[#12] Why Naming Your Burnout Never Makes It Go Away (and why vulnerability isn't enough)
Kent Murawski
Confession doesn’t equal change.
At 27, I had a fall-down-on-the-floor nervous breakdown. At 39, I nearly burned out again. Both times, my body was tired, my mind was clouded, and my marriage was strained. I didn’t need more people telling me to be vulnerable, honor my feelings, and set better boundaries. I needed a structural answer for burnout. Because whatever I had been doing wasn’t working.
Now I’m 51, and my rhythms are clear and defined without being rigid. For the past ten years, I’ve been building rhythms that can withstand the pressures of life, moving me toward wholeness rather than balance. Like skyscrapers constructed in earthquake-prone areas are engineered to sway rather than resist, rhythms need to be flexible enough to bend and sway but firm enough to hold steady when things start shaking. And that means more presence and clarity when it matters: with your family, leading your team, and in yourself.
Burnout: a “defining feature of leadership”
A 2026 Vistage survey (a global peer-advisory and executive-coaching organization for CEOs and business leaders) reported that “burnout is now a defining feature of the leadership environment with 70% of CEOs experiencing it at least occasionally and 28% reporting it happens frequently or daily.” This is up from 68% and 24% in 2025.
As expected, the reasons are complex. As Cathy Moulton, President of a real estate and property management company in Pennsylvania, shared, “I feel like I am working harder to stay on top of changing winds in the market, keeping up with new availability of AI, newer benefits my Team wants, wars, tariffs, tariff rebates, and, and, and…”
The ability to readily name burnout as the problem isn’t fixing it. I’ve experienced this in my own coaching practice. Many leaders can readily tell me they feel burned out or overwhelmed. Usually, by the time they feel that way and start naming it, they are more burned out than they might think. Naming the problem isn’t enough. If it were, burnout would be declining rather than rising.
As I pointed out in my last piece, part of the answer is letting go of control. In a fast-moving world, leaders need a durable structure that can withstand the real pressures of leadership, not more self-care techniques and workplace well-being programs, or what researchers have started calling "carewashing." People don’t need better balance; they need a different structure.
“Other people haven’t changed, you have!”
Cliff, the CTO of a medium-sized company, is a good example. When we started working together, he bulldozed through people and problems. His relational rhythms needed work, and no amount of self-care was going to do it. But after a few months working together, his CEO pulled him aside after the team dynamic had changed and said, “Other people haven’t changed, you have!” As we worked on restoring Cliff’s relational rhythms, he came to see people as a valuable part of the process rather than an obstacle between him and the goal, changing him and the team dynamic.
Isn't "fix your own rhythms" insufficient to bring organization-wide change? A small claim being asked to answer a big one? That’s fair. In Cliff’s case, he is the CTO. His work changed his posture and how his team experienced him, not the organization as a whole.
Cliff didn’t have the whole organization underneath him. You might. But whether it’s your team or the company, you have more power than you think. Like Maxwell’s Law of the Lid, your leadership ability determines your effectiveness and becomes a ceiling for what the organization (which is made up of people) can become.
Being vulnerable about burnout will not fix it, but a commitment to develop yourself and move toward wholeness can create an environment that supports your own well-being and that of your employees rather than sabotaging it.
Confession is just the beginning. Becoming the person you need to be for yourself, your family, and those you lead is harder.
Your RHYTHMS Check
Chamber: Cliff's relational rhythm was out of sync, which is what had him treating people like obstacles. Burnout isn't caused by the same chamber every time, and the one causing yours might not be his. It might be:
- Relational — people start feeling like obstacles, or there's a conversation you're avoiding.
- Emotional — you can't name what you're feeling anymore, you just call it "fine."
- Spiritual — you've stopped asking what any of this is actually for.
- Tangible — your body or your calendar is the first thing giving out.
If you skip it: Whichever chamber it is, the pattern holds — you keep confessing something's off instead of building the structure that would actually fix it.
If you take it: You stop treating the symptom as the problem and start treating the chamber underneath it as the problem, which is the only version of this that actually moves.
What this rhythm determines: Whichever chamber it is, it determines the same things: decision quality, capacity, how present you are with the people who matter. For Cliff, that showed up as team output. Yours might show up somewhere else entirely.
This week's action: If you already know your chamber, pick the one specific thing in that chamber you've been avoiding, and do it this week, not eventually.
Reflection question: Of your four rhythms, Relational, Emotional, Spiritual, Tangible, which one are you most avoiding right now, and what's the smallest next step you could take this week?
If you don't know your chamber yet, that's exactly what the REST Assessment is built to tell you in under 3 minutes.
Until next time,
Kent
P.S. I'm opening up a way to walk through your assessment report with me directly. Details coming soon.
