, and everybody has to know that Jay has a glorious, glorious brow. So your new slogan is going to be, “I don’t just inspect, EYE BROWSE”. Get it?

Jay Wynn
I get it.

Ian Robertson
I think that’s a great start to our Drinking With Jay segment. One of my favorite segments is Drinking With Jay, because it just makes good conversation when you have a drink in your hand. You’re podcasting about home inspections, and you and I get to hang out. And I do have to say, your beard is glorious. It looks great on you, man.

Jay Wynn
Thank you. And I like yours as well. So here’s to facial hair.

Ian Robertson
Exactly. We should do a podcast on facial hair.

Jay Wynn
There you go.

Ian Robertson
But you know, there was a, there was a listener who recently told me, home inspector called me, he goes, Ian, I saw a picture of you. I thought you were bald. I’m like, really? Why would you think that? And he goes, I don’t know, you just sound bald. And I’m like, what does? What does bald sound like? And I had so many questions for him. He couldn’t answer any of them. But I was intrigued. I was what bald sounds like.

Jay Wynn
That’s interesting. Is it because you do the podcast and nobody ever really sees your face, it’s just pretty much your voice. Do you think?

Ian Robertson
I don’t know. For whatever reason I sound bald. So for anybody listening, I have a relatively full head of hair. So I mean, yeah. So there you go. And again, I’m digressing. But we’re going to talk today about a completely unrelated subject to the things that I just brought up here. But we’re going to be talking about people burnout. Now, like two years ago, we did a, maybe even we did it together, but how to deal with inspector burnout in general, you know, burnout from overworking, burnout from just about anything. But tonight we’re going to talk about people burnout specifically, because we all feel it to an extent. But before we get into that, what are you drinking, Jay?

Jay Wynn
I’m actually I’m drinking Adirondack High Rye. So I got a graceful glass. Yep. It’s, actually I think you left it one night when we were getting together. So I’m getting in that tonight. So I’ve got that going. And it’s quite delicious.

Ian Robertson
You know, I was this close to grabbing that bottle of the High Rye in my basement. And instead I went within Lagavulin 16, because it’s kind of my jam. And I think it was a Lagavulin 16 kind of night, but yeah, that’s one of my favorite ryes. What do you think of it?

Jay Wynn
I like it. Um, sometimes in my, to my palate, some ryes can have like an acetone kind of flavor to them on the tail, be a little bit harsh. There’s just nothing in this. It’s just a nice light grain flavor that’s very smooth and very easy. So I guess if it was another segment of drinking with someone else, he’d tell you there’s light sugary caramel aftertones…just means it tastes good. I can get a little bit of grain. There’s no chemical flavor or nasty aftertaste, it’s just smooth and easy. So…

Ian Robertson
Jay’s sitting there, it has an oakey afterbirth. You know?

Jay Wynn
It’s like caramel flavoring with…

Ian Robertson
Good times. But Jay, you know, sometimes when I’m dealing with a people problem, I’ll call you and be like, Jay, can I just yell for a minute, not at you, but about someone to you? And you’ve done the same.

Jay Wynn
Oh, yeah.

Ian Robertson
We as people are just difficult creatures to deal with. You know, we go into the store, and I don’t, I don’t know why there’s like unspoken rules. Like, wait for the person coming the other way. Don’t park your car across the aisle, you know, sideways and just people, those little things tend to get to me over time. Do you, do you find that people in your business and life tend to get to you over time, Jay?

Jay Wynn
Well, in an extreme way. I’m a very introverted personality. By nature, I can spend long periods of time alone and you know, even longer if I have just a few select people that I get to be with to satisfy that need. So I’m coming from the point where I don’t get energy from people. In fact, being around a group drains me. And yeah, in general, just society has been putting a lot more pressure on that aspect. But even professionally, I find, I think one of the things that I came to realize a long time ago is that I’m not in the inspection business primarily. I’m actually in the people business. And it’s, it’s gotten hard, I think it’s gotten hard socially. So we’ve got that constant irritation, and then even professionally, dealing with people, there are some days when it’s like, you’re full on, I feel like a therapist and not a home inspector, because you got to handle all the emotions and everything going on with somebody. And I get it. I mean, they’re at a very stressful time, they don’t understand the process, they’re looking at spending a huge amount of money, they don’t know what’s going to happen for the house, you’re walking through telling them all the problems with it, they’re stressed already. But sometimes it can be real hard to handle all the emotional demands that are put on you on a day to day basis. And then I think the other side of that is, for me, once I get irritated, it takes me a long time to calm down. I don’t let things go fast or easy. So this stuff tends to build up, which is why yeah, I will call you sometime to go, Ian, blah! And just lose it for about 10 minutes. So I get it. And I think you’re seeing the same thing. And honestly, I think a lot of guys out there seeing it. I think a lot of us are actually dealing with this, we just don’t tend to talk too much about it.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, and we’ll get into that in a little bit about not talking about it. Because I’m just gonna throw some figures that shows. Looking up psychiatrists in the United States. Well, first of all, there’s lots of studies, there’s one done by the mental health institution in the UK, but I’ll just focus on the United States, they started measuring people’s anxieties, anxiety levels, back in the 90s, like early 90s. And they said, there’s been a steady increase over the decades. But they said over the past four years, that there has been a spike in people’s anxiety, and conversely, how they react to life, by 25%. So now, people are basically 25% more irritated, on edge, and anxious than they were just four years ago. So now we take that, and we put people into the second most stressful situation, I actually think it’s third, I think it’s the death of a loved one, then it’s a divorce, and then it’s buying a home. So it’s the third most stressful situation that a human being experiences in the modern Western society. And then, during that, the home inspection tends to be one of the most stressful parts of that, if not the most. And then that’s where we come in. So we as humans tend to be empathic. What other people feel affects us whether we like to admit it or not, unless we have some sort of condition that doesn’t allow us to feel feelings. When somebody’s stressed around us, our subconscious picks up on physical cues, pheromonal cues, and all these other things. So that’s a long way of saying, if we’re feeling a little bit of people burnout as a home inspector, we’re not alone. And there’s science behind it saying, yeah, it’s a little bit harder right now, people are a little bit more difficult to deal with. I mean, just watch YouTube, you don’t need science, just watch YouTube and scroll through every angry video of a Karen throwing a gallon of milk at a clerk, you know, people are on edge.

