Burnout Isn’t a Badge of Honor — It’s a Warning Sign

What if burnout wasn’t a failure… but a divine invitation to realign?

In this short preview, Michael Levitt, founder of the Breakfast Leadership Network, shares how his own collapse became a wake-up call that reshaped everything.

From chasing success at all costs to building a life grounded in purpose, boundaries, and clarity… Michael’s voice speaks straight to the high-achiever who’s exhausted, but still hungry for meaning.

If you’re a young leader juggling too much, or feeling the silent pressure to always be “on,” this is your moment to pause and listen.

In this episode preview, I sit down with Michael Levitt, burnout survivor and leadership expert, to explore a topic that hits close to home for so many emerging leaders: the cost of success when boundaries are ignored.

Michael shares the personal crisis that forced him to rethink his life, the critical signs of burnout most people miss, and how redefining productivity led to deeper purpose and freedom.

The full episode drops in 3 days, and you don’t want to miss this one.
It’s a conversation that could change the way you lead, live, and love your work.

Follow and subscribe so you don’t miss the release.

https://BreakfastLeadership.com

https://www.youtube.com/@breakfastleadership

Michael@breakfastleadership.com

https://linkedin.com/in/michaeldlevitt

David Dahlén D’Cruz
Life & Leadership Connected
www.lifeleadershipconnected.com

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Transcript

0:00

I was running a startup healthcare clinic. And I'd never had any healthcare experiences, a leader in that sector. I had a lot of experience over my career, but never in healthcare. So I took the role. It was a big challenging role for me. but I was really successful at it. But the problem was I didn't have boundaries around when I worked and when I didn't. So I was pretty much working 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week for a couple years. And that is not sustainable. It just isn't. Our bodies are not designed for that. Our minds definitely aren't. When you're working that many hours, you start taking shortcuts in other areas of your life, your health, activity, spirituality, you name it. And I did, you know, I started cutting out everything out of my life just to do the work. And in May of 2009, as you alluded to, that's what I like to refer to as my year of worst case scenarios. So over a year, I had a heart attack that should have killed me. Then 17 weeks later, I lost my job during the Great Recession in the US. I'm like, okay, why was that important for you to work this many hours? What were you trying to accomplish? And just really dig into it, much like a therapist would if they were asking you a question. But I was not working with a therapist at that point. So it was more of a self-therapy type of thing. And thankfully I was able to come out of all of that and learn a lot about burnout. then went back and like said, I a new role. I was doing well with that. I was back in the same sector, the healthcare sector, ironically, because a sector that nearly killed me, I went back to it. A lot of people thought I was crazy to do that, but I was really successful. In the second go-around, I went about it a whole lot better and was successful, did a lot of great things during that time. But as I was back in the swing of things and recovered from everything and rebuilt my life, you know I was looking at my peers in the healthcare sector and this is 2014-2015 I was seeing a lot of my peers burning out okay this is not good I started to warn them going hey you do not want to do this believe me it's not pleasant so after that I said you know I'm gonna start writing about it so I launched a blog and then I started speaking at some healthcare events just kind of talk about and bring awareness to burnout again this is 2015 Burnout is the main topic of many healthcare talks now, but it wasn't back then. So, started doing all of that and then from there, what choices did I do that created this? Okay, what can I choose differently that can hopefully correct this or improve the situation? And again, sometimes that's really hard for people to do, but it takes time. And I always tell people, work with a therapist if you're struggling with something like this and they can help you kind of reframe things or get a little bit more clarity on some things so you can take the necessary steps to improve your life, which is what I want everybody to do. I want everybody to have a better life. On average, the lifespan of people is between 75 to 85 years of age. So that means we get, we'll say 75 just to be safe. So we get 75 springs, 75 summers, 75 falls, and 75 winters. When you start looking at that, like we get 75 of them. All of a sudden you start realizing that's not a lot. I'm in my mid-50s now. So I got a whole lot less to go than I've lived, you know, on average. And that's just the reality of it. I'm not upset about it, but that's the reality of it. So for me, it's like, okay, do I want the last quarter or last third of my life to be a life of struggle, frustration, challenges? If I have any control over that, the answer of course is no, I don't want it. I want it to be... the best period of my life possible. So what do I need to do to do that? Well, if I'm burned out, well, I'm not gonna be living my best life. And that's why I bring awareness to organizations and individuals of what burnout is, what it looks like, what you can do to address it, both from a personal standpoint and also as an employer, what you can do to mitigate the opportunity of burnout running through your organization. So. I'm very fortunate that I, one, survived all that happened to me, but also very fortunate that I get to help organizations and individuals deal with burnout and hopefully prevent it from happening in their lives.