Healthier Lives & A Healthier Workplace

Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in mental wellness but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Duncan So, co-founder of The Burnout Clinic, located in Toronto, ON, Canada.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

We help workplace leaders and their teams who are struggling with fatigue, burnout, and anxiety quickly return back to work, re-engaged, productive, and with a fresh outlook in their careers and lives. What makes us different is our approach of bringing in our two-day rapid clinical processes to clear the destructive beliefs, emotions, and inner conflicts at the root cause of a person's burnout - combined with our vacation travel partners at premium 5-star all-inclusive resorts for a truly transformational and memorable experience. We're on a mission to end workplace burnout and empower the way we work.

Tell us about yourself

The Burnout Clinic was a happy and needed accident. Having burned myself out in my early career as an Engineer when that word was reserved only for doctors, nurses, and other front-line workers, I thought I was having an early quarter-life crisis after nearly seven years of working over 12 hours days and being on-call. I embarked on my own journey as an Engineer to find a predictable and evidence-based approach to recovery. I embarked on the field of human flourishing rapidly.

In that following decade of work, I launched a school in rural Ghana, empowering and training young changemakers and leaders with skills around social entrepreneurship and leadership development to tackle their own local problems within their communities - getting recognized by the World Economic Forum, UNEP and British Council as the Future of Education for rural communities.

As we launched our flagship program, Start Your Impact Journey, now used at the Center of Entrepreneurship at Centennial College for early entrepreneurial explorers, I discovered that many people who wanted to start social ventures and make a career in change-making for social good came with trauma and self-sabotaging behaviours that would cause unwanted pain and struggle in an already very emotionally demanding occupation.

I brought my work from private clinical practice to clear that trauma and realized it is an important solution needed for today in the workplace with the growing epidemic of burnout and subsequent workplace trauma. It equips leaders and agents of change with the skillsets to operate as a business leaders with passion and grace. From there, the clinic was born, and it not just fulfills me on my mission to empower humanity - it also equips leaders of wellbeing to transcend burnout and become champions and advocates for mental health and wellbeing in the workplace on a collective mission to end burnout.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

I could say amplifying a socially innovative product category of burnout retreats. I could even say being able to help resolve someone's lifetime of trauma and emotional triggers in as quickly as 40 minutes and observing the look of liberation is something I can never get tired of. However, as a business owner and leader, I think my biggest accomplishment at The Burnout Clinic is showcasing how a business can be used as a platform to influence systemic change - shaping and empowering how we work, and breaking the mental health stigma of burnout in the workplace.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

Hardest, but most rewarding things that come as a business owner are a personal growth and the agility that comes with it. You have to keep growing, learning, and adapting - most of the time from failures. It's recognizing that business ownership that's deeply fulfilling is more a spiritual game than it is an economic one.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

Operate from your personal values in the area of career / make business your calling work, not just something to pay your bills (seriously, there are plenty of better ways)
Don't just jump in blind and rely on your spurts of passion and inspiration. Take a methodical approach and join an Entrepreneurship Incubator or Accelerator and gain both the mindset and skillsets needed to be successful (or at least minimize failure). Combine that with your unrelenting emotional drive, and you're on fire!
Build as you go. Take small steps, increasing momentum as you go. Be okay with failures - use that as a pivot from what NOT to do to focusing on what you need to do. Failures are shortcuts.

If you're struggling with burnout, high anxiety, fatigue and exhaustion, craving meaning but stuck in your own dark night of the soul - you don't have to struggle alone. We're here to support and serve you, and you can join our community at: www.transcendthehustle.com

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.theburnoutclinic.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theburnoutclinic
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theburnoutclinic/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/theburnoutclinic/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

Feel inspired to start, run or grow your own subscription business? Check out subkit.com and learn how you can turn "one day" into day one.