The Self-Care Mindset

CHAPTER 17The Future Is About Work‐Life Quality

“Self‐care is not a side‐hustle.”

I was leading a session on Care‐Driven Leadership^® and discussing how to prevent burnout and foster a well‐being culture, when a woman in attendance spoke up. “I have always pursued excellence but I look at the young people today and I see them take lunch breaks and separate their work time from their private time. Listening to you though, I realize that maybe I had it all wrong, thinking excellence is about working non‐stop.”

I acknowledged that she, like so many others, had learned that giving 100 percent to work and nothing to herself was for a long time how pursuing excellence was viewed. That pursuit of excellence is about work, not people, and results are all that matter, not how we achieve them. We hear entrepreneurs talking about hustling to succeed but most of them burn out before they ever actually do. We are faced with the accepted impression that a high‐performance culture is a hustle culture that's highly competitive and not inclusive. However, that's not sustainable, it never was, and at this point, I hope you are recognizing that what truly drives performance and excellence is well‐being and care.

Looking at the statistics of what causes burnout, it's clear that it isn't rooted in working too much; it's the loss of agency we experience and worrying too much. It's why the Self‐Care Mindset^® is so important in cultivating work‐life quality.

Yes, we need a balance between the time ...