Admitting the dark reality of my extreme burnout after years of 24/7 work & pressure - Ep 114

I'm far too honest on my Twitter and on YouTube in general, but Twitter seems to be where I post like the fucking dark shit. I kind of, yeah, I mean, there's a certain level I draw the line at, but it's probably no surprise to anyone that's followed my shit for a long time or even just that knows me that I've always struggled a lot with my mind. Now, I've never been a victim because of it, but I've always struggled a lot with it. There's, you know, there's genetic history there, whatever, like this whole separate thing. I've struggled a lot with it regardless of being a founder, and being a founder has for sure exacerbated the worst parts of it. Um, you know, whatever, I'm probably on the fucking spectrum on a lot of things. A lot of people are, but I genuinely do have a lot of challenges genetically and biologically, whatever you want to say, with that, and probably not made any better by being a founder, my history in business, and like legitimate PTSD from past issues and so on and whatever. And I'm not saying that to be a fucking victim, just saying that's reality. People know that, and I'm very honest about that. Probably not as honest as I maybe— well, maybe shouldn't be, but not as honest as I could be because I don't share that part of my brain a lot intentionally. But I do share the parts that are more relevant to the business and how that shows up in the business. And yeah, I guess my experience is when business has been stressful and other things, it's brought out the worst side of me, and then that reflects on the business and so on. But anyway, what I'm saying is I've always been prone to a lot of that fucking very dark times, very dark mind. A lot of people are. I do think mine is more extreme than most people, and it's not a flex. I fucking wish it wasn't, but it has been for, you know, reasons not within my control, like fucking biology or whatever, but also reasons ultimately within my control. I choosing to go down a certain path, choosing to put loads of pressure on myself, etc. And yeah, I feel like honestly in recent months, while I'm still showing up, you know, 6, 7 days a week, and I have done for fucking years, and the business is making progress, and there's been, you know, key milestones recently, just launched the rebrand, all this. I'd also say— fuck, I'm going too quick down here— I'd also say in the past 6 months, and maybe it's because I fucking got a bit older and all this, and see my parents getting older and like kind of reflect on the past few years. I just say I got fucking burnt out is the only way to describe it. And I'm the last person to put excuses up. In fact, I've always been a bit savage and been like, I don't fucking believe in any of that shit. Even though I've suffered with like depression for sure and issues on that side, but I've always been like, ah, burnout, whatever, you little bitch, just crack on. Um, but that's probably been to my detriment, and I've been redlining it for like literally like my whole 20s, like, and now I'm 30 as of like 2 months ago, um, which is fucking mental, by the way. But you know, I've been redlining it for like 7, 8 years at this point, and particularly the past sort of 3, 4 years with Space Goods and post-business failure and like having to having more pressure on myself. I was always redlining it from like when I became a full-time founder, you know, when I was like 22 or 22 and a half, coming up to 23, whatever. But back then there was less pressure on it, um, because I was younger and I probably enjoyed it more by default, and I was living with mates, etc. It was all just a bit different. And then yeah, I had that massive failure. I had a lot of success when I was younger, but then had a massive failure that really fucking hurt me financially and mentally, emotionally. And I probably still not, not recovered from it, but like it still left a mark, right? And it was probably very valuable. But then, you know, post that when I launched this business at 26, I started working on it when I was 26, there was more pressure from day one on that because I got into the mindset of like, this sounds extreme, but it's genuinely how my mind works and I'm not proud of it. I got into the mindset of like, if this doesn't work, I'd rather be fucking dead. And this, I guess, at the time, and still in the space, because, right, mainly, but I guess I meant like, if I don't become successful, because I want to be successful so bad. And for me, success has always been building businesses that ultimately produce cash flow. And what is he doing? Ultimately, success to me has been creating brands that are successful, right? And success means growing, cash flowing, fucking successful, like obvious, right? And ultimately I wanted freedom off the back of that. And I've been a founder my entire life. I couldn't work for anyone else. And so my mindset with entrepreneurship was like literally— and again, I'm not proud to say any of this shit, and it sounds flippant when I'm not in that headspace. But this is how I've always— even now I feel this way when