Jay Wynn
Well, I think the last four years, too, I think. I think it’s, it’s revealed problems in our society that nobody really wants to talk about. And I think one of the things that a lot of people that at least in my experience, they’ve lost confidence in a lot of the established social structures. And I think there’s a lot of people that are just feeling lost. And, you know, for whatever reason, we’ll get into all that, because I’m not an expert on that. But that’s just kind of my impression of things. It’s, it’s, it feels like a lot of things that people used to put faith in have been smashed. And that’s kind of what I get, especially from the younger generations. And the younger people that are dealing with this. They just don’t know where they’re going. And they don’t know how they’re going to get there. And they don’t know what it’s going to take to do it. And they’re just really stressed about even the immediate future, let alone the long term future.

Ian Robertson
Put ourselves in a young person’s shoes that’s buying a house. So let’s say their whole idea of life has just been turned upside down over the past four years. And they’re trying to buy a house. There’s no houses on the market. There’s no, no real good way going forward to get a house for a lot of people. They’re having to pay twice as much in some areas as they did just five years ago, four years ago. And agents on site. They’re worried about, am I going to have a job come July because of the NAR settlement, am I going to be able to do this, am I going to be able to do that, is this deal going to go through? This was the only house we could find for them. Everybody in that room has just bottlenecked their anxiety. And we tend to be as home inspectors at the opening of that bottle at the top when everything finally blows.

Jay Wynn
Oh, yeah, well, especially because I think if we’re doing our job, my take on it, and this is something that in that pre-inspection conversation I have with people, is I’ll tell them straight up, I says, you know what? I’m here to be your professional pessimist. So I’m not gonna go, ooh, pretty nice, ooh, good. I’m here to go, here’s a problem. Here’s a problem. Here’s something to think about. Here’s something you have to maintain, oh, here’s a big problem we need to talk about. So I tried to preempt that too. And it’s funny, because I’ll say that, and a lot of people are like, yeah, I know. And I’m really nervous about this. And I don’t know what you’re gonna say, and what’s your opinion of things. And they’re really putting a lot of pressure on us during the home inspection, because it is a high stress time and not bad pressure. They want to make sure that what they’re getting is worth the money they’re spending. And it’s not in such a shape that they can’t take care of it. Because I think the other side of that is not only they overspending on houses, but most young people today have not, in my experience been trained to do even basic home maintenance and stuff that you and I take for granted. They don’t know how to caulk a window or do basic painting, or many of them have never used a screw gun before. So the idea of anything needing to be done in their house, whereas to you or me it’s like yeah, you know, you just take care of it this way, XYZ, no big deal. Anything that needs to be done can be very overwhelming, because it’s a skill set. They also have never had to develop or never were taught. And I think that’s, that’s another part of it. A lot of people want to learn, they want to know, they’ve just never had the chance to learn.

Ian Robertson
Which I think is ironic, because to bring up YouTube again, that information has never been easier to find. But there’s a difference between scrolling through videos and having your uncle or father or whoever stand over you yelling at you that if you don’t do this right, you’re gonna, you’re gonna get in the back of your head. It’s like, okay, you know, and so you do it right. You know, it’s, you know, it’s a different time.

Jay Wynn
You’ve heard the joke that you know, people, you’re on site, you’re doing something they’re like, you don’t seem to get rattled. You just say, yeah, I held the flashlight for my dad when he was working on his house.

Ian Robertson
Exactly. Oh man, holding the flashlight.

Jay Wynn
Yeah. Remember that?

Ian Robertson
Still don’t know, still don’t know what I was supposed to be pointing it at.

