You Aren’t Burned Out, Your Systems Are Just BROKEN

My new book Own Or Be Owned is out now! I wrote Own or Be Owned to answer one question: how do you make more money, less miserably? I broke it into the 12 Profit Levers… the 12 levers I've seen determine whether you print cash or hate your life. Check it out: https://contrarianthinking.biz/burnout You've been telling yourself the same story. That you're burned out. That you need a break. That you've worked too hard for too long. Here's the truth: you're not burned out, your systems are just broken. Most people aren't exhausted from working too much, they're exhausted from doing too much of what they hate, what they're not good at, and what doesn't make them money. This episode breaks down why you're calling it burnout when you actually just have a job you don't like, even if you own the company. From the CATO process that cuts the chaos to the hero complex that's secretly killing your business, you'll learn how to stop being the ball hog, start building a team better than you, and finally create a business that energizes you instead of draining you. In this episode, you'll learn: Why you're not burned out for the reasons you think, and how doing too much of what you don't like, aren't good at, and aren't uniquely skilled at is draining your energy every single day The CATO process: how to cut all the things that don't make you revenue, automate the things that make you the most revenue first, delegate the high revenue tasks you don't like doing, and outsource everything else so you can finally stop being the hero Why being the hero feels like taking heroin and how treating yourself like a drug addict in your business keeps you stuck doing work you hate while annoying everyone around you The Walt Disney principle: how your job as CEO is not to do everything but to hire a team of A players better than you who believe in your vision so much they come work for you even though they're fully competent enough to do it themselves Why champions don't run at playoff level speed always, how to replace the word burnout with tired or break, and the question that snaps you back into focus: do you want to quit or do you just need a nap ___________ (00:00:00) Introduction: The Burnout Trap Nobody Talks About (00:00:35) You're Not Burned Out, You Just Have a Job You Don't Like (00:02:51) The Hero Drug: Why Being Needed Is Killing Your Business (00:03:48) The CATO Process: Cut, Automate, Delegate, Outsource (00:04:37) The Walt Disney Principle: Build a Team Better Than You (00:07:08) The Ball Hog Problem: When Competence Becomes Your Prison (00:07:38) Do You Want to Quit or Do You Just Need a Nap? (00:09:54) Talking Employees Off the Edge: The Self-Reflection Method (00:12:34) Set and Setting: Change Your Environment to Change Your Energy (00:13:31) The Big Why: When Your Purpose Overcomes Any How (00:15:34) Parting Words: Just Don't Quit ___________ MORE FROM BIGDEAL 🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@podcastbigdeal 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bigdeal.podcast 📽️ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@big.deal.pod MORE FROM CODIE SANCHEZ 🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@codiesanchezct 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/codiesanchez 📽️ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@realcodiesanchez OTHER THINGS WE DO 🌐 Our community: https://contrarianthinking.typeform.com/to/WBztXXID 📰 Free newsletter: https://contrarianthinking.biz/3XWLlZp 📚 Biz buying course: https://contrarianthinking.biz/3NhjGgN 🏠 Resibrands: https://resibrands.com/ 💰 CT Capital: https://contrarianthinking.biz/4eRyGOk 🏦 Main St Hold Co: https://contrarianthinking.biz/3YfGa8u Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  When fall comes back around, there's a sense of a reset and new pieces from Lululemon's fall drop are an inspiration to push your goals and elevate your routines. As your calendar fills, easy to layer styles meet the demands of your day. And as you challenge yourself to try even more, versatile sets transition with you. The Lululemon fall lineup brings new levels of comfort and confidence, whether you're starting something fresh or starting something over. Check out the latest arrivals in store and on lululemon.com now.

• 0:28Codie Sanchez?

  Have you ever been burned out by the exact life you used to dream about where you're finally starting to like hit your goals and instead of feeling accomplished, you're just like, I can't handle this anymore. It's the symptom of way deeper deficiency in what you do every day. And if you do these few simple things that have changed my life, you can build a career and a life that actually energizes you instead of draining you. So like in today's episode, I want to talk about the three moves I use to pull myself out of daily stress. And I want to give you the secrets because I'm putting a battery back in you. This is the big deal podcast. Let's go.