I'm feeling fine speaking about this after a nice day out, whatever, on a Sunday evening. But I've always been in the mindset of like, if this doesn't work, I'd rather be dead. And if this doesn't work, I'm never going to work for anyone else. So I couldn't face that reality because I'm a fucking founder through and through, and that's just who I am. Um, fuck, the Rosanna is so confusing. So yeah, that mindset's always been how I've approached things, and it's very toxic and it's not healthy at all, but it's just true. And maybe there's more to unpack there that I may or may not go into in a later video. I've gone the wrong fucking way, I'm an idiot, Jesus Christ. And yeah, starting a business at 26 as I did with that mindset, like that fear of failure, of like, not fear of failure, rather like an acknowledgement to myself that I am not gonna fail, full fucking stop. And that just creates immense pressure, um, and I do believe I'm gonna succeed and succeeded to some degree over the past few years, obviously much better than I did before, um, but when you live with that underlying stress of like, I want so badly to succeed that I'm like literally willing to die to get there, even though that's not fucking healthy and you shouldn't actually feel that way, but that is how my mind feels, um, and has always felt. And even more so, like, in the dark— darker times or harder periods. Um, and as I've got older, you know, people will tell me there's time, there's time, or whatever, but I've always felt like there isn't fucking time. Because in my mind, it's like, if I haven't made it— and to be honest, for me, made it is like, I guess, to a degree, like, at the very least, financially retired. And ultimately, more importantly than that, or alongside that, have built a brand that is respected and, you know, admired and like really built something because that's what I want to fucking do. That's what I've always wanted to do. I've gone the wrong way so badly. Fuck. It's the problem with making videos when you're driving in Dubai is the roads are actually fucked, and then if you're on anything but a straight road, it's very hard not to get distracted by the immensely complicated roads. So yeah, anyway, like, that's always been my mindset, and I've never had that family wealth safety cushion. Like, I don't have one. Yeah, like most people, by the way, I get it. But, you know, there are also a lot of founders that say they don't have that, but actually their dad's worth $10 million, and, you know, if stuff don't work out, I'm sure dad will fund it for a while, or, you know, whatever. I'm not saying that to be bitter, but that's just the that's fucking reality, and I don't come from that background. So like, when I've had to start again in the past, like I did 4 years ago, like legitimately start again, which is fucking brutal, um, I didn't have that safety cushion, and that's where a lot of the pressure's come from. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that's been my baseline, um, and that creates a shitload of pressure, and the shitload of pressure creates the obsessive mindset of like, if I'm not working, I'm doing myself and my future self service. And basically you do that for fucking years and years and years and years while ultimately also being the CEO and solo founder of what is a venture-backed business, which does create more pressure. There's a lot of pros that come with that, by the way. I'm not saying it's all bad, but it does create a lot of pressure. And I'm fine, I can handle that, but it does take a fucking toll, I can't lie. Um, and yeah, I think basically that, that toll has kind of peaked over the past year in particular, I would say. I think I've kind of looked at my life and been like, fuck, do I actually enjoy a lot of this? And the honest answer has been no. That's why I've made certain changes, like I left London because it was genuinely making me deeply unhappy, and therefore, you know, it was one part of the picture, and therefore was making me less effective at my job as founder or any fucking job in the business. So, you know, that has helped for sure. But, you know, I'm also not— I've got some stability in my life, um, like financially and so on, but no, nowhere near the level I want to be in terms of like liquidity. Yes, there's a lot of like potential value on paper for sure, and I believe in that. But, you know, let's just like— every founder, I'm not saying I'm in a bad position, I'm actually probably in a better position than most. Is the honest truth. But yeah, I'm not like in the position where it's, ah, if this doesn't work out, yeah, it's fine, I'm good. Because I wouldn't be good. I'd have to still start the next thing. Like, I haven't got the liquidity enough to live the life I want to for the rest of my life without never working again. And to me, until I had that, then there's always going to be like more financial pressure on every decision, at least. Which again is the same for fucking like every founder, of course, unless you've exited or whatever, and that presents its has his own challenges, I'm sure. But yeah, you get my point. And I got into this