Jay Wynn
I don’t either because you could never tell. But it’s like, there was a trial by fire there, for that nothing’s gonna rattle you, you know?

Ian Robertson
Yeah. But I’m gonna, speaking of nothing rattling you, we’re gonna run a scenario by you that I see with a lot of home inspectors. And you tell me if maybe you feel this way because I know I do. We go and we have a tough inspection. But we’re okay. You know, it wasn’t that bad. The next one was okay, people were a little stressed, but it was fine. And day in and day out, that happens. And for some reason, like 3, 6, 8 months later, we kinda have like a little freakout. And we don’t know why something finally broke us, the straw that broke the camel’s back, or why we’re freaking out or why we’re stressed. But I read a lot about some psychiatry papers that talk about what we do when we have basically our bandwidth to deal with people in situations, and the illustration that one psychiatrist gave, and that is often used in the psychiatry community is a narrowing river. So if we’re on a river, and it’s really wide, and there’s a log way over there, and a little bit of moss here, we don’t care, we have enough room and we’re going to the left or to the right, even if something big happens, whoa, well, our river is big enough that we can just steer right around it. As we go down the river, the river starts to narrow. That log that was 30 feet away from us is now two feet away from us. That moss that was on the edge of the river is now right up in front of our boat. And we’re trying to steer through that while trying to avoid the log. And then what ends up happening is one of those little things in the river ends up finally breaking our boat. So that illustration makes a lot of sense to me. We’re going about our day. Yeah, that client was annoying, but they went away. Yeah, those people were stressed. But you know, it’s a stressful situation. I helped him through it. And people take from our emotional energy or more appropriately, we give them our emotional energy. And our emotional river starts to narrow. So it’s like I tell my daughter, when people get mad at you, it’s usually not that thing that they’re mad at you about. They’re usually mad because of the accumulation of things that led to that. And they’re just blowing up about that. I know I find myself like, you use that store illustration because man, the store just stresses me out lately sometimes. It’s just like, why don’t they have bananas? Why am I freaking out in my head about bananas? I don’t care about the bananas. I’m freaking out about everything else in my head that led up to that. Do you think that’s an appropriate illustration? Or do you have a different take on it?

Jay Wynn
I don’t know. I mean, you there might be something to, when you start feeling things coming in at you and you have less room to maneuver. It’s almost like if you’ve ever confronted an animal that’s trapped in a corner, you know, they might turn and hiss as long as they’ve got a way to run away. But as soon as you put them in a corner, they start getting real savage, regardless of the size of them. So maybe there’s something to that. I think, for me, what it is, is, what usually ends up happening for me is, I’ll go through six 8, 10, weeks and things will be stressful. And then I will get the phone call or the email from somebody that was six, eight months ago. And they’re angry, they’re upset about something, and that just cranks everything up. And then I’ll be nervous and anxious about the phone ringing, or the emails coming in. Because it’s like, you start second guessing every inspection that you’ve done from that time, all the way up, through or even beyond. So that tends to what happens to me is that when somebody calls up and is upset, and honestly, usually it’s baseless, you know, you didn’t write down that there was a gutter that was dripping on my irises. And now they killed my bulbs, and I’m upset, it’s like..just stuff like that usually comes up.

Ian Robertson
Sounds like a real story behind that one.

Jay Wynn
Maybe, maybe not.

Ian Robertson
Maybe.

Jay Wynn
But, but you know, what I’m saying is, and then all of a sudden, everything that’s happened comes back, just in sharp focus. And for me, I have a hard time letting the negative go, I really tend to focus on and remember the negative experiences, whether they be minor or major. So letting things go has never been my strong suit. And I think actually a lot of guys are like that. Because when we get together, I have been talking with some other home inspectors and we get winding up, they’ll remember things that clients said 2, 3, 4, 5 years ago, like verbatim, and they’re still upset about it, and you can see it because they still get angry, still get worked up. So I don’t think I’m alone when I say that, I think a lot of us actually tend to do that. We tend to remember, the negative experiences much more than the positive ones.

Ian Robertson
So I guess it really comes down to the fact that I mean, there’s different people, some people are like, so what, you know, somebody calls you angry, you move on, I’ve never been that way either. I tend to, I’ve learned over the years to be able to deal with larger problems, because you know, I have a lot more going on. Okay, we can address this, we can address that. But especially when it was just me inspecting. That was my pride. That was, it meant something to who I am as a human being. And people say, it’s just a job. Our job is part of who we are, it becomes like how we think, how we act, how we go about life is affected by whatever job we do. And when you care about something, it’s really hard to not, not get that sick feeling in your stomach when somebody calls you yelling about their irises, even though it’s baseless, it matters.

