CEO Burnout: A Personal Story

After I pub­lished a blog post about the deaths of Antho­ny Bour­dain and Kate Spade, one of my for­mer clients reached out to thank me for shar­ing it, and for help­ing him through a dif­fi­cult time. ​‘John’ – a suc­cess­ful Cana­di­an CEO, mar­ried and father of two – then gen­er­ous­ly offered to tell his sto­ry of a debil­i­tat­ing burnout. He believed that oth­ers may rec­og­nize them­selves in his sto­ry, and get help, soon­er than lat­er. So, we sat down to talk about our beliefs and val­ues, about suc­cess and stress…

KL: We all form a set of beliefs about how to con­duct our­selves, and who we need to be dur­ing times of stress and cri­sis. What were yours, and how did they influ­ence your experience?

John: Dad was a worka­holic who came from a fam­i­ly of pover­ty, so he worked very hard to acquire things in life. I remem­ber my Mum, who’d nev­er had car­pet as a child, would vac­u­um ours so per­fect­ly that we weren’t allowed to walk on it!

Even though my father and moth­er were very sup­port­ive, my dad was a man’s man and taught me at an ear­ly age that boys don’t show weak­ness, and they don’t cry. Dad rarely asked for help, so I didn’t, either, and had to fig­ure things out for myself. In tough times, instead of reach­ing out, for help and sup­port, I would close in and try to fig­ure things out on my own.

My self-worth was based on my suc­cess, and that formed one of my main val­ues, as an entre­pre­neur. I defined suc­cess as mon­ey, influ­ence and posi­tion – but that’s been rede­fined over the past two years!

KL: What hap­pened that led to your burnout, and over what peri­od of time?

John: In the sum­mer of 2016 I was in an amaz­ing place and feel­ing on top of the world. My rela­tion­ship with my wife was the best it had ever been, I felt great phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly, and my busi­ness was grow­ing exponentially.

When I start­ed my com­pa­ny, I had a part­ner – a friend since high school – and things were great for a long time. But as time went on, we hadn’t been see­ing eye to eye, and he decid­ed he want­ed to be bought out of the busi­ness – and I was wait­ing for him to tell me how much he wanted.

I remem­ber clear­ly the day he hand­ed me an enve­lope. I thought it was the amount he want­ed to be bought out for, but instead he gave me the shot­gun clause, with the min­i­mum tim­ing, from our share­hold­ers agree­ment, to buy him out.

I was absolute­ly shocked. I had only 30 days to find many mil­lion dol­lars if I want­ed to keep the busi­ness I was so pas­sion­ate about. I hadn’t done any­thing to pre­pare to buy him out, up to that point, because in my mind I was wait­ing for him to tell me what he want­ed. I didn’t see this coming.

The buy/​sell agree­ment pulled out the non-com­pete, con­fi­den­tial­i­ty and non-solic­i­ta­tion claus­es in our share­hold­ers agree­ment. He could take our entire staff and start a com­pa­ny down the street with all our IP, cus­tomers and ven­dors if I bought him out.

After speak­ing with good lawyers, I real­ized that going to court to fight these changes would bury the com­pa­ny in expens­es and lengthy court bat­tles. It wasn’t worth poten­tial­ly destroy­ing the com­pa­ny and putting the staff through the mess, even if it meant giv­ing up the busi­ness. I chose not to go this route.

To me, at the time this shot­gun clause was a rela­tion­ship end­ing propo­si­tion – a nuclear bomb to our rela­tion­ship. We shared many of the same friends and cir­cles. Although things weren’t going well, I real­ly trust­ed him.

I went from feel­ing on top of the world to absolute despair.

KL: Tell me what hap­pened next.

John: Well, the terms of the buy­out were sig­nif­i­cant­ly less than what I felt the com­pa­ny was worth. I learned he had spent months try­ing to raise the mon­ey to buy me out, so he knew the like­li­hood of me find­ing the mon­ey in 30 days – rather 20 busi­ness work­ing days – was very small. I could help but feel like this was a well craft­ed plan.

I was in a good place, lead­ing up to this, because I had spent two years focus­ing on per­son­al devel­op­ment – under­stand­ing who I was as a leader and as a per­son. I thought I knew myself, and the traits I want­ed to improve — and I was work­ing on them. When this hap­pened, I felt all the work I was doing wasn’t enough.

It felt like a game of sur­vivor. I felt total­ly con­fused, uncer­tain and worried.

KL: So, what did you do?

John: For 28 days I was up ​‘til 3 am, going through files, talk­ing to peo­ple who could finance me – try­ing to fig­ure this out. My partner’s wife was our head of finance and I had lit­tle access to data with­out going through her.

I felt it was hope­less and was going to give up – it took him months to find financ­ing and now I had 20 busi­ness days. Then I called my broth­er, an Oil and Gas engi­neer in Cal­gary, who said, ​“You will nev­er for­give your­self if you don’t try.” I agreed, so he offered to take a sab­bat­i­cal and help. He is an amaz­ing person.

KL: It came down to the wire, didn’t it?