toxic mindset, and I've always been like this, and I think it's a bit of ADHD, I think it's a bit of fucking autism, it's a bit of— I hate to say it, but like trauma from the last business failing and like not wanting to let anything inside my control slip to prevent that again. And again, also just pressure of wanting to hit the numbers and being in a tough market and doing well, but probably not as well as I'd like. And yeah, it got to the point— I say got to the point, it's been like this for years— but like, I almost feel guilty like going out on a weekend to see my friends, or fucking even spending time with my girlfriend, or seeing my parents for a weekend, thinking I have to be at my desk. And it's actually not even productive. And I'm such a fucking hypocrite because I've always trained a lot and I've, you know, understand the principle of recovery and so on. But then when it came to entrepreneurship and work, I would always say, ah, it's all bollocks, you know. That I'm just gonna outwork you. And that, there is some value to that, but I think there's less value to that as I've got older and my nervous system or whatever. My girlfriend's proper into all this shit, and I didn't used to believe any of this crap, any of this stuff, probably just didn't fucking understand it. But the more she's taught me about it, the more I've seen it myself, it's true. Like, I've fucking fried my nervous system for sure, um, and just like frazzled my brain from just never, never relaxing ever. At least not to a deep enough extent and a long enough extent to actually get any real benefit from it. And again, I'm not like, I'm not fucking proud of this, by the way. Like, it's bad. I'm saying it because I'm admitting I've been doing stuff wrong, and it's probably been a lose-lose. It's been painful for me. It's made me feel not well physically or mentally, probably mentally the most, but it's shown up physically as well more these days as I've got a bit older. And it's also made me probably a worse operator. I've made bad decisions, I've made stress decisions, I've shown up, as we all do at times, in a way that I'm not proud of to the team or my own family or whatever because of stress and because of fucking never relaxing or switching off. And it's gone too far is the honest assessment. And I feel like for the first time, probably fucking ever, like recently I've just not wanted to show up. And by the way, I always show up even when I feel like that. And obviously tomorrow morning, Monday, I'm going to fucking show up. Like, I'm extremely disciplined with that, and I've never been the guy that's going to let those thoughts just fucking consume me physically and like knock out of bed or anything. I've never been that guy. Even when I've struggled a lot with my mind, I've always shown up. This has never affected me like work-wise really. It's more just been like a fucking annoying feeling that's been there. But yeah, recently I've been like, if I'm completely honest, and I don't want the wrong people to watch this and get the wrong impression, but just haven't fucking enjoyed it to the point where it's like, wow, I actually need to like not look at this for at least a month. And I've never ever ever done that before. And that's not practical right now, to be honest, because I'm the founder and still CEO of the business and you know, as in— I hate that term, I don't consider myself that, but I am in terms of I'm leading the business and people, a lot of people reporting to me and all this shit. But just don't feel like I've been able to show up as my best self because I've been so fried from— basically it's all caught up with me, I think, more than ever in the past few months. And the way this has shown up, to be specific, is just feel like I've lost my edge physically and mentally. I've barely been sleeping. I wake up every night with like, sounds fucking cringe or bullshit, but like literally with like nightmares, wake up with like racing heart rate sometimes, um, sleep score is never good, I'm always fucking tired, needing more caffeine, and like sex drive hasn't been great. It is sometimes, but not all the time, like way less than normal. Even like my ability to be motivated in the gym, I don't feel that bothered. Creative stuff that would have inspired me in the past and like got me really going and so on, just not been that arsed. I've just felt fucking numb to a lot of things, and I feel like I'm operating at like 50% max, even though I'm redlining mentally to try and push on. And I don't know, it probably feels like the entrepreneurial equivalent of like if you fucking pulled something and you're still training for your marathon because you're scared to take a few weeks off, but actually it's going to make you perform worse than just having a month off. Like, that's like maybe an analogy that I can relate to. Um, and yeah, it's resulted in like me probably going to a very, I mean, a very, very dark place mentally at periods. And obviously that stuff I've never put on YouTube. I probably do sometimes tweet when I'm in that headspace, if I'm completely honest, which feels more tolerable. And I'm not doing that