Jay Wynn
It does matter. And I think, you know, I’ve heard you reference this in other podcasts. And I know you and I’ve talked about it privately too. But to be good at this, you have to put some of your soul into it. You just can’t be completely detached and completely lifeless, because you need to engage people. And that’s, that’s what comes back to my point is that we’re in a people industry, you’ve got to know how to handle people, you’ve got to know how to manage it. And you got to put some of your heart and soul into this. And if you don’t, I don’t think you will be successful, or I don’t think you’ll be nearly as successful as you could or should be. I’ve seen guys, they’re technically brilliant. But because they can can’t connect on a human level, their business suffers, and they’re not frankly, great inspectors, because they’re not able to communicate and understand what the person they’re dealing with needs. And that’s the other thing too. You know, it’s like, everybody’s different. Every inspection is different. Every person is different. Like the gentleman I just worked with, I walked in, he goes, write the report, tell me the highlights. I’m gonna go walk around and take measurements and talk with my contractor about what I want to do to the house. You know, and that was just, that was his, it was his thing. A week ago, I was with somebody that wanted every detail they could, they were right next to me the whole inspection, they were asking me very technical questions, and he couldn’t get enough information. So he, just very different personality. He needed details, he needed how things run, he needed ins and outs of just about a breakdown of every system, how things were built, what materials were used. And he’s got the right to that, that’s why we’re there. So that’s it too, is every inspection, every person is different, and you gotta tailor that inspection to what they need. And that’s what I mean, you can be technically a brilliant inspector, but if you can’t make that human connection, you’re gonna, I think you’re gonna have a hard time. But the downside of that the more you put of yourself into this business, I think the more vulnerable you are to people burnout, because they take more from you. And sometimes it’s harder to replace, what’s lost so quickly, or shouldn’t say lost, maybe drawn out of you is a better word.

Ian Robertson
Yeah. And it is interesting to note that I do think a lot of home inspectors feel that way, whether we like to admit it or not. But the problem is, we oftentimes let it go too far. Like we get completely burned out, before we address it. You know, if the 10th inspection is going to be the one that breaks us, we go do 12 inspections before we take a break, you know, instead of, let’s just, I’m starting to feel it come on, or even before we start to feel it, come on, okay, I’m just going to take Friday afternoons off for the for the rest of the year. Instead of just doing some self care, we burn ourselves out. And then everything suffers, our family life, our business, even, even the biggest, richest people who have come from nothing and built giant corporations, they’ve all said, I would always take time for myself. Look at Bill Gates, I watched a documentary on Bill Gates. And he would actually do a little retreat, he has like this little one room, creepy cabin on a lake or something. And he would just go there. And he would read. You know, this guy be like, he could say, well, for every half a day I take off, I lose, you know, $500 million. He doesn’t care. He goes that’s, I am the product. And if I don’t take care of my product, it’s like if we had a racehorse and we just ran him hard and ran him hard. People would be whacking our hand saying what is wrong with you, take care of that horse. He’s making you money. But we don’t do that with ourselves. Everybody’s like, oh, yeah, work harder hustle culture, buddy. And it doesn’t, it doesn’t work that way.

Jay Wynn
So you’re getting to the point of what do we do to mitigate its results? How do we deal with it?

Ian Robertson
Yeah.

Jay Wynn
I think, I think we would all agree, and I don’t think there’s gonna be too many comments at the podcast with the saying, you guys are wrong, burnout’s not real. I think everyone’s gonna go. Yeah, burnout’s real. But then how do you manage it? And I have actually started to develop some strategies for managing it. I know you have to. So I’m gonna start with you. What are some of the ways that you deal with the, with the people stress?

Ian Robertson
Doing a podcast with Jay and drinking with him?

Jay Wynn
Okay. Well there you go.

Ian Robertson
So, disclaimer, you should not use drinking as a coping mechanism, just for fun times with friends.

Jay Wynn
Disclaimer accepted.

Ian Robertson
So, here’s my big thing. So I didn’t really, I told you about this. I didn’t, my daughter, she’s young. But she’s wise. And I was, she could tell I was feeling it. And she says to me one day, she goes, you know, you need to hang out with people who don’t need anything from you. And I remember me and my wife just looked at her. And we’re like, whoa, that was deep. Because, you know, especially if you’re running a business and you have a family, you’re always giving, it’s like, okay, I give this, I give that, I give this. You know, and especially if you’re a good person, you know, you’re gonna go to the store, and you’re gonna help the old lady put her cart back, you’re gonna, you’re gonna, you know, volunteer on the weekends, you’re gonna, whatever it happens to be. But at some point, I found that I need to hang out with somebody that doesn’t need anything from me, and I don’t need anything from him. Have a couple of close friends where you can just say, okay, guys, let’s go out and grab a beer. Or, you know what, let’s go play some pool. We’ll make a bunch of corny dad jokes for three hours. And I have found that that has helped me a lot. Like even just what was it, maybe a month or so ago? Me and you and a couple other friends went out to, went out to a local brewery. And it’s, it’s not like an instant feeling of like, this is amazing. Afterwards, you’re like, okay, I feel better now. I can take the next thing. So that’s one of the things I’ve learned to do.

