Build Without Burnout: Focus, Slow Growth, and AI for Founders with Michael Elliott

Foreigners. We live in a world that glorifies speed, hustle, constant output. But really, do we pause to ask at what cost? Burnout isn't just exhaustion. It's what happens when our energy is scattered across too many things that don't matter. But on the flip side, focus, when nurtured with care, can create extraordinary results, even if it comes from the slow, deliberate 20% that truly moves the needle. Welcome back, listeners on Healthy Mind, Healthy Life. I am your host, Sana, and today I am joined by someone who knows this firsthand. After over a day decade immersed in the fast paced world of Google Ads, my guest mastered not only algorithms and roi, but also the psychology of attention and growth. And now with the rise of AI, he's helping entrepreneurs cut through the noise, focus on what truly matters, and find sustainable ways to grow without burning out. So this conversation isn't about hacks or shortcuts or your to do or checklist. It is about clarity, energy, and embracing a new pace for success. So, listeners, meet my lovely guest, Michael Elliott. So, Michael, welcome to the show and I'm really, really excited for this conversation.

Hi. Yeah, me too. Thank you for having me. I'm extremely excited to share my thoughts and experience with the, with the audience.

Absolutely, absolutely, Michael. Okay. I think it's a very kind of, you know, I believe it's a self introspection question, but if you kind of rewind everything and you are given a time machine in there and you have to go back five years, you know, and you have to sit down with yourself, what would you say? Would you judge your own version in there? Would you ask any particular questions specifically around mindset required for entrepreneurship?

There's quite a few takes on that. The first thing that I would say to myself would be to just breathe, relax and calm down, which is something that I have learned to master over the years, but didn't master in my early entrepreneurial years. If I could go back maybe a little bit further than five years and say 10 years, I would tell myself that everything will be okay. Stay focused on the 20% of things that matter, not the 80% that is noise, and just laser in your focus on what you want to achieve. I think a lot of people, I'm 33 years old, so a lot of people, when they're, they're at the age of, you know, 20, 23, between 20 and 23, they might be studying. I went to university in Sheffield. Like I graduated. Life hasn't even began at that age for many people. Like they don't have A direction at least I didn't. There are many people that fall into that category. And if I could sit down with myself at that time, honestly, the main piece of advice I would give myself would just be that everything will be okay. And the second and more intricate, getting into the depths of it as my career transpired, I would explain to myself that you should not be trapped in the mindset of being risk averse. Like taking risks is part and parcel of life. Failure, rejection. It's normal to hit walls for people to tell you no, but it's the desire to continue moving forward after that has happened. That's what makes people a success.

That's really, really beautiful, Michael. Really beautiful. And I can so much connect with that because, I mean, I shouldn't tell my exact age to all the listeners, but I kind of fall in that particular age category. And if I could go back three, four years back when life kind of hit a brick wall, I didn't have any expectation, any hope because, you know, as everyone would know, we got hit by pandemic layoffs and all that stuff. And it kind of hit me really, really hard in there. But if I could go back and tell to that particular version of myself, I would have told that, you know, just have hope, just keep on, you know, keep your head up and show up for yourself and just, just, you know, have that clarity to know that everything will be fine. You know, as you very perfectly summed up. And I think that is something. It's not only with respect, respective of entrepreneurs, but for everyone who may have or may not have or may have seen someone else battling with, you know, any life changing events or health concerns or men, mental health concerns or anything, anything life changing with them. So thank you so much for being candid about that, Michael.