for fucking attention or any bollocks. I'm doing that to share my honest opinion and be able to look back on it when hopefully I'm in a better place, and to show the darker side of stuff, which I think no one fucking does. It's not necessarily helpful to do that, but to some people, whatever, it's the truth. Like, recently I've been getting like mega dizzy, just like yawning fucking all the time, just generally feeling like not arsed, not even necessarily like depressed, although there's definitely big fucking windows of that. And again, that's a separate thing. I've always struggled a lot with that, and it does get worse when I feel this way. But yeah, my brain's just felt fried. Like, I just feel like I have no fucking creative ideas. I'm not interested in really doing anything. Like, I'm not even that arsed about, like, seeing friends and doing stuff that maybe in the past I would have wanted to do more often and would have done more often. Like, find myself eating shit food, which I know is like— makes it even worse, right? But just fall into shit habits. And even now my environment's much better, I feel like because my brain is just so fried, I don't appreciate it. And that's not even helped me that much, or as much as I probably would have hoped for. So yeah, anyway, this is like a very high-level view of like my honest experience. I'm probably not doing it justice. Like, it's just been really fucking bad, to be honest. I felt really not good about myself. My future. Like, I felt mega demotivated. And again, if like my fucking investors or team are watching this, I do show up. You've obviously seen it. I think I'm performing pretty well in general, especially given how I've been feeling, if I'm completely honest. But I haven't been performing as well as I think I could in life, and my honest assessment is I'm just fucking burnt out from years and years and years of not ever having a full even fucking day off, let alone week or month or whatever normal people do. And also like just every day, the standard work day has been fucking, you know, all day. And then even when I'm not at work, you know, I'm on my phone fucking reading emails. Like, it just got very toxic and it's not, it's not serving me at this age. In this next stage, it's actually not effective. And I need to appreciate the recovery aspect of being like the entrepreneurial athlete, like being the fucking founder. It's not running or whatever, but it's mental fucking sport, right? And it's 24/7. And I read an article on this on Twitter recently, and like very recently, and it just fucking clicked to me again. It's obvious stuff, right? But like my mindset, because of all the things I've just said, was just not to think that way and just to fucking redline all the time and almost compete with myself, compete with my mates, whatever. But it's just not effective for me anymore, and I'm finally realizing that. And it's not optional because I just can't show up like this for the next few years. It doesn't work. So yeah, look, what am I doing about it? I mean, practically, I can't— I can't fucking take a year off. Like, maybe sometimes I would like to when I'm in the darkest depths of this mood, for sure. And then I probably come out of it the next day, and I don't feel feel that, obviously. But I'm still deep in the business, I'm still committed to that. Like, the reality is I do need some key hires in certain areas to take a lot of the weight off. That's not been good. There's some team changes that were necessary and did happen, but that has left me with even more work in the short term, which I don't want to be fully doing, if I'm completely honest. And, you know, I'll save you the details on that, but that's one thing that'll help, and that's hopefully coming soon. The other thing is just probably just fucking taking Sundays off at the very least, and maybe even taking a weekend off every month, like, which to me is actually fucking drastic. And it's not even a flex, right? Because I know people that are far more successful than I am that work less. And by the way, that's more important. Like, anyone can work hard, not anyone can produce results. And you have to just— it's difficult to distinguish the two and be honest about it, but working hard doesn't fucking make you successful. Producing results does, right? And if working hard is part of that, fine, and it is, but redlining and being ineffective doesn't necessarily yield results. And that's kind of where I've been in certain areas. Um, so yeah, that's one part, just being more conscious. I think the other thing for me is I'm always on my fucking screen and working even when I'm not actually working. So even when I'm I want a date night. My toxic trait is I'll be on my phone looking at something, even if it's not work-related, like almost as a habit, a tick to like need— I need to be stimulated, I need to feel productive. I need to get better at doing nothing, and it sounds ridiculous, but I think that's the only way. And I need to really start drawing a line. I've tried for years and it's never worked, but like this just has to happen. I need to draw more of a physical line between