Inspiring Interviews

Surviving Burnout: How to know the difference between a ‘bad hustle’ and a ‘good hustle’

With Lydia Lee

Today I want to share Danny Lim’s inspiring story charting his journey from burnout survivor to thriving entrepreneur.

Danny is a Bali Retreat alumni and a serial entrepreneur having launched multiple successful businesses. However, it took traumatic meltdown and soul-searching recovery for him to reinvent his hustle and find true happiness and freedom.

I had a very intimate and honest chat with Danny about his journey leading up to his meltdown and how he realigned his goals and parameters of success to find happiness and balance in his current project.

Danny shared his insights and experiences on building successful businesses pre and post meltdown and we agreed on one big thing: We can all create a version of success that’s right for us, that doesn’t require a ‘hustle’ that sacrifices our health and wellbeing.

Snippets from our interview:

  • Danny shares his story of how he now helps entrepreneurs launch themselves and empowers them to build both profitable and sustainable businesses.
  • He talks about his painful experience whilst on vacation in New York – he had a stress induced meltdown which led to “mind-body dissociation” and get an emergency flight home – but here’s the thing – it came at a time when he was actually most successful and earning the most money and recognition through his businesses. Not when he was at his lowest or facing his biggest business challenges.
  • We discuss the long road to recovery both physically and mentally through medication and therapy and how it affected his view on “hustle” and success. He tells us what he learnt about self care, self love and being selective in how he allocates his resources between work, friends and self.
  • Danny’s “AHA!” moment came in deciding “how much is enough?” – In contrast to some of the mainstream serial entrepreneurial stories he discovered that you can’t always rush around making more and more. You need to relax and enjoy the process and destination.
  • There was an illuminating by-product of Dann’s transparency finally telling his friends and family what happened to him. So many of his high flying friends, who externally seemed very happy and successful, were also feeling burnt out and on the verge of a breakdown. They didn’t feel they could admit this publicly but a surprising number reached out to Danny privately to get advice on resources to help them deal with their stress and unhappiness.
  • We look at the social norm where so many of us are in such a rush to get on and climb a career ladder that we never pause and think whether it’s something we really want.
  • What led Danny to sign up for Your Next Big Thing Retreat and how it gave him the clarity and insight to create and turbo charge his new business idea.

Connect with Danny

Website

Instagram

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