• 1:05Codie Sanchez?

  Okay. So I was actually thinking about this episode and I don't think you're burnt out for the reasons that you think you are. You are burnt out because you're doing too much of things you don't like, are not good at, and are not uniquely skilled at doing. And so you're calling it burnout, but in actuality, you just have a job you don't really like, even if you're the owner of a company. And you're tired of doing what is required and not what you want. You haven't told yourself a big enough why. And so you're obsessing every single day on the work that you don't want to do that feels repetitive and you're probably future casting 10 years down the line and thinking, dear God, if this is what my life looks like, then I'm going to off myself right now. And the truth of the matter

• 1:46Codie Sanchez?

  is you're not alone. This isn't unique. Actually, everybody does this. Everybody sort of future casts the worst state scenario and then gives up on the thing they know they're supposed to do earlier than they should because it feels overwhelming. Then I do it too as an owner. The problem is, one, you're never going to achieve very big things if you continue to do this. And the number one person and culprit and villain in this with much love is you. Like you are the reason you do not have the business, the life, the job that you want. Because you haven't made yourself so good at the very few things that you can afford to bring in more hires on the other stuff. Like right now, in your business, if

• 2:29Codie Sanchez?

  you are like Elon Musk, you see a problem inside of your business, you go to the factory at Tesla, and you start saying, hey, we need to automate some stuff because we are like doing too many things. I don't want this many employees. We need to automate it. So you start automating everything that you do right now, except whoops, you find out, oh, like Elon did, that you shouldn't have automated half the stuff because it shouldn't have even been done in the first place. You have to go back on the plant, you have to actually tag with the spray paint can, all the robotics parts that actually make things take longer and thus you more miserable. And you have to sleep on the factory floor figuring out which robots to pull out and get rid of so that you actually don't have

• 3:12Codie Sanchez?

  to work 120 hour weeks and sleep on the factory floor of a plant. Now he's like a crazy person, but I think you are doing this in your business too. And I've seen it. I mean, we've worked with thousands of business owners by now. And most business owners make themselves the hero because being the hero feels like taking heroin. It feels really fucking good. And so you are burnt out because you are treating yourself like a drug addict in your business. And you keep taking the heroin and taking the heroin because in the beginning, it feels really good to be needed. I'm out there Elon Musk, spray painting cans, things that I don't want to do. And eventually you annoy everybody else in your life because they're tired of hearing about you. Talk about Sally who sucks at work, or talk about this job you don't want to have, or talk about this employee

• 3:57Codie Sanchez?

  you don't like because you actually haven't made the decision you know you need to change your life. And I know that's really kind of like tough feedback overall, but I have an entire system in my book, Owner Beyond, about process. Why? Because most small business owners continue to do the same thing that isn't working, bang their heads against the wall, and then wonder why their business isn't growing. Instead, you could put Arcato process in there, which is cut all the things that you should not be doing in your business as defined by does it make you revenue or not. Then automate the things that make you the most revenue first that you humanly can. Then delegate the things that have a high enough revenue driving component that somebody else can do them for you and you don't really like doing them. And then finally, outsource the rest to somebody entirely, even to be

• 4:41Codie Sanchez?

  a team lead on it. I kind of picture most businesses, they look like, like when you grab cords out from behind the desk and everything's all interwoven and knotted together. And then you plug all the cords into the wall. And then you're like, well, it's not organized. I don't know how it gets there. It's on, it's working, but it's still a mess. And so the cool thing about when you're the owner is like, this is all with love, your fault. So the next thing that I would do after you thought about what do I actually need to cut, automate, delegate, and, and outsource, is you're gonna have to do what Walt Disney did in some way. He eventually created a team of people who was better than him. This is all in the people chapter. This is like, this goes back as old as the test of time,

• 5:24Codie Sanchez?