work and at least just walk, like, life while thinking about work. As in, like, just shut the fucking laptop at like 9 PM instead of midnight, at least. Which sounds insane because to most people that's already super late, but I guess with time zones and shit, it's actually pretty reasonable for me. But you get my point, right? And it is like small changes, um, because ultimately it's not fucking sustainable the way I've been operating, and it has been making me ill. Like legitimately fucking ill mentally and physically in different ways. So yeah, and ultimately like long term as well, it's like just actually like fixing my fucking burnt out brain or whatever. Like there is science to this, but actually just fixing that, I think that takes longer. That probably requires more time off, or at least approaching work differently day to day, which is the more practical way to deal with it for now. Um, but yeah, anyway, there we go. I'm nearly back. I've been driving home from that golf place. Again, I'm not fucking moaning. I'm not trying to be a victim. I'm just trying to be honest. Like, my life is better than most people. I already know that. My business is better than most people. I'm not saying that from an arrogant place. I'm saying that because I'm so fucking bad at thinking I'm doing nothing, and that makes all this harder, comparing myself and so on. And maybe that's a separate video because it's something I've been really struggling with recently. More than ever is comparison. And yeah, that's a whole separate thing which doesn't help this, but I do need to remind myself, like, could be fucking worse. I'm not doing badly compared to where I was, most importantly where I was a few years ago, right? So like, the redlining has paid off to some degree and is slowly paying off, but not as much as I would like, and it's not in a sustainable way. And I think actually by not doing it in a sustainable way is also why it's probably not paid off as much as I would like just yet. So anyway, don't know if it's relatable. Hopefully it is. There's no agenda, I'm just being honest as always. I just think different stages of life and business require a different approach, and you have to recognize when what you're doing isn't effective and it's probably coming from a place of fear and panic rather than like actually being effective. And for me, that is this. I need to fucking prioritize my health, which actually is also prioritizing my work in business. And I've been getting that fucked up the past few— well, past few years, to be honest, but mainly the past few months. So yeah, I don't know, bit of a ramble. I feel like my head's all over the place at the minute. I didn't look at Slack today. No, sorry, I looked at it once for 5 minutes. That's real good for me. Yeah, I need more days when I'm not on my screen of any kind. Not, well, not proactively thinking about work, maybe accidentally thinking about work. And I like working, I like working on stuff, but recently it just got too far for all the reasons I said. And maybe it's relatable, maybe it's not. Like I said, I'm not a victim, I'm not looking for sympathy, it's just an honest fucking reflection. It has got very, very dark at times, which is a separate thing, maybe to some degree. But yeah, I just want to fucking enjoy my life more, to be honest. And I haven't been the past— honestly, the past few years, if I'm completely brutally honest. Not as much as I should, don't get me wrong. There's obviously been very good parts, but the day-to-day normal times, the average, like Monday to Saturday, whatever, haven't really enjoyed as much as I would like to enjoy it, and as much as I feel like I deserve to enjoy it given how much work I've put in to try and curate a life that is better than what it used to be, coming from a pretty shit place. So yeah, I'll call it there. I think it's an interesting topic. I don't think enough people talk about this, and I don't come at it from like some fucking woke pansy like weak perspective. It's not that at all because that's not me at all, but it's actually from like what's more effective. So all comes from a place of how can I be better. It's not from like how can I pussy out and call it a day. The irony is it really is from a place of how to perform better, so, and how to win long term, which I really, really, really want to do. So anyway, fuck me, I'm rambling. That was like 25 minutes or longer. I'm not very good at closing videos because I never plan any of these, never script them. Of course I'd literally say, ah, it's supposed to be that, it's quite interesting. Think about myself. So yeah, look, if you enjoyed it, if it's relatable, whatever, like subscribe to the pod. I'll catch you in the next one. Keep scaling. If you're going through hard shit in business, it's probably not just you. If you're going through good shit, that's great. Um, anything in between, I've probably felt it or seen it, and there's probably a video about it on this channel as well, given the amount of waffling I've done over the past few years. But yeah, hope you're all well, and we'll chat in the next video. Thanks for watching. Peace.