Sources
Current Economic Climate Dampens CEO Confidence [Q2 2026 Vistage CEO Index], by Joe Galvin, July 14, 2026
Why Workplace Well-Being Programs Don’t Achieve Better Outcomes, by Jazz Croft, Acacia Parks and Ashley Whillans, October 18, 2024
The Law of the Lid, Maxwell Leadership
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The grind that got you there is killing you. Earlier this year, the CEO of a large global company paused midway through a discussion on talent and said, 'We have a problem. Burnout is becoming a real issue.' He went on to explain that the people struggling weren't average performers. They were the organization's most experienced and capable leaders, the ones the company was counting on to move into its most senior roles, and they were disengaging and stalling out. 'We are losing momentum at exactly the point we need it most,' he said. I find that ridiculous. It's not becoming a real issue; it has already been an issue for years. You scaled hard for the better part of a decade, and somewhere in your forties, the responsibilities of life and the weight of leadership are crushing you. You're wondering how long you can keep all the plates spinning. You promised to be home for dinner but forgot. You had planned to make it to your kids' game, but couldn't. Rest seems like an impossibility, and even when you're supposed to be resting, your mind won't stop working the problem. You feel your chest tightening as the anxiety builds, and you're not sure why it's there, but you feel constantly overwhelmed, maybe even on the edge of a panic attack or a breakdown. Twelve years after I had a full-blown nervous breakdown, and nearing 40, I landed myself right back in the same place. Things had gotten better but incrementally. Life had moved from a three to a five out of ten. Leading a church we had started from scratch and now planning a grand opening, working part-time for an urban youth center, and most importantly, trying to be a good husband and father. I was drowning. I was at a crossroads: keep pushing and burnout again or let go of control and let the chips fall where they may. It was a normal Wednesday afternoon, and I had blocked time for some prayer, thought, and reflection. But that day, I had a laundry list of seemingly urgent decisions that needed to be made. As I processed through each item on the list, my anxiety didn’t resolve; it grew until another breakdown felt imminent. That’s when this thought hit me like a Mack truck: You don’t have to understand or control everything to live from rest. In that moment, I threw my list to the ground, lay down on the bed, and let go of every burden and every decision I was grasping so tightly. My heart rate slowed, the weight on my chest lifted, and a sublime peace came over me. The breakthrough wasn’t a system. It was a posture of rest. I had been trying to understand and control everything before I would allow myself to rest. No more. That one insight became the foundation for the RHYTHMS OF REST℠ Framework — four cadences a human life runs on, the way a heart runs on four chambers: Relational, Emotional, Spiritual (faith or a philosophy of life), and Tangible. The illusion of control. To live from rest, you have to give up something you never really had in the first place: control. The only real control we have is self-control, and let’s be honest, some of us don’t even have that. If you have kids, you know what I mean. You can try to control your kids, but it only works for a short while and ultimately backfires. Why? Because anything other than self-control is an illusion. Control over your employees, revenue, the economy, and outcomes is an illusion. What releasing control doesn’t mean. Releasing control means being intentional about inputs and holding outcomes loosely. It doesn't mean abdicating responsibility, and it isn't 'let go and see what happens.' I see this constantly with owners and executives in my own coaching practice. The more they fixate on what they can't control, the more the anxiety compounds, and the worse their decisions get. Releasing control is an open-handed posture that must be chosen again and again. It's the difference between a team that waits for your sign-off on everything and one that moves in confidence without you in the room. When a ‘season’ becomes a lifestyle The rise-and-grind hustle culture had its heyday in the 2010s. It said optimize everything, sleep is for the weak, and squeeze every second out of your workday. It works for a while. Until it doesn’t. Part of the reason for the change is you’re not the same person anymore, and you’re in a different season of life. You're ten years older, and there’s a good chance you're married with kids. Life has changed and so have you. You may be starting to notice a change in your cognitive ability, but if not, it’s coming soon. Arthur Brooks writes about this in his book From Strength to Strength, noting that professional decline in high-skill fields typically begins between the late thirties and early fifties. Brooks goes on to note two types of intelligence: fluid and crystallized. Fluid intelligence, the ability to reason, think flexibly, and solve novel problems, or just “raw smarts,” diminishes rapidly starting in one’s thirties and forties. It’s the reason why the most common age for great discovery or innovation is one’s late thirties. Crystallized intelligence, which increases through middle and late adulthood and does not diminish until much later in life, is the ability to use a stock of knowledge learned in the past. Think of a librarian amidst a vast library collection. She knows where to find a book, even if it takes a while. Youth comes with raw smarts and age with wisdom. “Work is a priority. It is not the priority.” In addition to the physical and cognitive changes you are experiencing, your values and priorities are also changing. As Meghan French Dunbar noted in This Isn’t Working, “Yes, work is a priority. It is not the priority.” Over time, you stop idolizing short-term wins and start paying attention to a more sustainable way to work. The leaders who do this well are building decade-long companies, not five-year ones. They do it by treating employees like adults, caring about their lives beyond the paycheck, and building a team culture that wins or loses together. Valeria, the CEO of FriendsheepⓇ, friend, and coaching client, cared deeply about her employees, but her own pace was unsustainable. As we identified the faulty narrative driving her pace and instituted two new rhythms, she went from working 5–6 nights a week to protecting 2–3 nights off and adding a full day of rest each week. In her own words, "Kent helped me see that rest isn't laziness; it makes me a better leader. I was able to watch a movie on the couch with my family for the first time in months without opening my laptop." In that same stretch, revenue continued to grow as she worked smarter and even had time for herself. I know what you're thinking. The grind is just a part of building a company, especially in the first few years. I can't afford to slow down right now; my competitors won't, and the two times I tried to pull back, revenue dipped. Like Valeria once did, maybe you believe that rest is laziness and slowing down will cost you growth. Or like many of my clients, you say, 'I don't know how to rest,' or 'I'll rest once I sell the company," or “I will rest when the work is finished.” In the meantime, you’re sacrificing relationships for success. Your physical health has taken a back seat to quarterly growth. And caffeine-induced energy has replaced replenishing rhythms of sleep and movement. That might work if you are planning to exit in five years as a shell of a human being or if you're fine building a company that falls apart the moment you step away: no bench, no successor, no one you've trusted enough to hand any real responsibility to. But as we have already discovered, it's not what the most effective and long-lasting companies do. My prediction: the leaders who don't figure this out in the next five years won't lose their companies outright. They'll lose themselves first. Then they'll lose their best people to the leaders who did, and they'll spend years wondering why. Or maybe it’s time to admit what was once a season has become a lifestyle. The grind that got you here will kill you. It might also cost you the people and the life you were trying to build in the first place. The bill always comes due. Yours is already accruing interest. The only open question left is what will you have to pay it with? Until next time, Kent