Jay Wynn
Yeah. And I think that’s something that I’ve learned to do too, is I’ve learned to not wait till I reach catastrophic stress levels. But to go out with a couple of people, like you said, not, not large parties, a couple of well selected people that I can relax around, that I don’t have to guard myself in a you know, in a negative way. I don’t have to worry about them. They’re not going to get drunk and start a fight. But we go, we decompress for a while, and I think some of it is, is if something’s really bothering me, I can vent it, and it’s a safe, safe spot to vent it. They’re good with it. If something’s going on with them, I can hear it. And I know everything is fine. And it’s kinda like I give them a little of my load. I’ll take a little of their, shoulder a little their load too, we help each other to get, to get through the next thing, and I think there’s help with that. But I also think that there’s a benefit in knowing you’re just not the only one going through things. It’s like, I just give you, for instance, my son, he’s 13 years old. Sometimes I look at him and I go, he’s awesome. He’s the greatest thing ever. And sometimes I look at him and I go, how is he still here? This drives me nuts. And I’m just I go, what is going on? Till I talk with another parent who has a 12 or 13 year old kid. And they go, oh, yeah, my kid’s doing the exact same thing. And they describe the behavior I’m like, exactly, that’s exactly it. And I’m not crazy, that there is something going on there. So sometimes it helps just to get, I guess, outside perspective on some of this stuff. You know, peer support is pretty important. And it’s been pretty important for the last few years. That’s how we’ve coped with a lot. Yeah.

Ian Robertson
And it is, you know, misery loves company, we like to commiserate. I do think it’s important to commiserate with other home inspectors, because they’re really the only ones who understand what we go through. Agents to be perfectly frank, our family, unless they’re inspecting with us don’t really know, you know, the fire of an inspection, and then 10 of them that week, and then the phone calls. And as, as we’re talking, every home inspector listening is going, yep. Grab a couple of home inspectors. And it doesn’t have to be home inspectors. But it’s interesting, one of the cures I find for people burnout is people. But just people that don’t need anything from you.

Jay Wynn
Yeah. Which is why like in New York, we have to do the continuing ed. And then it’s kind of the one thing they’ve switched to a virtual format now, which is very nice and very convenient. But when we have to get, used to have to get together face to face and talk, I noticed that was a big thing with a lot of the inspectors is they were able to just sit have a cup of coffee, share stories, share experiences, let things go a little bit, and and I think that helped, that face to face sit down with other people that are doing something similar. You know, misery loves company, or shared suffering, whatever you want to call it. But I do think other inspectors may very well be the only ones that understand completely what we go through. Because there’s a lot of misperception about our industry. There’s a lot of people that think they know what we do. And there’s a lot of people that that think they can do our job, and the fact is very few actually are qualified to. And the more time I spend in this industry, the more I realize that. There are a lot of people that pretend to be inspectors, but they’re very few that are actually good at it or should be doing it.

Ian Robertson
I think that’s a truth for any any trade. It’s kind of like a doctor. You know, there’s lots of doctors out there. But when you meet a good doctor, you’re like, wow, okay, you, you should be a doctor, you know. What do you do to deal with people burnout, besides what we just mentioned, besides shooting, shooting guns.

Jay Wynn
Well, actually, that is something that’s a hobby, do you want to get down to it, that’s another thing, woodworking, sawmill, and, you know, we go out and we shoot a little bit, that’s another hobby that we’ve got. My son does it, my wife does it. So we do take time and do things, I do take time and do things with my family. We’re planning a couple of vacations where we’re going away, we’re shutting down the cell phones, where nobody’s going to be have access to me, not for the whole time, but not the day to day, not for eight to 10 hours in a pop, we’ll structure the business so that it will run itself or it can wait till I get back. And then we have hobbies that that we cultivate and that we do. One of the things it’s gotten to be quite a bit of fun is we try to do a game night. As a family, we just sit down and we try to play a board game, we try to do something, put a little music on, shut everything else off, you know, turn the emails off, turn everything off and just spend a little time weekly decompressing doing something like that. And then we do plan times where we’re it’s going to be us disconnecting for a while. We like to camp, we’ve got some property that we’re, we have access to, we’ll go up and we’ll do primitive tent camping for a week. That’s a great way to decompress for us. Not everybody likes that. Because not everyone is into living in the sleeping bag for a while. But for us it works. So that’s the kind of the things that we do. But I think it’s important to cultivate a hobby outside of work. You know, when we were talking about what do we want to talk about, I was thinking how do you deal with burnout. And one of the ways I deal with it is when I’m stressed I’ll go fire up my sawmill and I’ll turn an oak log into some awesome boards. And I’ll sit there and think about all the stuff I’m going to do with it. I’ll stack it and I’ll air dry it, and I’ll move it, I leave the phone inside again so that I’m just focusing on what I’m doing. Nobody can reach me, and it’s fine. So that hour or two that I’m doing that, my world is good. And I try to do that when I’m feeling stressed, and I just try to do this to get ahead of stress. But it’s, it’s a hobby. That’s really what it is. Yeah, what do you do?

