- Down to Earth
- Posts
- Burned-Out? Try This.
Burned-Out? Try This.
Do Good.
Red Young
February 16, 2025 • Reading time: 10 minutes
Sponsored by
Chapters 📖
I. For The Greater Glory Of Everything (How to Beat Burnout) 💫
II. [PAID] This Healthy Snack Will Have You Addicted 😋
Good morning! 🌤️
I have a secret strategy I use to defeat burnout.
This lifestyle hack has been powering my motivation with ease and bliss.
As for the next piece, I hope you’re hungry – a delicious snack recipe that helped me lose weight and build muscle is on the menu.
That piece is for paid subscribers only:
For only $6 a month, you can support my hard work and receive life-changing health and happiness content in exchange.
Great deal, right?
Let’s go!
For the Greater Glory of Everything 🌠
The Secret to Beating Burnout 🔥
My friend works for a large company that has a lot of money and influence.
The work he does is similar enough to mine, in that he is a one-man-band of ideation, creation and marketing.
He recently asked me if I’ve ever experienced burnout.
People who experience burnout describe it as a state of chronic exhaustion and lack of motivation.
“Of course,” I reply. “But I haven’t felt it in a long time.”
“Makes sense,” he nods. “You’re the health guy. You have all the hacks.”
I thought about that for a while, and realized he was wrong.
Sure, my (sometimes manic) penchant for health and productivity can keep me sane.
But there’s no amount of magnesium, breathwork or meditation that can stave off the quizzical state of burnout.
It isn’t exactly clear what burnout is.
It’s not something that can be picked up by an MRI, yet it is nowhere near imaginary.
A Viser report found that at least 89% of people in the work force have experienced burnout in the last year – feelings of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by prolonged or excessive stress.
Nine out of ten working Americans have met their wits end.
But not me.
Not even in a holier-than-thou way.
Sure, I experience stress – tons of it. But it never feels consuming or bleak.
The reality is that there is a lot on my plate, and it’s my responsibility to handle it.
And I’m just getting started.
When I was working for someone else, specifically for large corporations, my workload was substantially less.
My work had less of an impact. I even worked remotely for some time.
All this, and I still felt flamed tf out.
I even believe that those who are unemployed are burned out these days.
It doesn’t make practical sense.
How is it that I've been working 3x harder than when I was with a major company, yet there’s more gas in the tank than ever?
There are several causes I lead and support, including Housing Freedom, TOPA, responsible tech and more.
I’m affiliated with several media and news organizations, and take up leadership roles there.
I mentor peers in my field and youth throughout NYC.
I leave room for fun, too – I play in a Samba band and train Muay Thai.
My biggest responsibility is running and scaling a media business.
The list goes on (and on).
Still, the crippling vice of burnout has no hold on me.
The reason is simple.
The bigger picture.
Some people describe me as a visionary.
I understand things really well.
I see things the way they are.
I also see the way they’ve been in the past.
That makes it simple for me to see where we’re going.
With that vision considered, I plan and execute for what I expect to happen next.
You might consider it like chess.
Multidimensional chess, where every move I make is done with a clear intention and specific purpose.
Okay, so I’m a guy who is organized and plans for the future.
“So, what?” You might say.
“Everyone is trying to better their own futures..”
But there’s a secret way of living that I follow that makes everything fall into place easily.
Here’s the thing. All the moves I make aren’t about me.
My moves are for the game above my understanding: The Bigger Picture.
If The Bigger Picture were a blockbuster film, the plot would revolve around the greater good.
The best movies typically do …
If this life is a movie, all I have to do is play my role.
I’m not worried about the plot points that follow.
If you were a traveler on a powerful steam engine, hurdling through the Sierra Nevada mountains, would you worry about driving the train? Or would you sit back and enjoy the view?
In this movie, the Director called for an actor who can embody goodness to the best of their abilities.
The casting call didn’t specify any further than that.
It’s a simple strategy – dare I call it a life hack – that cultures across millennia have practiced in one way or another.
Just be good, for goodness’ sake.
I can move with ease and confidence because I am participating in something much larger and more powerful than I.
The Jesuits called this lifestyle "Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam,” Latin for the greater glory of God.
The Jesuits are a group of dudes who have made a sincere impact on how I see the world and my place in it.
They’re Catholics, but differ in that they see service as the most direct way to serve and praise God.
The pope is a Jesuit!
This is something I learned in High School.
But before that, in Junior High, I wasn’t so Godly and enlightened.
I was messing around and getting caught up with the wrong things.
Don’t underestimate the chaos potential of a 13-year-old running the streets of New York City.
Needless to say, my trajectory was looking suspect, and apparently I needed “structure.”
150 years before my delinquency, the Jesuits made their way to Manhattan and founded what was then called the College of St. Francis Xavier, so that’s where I ended up.
My “transformation” and all that stuff happened throughout those years.
I didn’t even grow up religious. Funny how things shake out that way …
A military-training unit began at Xavier in 1886 under the direction of the National Guard. Jesuits don’t play.
The Jesuits are big on doing good. Service. Other-ness.
These notions felt good, and they felt right.
It’s never been about me, and the framework of being active in service generated a strong sense of purpose.
Jesuits are known as the “Society of Jesus.” Good branding if I’ve ever seen it.
So, these are my roots.
The seeds planted in my subconscious being that had yet to bloom until now.
It took years of frustration, resentment, denial and crisis to reach this degree of harvest.
No amount of money, status or corporate endorsement gave me the fulfillment I deserved, so burned-out I became.
I had to be lost to be found.
But life works like a trampoline if you play it right.
You’ll go up, but you’ll eventually have to come down, and when you do, the timing of your next jump will determine the new height you reach.
Once you start jumping with intention to jump higher, you begin to embrace the collision that awaits at the bottom.
Then, you stop caring about the timing at all.
Everything just flows, because the point is just to have fun and enjoy your time, unattached to and surrendered to none but the Love of it all.
If you’re religious, you probably look to do God's will.
If you’re a decent person, you probably look to do Good.
Good will and God’s Will are the same thing – God just wants you to do good for his creations, because that’s his vision of Heaven on Earth.
That’s Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam: The Love that always finds a way.
It’s His masterpiece film, after all.
These ideas are what I live by.
Called together at one table, with unity in diversity, one family, working together to realize Heaven on Earth.
So that’s why I’m not burned out anymore.
I see the why in everything I do, and that brings me a strong sense of direction.
I can let my foot off the gas, because the destination is here, right now, and my calling is to do good in everything I do.
There’s no rush to reach the Kingdom.
So I just play my part. I do my best, and give thanks.
If I can do this, I can do all things ...