What if the reason nothing has stuck is that you have been fixing the wrong thing? I had a full nervous breakdown at twenty-seven. There I was, face down on the floor in a puddle of tears, in the middle of my kitchen when I was supposed to be driving to a weekend training conference for my leadership role. A second breakdown was waiting for me at thirty-nine, and I almost did not see that one coming either. Between those two moments, I tried every item on the wellness menu. Exercise. Counseling. Meditation and prayer. The early morning routine. I am writing this today because twenty years taught me what no one in the wellness industry was willing to say. I had been working very hard for a very long time at the wrong question. For over a decade, the wellness industry has told leaders and executives that the answer to burnout is balance. By every measure that matters, balance has not delivered. If you are a business owner or senior leader reading this, your odds of feeling burned out today are higher than they were the year you started your company. Every Leader Knows Work-Life Balance Doesn’t Exist, But They Can’t Name A Viable Alternative. The investment has been real. The Global Wellness Institute sizes the wellness industry at more than six trillion dollars globally. Corporate wellness budgets have grown into the largest single line item in many HR departments. Deloitte's most recent survey of senior executives reports that more than three-quarters experience symptoms of burnout. The American Psychological Association documents the highest levels of workplace anxiety and chronic stress among leaders that it has ever measured. Gallup's engagement data has slid backward across the same decade we got more wellness. Whatever the menu was supposed to do for the people running organizations, it has not done it. The metrics have not moved. I spent over twenty-five years leading organizations and the last six years working with executives. I have tried the menu personally, watched dozens of CEOs try it before they walked into my virtual office, and I have seen dozens of leaders crash and burn. Why “Balance” is the Wrong Frame Balance is borrowed from physics. When taken out of the context of physics, it implies that the body, the marriage, the team, and the company are weights on a scale, and that equilibrium is achievable with enough adjustment. Nothing in nature works that way. The body does not balance. It cycles. The seasons do not balance. They rhythm. Sleep and waking. Hunger and meal. Tension and release. The most productive things on Earth are not balanced. They are rhythmic. I built a framework called RHYTHMS OF REST℠: four cadences a human life runs on, the way a heart runs on four chambers: Relational, Emotional, Spiritual (faith or a philosophy of life), and Tangible. When one chamber is out of sync, the whole system suffers. When all four work together, performance and presence stop competing. Most People Think They Are Burned Out From Too Much Work. Actually, They're Burned Out From The Wrong Rhythms. Here’s what to do: Stop optimizing for balance and start auditing your rhythms. Balance means equilibrium and life is not equal. The useful question is not "am I balanced this week?" but "which of the four rhythms is most out of sync and needs attention right now?" One of them is dragging the others down. Name it. Pick one keystone change in that single chamber. Not a five-pillar overhaul. One structural move that changes everything else. A weekly meal with your family that does not move. One regular hobby that refills your emotional tank. Five minutes of silence and solitude every morning. A weekly Sabbath day or day of rest where you do activities that replenish you with people you enjoy. Choosing to get a full night's sleep most nights. Stop calling it self-care. Self-care is what we call wellness when we are still operating inside the frame that failed us. Call it structure. Call it cadence. Call it the way the world actually works. That is the language your team will understand. To be sure, the wellness industry has not been useless. Some executives have found real value in a meditation app or breathwork. Some have read a good book on burnout and changed their lives. I think often about the version of me on the kitchen floor at twenty-seven and what led me there. He thought pushing through was the answer, until he couldn’t anymore. He approached life one-dimensionally when it required a four-dimensional approach. What he needed was someone to tell him that he had been working very hard for a very long time at the wrong question. Rather than balance, he was seeking wholeness. He didn’t need a new approach; he needed an ancient one. Twenty-five hundred years ago, Daniel was brought into Babylon and offered the king's diet, the king's schedule, and the king's productivity system. He declined all of it and kept his own rhythms. The Hebrew Scriptures record that at the end of his trial period, he outperformed every peer in the room. He faced the same pressures but had a different structure. If you are reading this and something in it feels caught, you are him. You are also still in time to make the move he did not know how to make. Stop chasing balance. Start naming your rhythms. Your RHYTHMS Check Each time we do this, we're pausing on one of the four RHYTHMS OF REST, Relational, Emotional, Spiritual, or Tangible, with one action step for the next 24–48 hours and one reflection question to go deeper. Today's chamber: Emotional. People often mistake this for a Tangible problem, just working too many hours. It usually isn't. Burnout is rarely about the hours themselves. It's about the rhythms you're avoiding, or not tending to, because work is easier to hide inside. More often, what's actually running the show is control. Wanting to work all the time is rarely the real driver. Action step (24–48 hrs): Block 30–60 minutes. No phone, no laptop, no scrolling. Ask yourself: Do you feel inadequate at home, and does work validate you instead? Is work your primary source of identity? What would you do if you couldn’t do it anymore? When did you last do something just for fun? What relationships are you neglecting by working this much? This isn't about working less. It's about adding back what actually replenishes you. Reflection question: What are you currently trying to control that was never actually yours to control in the first place? Go deeper: Take the RHYTHMS OF REST℠ Assessment. In under three minutes, you have real clarity on which rhythm is depleting your energy and what to do about it. Kent Murawski is an executive coach, author, and speaker based in Boston and the founder of RHYTHMS OF REST℠. He works with owners and executives of mid-market companies. His book on the framework is forthcoming.
