Thrive!
Charlie has been in China for more than two decades, previously in the marketing and advertising industry as CEO. He has had his experience of stress and burnout, and now started his passion project to help executives have a THRIVE mindset, building mental resilience.
What made it difficult to talk about stress and burnout in the advertising world?
It just was not talked about openly and I do not think that is particular to the advertising business. We tend to think of stress and burnout in terms of extreme cases when somebody has to take sick leave because they have reached a level of stress where they cannot function in their job or in extreme cases where somebody dies due to over work. Thankfully these cases are rare.
However, what is much more common are the negative effects of stress in the workplace such as incivility, poor teamwork, destructive relationships, and a closed mindset, which results in an unwillingness to learn new skills and a lack of proactivity and passion. The tangible effects of such behavior are high turnover and absenteeism.
I think there is a sea of change happening where progressive companies now understand that the psychological wellbeing of their employees is often the difference between success and failure.