table of funtents

1. 👋🏼 it’s me, hi

2. 🧠 a no bs burnout story

3. 🎁 from my ops toolbox

4. 👑 misfit wisdom nuggets

👋🏼 it’s me, hi

Happy Wednesday, party people! As ever, thank you for (still) being here. And if you’re new here, a mega welcome to the minority misfit.

Y’all, we’re taking things up a notch today.

My writing typically comes with lols (or you know - it intends to). Humour is one of my top values, so I hope Episode 1 and Episode 2 gave you something to laugh about.

Tomorrow is World Mental Health Day.

In light of this, Episode 3 comes with a disclaimer: we’ll be talking about burnout and other heavy feelings, which I appreciate can bring up experiences within ourselves.

Before we dive in, I want to preface:

• This is purely my No BS experience, which may look different to yours. It shouldn’t serve as professional advice or best practice.

• I take mental health in myself and others incredibly seriously, but I also work through it via humour (usually dark and self-deprecating at that).

TLDR: Please take only what’s useful and relevant to you.

Mental health plays differently in everyone. My No BS experience comes with self-deprecating memes. Yours might not.

Both are okay. Both are highly personal. I’ll show one side through my experience, but want to acknowledge it’s just one side of a complex, multi-faceted coin.

Let’s dive in 🫶🏼

🧠 a no bs burnout story

I’ve burnt out twice in my career.

Yes - as a licensed Organisational Psychologist who literally studied and dedicated said career to building healthy workplaces.

Talk about a degree not preparing you for the world of work 🫠

1. burnout’s the real deal

First, let’s bring burnout to life.

It isn’t a bad day, a period of blues or that stressful (yet rewarding) stretch to a finish line.

Burnout is the culmination of long-term, unyielding pressures that result in a chronic state of physical and mental exhaustion.

It’s complicated. It’s months and years of micro-stressors that pile on so high, you simply cannot function the same anymore.

It’s worth knowing as (1) a recovering senior leader and (2) someone from a cultural background where “mind over matter” is king, part of my problem was talking about mental health in the first place.

So while it’s (still) not easy for me, I bring this to the No BS table today because I’m SO tired of seeing:

• BS online about how to “manage burnout” with legit suggestions like “hug someone” and “listen to music”

• Self-certified burnout experts on socials profiting on people’s vulnerability

• Too many stories of people being made entirely responsible for their own burnout, when it’s foremost a systemic issue

2. the pre-keshty era

Too often, we associate burnout with “you couldn’t manage the workload” or “it only happens to Type A, perfectionist folks.”

I’m not saying these aren’t at play, but they sure do make it easy for organisations to say “it’s not me, it’s you.” 

I’m ex-HR and ex-Senior Leader, so I won’t BS you: it’s the easier narrative to fall back on financially and reputationally. I despise the injustice of it, but it’s real life.

Gallup (the leading data hub on all things work) found the 5 factors that actually correlated most with employee burnout are:

1. Unfair treatment at work: bias, favouritism, toxicity, bullying and anything else that makes someone’s identity unsafe at work.

2. Unmanageable workload: this is about perception of workload vs. hours worked. Unrealistic / frequent shifts in performance goals and expectations are the highest driver in employees viewing their workload as unmanageable.

3. Unclear communication from managers: employees need regular clarity on their responsibilities, priorities, performance goals and expectations from managers who proactively share info and encourage 2-way discussion.

4. Lack of manager support: the most central indicator leading to burnout. Reports need to know you’re there, value them as people, have their best interest at heart and will do what’s fair.

5. Unreasonable time pressure: this is where it helps to know your people’s strengths and skills. Leaders need to set expectations and standards up to inspire excellence, not force it through shitty means or set reports up to fail.

Both of my pre-keshty experiences with burnout were in completely different jobs and phases of life. But my symptoms mostly stayed the same.

My physical burnout symptoms:

• Broken eye blood vessels and migraines

• Chronic stiff neck and TMD

• Digestive issues

• Hand tremors

• Weight loss

• Insomnia

And my mental burnout symptoms:

• Internal misalignment and dissonance

• Some pretty dark thoughts, ngl

• Overwhelming exhaustion

• Unmanageable anxiety

• Crying spells

• Night terrors

But the saddest part? In both instances, I blamed and tore myself apart for it:

• I was weak

• If only I’d worked longer, harder

• I have to prove I’m worthy of being here

• The physical symptoms are all in my head. Ignore them.