It's okay because, you know, the entrepreneur's mindset, you know, like I'm a big believer on building a business without burning out, but it's not specific to entrepreneurship. I've taken hits in my life. Like When I was 18, I had a baby. I split up with my partner at the time. And I went through what to me was like an extremely emotionally challenging time. Like I really struggled mentally. Like I had, I had some, I had some major issues and you could argue that I still have them to this day. As in ptsd, if you like, it's trust. There's a lot of things that come from that. So it, everyone goes on their own journey. Covid caused a lot of people to have that feeling of being whacked in the face of, like, you know, wow, like this come out of nowhere, and now all of a sudden I'm unemployed or I don't know what's next. But the beautiful thing about life is that when one door closes, another one opens. And that's the way that I've trained my mind to be. When something happens, something ends, whether it be a relationship, whether it be a business idea that doesn't come to fruition, whether it be a relationship with someone in a business that you no longer have. All of those things, they're meant to happen for a reason. And if you just show up for yourself every day, do the work which is required, and take all of those shots, eventually one of them will go in, and it's impossible. It's the laws of probability. I've never seen somebody give 100% and fail so I can fully. My entrepreneurial mindset and the approach to building a business without burning out is a core thing for me now. But it was a core thing for me at 18 when I was going through a breakup and I felt like I'd lost my. Lost my child as such, you know, not seeing her every day, not watching her grow up. Like, I. I had those feelings then without even knowing it. I kind. And I kind of think that, you know, the heat, the flames, the difficult times, they're what actually shape your character at the time. They feel like they're like they're the worst thing in the world. But actually, I don't think I would be where I am today without what happened to me at the age of 18 happening. So I try and look at everything like that, with the positive angle. Like this is to strengthen me very similarly to ego. To the gym, you lift weights, then you can lift heavier weights. The more that life throws at you and you bat away and you work through and you become stronger, the more of that you can take and bounce off without having to influence your mindset.

That's so true. That is so true, Michael. And especially I really appreciate that you touched upon the learning aspect in here, because sometimes, popularly, across social media or any other resources, we often get to hear a lot about toxic positivity. But I think even if that failure is caused or an output of a decision that you took maybe a few years back or maybe, you know, not consciously, you took that decision at least, you know, that particular time period, you can learn from your mistakes, and then you can execute. Not, you know, instead of. Not, you know, instead of going into a rabbit hole and just, you know, kind of not forgiving Yourself not having that compassion towards yourself, not having that accountability as well. Yeah, yeah, go ahead, Michael.

Yeah, like with that, it's, you know, my mindset. I'm extremely self motivated. So some people don't have this and this is okay. Like some people are strong in different areas, but I am extremely self motivated. Like during my career I've closed over a hundred million dollars in deals. So I have closed huge deals where there's a lot of pressure on the line with every conversation I have had ones aggregate of smaller projects that I've taken on. But the handling of the pressure comes from focusing on only the things that you can control and maximizing your own potential. Like I. All I want to do every day is just make sure that I did everything in that day that I could physically, possibly do to make it a success and get the most out of it. Whenever my head touches the pillow, I want to know that I'd left nothing in the tank. Now too many people get caught up in my opinion of looking at someone's chapter 20 when they're on their chapter two. They, they look, they're looking ahead and they, maybe they look at what someone else has got or the speed that someone else is traveling at. But I stay very firmly in my own lane. A bit like a horse with blinkers on for racing. Like they keep blinkers on there because they're only focused on one thing and that's the finish line. And that's my approach to kind of blocking that noise. I think, I think that's, that's why it certainly helps me. I'm not saying it would help everybody, but if you just focus on what you can control, why worry about anything you can't control? Because there's nothing you can do about it anyway. You, you have to take whatever happens with whatever you can't control and deal with it later. You know, be firm, don't blink under pressure and just continue to push forward in any way that you, that you, that you need. And sometimes do you know what you need? You need to not work and you need to take a break. Sometimes that's what you need to do. It's not all about chasing the dream. It's sometimes a rest is, is what's required.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that is so underrated. Underrated. And there are a lot of misconceptions around that, you know, especially because we are living in a culture which is obsessed with scaling fast. But before that, you know, as you mentioned that you have worked in high pressure spaces and you are very much, you Know, self motivated. When you noticed burnout creeping in, what was the first small adjustment you made that made a big difference? Was it, you know, completely a mindset shift or any particular practice that you still adhere to? You know, kind of a non negotiable in there?

Yeah. In terms of the, the pressure like, or the sort of that creeping in. I mean, I think I learned to handle it over time. It wasn't something that you can just set your mind to. And it kind of goes back to my original point about you have to take a few hits and bumps along the way. Now it's a non negotiable. Now I know for my own mental health that I have to stay focused on what I am trying to achieve and block it out. But there have been times where something has arose and I feel under pressure and I can feel it, I can feel it mountain. But I now have the experience to be able to say, you've been here a thousand times before, you know, this exact feeling. It's just to feel it, it will pass. And all you can do is do what you, you can do in that situation and, and deliver. So I know it's a little bit cheesy, but you know the saying that if you fail to prepare, then prepare to fail. I'm always prepared for everything that's that I've got coming up in my life. And then that means that if something goes wrong, I couldn't control it anyway.