  except none of us do it. You know, when I was on, if you haven't listened to the podcast episode with Anker, who's the CEO of Built, multi-billion dollar company, or Amjad, the CEO of Replet, multi-billion dollar company, they're gonna say, first, I had to figure out what to work on. Then I had to figure out what I was good at. Then I had to figure out what I was good at and what I liked. Then I had to figure out what I was good at, what I liked, what made us money. Then I had to figure out of those three things, what was I the best at from anybody else that only I should do and everything else I should give to my team. And the cool thing is, when you go through that process, most of the times, the things that are going to be the most important for you are the chapter on sales. So pitch, you're going to need to be for a while, the one that pitches and

• 6:06Codie Sanchez?

  sells your product. Hiring, so bringing on the people who want to do the next thing. And then high level product, determining how do I actually build something that other people want to buy and do it continuously. So if I build something once, people will buy it continuously. Buy once, sell always. And what I've realized from talking to Amjad and Anker is you will be miserable if you do not hire a team to take some things off of your plate because you think that you have to be the hero. You will be miserable. I don't care how good you are, how successful you are. Those guys who are out there right now, like the one person AI billion dollar company, I guarantee you, that guy is not going to be as happy as if he just had a few other people doing the work for him. Sure,

• 6:49Codie Sanchez?

  he's got his agents, but add one or two sidekicks. Like even Batman needed a Robin. So I guess I wanted to start by saying that today. You don't have to have a complicated system. You just need to figure out that probably your job as a CEO is not to do everything. Your job is to hire a team of A players better than you, who actually believe in the vision that you sell them so much that they come work for you, even though they are fully competent enough to do it by themselves. You're not burned out. You just suck at delegating. You don't know who to delegate to. You do not know the right tasks to delegate and you're scared that if you take your hand off the control, the business is going to fail, the thing isn't going to work, or the other people aren't going to like you because you aren't

• 7:31Codie Sanchez?

  doing enough. You aren't giving enough. You're actually in their way because they might want to do more and they can't. Because you are so competent, you're a little what I would call a ball hog. You're a ball hog who feels really good about the fact that the entire business sits on your shoulders. And we've all been there. It's how we got here in the first place. You wouldn't be an A player if you weren't a ball hog in the beginning. You will never be a multi, multi millionaire if you stay a ball hog till the end. So the choice is kind of yours. Okay. Now I actually want my team to ask some questions on this because they see me every day. And I want you guys to get like the raw on it. So David, tell me what's up.

• 8:08Speaker 02

  What are your thoughts on this idea of solving burnout by taking a break or taking a vacation? Is that real or is that more of a trope?

• 8:16Codie Sanchez?

  One, I would say, don't quit right before you're about to make all the money. I was at church the other day. And one of the pastors also started this church. And they're a bunch of young guys. And he was kind of funny. He's like, every Sunday, I have the best day ever. I'm on high, I'm on, you know, stage talking to you guys, talking to God, whatever. Monday comes, I'm burnt out. There's all this administrative stuff with the team. I've got too much going on. And he's like, I walked into the, you know, one of my co-founder's office the other day. And I'm like, I just, you know, I can't do this anymore. It's too much. I'm overwhelmed. And his co-founder looks at him and goes, okay, amazing. You can quit for tonight. And then I'll see you back here tomorrow morning. And the point

• 8:58Codie Sanchez?

  was like, are you burnt out? Do you just need a nap? Like, I would be really careful about the words burnout. At my company, if you say burnout, here's what I think you mean. I'm doing work I don't like for a mission I don't believe in. So I should probably off board from the company. You know what I instead think? Hey, God, I worked a lot this week. My brain's fried. I'm like tired. I don't think I should make decisions when I'm tired. Do you care if I take Friday off? Let me go get my head right. Let me go eat right. Let me go do a workout. I'll come back on Monday, ready to rage. Like champions do not run at playoff level speed always, right? They have cycles and seasons for this reason. You're the same. So I think it's not necessarily you need a vacation, but you

• 9:43Codie Sanchez?

  might often be like, dude, I gotta bow out early, 2pm on Friday, because I gotta go get a hard workout in. This week killed me. I'm gonna check in some shit on Friday or on Sunday. Let's see how it goes. So try to replace the word burnout with tired or break. Or sometimes my husband will say,

• 10:02Codie Sanchez?