Ian Robertson
Well, to be honest with you, I want to talk about the woods thing too. There’s some stuff that I do there, but there’s some science behind your turning off the device and leaving it inside. They actually did a study of people, you know, their stress levels when their phone buzzed, went up, increase their adrenal, their adrenal gland activity. So they were testing these people for adrenal fatigue and all that stuff. So basically overstressed. And they found that people who kept their phone on them, but the buzzer on or the buzzer off, but their phone still on them, were almost as stressed as people who were still getting the phone calls. They said the only way that they could actually take the control group and get them to calm down, was to turn the device off and just take it away from them. And then they, they could measure their heart rate going down, and all this other stuff. So there’s science to back that sometimes we just need to turn stuff off. Could we miss work? Yes. Will we miss more work if we have a heart attack or we go off and yell at an agent on an inspection, or we freak out at a client, or for the next six months, we answer the phone a little bit grumpy, and we lose 20 inspections, because they’re like, boy, that guy sounds grumpy. Can we just for an afternoon, take the chance to lose some work and, and plan it out. So okay, phone’s going off, not answering emails. Turn it off Friday at noon. And I won’t open it till Saturday at 12. I mean, let’s be honest, there’s stuff that happens. But what could possibly happen with our business if we just turned it off for a half a day?

Jay Wynn
Not much. And that’s the voice of experience speaking, not much. But your point about how much business could you lose, if you are stressed, if you are agitated, and you’re in that state while you’re answering the phone, quite a bit, because that translates. We’ve talked about this before I think, it’s like when you’re dealing with an angry person or a complaint call. Before you dial, you smile, like you look in the mirror and just smile. Like even though you know you’re walking into a nasty conversation, you smile, because that smile comes through your tone, it comes through and how you speak to the person, and it helps to defuse the situation. And that’s something as simple as you know, you’re going into it. I think people don’t realize how many of those very subtle cues they project. You know, when you’re stressed, you know, when somebody on the other, even on a phone call is stressed, you can hear it in their voice, you can hear their word selection. You pick up on it, we’re trained, like it or not, we’re trained to read the emotional cues of other human beings. That’s physical signs, their body language is given off, that tone in their voice. That’s their inflection. That’s word selection, all of it, you know, we’re just programmed and hardwired to queue and all that. So the fact of the matter is, if we think we’re fine, we think we’re fine, we think we’re fine. But when this constant agitated state, we could be adversely affecting our business in that regard, too. So it’s a valid point, disconnect and wind down a little bit. You’ll catch many more flies with honey than anything else.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, and I think that’s a good summary of what I was trying to say, because we’ll miss phone calls, maybe. But we’ll lose work. Even like customer support, like these big companies that run big customer supports for for like, big corporations and stuff. They have techniques. And they have ways to get people to calm down before they answer customer support. Because if you’re high energy and stressed from the last call, you’re going to make the next call worse. Or if you’re a salesperson, nobody wants to talk to the stressed out salesperson, you want to talk to the guy going, hey, what’s going on? What can I help you with today? You know that that’s what we want. And especially buyers, because they’re emotionally, you know, they’re just going crazy. They want that calm voice. Hey, this is Jay Wynn. How can I help you? Yep, we’re gonna do a fantastic inspection for you. That’s a lot more than, hello. You know, what do you want? Okay, yeah, I’ll get to it. It’s going to make a big difference.

Jay Wynn
It does all the way around. Which leads me to another thought that I had. And that’s, set your limits, and stick to them. And what I mean by that is, people are allowed certain parts of my attention. I’ll do the home inspection. I’ll answer every question I have. I will be available for follow up questions. But my, my personal window of accessibility is limited to roughly the immediate time of the home inspection. I have found, and I’m, maybe I’m wrong on this, but I have found that it seems like a good inspector, and that’s not just me, that’s a good inspector, seems to be one of the most competent and well educated people that they’re dealing with through the whole financial transaction. And I’ve just seen other guys do it, their knowledge base is exceptional, they take care of people, they cue in on it. The downside to that is when something goes on or somebody’s stressed, they immediately jump back to that person that helped them out so much. So, you know, it’s not uncommon, or it was not uncommon for a while to have people call me up and asking me how to fix their water pump or turn their furnace on or, and felt like, because I did an inspection for them once that they could call me at any time to fix any problems that they had for the next year or two, or sometimes more. So I’ve had to draw some lines there too in that you get my attention, I will do the inspection, I’ll answer the follow up questions. But my actual availability for you like that is is limited. And I know there’s guys out there that will say something different. But that’s been something that I’ve had to do just to keep my head in the game to draw some lines and stick with it.

Ian Robertson
Well, that’s also a privilege that you have for the time that you’ve put in.

Jay Wynn
That’s 100% true. Yeah.