• My parents fled a war and I can’t even cope with a simple job?

Unfortunately, those with the power to change course and make genuine systemic improvements absolutely YAM up narratives like this too. 

Which begs the question: when the 5 factors above repeatedly show up in individual experiences AND cross-industry research -

- at what point will we take the focus off the person, redirect it and get working on the DAMN system?

3. the keshty era

Fast forward, folks: our faithful ship, keshty, wouldn’t be around if this captain hadn’t taken a break.

I hate to go all Eat, Pray, Love here; but after two burnout marathons, I seriously had to re-evaluate where I was at and what mattered to me.

Here’s what I did:

• Traveled home to loved ones who value me as a human

• Took my time - plenty of it - especially when it was slow

• Rebuilt my physical strength through food, nature and gym

• Replaced non-fiction with fiction books to let my brain play

• Embraced no-phone boredom so my mind could wander again

I’m forever grateful for my break - it meant I could re-introduce a new hard into my life. Entrepreneurship was that hard, but that’s one for another episode 😉

The first 6 months of keshty were met with lingering trauma and bad habits:

• Worrying about money

• Working the longest hours of my life

• Setting self-imposed deadlines and time pressures

• Beating myself up if people didn’t want to work with me

• Being bad at a lot of things, therefore questioning what I was good at

The beauty and curse of running your own business is you finally have the power to create a healthy workplace, yet you often fail to lead by example.

Founder burnout is very real, particularly as we’re all still part of a system that values pace, output and exponential returns.

But ALL THIS was a different kind of hard, in that none of it burned me out.

I might be in a league of one, but I see starting your own business as directly contributing to a future of great places to work.

I see power in knowing you can do things differently.

I see power in building a real, healthy workplace for yourself and everyone in it.

I see power in reshaping the system. brick. by. brick.

💩 No BS reminders: if I can give anything from my burnout story, let it be this:

1. Burnout is a systemic failure and much larger than the individual. Absolutely take control of you and what you can, but please don’t unfairly beat yourself up.

2. You deserve to be happy and valued at work, and above all - your health HAS to come first. Everything else comes after.

3. Where you have the opportunity to directly improve the system, do something better AND lead by example.

🎁 from my ops toolbox

A reminder for the #SmoothOperators: each week in addition to a key theme, I share one tool helping me run a lean, cheap yet cheerful business. None of these are sponsored; they’re simply tools I chose after lots of researching (so you don’t have to).

Staying on brand, how do you manage yourself as a recovering burnout-turned-founder?

🧰 In my toolbox: Metrics for a Happy Life [template]

HI from an operator who loves data, including for my own “life performance.”

I’ve used this sheet for years (more than ever since ‘23) to ensure I lead a life driven by what matters to my core. It’s basic, but it works (simplicity scales, after all). It reminds me that work is part of my life: it’s what I do, but doesn’t fully encompass who I am.

In burnout, I lacked capacity for what I loved the most, let alone to regularly update this sheet. It’s weirdly reassuring to see your own data confirm this years later.

If you choose to play with this template: make a copy, read the instructions, fill in your personal indicators and tinker with the formulas as you wish. I suggest spending your first 10 minutes each day filling this out and physically blocking slots in your calendar to make time for what matters to you.

👑 misfit wisdom nuggets

✍🏼 Dhevesh Mewawalla, Fractional Revenue Leader, Founder at Octopreneur Intel and one of keshty’s greatest friends writes:

“I’ve been incredibly poor at asking my immediate trusted network for help. It always makes me feel like I might come across as abusing that relationship.

For the small number of occasions I’ve swallowed my pride and sincerely asked for something, I’ve been overwhelmingly surprised by how generous they’ve been with their support in genuinely wanting to help, always going over and above.

This still doesn’t come naturally to me, but I’m working on being honest and intentional in asking for help when I need it, in the comfort of knowing those trusted connections will have my gratitude and support for anything I can do to help them as well!”

📣 HEY MISFIT! If you’d like to be featured in an upcoming issue, email me with your answer to this question and LinkedIn profile. Let’s learn together 🫶🏼

This was a tough one, but thanks for sticking it out through Episode 3! Catch you again next Wednesday 👋🏼

Before you go, let me know what you thought of this issue with the pulse check below! Good intent feedback is always welcome ⬇️

xo, Neds