🧠 I’ve Never Met a Burnt-Out, In-Shape Executive

“Burnout is not a sign that we have tried too hard, it’s that we have tried to give what we do not have…”

David Whyte writes about burnout like a man who drinks herbal tea, stares out the window a lot, and owns a scarf for every season. It’s beautiful. It’s deep. It’s poetic.

I’m not a poet.
I once wrote a rap song, but that’s a story for another day and probably a psychiatric assessment.

Whyte nails the emotional truth, but the biological version is far uglier.
Less poetry, more crime scene.

I’m a coach, not a shrink.
I’m not here to unpack your childhood or why your dad clapped like a malfunctioning seal at your school concert.
I deal in physiology.
Meat and potatoes.
And maybe philosophy, but only the kind you can explain while someone’s squatting.

You Don’t Need to Tell Me You’re Burnt Out. Your Body Already Has.

I’ve coached hundreds of executives, founders, and entrepreneurs. Some run companies worth millions. Others are running from themselves. And here’s the thing:

I always know when someone’s burnt out before they say a word.

You see it in the posture, shoulders slumped like their soul is buffering.
You see it in the eyes, that thousand-yard stare of a man who’s had three breakdowns this week and counted none of them.
You see it in the gut hanging over the belt, the physical outline of a body that’s given up.

It’s exactly what Whyte means by giving from an empty well.
Except in coaching we call it something else: a full-blown nervous system crash.

And before someone with blue hair gets offended:

I’ve never met a burnt-out, in-shape executive.
Not once.

Maybe one exists somewhere between Santa Monica and Switzerland, journaling under a pine tree.
But I haven’t met them.

Because burnout isn’t mental fragility.
It’s biological bankruptcy.

Burnout Isn’t a Mindset Problem. It’s Physics.

When your sleep sucks, your food is beige, your training is non-existent, and your stress is hotter than a Finnish sauna in July, your brain chemistry starts throwing chairs. Dopamine tanks. Cortisol skyrockets. Your nervous system stops whispering and starts screaming. Your sleep becomes a TikTok highlight reel of waking up every 40 minutes. You wake up tired, work tired, argue tired, parent tired, and eventually live tired.

That’s burnout.
Not a mindset problem.
Not a season.
Not “just a rough patch.”

It’s your body filing for bankruptcy and the CEO (you) pretending everything’s fine while Rome burns and Karen from HR schedules another resilience workshop.

Meanwhile, here’s what training does that journaling never will:

It balances dopamine.
Helps regulate cortisol.
Makes you tired in the right way.
Improves sleep deeper than any magnesium gummy.
Builds routine.
And gives your nervous system the equivalent of a daily oil change.

Even picking up a dumbbell reminds you:
“I still control something.”

Burnout is what happens when you control nothing.
Not your body. Not your sleep. Not your time. Not your reactions. Not your energy.

In-shape executives have boundaries.
They have rituals.
They have habits that stop the slide before it starts.

Burnt-out executives live in a buffet of chaos, caffeine, panic, and pretending.

Let’s be honest: most executives don’t “burn out.”
They slowly disintegrate over 18 months and call it “a big quarter.”

You can’t lead a company when your body is being held together by iced coffee and anxiety.
And if you think you can outthink burnout while ignoring your physiology… that’s adorable.

Wrong.
But adorable.

Burnout isn’t the enemy.
Neglect is.

Whyte says burnout is giving from an empty self.
He’s right.

But my version is simpler:
Fill the fucking tank.
Protein. Weights. Steps. Sunlight. Sleep.
And a coach who calls you out before the biology does.