This tragic story might be one of the clearest and most important lessons I’ve ever found about work/life balance, stress and burnout at work:

On August 5^th 1949, a wildfire swept through a gulch in Helena National Forest in the U.S. state of Montana. 

15 smokejumpers were sent to fight the fire and bring it under control. 

As they got closer, the wind suddenly picked up. The men fled uphill, cut off from their escape route. That's when the wind grew so strong that the fire turned into a firestorm – a fire so huge that it created its own wind system.

The men raced for their lives as they were chased by a fire now moving at eleven feet per second.

Wagner Dodge, the smokejumpers’ leader, yelled at his men:

“DROP YOUR TOOLS!”

As ordered, two of the men dropped their tools and raced over the edge of a ridge to safety.

The other twelve men clung to their tools and were caught by the flames.

This disaster is known as the Mann Gulch Fire. But it’s not an isolated incident. Over four separate fires in the 1990’s, 23 firefighters chose not to drop their tools as they were chased by flames and perished as a result.

A psychologist called Karl Weick has investigated why firefighters don't drop their tools, even when their lives depend on it.

In his own words:

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Firefighting tools define the firefighter’s group membership. Given the central role of tools in defining the essence of a firefighter, it is not surprising that dropping one’s tools creates an existential crisis.

***

In simple terms, asking a firefighter to drop his tools is like asking a firefighter to drop what defines him. Not just as a firefighter, but as a person.

By now you might be wondering what this has to do with work/life balance, stress and burnout.

Well, the answer to that is everything.

Take the stress, exhaustion and burnout I felt in the first iteration of my banking career. 

Each year when I went for my annual health check, my weight was always a few pounds heavier, my blood pressure a little bit higher, my BMI slightly worse.

The thing was, I didn’t need a bunch of medical instruments to tell me all this.

I could feel it.

I had excruciating headaches which came from nowhere. Some days I was so exhausted that it felt like walking round the office in a trance. On other days my heart pounded in my chest while I sat at my desk, flicking through my emails.

So there were plenty of signs that breaking point was creeping up on me.

But I decided I needed to force my way through, toughen up, push forward and be MORE of a banker. So I kept going.

Ultimately my job became the equivalent of the Mann Gulch fire.

Sure, the "fire" didn’t race up behind me at eleven feet per second. 

It crept up slowly instead.

But after 13 years the fire was absolutely raging and a whisker away from engulfing me.

Towards the end of those 13 years, I ended up on Harley Street getting checked out for heart irregularities. Even though the doctors found nothing, the very fact I was referred to get a check-up was a huge wakeup call. And I wasn't neglecting my health or anything like that. I was hitting the gym two or three times a week, running the occasional 5k and eating mostly healthy food (save for the odd tub of Ben & Jerry's).

This was when it finally clicked that my job was the fire and if I kept pushing like I had been, I'd do myself irreparable damage.

But even then, that wasn’t enough to make a change.

I couldn’t change things. I didn’t know how.

Looking back, I can see my job was completely tangled up with the idea of who I was. After 13 years in banking I'd literally become Tom the Banker. And I couldn’t abandon who I was.

Eventually my body took matters into its own hands. 

I was sitting on Lauren’s sofa (this was back in the early days of our blossoming relationship), mug of Earl Grey tea in hand, when I broke down. The tears flowed down my cheeks and once they started, they didn’t stop.

Luckily Lauren was on hand to sit next to me, give me a big hug and just be with me (she knew exactly what to do) while years of bottled-up pain broke through like a dam bursting its defences. 

Finally, I paid attention. I took a six month sabbatical from work and halfway through the sabbatical I quit my job.

You might think the point I’m about to make is that I should’ve quit my job sooner. That I should’ve dropped my banking tools like the smokejumpers dropped theirs.

But actually, that’s not what I’m getting at.

If you’re stressed, exhausted and on the road to burnout, you can press pause before you get caught by the flames.

You don’t need to drop your tools, your skills, your knowledge or your expertise.

You don’t need to drop your job either.

All you need to drop is the idea that your job is who you are.

Which means all you need to drop is an idea. All you need to drop is a thought.

When I saw who I was beneath my job, my job title, my tasks, my boss’s feedback, the targets I hit (or didn’t hit) and my thoughts & feelings about my job, it changed everything. 

I discovered that my job wasn't actually the fire. The fire was the idea that I WAS my job.

I'm now back in my old job. 

And seeing that my job is something I do (i.e. not something I am) is why the stress & exhaustion have lost their grip. It's why my headaches have fallen away and why a space has opened up to step into a job and life that feels like mine.  

This is a huge part of why I started coaching rather than just sitting on my hands and keeping all this stuff to myself. 

I want anyone trapped in their job who can feel the flames getting closer to know that the fire can lose its fuel. 

If you can relate to the same exhaustion, that tightness in your chest or the sense that your job has taken over your life, you don't have to wait for your body to force the issue like I did. 

You don't have to take two years out of work and burn through your savings either. 

If you're ready to come alive at work again without quitting or starting over, I can help you do that.

Join my waiting list here and I'll be in touch: 

https://waitinglist.followingfulfilment.com

To fulfilment, 

Tom