← The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
614: (Solo) Running on Fumes? Reset Your Mindset Before The Year Ends
00:09:36
If you’re dragging yourself toward the end of the year feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, and mentally drained, you’re not alone. This is one of the toughest stretches for founders — you’re still running the business while everyone else is winding down, and the pressure can quietly compound into burnout.
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- [00:02]
A
Hey, founder fam. I want to talk to you about something super exciting. We're officially partnered with Omnisend, the email marketing and SMS platform built specifically for e commerce founders. We've been recommending Omnisend to founder students for a while now because it just works. Whether you're launching your first store or you're scaling to seven figures, it really helps you automate your marketing and get real results. Did you know, on average, OMNISEND customers make $68 for every $1 they spend, which is an insanely good return. And because you're part of the founder community, you get 50% off your first three months with the code. Founder50. Just head to omnisend.com founder without the e to get started. All right, now let's jump back into the show.
- [00:49]
B
Hey, founder fam. Nathan here. And we're back for another Founder to Founder episode. You guys are loving these episodes and if you have any suggestions, shoot me a dm. Would love to hear from you. If you have any questions, something you'd like me to tackle or what I want to tackle today is something that's been on my mind. You're not imagining it. The tank is low, your energy shot. You're doing the best to hit your goals, but everything right now just feels hard. It's sluggish. You're not alone. It feels like a grind. If you're a founder crawling at the end of the year on fumes, you're working hard, you've got so many competing priorities, it just feels like nothing is working. It feels like you're looking at the end of the year and you're like, oh, my God, what have I achieved? What have I accomplished? I'm feeling burnt out and I get it. We're at the tail end of the year. I know firsthand how exhausting it can feel to keep pushing, especially if your business isn't hitting targets that you'd hoped for. You're running on adrenaline, you don't have much else. I've been there. There's this unspoken pressure that founders carry. You know when everyone's planning parties, putting up Christmas trees and you have to keep showing up, you don't get a holiday right? Or if you do, it's not much because you got orders coming in, you've still got stuff to do, you've still got to look after your stuff, you've still got to make sales is coming through, You' still got payroll, you've still got costs, all these different things. And take it from me, who has been there before this is not sustainable. So in this episode, I want to talk about how to personally reset your mindset. How I've done it during seasons like this. These are actual tools and strategies and mental shifts that I've used to really recalibrate. Stay on top of my game because I've experienced burnout and it's tough.
- [02:25]
C
Hear the stories, learn the proven methods, and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship. Welcome to the Founder Podcast with Nathan Chan.
- [02:39]
B
So one of the biggest lies that we tell ourselves as founders is as long as I hit this target or everything's going to be amazing. When this happens, I'm feeling run down, but I've got this just a little bit more. But more often than not, the truth is you're coming close to burnout, and that doesn't mean you should give up. It just means you need a system to restore yourself. So this is what I do when I feel this. One thing I do is I love health and wellness. So I will go and rejuvenate myself by starting to do some more float tanks. I find float tanks are an absolute game changer. Oftentimes when I find that I'm in this space, I'm just working way too much. And sometimes I work on weekends, sometimes I don't. So what I do is I just don't work on weekends. And, you know, another thing that I start to do as well is I try and make sure that I spend more time with family and friends. Another thing I like to do as well when I'm starting to feel this way is I book a holiday. And I know for some of you guys that be like, oh, wasn't that obvious? Well, when you have a holiday, it just makes sure you have something to look forward to. And when I go on holidays, guys, I don't work. I use holidays as a way to get downtime and reset. So when I log my holiday and I've got it, I actually delete Slack, I delete my calendar, I delete my email, I don't take my laptop, I've just got my phone and I properly recharge. Because here's the thing, right? I don't know if you're into horse racing, but the horse racing is massive here in the spring carnival and all in Australia in particular. And I look at this like, when you're racing horses, you