Ian Robertson
You’ve done your, your dues. And you did a great inspection, and you have 30 years experience that you’re bringing on that inspection. But drawing lines takes on a lot of different, takes on a lot of different roles or not roles, takes on a lot of different places. Because even like our time of day, one of the worst things we can do is to teach people that they can contact us anytime of morning or night. And this home inspector got so upset because an agent texted him at three in the morning. And I guess the agent just doesn’t sleep, I have no idea. And he’s just like I told her, don’t, don’t contact me so late. She goes, what about this deal? Okay, I’ll get it over to you. And I’m like, why did you even answer? All you did was teach that agent that they can reach you at three o’clock in the morning, you know, or an agent, or a client calling you at nine o’clock at night. I remember a client calling, and it was nine o’clock at night. And I didn’t call him back till the next day. And they’re like, why didn’t you call me back? I’m like, because it was nine o’clock at night. Well, I need this done. And I’m like, you are not the client for me. Because I am not going to be available all hours and all weekend for you to be able to get a hold of. And I have found that when I set those limits, half the time or better, people get the answers to their questions anyways. 90% of the phone calls that I get from past clients is, where’s this? Page 32. Okay, thank you. But still, it’s like, you get five of those in a night. It’s like, that can wait till Monday. And by the time I get to them, they’re like, oh, I found it already. Same thing with the agents, teaches them to sometimes do their job a little bit. Unfortunately. They’re like, how do we negotiate this? I always hate it when an agent said said that to me. I’m like, what? I don’t know, that’s not my job. They’re like, well, what does this mean? It means there’s a buried oil tank in the front yard. Well, you need to write a letter explaining this so that we can negotiate. I’m like, I told you what the problem is, what the potential issues could be. What else do you need? So I don’t need to answer that call at 10 o’clock at night. But one thing I do want to mention is, is you mentioned camping. Not all of us have a privilege of living in a rural area like we do. But I tell you what, nothing relieves me more than turning my phone off and heading out into the woods. You know, I’ll answer my messages and everything the next day. Don’t care if it’s Saturday or Sunday, but right now, this is my time, and I’m going to sit and stare at trees and drink some Lagavulin 16. That’s, there’s something to be said about that, we can get that nature. And there’s science behind that too. There’s like a billion studies, actually this one study was kind of funny. They, they took patients and they put patients who had basically the same ailments, ailments in one room with no window, no pictures, no nothing. And then they did terrible. They put pictures of outside scenes in a room, and that patient group did better. And then they had other patients that had windows out into trees. And they did fantastic. That’s just one of a million studies to show that nature makes us feel better, and exercise. So our serotonin levels go up, and our adrenal levels go down. Take a walk. If our day starts at 7am, can we get up at six and go take a walk for a half hou,r 45 minutes before work? Actually a couple of the home inspectors that have been on the show. They do basically that. Kevin Maxwell was one, he says he takes a walk every morning, it’s non negotiable. When we come home from work, okay, those reports do have to go out, can we grab one of our kids and go out with a walk, and each day, it’s a different walk with a different kid. Okay, that’s, that’s a non negotiable half hour, 45 minutes, then go back, and write your reports. Just getting out, seeing blue sky and something green can really help us to cope with people burnout.

Jay Wynn
Yeah, that’s true. And I think you just, to degress to a point that you made, I think you and I both have kind of the privilege of setting some of our limits, because we’ve gone and served or we’ve put our time in. I realize if you’re just starting out, you’re trying to build a business, you’ve got to put the time in, and some of this is not going to be attainable. So a lot of it is going to qualify on where you are, on your personal, personal path with this, if you’re, but here’s the thing, I would say, if you can figure this out young and figure this out early, you’re going to be much more ahead of the game than you know I was figuring it out at 45. You know, and I think that’s kind of with all of this too, is it’s not so much how the old guys deal with it. It’s how can you young guys figure out all these things that you will need to address sooner than we did. You know, and I think it goes down to if you can, you’re going to have a more productive career, you’re going to have a better experience, you’re going to enjoy the industry a whole lot longer, too. I mean, these are factors that, that I didn’t even think about till I was much older. But if you could have, if I could have learned this when I was 25 or 30, that would have been awesome. So I think that’s kind of some of it too, is that sharing these thoughts like you and I are talking, my thought is to try to just get some some new blood thinking about these things, that’s probably not on their radar right now.

Ian Robertson
Yeah. And unfortunately, it happens too often. There’s a couple of home inspectors that I was working with, and I don’t get involved in people’s personal lives. But one guy was like, oh, man, you know, I think I’m gonna end up getting a divorce. And he had just gotten done talking about hustling harder. And I’m like, what? Why would you hustle harder, I’m like, you’re burnt out, you’re taking it out on your family, you’re getting a divorce, you have kids, you’re only gonna see them on the weekends. I’m like, everybody has to do their own thing. I actually told him, I’m like, listen, man, jus,t can you take a half a day off or something just, I don’t know, I just don’t want to see you head down the wrong path that I’ve seen so many guys set down. And again, I don’t get involved in people’s personal lives very often. And I was very close with this inspector. So there’s too much to lose, and you don’t realize until looking back, you know, it’s like, are we working seven days a week to build up a business, quote, unquote, for our family? But yet our kids are growing up, and they don’t get to see us as much as we, you know, we don’t get to go to their ballgame, or, you know, we didn’t take them out hunting or whatever we happen to do in our sphere of our world. That’s not for our family. That’s financial stuff and building a business. For our family would be, I’m going to sacrifice some of that, take a risk of having $500 less this week. But have my kids remember me going out and camping in the woods to set up a tent in the back with your kids, you know, take your wife out on a date, whatever it happens to be. That’s the best way to deal with people burnout is to live life. Yeah, to live our life and not constantly give that to everybody else so that there’s nothing left when we get home.

