Imagine an investor shadowing you for a week. Watching how much you work, how you make decisions, and how you talk to yourself. Knowing how much you sleep and what you eat. Would they say you were treating yourself like an asset of the business or a liability?

What Selling My Business Taught Me About Overwork

When I was preparing to exit my first company, this stopped being hypothetical.

One of the first questions buyers asked was how many hours I worked. I told them the truth: 60-70 hours a week. Their interest cooled.

It made sense once I understood what they were calculating. If the business required that much of me, they weren’t buying a company. They were buying a job. And a demanding one at that. Overworking was not proof of my commitment, it was a risk factor. It signaled how dependent the business was on me, and how hard I’d be to replace.

That was humbling. But there was something else I couldn’t see until later. My decision-making had been compromised for years. I didn’t notice because I was too tired to see it.

How Founder Burnout Compromises Decisions

I remember being invited to speak on a data analytics panel at a big conference, exactly the kind of visibility that would help the business. I turned it down. Not because of a conflict or a strategic reason. Because I was exhausted, and the thought of preparing for it felt like too much. I told myself I was being practical. I was actually being depleted.

That’s the thing about running on empty: you feel less confident. You stop playing to win and start playing not to lose. 

I talk more about this pattern in this week’s video. I also share a process called RAIN that helps you interrupt the cycle before it costs you another opportunity.

This is where consciousness comes in. Everything I teach about awareness of experience, noticing what’s happening in your body, catching your thoughts before they drive your actions, depends on having enough capacity to pay attention. 

When you’re depleted, the signals get lost. You stop noticing because you’re not fully present. 

What Self-Care Means for Founders

You already understand preventive care. You take your car in for maintenance before it breaks down. You patch the roof before leaks become structural damage. You have system backups so one incident doesn’t wipe everything out.

You just don’t apply that logic to yourself. When you break down, you’ll blame yourself for not being stronger. That’s not responsibility. That’s neglect dressed up as dedication.

So what does responsible stewardship actually look like?

Treat yourself with the same respect you give people you care about. Listen to your body: sleep, food, movement, rest. Let yourself be a work in progress instead of demanding perfection. And when something goes wrong, talk to yourself like a leader, not a critic.

That’s not letting yourself off the hook. That’s keeping yourself in the game.

Since it’s Thanksgiving week, here’s a different kind of gratitude practice:

Thank your body for carrying you this far. Thank your past self for the risks you took when you didn’t know how things would turn out. Thank the part of you that’s reading this because you want to grow.

Then make it practical: what’s one way you can take care of yourself this week? Eight hours of sleep, three nights in a row. A walk without your phone. Saying no to something that’s been draining you for months.

You don’t have to overhaul every part of your life at once. But you do want to stop pretending that running yourself into the ground is noble. It’s actually reckless.

Your business will only be as sustainable as the person leading it.