Burnout doesn’t strike like a lightning bolt out of nowhere. It builds over time as you push through exhaustion, override discomfort, and convince yourself that slowing down isn’t an option.
As founders, we live under relentless pressure. Not just to succeed, but to keep on going. To lead the way. To carry the weight of our vision. That kind of pressure rewires you. You adapt, push harder, and tell yourself this is just how it’s meant to be.
For years, I believed I was taking good care of myself. I exercised, ate well, and prioritised sleep. And I was fortunate to work in a company that takes wellbeing seriously. At Unmind we built a culture where the majority of employees reported that working there positively impacted their mental health. This is the opposite of what most employees experience.
And yet, even in a workplace designed to support wellbeing, I burned out.
That was a wake-up call. Because if it can happen in a company like Unmind, what does that say about the startup world as a whole? What norms are we unconsciously reinforcing as founders?
I should say that my breakdown wasn’t just about work. There were deeper things at play. But that’s the thing. You can’t compartmentalise stress. It all adds up. The pressure you put on yourself at work, the emotional weight you carry from the past, the way you respond to challenges in your personal life … it all accumulates. And if you don’t create space to process, to recover, to reset, eventually your system will force the issue.
Four months ago, I hit my wall. The intensity I’d been normalising turned into something deeper, something I could no longer override. When I had no other choice but to push pause on everything, I realised I’d lost touch with my inner wisdom. Since then, I’ve been rebuilding. Learning how to live and work in a way that isn’t running on constant overdrive.
Then, this week, I went for a run. I wasn’t trying to push hard. I just ran at what felt like my natural pace. But when I checked my heart rate afterwards, I’d been in zone 5 – redlining – the entire time. My body’s idea of “normal” was still overdrive.
And that’s the thing about burnout: it rewires your internal baseline. If you’ve been running on stress for long enough, dysfunction starts to feel like your default setting. You might not even realise you’re burning out, until you’re forced to.
It’s easy to assume burnout is just about long hours. It’s not. It’s about how you work, why you work, and whether you’ve built a life that’s actually sustainable. It happens when you feel responsible for carrying everything, all the time. When you treat recovery as something to “fit in” rather than something foundational. When you tie your self-worth to how much you impact you’re making. When you ignore the signals telling you to slow down.
And here’s the uncomfortable truth: as a founder, your burnout doesn’t just affect you. It shapes your company’s culture. If you normalise pushing through exhaustion, your team will too. If you never switch off, your team will feel pressure to always be on. If you treat wellbeing as an afterthought, it will never be embedded into your company’s DNA. The companies we build reflect our habits, beliefs, and unspoken expectations. If we want workplaces where people perform at their best without sacrificing their mental health, we have to build them that way – starting with ourselves.
You can’t eliminate stress, but you can change how you respond to it. Pay attention to early warning signs. Brain fog, irritability, or constant fatigue aren’t just part of the job, they’re signals. Build recovery into your routine, whether through movement, mindfulness, or simply taking real screen-free breaks. Schedule your downtime, and define what ‘enough’ looks like. What would change if you worked in a way that supported, rather than drained, you and your team?
If you’ve been running on stress for years, true rest might feel uncomfortable. But it’s a non-negotiable if you want to be a true sustainable high performer. Build in micro-moments of recovery – even 30 seconds of deep breathing can reset your stress response. Prioritise activities that engage the parasympathetic nervous system, like time in nature, slow movement, or genuine connection with others. And stop using work as your primary coping mechanism.
The best ideas don’t come when you’re exhausted. They come when your brain has space to think, and time to restore. Block uninterrupted deep work time on your calendar. Create non-negotiable recovery windows. That might look like evening cut-off times, an unplugged weekend each month, or a full sabbatical when needed. Having no energy left for your personal life is a red flag, not a badge of honour.
Your habits as a leader set the unspoken rules for your team. If you send emails at midnight, people will assume that’s the norm. If you celebrate overwork, exhaustion will become part of the culture. If you never take a break, your team will hesitate to step away. Founders talk a lot about setting a vision for their company, but what about setting a vision for how people experience work inside it?
The hardest part of burnout recovery is learning to work differently.
I’m wondering if burnout isn’t just a personal crisis for a founder, but a leadership failure. Not just in how we treat ourselves, but in the systems we reinforce, the cultures we create, and the trade-offs we choose to accept.
Now, I know my experience is just that – my experience. It may not apply to you. But the statistics on founder burnout suggest otherwise. So the question is: if a founder who is well-versed in all things wellbeing isn’t immune to burning out, what does that tell us about the pressures we’ve normalised? And as founders, what responsibility do we have to create a different way of working?