John: On the 28^th day, I found the mon­ey with a hand­shake deal – and had anoth­er 30 days to close it. I had to prove to my investor that he was mak­ing the right deci­sion. If the deal fell apart, I would default and my part­ner would get an addi­tion­al reduc­tion in com­pa­ny cost accord­ing to our share­hold­ers agreement.

That com­pound­ed my fear and self-doubt. Can I run the com­pa­ny with­out key peo­ple? How many peo­ple will leave? What has he been plan­ning for these last sev­er­al months? What am I miss­ing? Many jobs depend on this.

On the very last day of the dead­line – there were so many things hap­pen­ing all at once – I was talk­ing with mul­ti­ple lawyers on the phone, try­ing to final­ize last-minute items and deter­mine if I was able to go through with it. I remem­ber there was actu­al­ly some­body in the back­ground, count­ing down the sec­onds. The deal had to hap­pen by 11am. 16…15…14… At three sec­onds to go, we said, ​“Let’s do it.”

KL: That must have been such a relief!

John: That’s when the true anx­i­ety real­ly kicked in, when the weight of the world came down on me. I’ve nev­er felt anx­i­ety like this in the past.

The con­tract had released all employ­ees from their con­tracts, which didn’t seem right to me. I sup­pose there is more I could have done, but it would take months in court and the com­pa­ny would degrade.

I decid­ed to com­pete with him. I don’t blame him for any­thing, and I take full respon­si­bil­i­ty for every­thing. I was will­ing to work and go above and beyond to reach my goals. I’m extreme­ly com­pet­i­tive – to my detri­ment, some of the time.

My part­ner end­ed up leav­ing with a num­ber of key employ­ees: our entire engi­neer­ing team, and a cou­ple heads of oth­er depart­ments — it was going to be a chal­lenge to replace them.

I had a ton of stress – it was all fight or flight. Every day, I thought about giv­ing up, and mov­ing to a dif­fer­ent city to start over. I didn’t want to face being a fail­ure if I couldn’t hold it all togeth­er. I real­ized I have a very deep-seat­ed fear of not being good enough.

KL: Did your fam­i­ly know what was happening?

John: Yes. I gath­ered my fam­i­ly for a week­end away and told them what was going on and said that, if I tried to get the com­pa­ny, I wouldn’t be around for at least six months, while I fig­ured it out. They said, ​“If that’s what you want, that’s what we want.”

It didn’t take six months, it took 18. Dur­ing that time, I was not present, phys­i­cal­ly or men­tal­ly. I was gone – a shad­ow of myself. It was ter­ri­ble. My wife and I are much bet­ter, now, but it got to the point where I thought she was going to leave me. She’s my rock. If it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t have got through it, but there was only so much she could take. I’d promised six months before it got bet­ter, but after 15 months she couldn’t take it. She was alone and had no one to sup­port her and our kids. I’m very, very for­tu­nate that my mar­riage didn’t fall apart.

KL: Tell me how this man­i­fest­ed in your phys­i­cal health.

John: I was a sol­id, very fit per­son who lost 20 lbs. I start­ed drink­ing cof­fee, which com­pound­ed my anxiety.

I had stopped drink­ing before this hap­pened but start­ed again – not a lot, but I can see, now, how easy it would be to fall into some sort of addiction.

I’d try to fall asleep around mid­night to 2am, using Nyquil, Gravol, Benadryl, cannabis – any­thing to turn off my mind. I often woke up in a pool of sweat, night­ly around 3 am.

I’d wake up to the first sound – to this day I cringe at the sound of birds chirp­ing at 4:45 am! I went from eat­ing six meals a day to one or two – typ­i­cal­ly not ​‘til after 2 pm in the after­noon. A com­pa­ny deliv­ered food, but I’d rarely eat it all. I just didn’t have the time, desire or ener­gy. My body tem­per­a­ture was all off, I was often cold and would shiver.

My anx­i­ety was so high I couldn’t put my head under water. I couldn’t go into a small room or an ele­va­tor. I man­aged to get on a plane for a busi­ness trip, but I couldn’t get back on to come home; I would psych myself out. I start­ed get­ting weird quirks and tics. I lit­er­al­ly thought I was los­ing my mind. I wasn’t present at all with my fam­i­ly or peo­ple at work. I would avoid social sit­u­a­tions, phone calls, emails – any­thing that that might add more pressure.

I was a robot on a mis­sion – and mak­ing poor deci­sions that I nev­er would have made in the past.

KL: When did you real­ize you knew you need­ed help?

John: I broke down when I was talk­ing to my wife, one day, and she did, too. I saw the con­cern and wor­ry in her face, then start­ed to reach out to dif­fer­ent psy­chol­o­gists and psy­chi­a­trists – any­one I thought who could help me.

Some­one in my old EO group sug­gest­ed I talk to a busi­ness coach. The first two I talked to thought I was too much of a mess to try to help, but you took me on. I remem­ber you warned me it would take a long time – a year and a half or so – before I’d start to climb out of it. You were right: it was 16 months before I woke up, one day, to a small sense of relief.

It was like a dai­ly roller coast­er ride. I’d see pos­si­bil­i­ty and feel bet­ter, then a phone call or email would send me down to the bot­tom, and I’d spend hours work­ing my way out. Then I’d go down, again.