That makes sense. And I think a lot of listeners will resonate with that moment. I mean, when you're giving your hundred percent, but it feels like, you know, nothing is moving. And I, I believe that's where burnout, you know, it kind of hides in plain sight.

Do you know the thing is with the burnout though, and I'll tell you this, okay, One thing that is true about an entrepreneurial journey is that if everything was easy, everybody would have like they wanted. Yeah, the, the reason, like it's a bit of a cheesy phrase, but the 1 percenters, right, if you like the successful people, the ones who make it like big time, the reason that they made it wasn't that they actually had anything special. They are no different to you. But if something is hard for, for me to do, then it is hard for you to do, is hard for the audience to do because it is hard in nature. So I think one of the biggest things you can build is resilience to understand that like this is hard. Now I'm hitting these walls. People are saying no, they're saying no, this isn't happening. I'm not getting traction down this avenue. And when the times get hard, that's where 99% of people, they, they fall off and they quit. Whereas the other 1%, they can, they understand it's hard. They basically like, smile at the pain. They think that they, they as if as, as difficult as it is, they have programmed themselves to say, no matter what, this is going to be a success. Now, you might have to make a few tweaks along the way, but simple hard work and drive alone will, will get you there like it will because. And the simple reason for that is that the majority of other people, they would fold at that time when it got difficult. So again, I'm a big believer in flipping the script. Like, when things are hard. If you are in a tough moment right now, I'm not saying it doesn't weigh on you. I, I feel the same weight now. I've got the. You have pressure sometimes you're thinking about stuff and you're like, what you, how are you going to handle this? This is a big problem. Da da, da. But continue to push on in spite of that. Look at it as in, well, this is just a challenge I need to overcome to level up. And if you look at it that way, you will make significant progress. And eventually you'll be able to sit and look back and think, hey, like, you know, I can't believe, like, all those times and hard hardships and struggles that I went through, they were the reason that I am actually here in the, in the first place. Because without rambling on too much about this particular topic, if you think of life like a computer game, okay, like you play a computer game, I pick up the controller, I play a computer game, whatever game it is, and I play it for hours and hours and hours and hours. And then I get to the end of the game, the game finishes, and I just move around. In this game, there is nothing to do. All of the missions are complete. Everything is, everything is done. I've done everything in the game. You get a feeling at that stage of sort of like, what's, what's next, like, what, what, what, what do I do? And that's why the most satisfaction actually comes from playing the game in the first place, not when you achieve your goal. I've had loads of goals that I've set, that I've surpassed, and the day that I surpassed them, I felt exactly the same as the day before. I surpassed them. But I didn't appreciate all of the fights and the struggles and what I had to go through when I, when they were happening. But when I look back, I realized, you know what, that that is what I actually enjoyed. And that changed my life forever when I understood that.

That's a really good one, Michael. That's a really good one. And, and coming back to, you know, I was just mentioning how our culture is obsessed with scaling fast. And since you mentioned about, you know, having that mindfulness to take rest or take a pause, what do you think is the hidden value in slow growth? I think the freeze itself, slow growth can be sometimes negatively connotated, that it's not appreciated or it's not recognized, it's not awarded. So what's your view on it?

