Founder Burnout

Welcome to the course, today’s lesson is longer then most so please bare with me, there’s some good stuff below. When I work with founders I find it’s incredibly helpful to first set some context so we can better understand how we got here.

Why do we get burnt out as founders? 

And feel tired and exhausted at the end of our days? The short answer is stress. Any founder knows there is a lot to do. But let's go a little deeper here. The deeper truth behind much of founder burnout is due to how they are working, rather than what they are working on or the amount there is to do. It’s ‘how’ we are working that’s causing a great deal of our stress. This distinction is huge and at the root of our mental wellbeing. 

What do we actually mean by stress?

We’ve mentioned stress a number of times now, let’s clarify our definition. When we are talking about stress in this context, we are talking about whenever our body gets overwhelmed by stimuli and turns on the emergency system to respond to that. 

Overwhelmed = pushing beyond our limits (this isn't just in negative situations, a wedding can be overwhelming for the couple getting married but also the best day of their lives).  

Stimuli = life's events. 

Emergency system = the body's evolutionary response 

What’s important to remember, is that events themselves aren't inherently stressful. It’s how we respond to them that creates tension. Events are a trigger. A trigger whose impact we can minimise by adapting how we work. 

What is our body’s ‘emergency response’? 

Think about the last time you got stressed, how did your body feel? Likely your muscles tensed, your heart rate increased, your breath got quicker and shallower, perhaps your body temperature increased, you might have even started perspiring. 

The body does a number of clever things when it switches on its emergency response. In addition to those mentioned above, it also starts to shut down our long term functions like blood chemistry, bone density, reproduction. It suppresses our immune system, constricts our arteries and suppresses our digestion. All great evolutionary responses if we are under a life threat and need to focus all of our resources to the task at hand, like running from a lion. However, we are rarely faced with real threats to our lives in these modern times. But our body only knows one way to respond when we feel overwhelmed, it hasn't evolved to respond to any non-life-threatening events in a different way. So whether it's endless slack notifications, financial struggles, completing a fundraising round or hiring that CTO, our body responds in the exact same way, flooding our system with stress chemistry which makes us feel anxious, exhausted and affects our sleep. And sadly, puts us in a less than optimal place to address and solve these types of intellectual problems. 

What is it about how we work that is contributing to our emergency response being triggered?

* Context switching and interruptions are a huge challenge for founders/CEOs. Essentially, our brains are not multithreaded as so not designed for such fragmented work. Switching between a manager & maker schedule leaves an attention residue. This means not all the minutes we spend working are equal (time vs attention).

* Ambiguity and a lack of clarity - a lack of alignment about where to focus our attention makes us feel out of control (lack of deliberateness and focus) (note: founders jobs are inherently uncertain, as is the world, that’s why we need to put predictability in where we can).  

* A sense of FOMO or FOBO (fear of better options) - this shows up in the big and small of our work. We might have a podcast on, a medium article open, a document we are editing and a half-written slack message. All feel important, however, none are actually getting done, yet we can’t bear to switch any one of them off. As we rise out of the detail of a task, we also see this pattern showing up in the bigger picture, like the strategies and opportunities we are pursuing and this can often get amplified if we have investors on board (option paralysis). 

Why should we care about working in a more optimal way?

Simply, when we feel stressed we are less effective in our roles as founders and make poorer decisions. The calmer and happier we feel the better our brain functions and the more creative and productive we are. We stop unconsciously passing our stress onto others and ultimately, we build more successful businesses and enjoy our lives more.

The benefits of feeling resourced and calm:

* Mental clarity, make better decisions, have better memory and prioritise more effectively (as founders this is really the bulk of our workday)

* More creative (when we are stressed our frontal context becomes overshadowed by our amygdala’s fear response. When we are in fear its harder to access creative, logical, thinking. We have worse ideas and find it harder to solve problems. 

* More productive and get more done (who doesn't want that)

* More emotional intelligence and improved mental wellbeing. When we aren't running on empty we have more resources available to support our team. 

* More resourced for our family and loved ones. The dark side of being a founder is that the most important areas of our lives often get neglected.  The simple reality is when we work the way we do there isn't enough left in the tank when we get home and we find it hard to show up for those we love, like we really want to. With empathy, compassion and being able to really listen. 

In the next lesson…

In the next lesson, we’ll get straight into the 4 techniques to help you bring clarity, ease and enjoyment back into your workdays…

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit eliminateburnout.substack.com