  Do you want to quit or do you just need a nap? And that always snaps me back into it.

• 10:05Speaker 02

  Let's say you have a teammate or an employee or somebody else that you work with directly who's experiencing some kind of burnout. Like, how do you get them to rally? Is it an inspiration thing? Is it a motivation thing? Is it encouraging them to shift their mindset? What is that?

• 10:19Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah. How do you get somebody who feels burnt out to reengage and get amped again? I think I've talked no less than probably 10 or 20 employees off the edge from quitting at varying companies. How? Well, one of my last ones, she had a job that I'll describe as like jack of all trades, master of none. And when that happens, which can happen often in chief of staff roles, it can happen in project management roles. It can happen in operations roles. If you're any of those, this could be you. Or you've been in a company forever and everybody's always bothering you about like historical stuff that you feel like your past, but you're still checking in on people's passwords and it'll drive you crazy, you know? That role, I think, burns out pretty quick because you don't feel like you're actually progressing at all. You feel like you're just everybody's go-to

• 11:04Codie Sanchez?

  with no ability to actually close out loops on projects. Humans like loop closing. And so with her in particular, I was like, listen, you're hyper talented. Every single time you go to a new company, know what's going to happen with the way you currently work and your inability to set boundaries and your inability to say, hey, I really want to work on this and I want to stop working on this stuff. And I promise I'll super perform here if I can stop doing some of this stuff. If you can't say that in your company, I go, you're going to go to the new company? That's not this one? And guess what's going to be there? You! So you're going to get in the same situation. So I think a lot of times, what I'll say to them is like, let's look in the mirror first. What is it you actually are unhappy about? Let's be really clear. And a lot of times they're like, well, I don't know where I'm going. And where's the life mission? What's going to happen?

• 11:49Codie Sanchez?

  Like, slow down. No, it's a day, a day in work right now. What do you actually like to do? Well, I don't know because I do so many things. Or I don't like to do any of it because I've already future casted myself out of this job. And it's instead like a series of questions of saying, are you sure that you actually want to change? Or do you not want to make the really most difficult self-reflection of what are the things I want to spend my time on? And what are the things I don't? And can I have a difficult conversation with my team about doing more of one and less of the other? And what it would take to get there? And how much money I'd have to be paid in order to do X thing versus Y thing? And is there a zone of genius here that I see inside of the company that could be uniquely mine? It's not inspiration. It's always self-reflection. Like Oracle of Delphi, know thyself.

• 12:33Codie Sanchez?

  And the reason most people burn out is because you don't actually know what the fuck you want. So you're spinning your wheels nonstop, doing a bunch of shit that doesn't make you happy. And then you're upset that your company or your culture or your boss or your whatever doesn't know how to read the inside of your brain when you don't even know what to ask of the universe. Nine times out of 10.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  Do you have a personal story of how making a particular adjustment really dramatically changed your workday, your life, the trajectory of your company, and just allowed you to get so much more energy to put into your work?

• 13:04Codie Sanchez?

  Set and setting is really important. So for instance, you're like, God, I'm like really tired of editing because I feel like I'm trapped in a dark hole. Well, can you just like take your computer outside and go, okay, I can only really edit inside for about two hours a day. Then I like an hour break to edit outside, even if it's hot. I like wear workout clothes. I have a guy on my team that has to make a shit ton of cold calls. He goes in the gym. He walks on the treadmill, makes phone calls nonstop. I got another guy that has to review a lot of salespeople's phone calls. He takes an hour during lunch, goes and does a full workout while he's listening to people's phone calls and making voice notes about what to do differently. So like self-analysis? What are you doing? How are you doing?

• 13:49Codie Sanchez?

  What would make this actually more enjoyable?

• 13:52Speaker 02

  Okay, how do you know when to make a pivot or make a change in how you work? And when you just need to be resilient and push through and just grind?

• 14:01Codie Sanchez?