Explore how to shift from work-life balance to sustainable rhythms for leadership. Start your journey with Kent's framework today.
Yep. The REST guy is officially fried. The good part that came out of the fall-down-on-the-floor nervous breakdown I had twenty-plus years ago is that I now have a built-in alarm that tells me when I’m pushing too hard. The thing about burnout is, by the time you feel it, you're already further along than you think. For the past few months, I’ve been pushing hard — working on my upcoming book, finalizing a three-hour workshop for executives, rebuilding my quad muscle from a patellar tendon rupture, and trying to be fully present for my family. I’m feeling weary and stretched thin. Business may move in quarters, but life moves in trimesters. That’s why I do some serious re-evaluation and take a retreat moving into the summer (more on the retreat next time). You probably feel it, too. Summer is approaching, and you want to slow down. Enjoy the weather. Hang with your family and friends. Go on vacation. Relax. But instead, you find yourself busier than ever. Business doesn’t stop just because summer arrives. But is it possible to slow down without losing momentum? Slowing down doesn’t only preserve momentum; I believe it increases it. The Thing You’re Ignoring Every June I fought this for years. The season was telling me to slow down — the kids are home from school, the weather is getting nicer, and my energy is low from pushing from January to April. All the while, driven me is shouting: If you slow down, everything falls apart! For years I missed precious time with my kids — fishing, playing at the park, riding bikes — while trying to push through all summer long. And it changed nothing. Leaders feel a unique pressure to “make things happen,” as the success or failure of the company or organization relies solely on us. It doesn’t. In fact, it only makes things worse. As Tim Ferriss wrote in The 4-Hour Work Week, as soon as he removed himself as the bottleneck, profits increased 40%. Slowing down forces you to delegate and automate your business. In 2014, I was leading a small, struggling church we founded four years earlier in Cambridge, Mass — one of the most difficult areas of the country (and maybe the world) in which to start a new church. We had never introduced ourselves to the city as a new church, so we decided to hold a grand opening. It involved raising $35,000 (a significant sum of money which I had to raise) and hundreds of hours of labor. All this while working part-time as an urban youth worker for the City of Cambridge to make ends meet and, most importantly, trying to be a good husband and father. Wednesday afternoons were set aside for what had always been a refreshing time of prayer and stillness, but on that particular Wednesday, there was a long list of items that needed answers. None of them could wait. With each prayer, I felt my anxiety grow — to a level I hadn’t felt since my nervous breakdown, twelve years earlier. Instead of pushing through, I tossed my prayer list to the floor, lay down on the bed, and let go as these words flooded into my heart and mind: You don’t have to understand or control everything to live and lead from a place of rest. As I did, a deep peace came over me, unlike anything I had experienced. I would never be the same again. What Are You Holding Onto? I still feel anxiety sometimes. I still feel the temptation to push through the warning signs. So what changed? I no longer hold on so tightly to outcomes I can't control. And you don’t have to either. The best way to manage the future? Joshua, a pastor friend of mine, puts it this way: "Look ahead but don't live ahead." There’s nothing wrong with looking ahead and planning for the future. But living in the future only creates anxiety. There are too many unknowns. Too many things we can’t control. Too many questions we can’t answer. You have your own version of that prayer list — that never-ending list of unfinished, anxiety-producing tasks. Lying on that bedroom floor taught me to rethink my approach to summer in three ways. 1) Rethink what’s most important. What opportunities are only available in the summertime that you don’t want to miss? 2) Re-evaluate your schedule. As the season changes, so must your schedule. If you have school-aged children, that happens in trimesters, not quarters. 3) Ruthlessly eliminate . Kids home, vacations, and good weather make summer a natural time to slow down. So why fight it? It’s also a good time for experiments. One of the business owners I work with, Jesh, always wanted to take Fridays off but was afraid his business would suffer. After some encouragement from me, he decided to try it as a summer experiment. Within 2-3 weeks, he secured two new retainer clients and hit his revenue goal for the year. It happened six months early, all while taking Fridays off! Your RHYTHMS Check Slowing down doesn't cost you momentum; it restores it. My clearest thinking doesn’t happen when I’m pushing through anxiety; it happens when I’m at rest, at play, or on a walk. This is about your Spiritual and Tangible rhythms — where they meet. The Spiritual work is letting go of the outcomes you've been white-knuckling. The Tangible work is practical: looking at how you actually spend your time and asking whether your schedule is fighting the season or moving with it. Summer has a rhythm. The question is whether yours is working against it. If you keep overriding the season, packing your summer calendar the way you pack every other quarter, you'll hit September empty, wondering where the summer went. But if you look honestly at what summer actually requires of you and make even small adjustments to join the season rather than fight it, you'll enjoy it more and lead better now and in the fall. This week's Rhythm of REST: Calendars don't manage themselves, and they need a fresh set of eyes every season. Pull up yours. Find three places where you're scheduled against the grain of summer: meetings that could move, commitments that could shrink, margin that got filled out of habit. Make one adjustment this week. Just one. See what it costs you. I think you'll be surprised. Reflection Question: Where in your schedule right now are you fighting the season, and what would it look like to stop? Until next time,