I remem­ber, once, when the anx­i­ety got so bad, I began to under­stand why peo­ple take their lives. I just want­ed to the pain to stop. It was so strange, it was phys­i­cal­ly painful to be on the earth. I nev­er thought I’d get to that place, nev­er in a mil­lion years.

I pulled over and called you imme­di­ate­ly. You reas­sured me that I would get through it – and that hope went a long way.

One day, you showed me the men­tal health con­tin­u­um mod­el. Every­thing was in the red zone! My cor­ti­sol lev­els were off the charts, and I was doing every­thing I could think of: I saw psy­chol­o­gists, got neu­ro feed­back, read books, lis­tened to medi­a­tion tapes, jour­naled, did gratitudes.

But what helped me most was talk­ing to some­one who understands.

KL: What did you start doing to take care of your­self better?

John: I stopped drink­ing cof­fee and got my sleep under con­trol. A big one was eat­ing prop­er­ly, rest­ing and try­ing to take time just for myself. It was so hard to do. I’d walk and walk by myself, and then start­ed jog­ging, until I couldn’t go any­more – and that runner’s high got me through that day. And, as you say, I start­ed ​‘lick­ing toads’ – doing the hard­est things first.

To deal with rumi­nat­ing on neg­a­tive thoughts, I got very good at med­i­tat­ing, clear­ing my mind.

KL: How has this expe­ri­ence changed how you lead and oper­ate at work?

John: There are so many ways. It cut my high ego down and real­ized what part of my ego was use­ful and what wasn’t. It is such a pow­er­ful thing.

I’m more empa­thet­ic. Before this hap­pened, I had zero empa­thy for peo­ple with anx­i­ety and depres­sion, and thought that those things were a weak­ness. I’m now able to help oth­ers who are going through this, to quick­ly rec­og­nize it, and relate.

We had an employ­ee whose man­ag­er said she wasn’t per­form­ing, and he was con­sid­er­ing let­ting her go. So, I talked to her and could tell the way she looked at me and was talk­ing and fid­get­ing – (that was some­thing I did) that she was suf­fer­ing from anx­i­ety. She shared she was going through a real­ly bad divorce. I spent time with her, gave her tools I had learned, and she is way bet­ter now.

KL: How are you doing now?

John: Well, I still don’t like to check emails! I expect some­thing to go wrong, strug­gle with trust, and get scared of get­ting that awful feel­ing back, but am able to get past it.

The busi­ness now has some amaz­ing new peo­ple and we are doing great.

I real­ize how so many things – mate­r­i­al things I thought were impor­tant – aren’t. I val­ue rela­tion­ships, my fam­i­ly and friend­ships, so much more now.

What hasn’t changed are my goals and my pas­sion for suc­cess. I’m just wired that way, but I’ve bal­anced them a lit­tle better.

You always stressed that this expe­ri­ence would make me stronger, so I vowed it would make me bet­ter. It’s such a men­tal game, and I was able to push through, to see this as an oppor­tu­ni­ty, instead of a failure.

KL: What insights or advice would you share with oth­ers, as a result of this experience?

John: Every­one goes through some­thing like this, at some point, in their lives. It’s impor­tant to acknowl­edge that you have a prob­lem and to get the sup­port you need. Know you will get through this. It will take time, but you will get through it. It’s a process.

• First, try and get very clear about what you’re anx­ious about – usu­al­ly a fear of some­thing. My expe­ri­ence was relat­ed to some­thing that hap­pened in my past. I felt not good enough. I had a fear of fail­ure, of let­ting down my employ­ees, friends and family
• Talk to some­one – a coun­sel­lor or a coach – who under­stands anx­i­ety and can help you unrav­el it. Dai­ly, if pos­si­ble – def­i­nite­ly week­ly – to check in. You need some­one to help show you pos­si­bil­i­ty. I talked to you a lot when I was at the bot­tom of the roller coast­er, and by the end of the call, I’d feel so much bet­ter. The boost would get me through the day

I also asked a friend to call me every day, and he did. If I know a friend who is going through sim­i­lar things, I know they are not going to reach out for help, so I call them

• Med­i­tate to get the thoughts out of your head. I also lis­tened to a book ​“Don’t Feed the Mon­key Mind” about the chat­ter in your head. That was help­ful. Your brain turns into a machine that can spi­ral you quick­ly down, if you let it
• Exer­cise every day. Move your body. A long walk, run, anything
• Get sleep. Lack of it com­pound­ed every­thing. My wife refused to let me take sleep­ing pills so over-the-counter got me through
• No caf­feine
• I’d notice myself hold­ing my breath. I talked to an Olympic ath­lete who won two gold medals, to ask how he got through. He said ​‘breath’. I went to a high-lev­el yoga instruc­tor who said ​‘breath’. The moment I got anx­ious, or stressed, I’d get con­trol by breath­ing prop­er­ly, through my bel­ly, and it real­ly helped me. The breath is powerful
• Jour­nal – write your thoughts down daily
• Write out grat­i­tudes – it’s an anti­dote to fear.