  I mean, Tony Robbins always says, if you have a big enough why, you'll overcome anyhow. A lot of times, I think, we don't think about the big why behind what we do. And maybe we need to get resold the dream. You know, when I get tired, because that happens to me too, I'll often go to my husband or maybe my president, Mark, somebody else that I trusted at the company. I'll be like, dude, I'm tired this week. You know, I like need to be reminded of what we're doing. And Chris will say to me like, oh, well, you know, this happened this year. This happened this year. We won in here. We're winning here. We're winning here. And somebody else outside of me will remind me all the ways we've already won. And they'll remind me of the things we haven't accomplished that make it all worth it.

• 14:46Codie Sanchez?

  And if you don't have that, you won't be able to overcome the drudgery of life. It's like, I don't know, I have a pregnancy bias right now, but you know, pregnancy is like not the funnest thing. And giving birth out here is even less fun. And so why would people do that continuously? Because at the end, you're like, I have this baby and I know that this is this thing that I want. I also imagine like having a baby and having it shit all over itself and you. Oh, my God. By the way, one of my friends showed me this picture. It was the first picture of her and her child. And the father was shirtless, like skin to skin, I guess, and put the baby on her chest. And she sent me the picture. I was like, oh, that's cute. Except I looked closer at the picture and the baby had just shit all over the father's chest. She was like, isn't this cute? I'm like, it's literally categorically not cute. That is not a good looking picture. And he looked so happy.

• 15:31Codie Sanchez?

  And I remember thinking, what is wrong with this man? Why is he so happy? Because he has a son. And like the why is so big that the how kind of doesn't matter. And so I would keep reminding yourself of that. You know, in these difficult scenarios, we know that if you want to win, what is the number one thing that equates itself to winning? Endurance. Like you cannot win a marathon by sometimes doing a sprint. You just cannot. And so if that's true, we've got to use the big why so that the how doesn't feel that miserable. And then sometimes you just take a nap.

• 16:04Speaker 02

  Okay, so if you could leave some parting words with somebody who's at the beginning of their ownership journey or stuck in a W2 who just needs to like grind through, what would you say?

• 16:12Codie Sanchez?

  You know, I was thinking about advice that I wish that I had when I was first starting or when I was deeply struggling. And I wrote this the other day to myself, which is the best advice I ever got as a founder, just do not quit. It is so miserable and hard for longer than you think it will be. You will fail 10x as much as you win. But then one day somehow you jump from zero to 10, then to 100. It's not linear and it is never as miserable in the end as it was in the beginning. So just don't quit. Also, I keep this one saved, which is a picture of Elon's rockets. It says, first you make it work and then you perfect it later. That's actually, I believe, in chapter six of the book. Haha, I didn't even have this saved. That's incredible. That is actually the exact page.

• 16:57Codie Sanchez?

  But the real truth of the matter is, is that you got to show people that you got what it takes to have the stamina to make something that's perfect. And it's never going to be that way in the beginning. And that's okay. So 94, page 94 is for you. See you next week. By the way, also, we want to like switch up some of the ways we're doing the pod. I want to hear more questions from you. Can you guys put in the caption? What questions do you want me to answer? Can you put your unhinged questions? Can you tell me like the things that you probably don't want me to read your username on, but I'll still answer it specifically for you? Because what I've realized is that nobody gives really non-PC advice about business building when they're on the climb. Right? They definitely don't do it once they've made it to the top

• 17:42Codie Sanchez?

  because you get, you know, knifed for telling the truth. So I want to hear from you and I also want to see you on September 18th. This book launch is going to be amazing. I've been obsessing on it. So let's make you the most profitable owner in all of your friend groups. We'll see you next time.

• 18:03Speaker 00

  When fall comes back around, there's a sense of a reset. And new pieces from Lululemon's fall drop are an inspiration to push your goals and elevate your routines. As your calendar fills, easy-to-layer styles meet the demands of your day. And as you challenge yourself to try even more, versatile sets transition with you. The Lululemon fall lineup brings new levels of comfort and confidence, whether you're starting something fresh or starting something over. Check out the latest arrivals in store and on lululemon.com now.