don't race them all year round. If you've got a great racehorse, you let your racehorse spend some time in the paddock. You know, you let them rechar and that's what you need to do, right. So that's why I always take at least a couple of holidays a year and I fully recharge. Another thing I like to do is if I'm feeling like overwhelmed, I express that in writing. There's something so incredibly therapeutic by putting pen to paper, talking about how you're feeling, what's on your mind, what you're focused on, where you want the future to be and just verbally vomiting on a page and getting it out there. Then you go back and you look at like a couple of years ago, your entries and then you just like, oh my God, this is crazy. Look at where I've come from. So those are some of the things that I like to do, right? I take a break, don't work weekends, booking a holiday, make sure I do my float tanks, make sure I'm doing my steps. I start getting my steps in. I try and average 10,000 steps a day and a good one is getting outside. Regrounding yourself is game changing. So like take off your shoes, bare feet, reground yourself. Like this stuff actually works. I've had burnout before guys. And then some other micro wins I like to do is morning meditation. At the moment I'm a bit slack with my morning meditation to be honest. Saunas, saunas are game changing. Go to your like, you know, your local gym or your local leisure center and see if you can go into sauna. That's game changing. And then also I have somebody in my network who I can trust. His name's Tony. I call him Master Shifu. For those of you that like Kung Fu Panda. He, you know, got me into Kung Fu Panda. What incredible movie and series of movies. Master Shifu and like I go through what's happening, he helps me reset, reframe things. Mentors are so incredibly powerful. If you don't have a mentor. We have incredible mentors. Join founder plus sign up to our coaching program. It's crazy. And then end of year reflection, planning, right? When it comes to planning, I'm going to do another episode on this in depth on how I like to plan. But be do have use future me.org really, really powerful. But I also want to share as well. Guys, it's also about what you say no to. So something that I personally struggle with is when people are writing to me, you know, want to do this, want to catch up and you don't want to be a jerk but you just have to for yourself. You know, I don't know if you guys find yourself but sometimes I can be A bit of a people pleaser. I don't want to let other people down, but you got to say no, right? You have to do what's best for you. You have to do what's best for your own mental health. You have to do what's best for your family. And sometimes just doing less is just better, right? Should you launch that campaign, should you catch up with that random person, focus on doing less, look at your calendar, just step back, do less. And then, really, I can't stress this enough. Book in a holiday, take some downtime, even if it's just a long weekend. Take off Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then you got your Saturday, Sunday, and just take five days off. Go up to the beach, go up to the coast. I promise you, it's the best. Reset. And then one thing else I want to talk about is you can't build great things when you're on empty. And one of the most dangerous things that a founder can do is run on empty. Like, I've experienced such deep burnout, guys, that I didn't want to go to work anymore. You know, you can't lead teams, you can't hire people, you can't market, you can't build great products, you can't scale. The real skill is knowing when the right time is to pause and reflect and rest. And I can tell you when I'm feeling that, when I'm starting to feel that when I'm having trouble sleeping, I'm starting to feel that when I'm finding I'm a lot more anxious about things I'm not usually anxious about, I'm finding that when I'm just running on absolute fumes and I'm getting sick a lot. Right? I find that when, you know, I'm feeling overwhelmed, I'm finding that when I look at my calendar, I'm just like, oh, my God, I can't think of anything worse. I find that when I don't want to go to work, when it's a weekend, I'm not looking forward to Mondays, I'm dreading it. And these are the things that you know when you're running on empty. And I hope what I've shared with you today has really helped you. If you're in this kind of, you know, oh, my God, it's the end of the year, I'm feeling tired. Make sure you book a holiday. Look after yourself. I can't stress this enough. Us as founders, you know, we work so hard. We give our life to our businesses, and if we let it, it'll take everything, everything from us. Don't let it zoom out. Slow down. Get some downtime for the year. Spend more time with friends and family. Reinvest in your own mental health. It's so important. All right, you've got this. Thank you so much, guys, for listening, and I'll see you in another episode.