I've given myself clear rules about AI: ideate with me, research with me, edit with me. Don't write for me. What I didn't expect was how often I'd have to remind myself of that. Not Claude. Myself. Especially when I'm behind on a deadline and it could do a passable job in thirty seconds. Nobody would know the difference, and the temptation is real. That tension is what this email is about. Depending on who is talking, AI is either the savior or the devil. It’s neither. Similar to money or the internet, AI is simply a tool, albeit a powerful one. Much of what I hear is end-of-the-world type stuff: mass job loss, autonomous weapons, and the singularity—where AI becomes an all-knowing digital God. And while AI demands more regulation, and some of the warnings are legitimate, many of the doomsday scenarios seem overblown…at least for now. The One Thing AI Can Never Be One thing AI will never be is human. My advice if you’re worried about your job? Get more human. Focus on things that only humans can do. Upskill your leadership. Grow your people skills. Become a master at human connection. Will it replace jobs? Undoubtedly. As I heard Scott Galloway say on a recent podcast, “AI is not going to take your job; someone who understands AI will take your job.” Will it create new opportunities? Absolutely. Can it replace human-to-human connection? Never. That's the philosophy. Here's how I'm actually living it. What I’ve Decided About AI First, fully understanding AI is impossible—even the experts don't fully understand what they've created and released into the world. But making the effort matters. Otherwise, it’s impossible to join and influence the conversation around AI. Second, AI is a competent assistant but a poor replacement. It’s no exaggeration to say it saves me 4-8 hours of work per week, but the temptation to let it have things that belong to me is ever-present.
“If you work with your mind, Sabbath (rest) with your hands. If you work with your hands, Sabbath (rest) with your mind.” (Rabbi and philosopher Abraham Heschel) The day that picture was taken, before potting plants, out of fear and anxiety, I broke my own rule. I got out my computer—on my day of rest—and worked on a new project. What drove me? I was apprehensive that one of my long-term coaching clients was finishing next month, and I didn’t have anyone to replace him. But here’s what I’ve learned: doing things out of fear and anxiety rarely produces anything good. Doing something with my hands or body? That almost always resolves the tension I’m feeling. Hands In the Dirt After catching myself, I decided to propagate a few new plants from old plants. Since I live in a subdivision with an HOA, my yard is not big enough to have a garden (and we are not allowed to have one). Instead, I’ve become a plant dad, though to be fair, I’ve killed my fair share of those, too! Propagating plants is not a big task, but it felt really good to get my hands in the dirt. That’s because I work with my mind most days—coaching, writing, speaking, leadership—and it’s often intangible work. But there's something about holding soil in your hands, seeing roots take hold, that quiets the noise in your head. It’s more tangible, less cerebral. And you see immediate results. Sifting dirt through my hands and repotting a few plants quieted the noise in my head. It didn’t solve the problem, but it gave my mind rest—which is exactly what I needed. Rest Isn’t What You Think It Is Heschel was onto something here: most people don’t know how to rest. Leaders often believe that rest means inactivity. It doesn’t. Real rest means doing activities that replenish you. If you work with your mind all week, working with your hands is replenishing in a way nothing else can be. Like you, I have a hard time doing nothing. What I’ve found is that doing nothing isn’t always restful. Hiking, potting plants, having sex with my wife, organizing the garage, reading fiction, poetry or a biography—that is rest for me! What about you? Heschel understood something most people don't: your brain needs the opposite of what it does all day. If you spend your life in meetings, strategy sessions, email, and Slack threads, the most restful thing you can do isn't more screen time—it's something you can hold in your hands. Your RHYTHMS Check This newsletter touches two of the four core RHYTHMS OF REST. Understanding how they work together is the point. Your Emotional rhythms are about creating space to process, reflect, heal and grow instead of pushing through everything. Fun and hobbies are the keystone rhythm here, activities that bring you joy for no other reason than they're delightful. Potting plants, hiking, organizing the garage. These aren't distractions from real life. They're how you refill your emotional tank. Your Spiritual rhythms are about being grounded in something deeper than your next deadline or achievement. Sabbath, a weekly day of refraining from work-based productivity, is the keystone rhythm here. As Heschel understood, Sabbath isn't collapsing on the couch. It's the counterintuitive discipline of stopping. Not because the work is done (it's never done), but because you are human with limitations and constraints. A day of rest is a declaration that work doesn't own you. It's a time to let the soil lie fallow and be in sync with the natural rhythms of the world. Here's where these two rhythms intersect: what you do on your day of rest matters. Hands-on, replenishing activities, the fun and hobbies from your Emotional rhythms, are often the best way to rest. They're how you stop working with your mind and start resting with your hands. If you don't practice active rest, you'll keep defaulting to things that drain you rather than replenish you and wonder why you feel depleted even though you had a "day off." And you will slowly convince yourself that rest doesn't work for people like you. But if you design your rest