Jay Wynn
Especially if you got family. You know, if you’re a single guy, and you’re out there, you’re building a company, and it’s just you. That’s awesome. That’s great. But, but I think you’ll find, at least in my experience, guys in that situation tend to find themselves very lonely very quickly and less fulfilled than they thought. And they always, a little more success, a little more success, a little more success, then I’ll be happy. And then I think the trap that guys fall into that have people around them is thinking I’ve got to provide better, more, we need to get, like you said, that extra 500 a week. What they don’t realize is that when you come home, your kids don’t want to be around you because you’re so keyed up that you’re a grouch. And your wife can’t tell you anything. She’s afraid you’ll snap, or be snappy or short tempered, or you come home, you slam supper down, you go and bury your head in a computer because you’ve got 18 emails and and you gotta get reports out. And there’s, there’s a cost to all that. The more stress we bring home, the more that affects the people around us. And I think something that, you know, just the fact of the matter is, at the end of the day, we can be replaced as a home inspector, but like, nobody’s replacing me as a dad. You know, nobody’s replacing me as a husband, at least not very easily, you know? Well, if I dropped dead tomorrow, I have very little doubt my wife could remarry quickly if she wanted to, you know. So what I’m just saying is that there’s, there’s places where we can be easily replaced, there’s places that not so much. And I think that the areas where it will be harder to fill that role are the areas that really should be requiring more of our attention, more of our time, and more of our mental well being. And I think what we’re talking about, like with people burnout, is taking it home. What bothers me is, is when I build up to the point where I’m stressed, and then I finally look at my kid and my wife and realize they’re walking on eggshells, because I’m so wound up, and I didn’t even realize it. I’m like, and then it’s time to start dialing this all back. And again, these are some lessons that frankly, I’m learning a little bit later in life that I wish I’d figured out at 25, 30, you know, in my early 30s, it would have been so much nicer, right. So, what we’re talking about, this isn’t just an intellectual thing, you know, going back and forth. I think some of why this podcast takes place is to share some of the stuff with guys that aren’t necessarily thinking about this stuff, but it could help them in the long run. And that’s kind of where I’m coming in is, you know, burnout’s real, people burnout’s real, it affects you, it affects your business. It affects the people around you that you care about. If you can learn to manage it and manage it effectively, sooner, you’ll be in a better place all the way around.

Ian Robertson
This got deep, quick, man. But it’s very true stuff. Yeah, I wished, like you said, I wished I had learned some of the stuff that I’m learning now, when I was younger. With my contracting business when I first started my first home inspection company, I look back, I wish I could just smack myself and say, just take a day off. Yeah, just. And you know, I’m probably going to look at myself 10 years from now and be like, what, just, dude, take a day off. We need these reminders. We need to hear from our peers. People burnout is real.

Jay Wynn
That it’s okay to do that, too. You know, like you said, if you look at hustle culture, you look at all the social media, you look at everything, it’s like, yeah, push harder, push harder, push harder. No, you know, sometimes it’s okay to sit back and go, it’s fine, I can go to the beach with my family, summer doesn’t last that long around here, I can take a day off and go fishing with my kid when he’s 13. Because he’s not going to be 13 much longer, you know, I can take my wife out on an evening, and I can shut my phone off so that I can just sit and talk with her for 40 minutes or an hour and enjoy a nice meal. Just these are all things that it’s okay to do. And these are all things that I think we should be doing. And I think that’s kind of, you get talking with other guys around it. And these are the stuff that, this is the stuff that gets forgotten. And we kind of need to remind each other because the results are heart attack, stroke, divorce, you know, kids that don’t know you or don’t want to be around you, broken families. There’s some real consequences to not managing this.

Ian Robertson
There really is. So I’m really glad we’re talking about this. I think I’m out of scotch. And I think we’re out of time here though. Jay, I think you need a refill, though.

Jay Wynn
I do.

Ian Robertson
I can’t thank you enough for being on. Again, one of my favorite segments, Drinking With Jay, real talk with Jay. That’s really what it comes down to. Thank you for bringing your beautiful beard and brow and giving us all this wisdom. And always a pleasure to have you on.

Jay Wynn
It’s always fun to talk.

Ian Robertson
Thanks. We’ll talk soon.

Outro: On behalf of myself, Ian, and the entire ITB team, thank you for listening to this episode of Inspector Toolbelt Talk. We also love hearing your feedback, so please drop us a line at [email protected].

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*The views and opinions expressed in this podcast, and the guests on it, do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Inspector Toolbelt and its associates.