Lead Without Burnout

When leaders tell Dana Earhart they want momentum and clarity, she gives them a focused container. The CEO Control Room is a 13 week experience built to help you identify your North Star for the next three months, then do the work that moves the needle.

• Three month timeframe makes progress feel achievable.

• Private access to coaching when you need deeper, business-specific guidance.

• Group structure for economy and peer learning, plus private touch points to solve root causes, not just symptoms.

• Designed to set you up for a foundational Q4 and a strong start to the next year.

Why She Works with CEOs

Dana's path to serving CEOs was not a straight line. After 25 years in corporate consulting leading teams across the US and London, she reinvented her career to build something that supported her life as a mom. What started as life coaching for career women quickly became a focus on leaders and service-based businesses. She loves spreadsheets and strategy. She also deeply cares about life leadership. The intersection of tactical business strategy and human-centered leadership is where she delivers the most impact.

Burnout is a Symptom of Broken Design

Burnout is not a badge of honor. There are two patterns:

• The Bob pattern: the CEO who does 70 percent of the work, is indispensable, works 80 to 100 hour weeks, and teaches the team that this is the standard.

• The disconnected leader: a CEO who creates boundaries but swings too far out of the day to day and loses the cadence and structure needed to lead effectively.

Either extreme damages performance and wellbeing. A healthier approach is designing a business and a leadership cadence that scales without requiring heroic effort from one person. A successful company benefits from leaders who role model healthy boundaries and who build teams capable of decision making.

Meetings Matter. Create Cadence With Purpose

Most teams hate meetings because they have no clear purpose. Meetings must have an intention and a desired outcome before you call them. If you cannot define the outcome, cancel the meeting.

Cadence depends on the business and the team. Field teams need different rhythms than office-based teams.

The framework is always customized, but here are reliable defaults to test and adapt:

• Leadership team meetings on a purposeful cadence, with agendas and desired outcomes.

• One on ones with direct reports. Start monthly if weekly is unrealistic. Ideally move toward weekly or bi-weekly for high performers and high potential team members.

• Tier the meeting cadence so you touch the pulse of your leadership at least once every few weeks.

At the core of better meetings is the simple discipline of asking the team, at the end of each meeting:

What more do you need from me to be successful?

That question shifts leaders out of ego and into service. It surfaces blockers early and creates a culture of mutual ownership.

Leadership Is Service, Not Title

Dana dislikes the word boss because it usually implies ego and command. Real leadership is service. A leader's job is to support, mentor, and enable the team to do the work they were hired to do.

• Hire slow and invest in onboarding and mentorship. Do not assume a hire will figure it out on their own.

• If someone is underperforming, decide quickly. Do not hold on to poor fit because it feels hard to replace.

• Keep an eye on the weakest link and either mentor them to strength or replace the link fast so the team can move forward.

Personal Growth Accelerates Professional Growth

People are human. Investment in personal development multiplies company results. That does not mean forcing mandatory seminars on people. Instead, make development visible, accessible, and personalized.

• Make book recommendations, buy an Audible membership, or sponsor training tailored to a person’s goals.

• Ask about learning goals in one on ones. If an employee tells you they want to grow, support that growth with resources and time.

• Encourage leaders to study a few books deeply rather than superficially consuming many titles.

One book Dana recommends often is The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. It helps leaders understand the upper limit problem and how to shift a perceived ceiling into a new floor. That kind of work matters because as your company scales, your inner limits can become the business limits.

Rituals That Keep You Effective and Whole

Your daily design determines whether you bring 100 percent of your best self. Dana uses these simple, practical rituals and teaches clients to implement them too.

Morning Self Care: 15 Minutes Is Enough

• Commit to a sacred 15 minutes before responding to anyone else. Try five minutes for the mind, five minutes for the body, five minutes for the soul.

• If you do not protect this time, other people's priorities will become your emergency.

Create Cushion Between Meetings

• Build 10 to 15 minutes between meetings to reflect, capture action items, hydrate, and reset.

• Use that time to write quick notes, close out tasks, and set the intention for the next meeting.

End of Day Reflection

• Spend 10 to 15 minutes at the end of each day answering three questions: What went well? What was challenging? What are my top three priorities for tomorrow?

• For every one minute of planning and reflection, you can save up to 10 minutes in execution time, a principle shown in productivity research and popularized by thinkers like Brian Tracy.

For every one minute of reflecting and planning, you save ten minutes in implementation and execution time.

Practical Checklist to Improve Your Leadership and Time

1. Define your North Star for the next 90 days.

2. Set meeting intentions and desired outcomes before scheduling.

3. Build coaching and mentoring moments into one on ones. Ask what they need from you.

4. Protect a daily 15 minute morning ritual to care for mind, body, and soul.

5. Add short breaks between meetings and a 10 to 15 minute end of day reflection.

6. Be intentional about hires. Hire slow and replace fast when necessary.

7. Encourage ongoing personal and professional growth tailored to each team member.

Where to Connect

If you want to lead without burnout and get more weekly nuggets for CEOs, LinkedIn is the best place to connect with Dana Earhart. She sends a newsletter several times a week with actionable ideas to help leaders create scalable businesses and more rewarding lives. Drop a message and say you found these ideas useful on the Let's Go Win podcast and she might have a little goodie to share!

Watch this full episode of the Let's Go Win podcast on YouTube.