My personal approach to this is that I try and make the most out of everything that I've got. So I would probably fall on the category of side of the fast. Not fast growth, but fast decision making. Like what, what are you going to do? This is, this is the angle, this is how we're going to do it, setting it out. However, when it comes to slow growth, there, there is only a few things that matter to me. Like have I got a house for my children to live in? Are they fed? Are they warm? Is, you know, are they, do they have the things that they need in order to be well educated? Like do you bring them up well? Do you get enough time to spend with them? And I, if you look at those core five things and you can say yes to them all, you're already happier than 99% of the world. So fast growth, slow growth, like the, the choice is a decision for you and what suits what you want. I know people in my entrepreneurial circle that say, had a target to hit 10k a month and they hit 10k a month. And when they hit that, they decided that that was it. They're going to maintain at that size. They're going to be a one man operation. They're going to travel the world, they're going to see the world and they're going to enjoy it. And then I've got other people who demand maximum growth for their businesses who want to achieve everything physically possible. They don't allow one thing to slip any opportunity to be taken. And I do agree with that in many ways. But I do think that fast growth's overrated. Fast growth's the biggest way for you to burn out. I think there's somewhere put one, it's unique to you as an individual. What do you want out of life? Do you want to spend your whole Life working to be at the end, to hand it off to your family and not have spent any time with them and missed them growing up, etc. There are loads of things around that that you could dive into, but you know, you have to sacrifice a lot of time to be successful. There is the element of providing. So you want to, you don't want growth to be so slow that, you know, you almost go backwards with churn rate and things or whatever, depending on your business model. But I, you know, I go back to the point around you're running your own race, you're not racing against anybody else except yourself. If you want to take things slow and you want to take things in stride, then, then do exactly that because there are a lot of. You will face a lot more problems at the same time growing fast than you will if you grow slow. But I also don't want to discourage anybody from really going after their dream, like 100%. Like, I don't, because that, because I do share that mentality. So, yeah, I hope that answers the questions from both sides. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. I think slow growth is fine. You know, huge, quick scalable growth is fine. And a lot of it depends on your industry.

Totally, totally. And I think it's a very pertinent take on this. And it's kind of refreshing to hear that slow doesn't mean statement. It can mean more intentional, deliberate, more meaningful. And I think it's not black and white. There's definitely that gray area in there, that nuance in there that we need to acknowledge and embrace as well. And of course, a very important point that you mentioned, that we are not racing against anyone else. We are racing against us, maybe the older version of ourselves or what we find purposeful or what we have vision for. And before we wrap up, Michael, I also would like to bring in a bit around AI We. It's kind of that, you know, it's inevitable to bring in there. You have seen firsthand how AI is reshaping the way we work. Do you think AI makes focus easier or does it actually make burnout worse by overwhelming us with possibilities? You know, because I'm right now seeing some positive discussions around AI, how it is simplifying our lives, how it is increasing productivity. But at the same time, I'm also seeing concerns raised around AI people who are actually creating it there themselves, saying that don't use it. It's kind of a very interesting take. So what would you say on this?

Yeah, it's change Right. And the majority of people don't like change. So that's the reason why people feel, feel that way. I can from a personal perspective. AI has changed the game for me. My calendar, organization preparation. Even before this, this podcast I was given notes about the podcast about what topics I might want to cover like automatically that I didn't have to go and spend my time doing effectively. I used AI to buy my time back. So there is a, there's is a big thing to be said for, for that from an AI perspective. The reason why there's so much confusion is because AI is in quoted brackets new. Right? So there are, there's a new shiny object in a, in AI every single day that can do something new. What I advise people do is to focus on the 15%, 20% that actually matters. For example, like the large language models, the IMP. The implementation to your business of speed to lead to, to, to assist growth and again reduce staff burnout. Like sales reps who are on a million calls. You can qualify your, your inquiries using two way SMS systems using AI. So there are some really, really strong use cases where AI is, is is is is needed and is indeed the future regardless of whether we like it or not. It is. I teach people about AI, how to use it on my YouTube channel. But I do have to say that I agree with you on the point around, you know, that people's, people's concern or especially, especially in my experience, the elder demographic, like my parents for example. My parents fall into this category where they don't understand AI. Every single day there is something new in the news about AI and you know, the impact on the, on the environment, et cetera. There's all these things that come out about AI but if you actually just step back, forget all the gimmicky things related to AI and focus on its use cases in business, in personal life, in wellness. You know, you can have an AI automated tool that I use one and I automated tool that tells me that if I've been at my screen for three hours, if I have been at my screen for three hours, I get a notification in Slack telling me to take a break. That's AI that's assisting with my, my wellness because it's helping me understand that I'm spending too long in bulk periods of time, you know, at my screen. So there are many tools that do that for you. But I think that AI has to be embraced. There is no, there's no hiding from AI the way people search. Like I don't want this to become An AI AI conversation. But like Google has Project Mariner and things in the pipeline, the way that search engines are used are going to be, is going to be changing forever. Like more and more people are using LLMs now. Large language modules like ChatGPT AI Studio, like these tools to like find actual products that they need. So instead of going to Google search, like historically somebody would, they would go to Chat GPT and they would ask it, hey, I'm looking for a new garden shed and I need it to be this size, you know, do you, what do you recommend? And then the LLM will answer. So the way that humans are interacting with the digital world that AI does is included in is changing. And I would, would strongly advise people to embrace the, embrace the change, but don't waste time on the 80% that doesn't matter.