around what actually replenishes you , it becomes a point of joy and life. Your emotional tank refills. Clarity returns. And you feel refreshed and ready to give your best to your family, yourself, and your work. Your Emotional rhythm determines your capacity. Your Spiritual rhythm anchors you when things feel turbulent. This week's rhythm: Pick one day this week (or a half-day if a full day feels impossible) and protect it. No email. No work on the computer. No heavy mental lifting. Instead, do one hands-on, non-cerebral activity that replenishes you. Build something, plant something, cook something, fix something. Let your hands do what your mind can't. Reflection question: What is one replenishing (and dare I say fun) activity, opposite from what you do in your leadership, that you can do this week on your day of rest? Plan to do it this week on your day of rest. Engagement: Hit me back on social media @KentMurawski or leave a comment (1) What's your version of "hands in the dirt" — the one non-cerebral activity that replenishes you most? And (2) When is the last time you actually did it? I read every response. Until next time, Kent Whenever you're ready, there are four ways I can help you... Try the REST Assessment to identify exactly where you are on the burnout scale—from Thriving to Critical—so you can take the next right step. Apply now to find out if executive coaching is for you or for a 1:1 VIP Day - for business owners or executives Catalyze your organization - invite me to do a keynote or workshop Apply for a Life Plan Weekend to clarify your purpose, align your core values, and build a living plan that grows and flexes with every season of your life (can be facilitated as a team retreat as well).
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A room full of entrepreneurs watched me cry. And it was the most important business moment of my recent life. Last month, the mastermind group I’m a part of met in Austin, TX. A mastermind group is a small, trusted circle of leaders who meet to sharpen each other — iron on iron. On the second day, we did a private Q & A with Ryan Levesque—a 7-time Inc. 5000 CEO who's generated over $100 million in revenue and recently sold his company to move his family to a farm in Vermont. Smart, humble, and disarmingly real. Our group leader had told us not to waste his time with dumb questions, so when it was my turn, I asked: “What do you wish people would ask you that no one is asking you?” His answers so far hadn’t disappointed, so I thought he would drop another pearl of wisdom. Instead, he turned the question back on me. “I can’t answer that, but what’s so valuable to you, really deep down inside, that you want to ask me about?” I thought for a few seconds and began, “I think…” He immediately said, “No, don’t think—answer from here,” pointing to his heart. As hot tears flowed down my face, I asked my question, “How do you take something that is so deep inside of you, that has changed your life, and help people understand that it can transform their lives, too?” Honestly, I don’t remember how Ryan initially responded, but I do remember the vulnerable story he shared, with tears of his own, about his son. I won’t relate it here since it was a private Q & A session. But the main point wasn't his story. It was what happened in that room when he let us see him. What Your 5-year-old Self Has Been Trying to Tell You Then Ryan gave us an exercise that hit me like a freight train. Imagine yourself as a small child of 4 or 5, climbing up onto the table so you’re finally taller than the adults and fully seen. What would you say, or shout if necessary, to your parents or the most important people in your life? “See me!” That’s what I would shout. Growing up, my home was chaos. Yelling was the soundtrack. I felt lost in the mix. Parents always fighting. My sisters and me constantly bickering. My Mom overwhelmed with four kids. My angry Dad either passed out drunk or screaming at my Mom or us. I usually retreated to my room or outside. “See me,” is a cry for validation, especially from my Dad. I longed for him to teach me to be a man and tell me, “You have what it takes, son.” Like many men, my early drivenness was an attempt to compensate for my father’s lack of approval. I was chasing a ghost—the ghost of my father’s approval—though I didn’t know it at the time. I thought that if I could achieve outward success, people might see me—he might see me—and I could finally prove to myself that I was enough. That comes with a cost. It nearly tanked my marriage. Alienated my kids. And I nearly lost myself in the process. Seeking to define myself through accomplishment, I didn’t know who I had become. Something Shifted After Ryan left and we were sharing our takeaways from the session, tears flowed again. Mike, our group leader, had been telling me for years to “lead with vulnerability.” I always thought of myself as a vulnerable person, but over the years, whether from a calloused heart, the wounds vocational ministry had left, pride that can come with age and proficiency, or something else, that vulnerability had gotten buried. I always thought of myself as a vulnerable person. But over the years—a calloused heart, the wounds vocational ministry left, the pride that comes with age and proficiency—that vulnerability had gotten buried. But that day, something cracked open—deep down in a place I'd been protecting for years. I suddenly understood, at a visceral heart level, what it means to lead with vulnerability. Why Vulnerability Changes Everything Vulnerable leadership makes people feel seen, heard, understood. It gives us the courage to look foolish. It reminds us that we can’t do it on our own. As John Donne reminded us in his 1623 poem, “No man is an island, entire to himself.” Moving forward, Kent, the heart communicator, will take the lead. And Kent the teacher will follow. Maybe it’s time to stop thinking so much and lead from your heart a little more. Your RHYTHMS Check This is about your Emotional and Relational rhythms —vulnerability sits at the intersection of both. Emotional health gives you