You're Burning Out Because You Think "Work-Life Balance" Is Real (Spoiler: It's Not)

Whew So, I had Siobhan Daukes on the podcast, and she absolutely demolished my worldview in the best possible way.

Here's what happened: I'm sitting there, ready to talk about "living life outside of work" like some LinkedIn thought leader who discovered hiking last month. And Siobhan just goes, "Yeah, no. I don't use words like 'in work' or 'out of work.'"

Record scratch.

The Integration Revelation

She hit me with this truth bomb: You're just... you. All the time. You're not "Work You" and "Weekend You" battling for dominance like some corporate Jekyll and Hyde situation.

You have hours. You have energy. You choose how to spend them. Some of those hours pay the mortgage. Some nourish your soul. They don't have to be equal, and they definitely don't have to be separated by some imaginary force field.

And here's the kicker—she treats currency as energy, not just money. How you spend your time needs to feel good. And when it doesn't? You know. Pretty damn quick.

This is the stuff nobody tells you when you're grinding through Series A.

The Inside Out Approach (Yes, the Pixar Movie)

Siobhan's obsessed with Inside Out (honestly, same), and she uses it as a framework for dealing with all the voices in your head screaming at you to work harder, do more, be better.

Instead of telling those voices to shut up—which takes a TON of energy, by the way—she suggests being graceful with them. "Oh hey, little voice. Not helpful right now. We'll talk tonight."

It sounds simple. It's not. But it's way less exhausting than pretending you're a productivity robot with no feelings.

Making friends with yourself is the prerequisite to making friends with anyone else. Your team, your customers, your board. If you can't connect with the messy, complicated human you are, good luck connecting with the messy, complicated humans paying your invoices.

Your Personal Board of Directors (That Never Actually Meets)

Here's where Siobhan got really practical. She talked about her "boardroom table"—not an actual board, but the 5-10 people she's built deep connections with over 20+ years.

Plot twist: They've never all met. They don't need to. Each person is there for a different reason, brings different expertise, fills different gaps. And here's the important part—they know they're on her board.

She put in the work to tell them. To show them. To maintain those connections across continents and time zones because she works fractionally and has moved around the world.

Some of them have standing 1:1s every other week. Not for work. Not for networking. Just to... connect. Help each other with personal stuff. Professional stuff. Whatever.

That's your team. That's your orchestra. That's your actual competitive advantage.

Not your tech stack. Not your go-to-market strategy. Your ability to nourish relationships with intentionality and consistency.

Why This Matters for You (Yes, You, Reading This at 11 PM)

If you're a founder, you're probably reading this while simultaneously answering Slack messages, reviewing a pitch deck, and wondering why your retention numbers look like a cliff dive.

Here's what Siobhan made me realize: The reason you can't connect with your customers is because you've forgotten how to connect with yourself.

You're so busy being "CEO You" or "Product You" or "Fundraising You" that the actual human underneath—the one with hobbies and friends and a reason for doing all this—has completely disappeared.

And when you disappear, so does your ability to build the kind of authentic relationships that turn customers into advocates, employees into evangelists, and investors into genuine partners.

The Chief of Staff Perspective

Siobhan works with early-stage founders (pre-Series A) as a Chief of Staff. She calls herself a "chaos wrangler" and a "disruptor," which is the most honest job description I've ever heard.

But here's what she really does: She creates visibility for the founder. She reminds them why they started. She points out when someone on the team did the thing the founder wanted to do a year ago but can't even see anymore because they're drowning in the growth chaos.

That one reminder might be the thing that gives a founder the power to deal with all the other garbage that week.

That's connectivity. That's humanness. That's the entire game.

What You Should Actually Do About This

Stop pretending you can separate "work you" from "real you." You can't. It's exhausting to try.

Start treating your time and energy like currency. Does it feel good? No? Fix it. Yes, even if there's a presentation due or someone's relying on you. Because if you don't slow down to look at what's broken, you won't speed up anywhere else.

Build your board of directors:

• Identify 5 people who matter

• Tell them they matter (don't be weird about it, just be honest)

• Put in the effort to maintain those connections—monthly calls, standing 1:1s, whatever works

• Let them help you with personal AND professional stuff

And maybe, just maybe, stop telling that voice in your head to shut up. Talk to it later. Be graceful with it.

Watch the Full Episode

Seriously, stop what you're doing and [listen to my conversation with Siobhan](insert link). She drops way more wisdom than I could fit in one blog post, and she'll probably make you cry a little (in a good way) while also making you want to completely restructure how you think about relationships.

Fair warning: You might end up questioning your entire approach to leadership. Consider yourself warned.

P.S. If you're reading this and thinking "this sounds great but I don't have time for this touchy-feely stuff"—that's exactly the problem. You've confused being busy with being effective. The founders who build unshakeable relationships with their customers, teams, and stakeholders aren't doing it because they have more time than you. They're doing it because they understand that human connection isn't separate from revenue growth. It is revenue growth. And retention. And referrals. And every other metric you're frantically trying to optimize with some new tool or strategy.

The tool is you. The fully integrated, occasionally messy, deeply human version of you. Start there.

Karl Pontau hosts The Human Connection Podcast, where we talk about the stuff that actually matters in business: the humans running it. Because whether you're B2B or B2C, it's really H2H, human to human. Subscribe so you don't miss the next episode where we probably say something that'll make your HR department uncomfortable.