How You and Your Team Can Avoid Burnout

"I feel like my job is chief reminder officer," a founder told me during a coaching session a while back, "just constantly saying the same thing again and again."

He was exhausted. His company was burning through runway faster than expected, and despite working only 50 hours a week – less than many founders I know – he felt completely drained trying to keep his team motivated.

"I don't get it," he said. "Other founders work way more hours than me and seem fine. What's wrong with me?"

That question hit me because I'd been there. Years ago, I was grinding myself into the ground every tax season, getting grumpy with my family, feeling tortured by the work. Meanwhile, I knew entrepreneurs pulling all-nighters who seemed genuinely excited."

The difference wasn't the hours. It was something much more fundamental – and it's the same thing that determines whether your entire team burns out or thrives under pressure.

Why It's Not About the Hours

Here’s what I've come to understand: burnout is caused as much by resistance as it is by just working a lot.

Think about my tax example. Every year, I'd sit down thinking, "Ugh, I have to do my taxes." The actual work wasn't that complicated, but I'd get grumpy with my family, drag my feet, and feel like I was being tortured. That internal resistance was draining my energy more than the actual work.

Then a coach said something that shifted everything: "You don't actually have to do your taxes."

I was confused. "What? Death and taxes, right? Those are the two mandatory things."

"No," she said, "you actually don't have to do your taxes. There are just consequences. You might pay fines, you might go to jail. But it's still a choice."

Suddenly I realized I could stop seeing it as an obligation and just choose to do it because I didn't want those consequences. I like living in the United States. When I stopped resisting and simply chose it, doing my taxes became no big deal.

This applies to everything in startup life. Fundraising, hiring, administrative work – anything you're doing while simultaneously resisting will drain both you and your team fast.

The Four Zones Every Leader Should Know

Beyond resistance, there's a second pattern that separates thriving founders from burned-out ones. Most founders try to ignore their body's natural rhythms, and eventually their body forces them into shutdown mode.

There's a book called The Power of Full Engagement that maps this perfectly. Picture four zones:

Performance Zone: High energy, positive mindset. You're in flow, operating at your best. Your team feeds off this energy.

Survival Zone: Still high energy, but you're going negative. You're pushing and forcing yourself, getting grumpy. Your team starts to feel the strain.

Burnout Zone: Your body is done. It forces you to shut down. Your team either burns out with you or loses faith in your leadership.

Renewal Zone: Purposefully low energy, but positive. You're doing things that restore rather than drain you.

Here's the key insight: instead of going Performance → Survival → Burnout, successful founders bounce between Performance and Renewal like a sine wave.

But here's what makes this a leadership issue, not just a personal one: your energy zone becomes your team's ceiling.

If you're in survival mode, pushing through exhaustion, your team will mirror that energy. If you're modeling healthy renewal, they learn to do the same.

When Repetition Becomes Power

Remember my client who felt like a "chief reminder officer"? What he saw as exhausting repetition was actually missing the most crucial leadership function: shaping the future his people were living into.

As a leader, one of your biggest levers is painting the picture of where you're headed. But here's the deeper issue: if you don't actually believe you're going to succeed, that energy spills onto your team faster than any words you say.

I see this constantly – founders who feel like they're losing work just as hard as those who feel like they're winning, but their teams burn out at completely different rates. The difference isn't the work itself; it's whether the leader genuinely believes they're building toward something meaningful.

If you're spending mental energy imagining failure, worrying about running out of money, or feeling like you're constantly behind, your team picks up on that energy. Even if you're not talking about defeat, people can sense when their leader doesn't really believe in the mission.

But here's what's crucial: your vision has to be grounded in truth. If you're three months from running out of money, painting a picture of massive growth without addressing the funding reality will backfire. Your team will sense the disconnect and lose trust.

Instead, create realistic milestones that feel achievable and meaningful. "In the next 60 days, we're going to prove this customer segment loves our solution and extend our runway by six months" feels much more believable than "We're going to be the next unicorn in just 60 days."

Your job isn't just reminding people what to do – it's constantly reminding them (and yourself) why what they're doing matters and where it's leading. But that only works if you and your team actually believe it.

How to Apply This With Your Team

Here are three ways to prevent burnout for both you and your team:

1. Model Conscious Choice (Not Obligation): Audit your language this week. Instead of "We have to hit this deadline," try "We're choosing to prioritize this deadline because it moves us toward our Q4 goals." Help your team see necessary tasks as conscious choices rather than burdens.

In team meetings, explain the "why" behind decisions. When people understand they're choosing something meaningful rather than being forced into obligation, resistance drops dramatically.

2. Build Team Renewal Rituals: Don't just take breaks yourself – create renewal rhythms for your entire team. This could be 15-minute walks every few hours, real lunch breaks away from screens, or protecting weekends from "urgent" requests.

Model this behavior first. If you're checking Slack at 11 PM, your team feels pressure to do the same. If you take real time off, you give them permission to recharge too.

3. Become Chief Vision Officer: Document small wins weekly – what progress did you make, what did your team learn, what problems did you solve? Most founders focus so intensely on what's not working that they miss evidence of what is working.

In every team meeting, connect current work to meaningful next steps. Paint concrete pictures: "When we solve this customer problem, here's how it changes their business. When we hit this milestone, here's what it unlocks for our growth."

When you genuinely believe you're building toward something meaningful – and you have evidence to support that belief – your energy shifts from survival mode to creation mode. Your team feels that difference immediately.

How This Plays Out

Within two weeks of implementing these changes, my client's entire team dynamic shifted. Not because they were working less, but because he'd stopped approaching necessary work with resistance and started consistently connecting their daily tasks to meaningful outcomes.

"The crazy thing," he told me, "is that I'm working the same hours, but I actually have more energy at the end of the day. And my team stopped looking drained in meetings."

His company ended up extending their runway by three months through more focused execution, and they're now ahead on their next fundraising timeline.

What he discovered is what I see with every founder who makes this shift: the hours you work matter far less than the energy you bring to those hours.

When you stop resisting necessary work and start painting compelling futures, both you and your team can work intensely without burning out. The work becomes energizing rather than draining because it's connected to something meaningful.

Your energy and vision set the ceiling for everything your team can achieve.

With love,

- Dave Kashen

P.S. If this resonated with you, consider sharing it with a founder who could benefit from keeping their team energized.