the courage to feel exposed. Relational health gives you the people who make that exposure safe. If you don't take the risk of being vulnerable, you stay hidden—successful on the outside, invisible on the inside. Your relationships stay shallow. Your leadership stays transactional. And the people around you never get permission to be real, either. But when you lead with vulnerability, everything shifts. People trust you more. Relationships deepen. And you finally stop performing your way through life. Your emotional and relational rhythms determine whether people follow your title or follow you. This week's RHYTHM OF REST: Share one vulnerable thing with someone you trust—your spouse, a close friend, a mentor, a small group. Brené Brown defines vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. In other words, if your palms don't get a little sweaty before you share it, it's not vulnerability. What is the one thing you've been afraid to say out loud—and who is the one person you trust enough to say it to? Leave a comment and tell me: who are you going to be vulnerable with this week, and what's one thing you've been holding back? I read every response. Until next time, Kent PS - Take my 5-minute RHYTHMS OF REST℠ Assessment to discover where you land on the burnout scale—from Thriving to Critical—and get your free personalized report with next steps.
Do you have a plan for your life? As a leader, you probably have a business plan, a marketing plan, a financial plan, and a vacation plan. But what about your actual life? Recently, I spent two days with James, a young business owner in Florida, to help him create a Life Plan.
Can I ask you something that might sting a little: when did you last have a genuinely great idea sitting at your desk? Companies spend millions of dollars helping people become "more productive." But most of those investments are built on a definition of productivity that's often nebulous or undefined. Recently, I had a conversation with an executive whom I coach about what productivity means to him. His two-word answer was clarifying: Productivity is “measurable results,” he said. Of course, you have to define what those measurable results are — and in which area. The results need to align with your role and your strengths: the things you're both good at and energized by. Otherwise, you could be logging impressive numbers in an area that doesn't move the needle — or worse, doesn't represent your highest contribution. What Is Productivity, Really? Productivity is doing more of the right things—work aligned with your strengths and your role—and less of the wrong things—work that doesn’t maximize your strengths and doesn’t drive the results that matter most. Gay Hendricks, author of The Big Leap, calls this your Zone of Genius—activities you uniquely excel at, love, and are energizing. It's different from the Zone of Excellence — things you do very well but that drain you, the Zone of Competence—things others can do just as well, or the Zone of Incompetence—the tasks others do better than you that you hate doing. He recommends spending 70% of your time in your Zone of Genius. A tall task, I know, but well worth the effort. So here's a question worth sitting with: What is your definition of productivity? Once you define it, there's a second question you have to answer: How do you actually become more productive, and is that even the right word? Now, back to my conversation with the executive. When I asked him how he gets measurable results, his answer was, “I sit for 10 hours a day at my desk.” Of course, he could see through his answer as soon as it came out of his mouth. Sitting at your desk for 10 hours a day doesn’t make you productive. In fact, it undoubtedly lessens productivity. Your Desk Is the Last Place You’ll Find Your Best Thinking With the rise of hybrid work and more freedom to choose how and where you are most productive, the possibilities are nearly endless. In this executive's case, I asked him where his best ideas come from. His answer mimics what many of us know to be true—a hard workout, a walk, in the shower, or sitting in the hot tub. I don’t have a hot tub, but if I did, I could imagine it being a place where ideas are generated! Sitting at your desk for 10 hours straight is not exactly an idea factory—it’s an idea graveyard! That's one thing that AI can't do for you or your company: create novel ideas. Whether walking, drawing on a whiteboard, going to the library or a coffee shop, or sitting on a park bench with a Moleskine journal—my best ideas don’t come from sitting at my desk—especially when I’m stuck on a problem. As my friend Mark Batterson always says, “Change of Place + Change of Pace = Change of Perspective.” The Science of Good Ideas In May of 1879, after recurring migraines and other physical ailments, Friedrich Nietzsche was forced to leave his position as a university professor. After resigning, he retreated to a small village in the Swiss Alps during the summers. Surrounded by the grandeur of the Alps, Nietzsche became a renowned walker, sometimes walking up to 8 hours per day. Eventually, he filled six small notebooks with the prose that became some of his best work. By 1889, ten years later, Nietzsche had regained his health and written some of his most influential books, including The Wanderer and His Shadow. His conclusion? “Only thoughts that come by walking have any value.” Habitual, low-demand activities — walking, showering, even doing dishes — free your brain to operate in the background. Neuroscientists call this the default mode network (DMN) : a set of brain regions that activate when your mind is at rest or wandering. This is when ideas collide in unexpected ways. This is where breakthroughs live. Modern knowledge work demands constant productivity. Portable technology comes with the expectation that we’re always on. But creative thinking needs margin . You can’t run back-to-back meetings, pile on menial tasks, and expect to do your best work. I learned this the hard way after years of running at full capacity, pushing through my red zone, and wondering why my ideas