Wow. I think that's, this, is that balance, you know, that you know which, which you described it is. I mean personally I feel it's so important like using AI as a partner, not as a crutch or a pressure cooker. Because I think at the end of the day tools should serve us, not the other way around, so.

Exactly, exactly. And I'm gonna, so I'll, I'll, I'll finish the AI sort of topic off with a little bit of gold for people, for anybody who does have AI experience and who uses ChatGPT. Okay. Anybody that uses LLMs, large language models, no matter which one you use, it could be Grok, it could be AI Studio. If you don't know what any of this is, any listeners, it's okay. But if you use ChatGPT, which is the main one, let's say that we, we stick with ChatGPT. Well, what you want to do is, and what I have done is I have given the LLM all of my information. I've given at Google AI Studio all of my information, my upwork link with all of my successful projects on it, my LinkedIn, all of my background explanations around who I am, the two seven figure companies that I own. I've gone through all of this information, fed it documents, fed it information about me, and once I've done all of that, I asked it to create me the prompt that would be able to, to answer as if it was me when I ask it a question. So now I have a, I have a system instruction inside of an LLM which basically if I ask it a question, it will use all of my knowledge from all of my different areas and information that I've provided it about myself to Help me. And it's effectively a sound board like where I, I actually use it every day to challenge my own ideas and challenge my own thought process. Things like that are where AI becomes invaluable. Delphi AI clones, you staff can have conversations with you, third party people can have conversations with you. But I don't want to get too geeky on this, on this podcast. Don't, don't let AI overwhelm you mentally because that is definitely not what it's there for. Embrace it, understand that it is coming and just, just use it when it is necessary and don't feel like everything that you do in the world is going to be taken over by AI, because it isn't. But AI is going to be a focal point and a lot of people in their roles are going to shift from being like me. For example, if you looked at my AI integration, the shift is going to move from building flows out and implementing them for businesses like I do now, to becoming an architect where I look at a business end to end and tell them where they need to implement AI. Like that's the difference. There's a difference between deployment and. Because the technical gap for everything is getting smaller. You like coders, web developers, used to have to go to university, study, work in these corporations, work your way up to become a senior engineer, whatever. Now you can literally just go to different tools and it can do it for you. So yeah, don't be scared of it, but also don't waste too much time on the things that don't matter.

Absolutely, absolutely. I think that's a brilliant, it's a, definitely a golden nugget that you gave and I think it perfectly, perfectly concludes our conversation and I just want to, you know, wrap up. But before that, Michael, if listeners, they would like to connect with you, what would be the easiest way, the best.

Way for you to connect with me is almost definitely by LinkedIn. If you want to talk to me personally I will also give my cal my cal links and book a meeting with me directly. If you had any business discussions or just wanted some advice on anything. And yeah, YouTube, LinkedIn and booking a calendar link with me is the, is the best way to reach out. I do own multiple companies, aitrain.co.uk and adtrain.co.uk but I'm more than happy to connect with people on LinkedIn and make it personal if needed or jump on a call.

Super great listeners. I'll make sure to mention all the links in there in the show notes. So just refer to the show notes along with this episode on your favorite podcast platform. And as we wrap up, I want to pause on something simple but powerful. Your focus is your energy and your energy is your life. Burnout often comes when we scatter that energy into too many places at once. But when we start honoring the slow seasons, the deliberate choices, the intention and the 20% that Michael mentioned, that truly matters, growth begins to feel like less like a race and more like a journey we can actually sustain. So thank you to everyone for tuning in to this episode of Healthy Mind, Healthy Life. And Michael, thank you. Thank you so much for reminding us that clarity is not a luxury, it is a discipline. Thank you.

No problem.

So listeners, until next time, may you choose what matters, release what doesn't, and carry forward with focus that fuels, not trains, your soul. Thank you.

Sa.