I’ll be transparent with you – from about the end of 2021 to mid-2023, I dealt with pretty intense burnout. 

Because of that, I did the work I needed to do to sustain my businesses, and even launched EditorNinja around the end of 2021, but I struggled to do even that.

I survived the weeks. That’s about it. I worked 4 day weeks. I took a LOT of vacations and longer weekends.

Fortunately, I pulled out of it around August 2023, after making some major changes to my work and spending a lot of time (and money) being around a ton of heart-centered entrepreneurs who helped me actually feel things again and held space for me to do it well.

EditorNinja grew well through 2023. We had our first six-figure, and then multiple six-figure, year. We worked with some incredible brands and customers. We tried a lot of things and learned a lot of things, and came out the other side with much more signal as to where we’ll go this year.

Oh, I also forgot to mention that my wife and I had our second child in mid-November of 2023, so I took most of the rest of that month off and then worked about half-time through December.

Coming into January, I was ready to get back to work. I told myself I’m working full time again, 9-5, Monday through Friday. If I have to leave my desk early on Friday, to get to our mountain house before a snowstorm makes it impossible, I’ll make it up on the weekends or during an evening.

Hours aside, my goal each week is to get to the end, look back, be exhausted, and say “Yeah, I left it all on the field.”

“Yeah, I left it all on the field.”

For a long time, I worked for the approval of others. That drove me.

I operated largely out of fear, out of some sort of imposter syndrome that I could never shake.

It’s different now, though. An experience I had last year, a week on the west coast of Ireland, shifted me on an atomic level.

I now work for one person’s approval – mine.

Nothing else and no one else’s opinion or approval matters.

If I show up every week and make myself proud, that’s enough.

The crazy thing is that I feel like I’m doing some of the best work of my life right now. I’m doing good work, I’m working well with others, and the business results are reflecting it. My creativity is back, and I’m doing things that I enjoy and that matter.

And at the end of the day, for me, that’s all that matters. 

I’m finally proud of myself. And that’s a big and important shift.