felt stale. Protect Your Energy and Produce Your Best Work Structuring your days for both focused work and creative margin is an art. Here are three practical ways to protect your energy and produce your best work. #1 - Define and Protect Your Peak Creative Times Leadership expert Carey Nieuwhof recommends splitting your day into three zones: Green Zone — peak energy, creativity, and focus. Usually 3–5 hours. Red Zone — 1–2 hours of mental mush. Don't fight it; work with it. Yellow Zone — the in-between. Solid but not spectacular. #2 - Treat Each Day Like Three Days I’m an early riser so this is how it works for me. You might be different so adjust accordingly. Morning/Day 1 (Green Zone): 8–11 AM for me — creative, focused thinking and high-priority work that actually moves the needle. Afternoon/Day 2 (Yellow Zone): Lunch to 4 PM — meetings, admin, necessary tasks that don't require deep thinking. Evening/Day 3 (Red Zone): After 4 PM — work out, replenish, have dinner, be present with family. #3 - Time Block Your Days and Hours Time blocking is a game-changer, but most people only block their hours, not days. Here’s how I structure my days: Daily Time Blocking Pick a theme for each day or for half days. Here’s how I structure my days: Monday: Morning for creation; afternoon for admin and finances. If admin doesn't happen Monday, it haunts me all week. Tuesday: Full coaching day. Wednesday: Thinking, writing, creating. No meetings. I follow the work wherever it goes. Thursday: Coaching and flex day for wrapping up projects. Friday: Writing in the morning, then relationships — a coffee date with my wife first, then 2–3 hours of writing, often lunch with a friend or business colleague. Hourly Time Blocking For hourly blocking: map out 30-minute increments. Use pencil. Leave room for deep work blocks of 2–3 hours in the morning or during your green zone. If You Lead a Company, Organization, or Team… Leaders, you want your people to be productive. I get it. But here’s the challenge: do you have a shared definition for productivity? Is each person's job description built around their strengths and the results that actually matter—or is it collecting digital dust in a folder somewhere? Extensive research has shown that strengths-based management and employee development lead to more engaging and productive workplaces in key areas such as sales, profit, turnover, and safety. Furthermore, one in two employees has left a job to get away from a manager or boss at some point in their career. Bosses and managers—you’ve got to do better. When’s the last time you’ve invested in your personal leadership and development? Read a leadership book? Invested in coaching? Sat down with your team and asked how you can grow as a leader? I recommend starting here: Have each employee write their ideal job description aligned with their position and their strengths—the work they're good at and that energizes them. Compare it to their current description, and adjust accordingly. Set three big quarterly priorities: one primary, two secondary, and let them run with it. Check in regularly. Evaluate priorities quarterly. Set new ones together. Which brings us to the question underneath the question — because productivity isn't just a scheduling problem. It's a rhythms problem. Your RHYTHMS Check This is about the “T” in REST or Tangible rhythms —specifically how you structure your work, protect your creative energy, and operate from your Zone of Genius rather than defaulting to busyness as a substitute for productivity. If you don't define what "productive" means for your specific role and strengths, you'll keep measuring hours instead of outcomes, burning energy on the wrong work, and wondering why you feel exhausted but behind. But when you get clear on your Zone of Genius and build your days around it, you'll produce better results in less time, lead from a place of clarity and energy, and finally stop confusing motion with momentum. Your Tangible rhythm determines whether your work is sustainable—or just busy. This week's rhythm: Identify your Green Zone (your peak 2–3 hour creative window) and block it on your calendar today — not tomorrow. Protect it like a non-negotiable meeting with your most important client. Then identify one recurring task that belongs in your Red Zone and move it there. Where are you spending your best hours on your worst work? Leave a comment. What is one thing you're moving out of your peak creative time this week and back where it belongs? I read every one — and I might just have a thought for you. Until next time, Kent P.S. — Rest isn't one-dimensional — and neither is the life you're after. When your Relational rhythms are strong, your marriage is solid and your people know they have you. When your Emotional rhythms are healthy, you laugh more, stress less, and lead with clarity. When your Spiritual rhythms are grounded, you wake up knowing why you're doing this. When your Tangible rhythms are working, you do your best work — and still have something left over for the people who matter most. That's not a fantasy. That's what the right rhythms actually produce. I'm launching my first RHYTHMS OF REST beta group in 2026 to help you build all four — professional excellence without sacrificing what's most important to you. Click the link to get on the waitlist. Sources Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap “ Shower Creativity, ” NETO Innovation Twilight of the Idols, Friedrich Nietzsche Rigoni, B., & Asplund, J. (2016, July 7). Strengths-based employee development: The business results. Gallup. Whenever you're ready, there are four ways I can help you... Try the 5-minute REST Assessment to identify exactly where you are on the burnout scale—from Thriving to Critical—so you can take the next right step. Schedule a Discovery Call to find out if executive coaching is for you - for business owners or executives Catalyze your organization - invite me to do a keynote or workshop Design a Life Plan Weekend to clarify your purpose, align your core values, and build a living plan that grows and flexes with every season of your life.
