How the thoughts you feed daily shape the team you lead and the business you build 

 May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and I’ll be honest with you: I don’t need a calendar to remind me to think about this. It comes up in my conversations with business owners constantly, and not always by name. I hear it when people describe their weeks, when they admit quietly that they’re holding it together on the outside while something feels off on the inside. 

I’ve been in that place, and most of us have. 

I believe what you think about, you bring about. I’ve said that many times and I mean it every time. But there’s a part of that truth I don’t always say out loud, and I think it’s worth saying: you don’t have full control over your thoughts, and neither do I. If you’ve ever tried to sit quietly and clear your mind completely, you know what I mean. Within about thirty seconds, something uninvited shows up: a worry, a memory, something you forgot to do, something someone said to you in 2011. The subconscious doesn’t wait for an invitation. 

So the goal isn’t to silence your mind. The goal is to be thoughtful about what you’re feeding it. 

Your Mind Is a Garden. You Choose What Gets Watered. 

The data on what unchecked mental load does to leaders is hard to ignore. According to Gallup’s 2025 State of the Global Workplace report, declining employee engagement in 2024 cost the world economy $438 billion in lost productivity, and the primary driver was disengaged managers, not disengaged frontline workers. Leaders who are running on empty don’t build fired-up teams. They build teams that reflect their own exhaustion.

That’s not a criticism. That’s just how it works. Gallup found that 70 percent of team engagement is attributable to the manager. Which means your state of mind is not a personal issue. It’s a business issue. 

The good news is that small, intentional practices genuinely move the needle. One of the simplest things I do to put my team in a better mental place is open every single meeting with the same question: “Tell me something good.” It sounds small, and honestly it is small. But it works. Before we talk about deadlines or challenges or whatever’s on the agenda, we start with something positive happening in someone’s life. It shifts people out of whatever they were carrying when they walked in and creates a few minutes of genuine connection before the work begins. You can’t always control what your team members are thinking about when they show up, but you can create a condition that makes better thinking more likely. 

The Hidden Power of “I Am” Over “I Will Be” 

That same principle is behind something Mark and I have practiced for years: affirmations. And one of the things that changed how I think about them was learning to say “I am” instead of “I will be.” The difference sounds small until you sit with it. “I will be a strong leader” quietly signals to your brain that you aren’t one yet. “I am a strong leader” plants something in the present tense, something your mind starts to grow into. 

You’re not pretending. You’re rehearsing. And over time, what you rehearse becomes what you live. 

That’s true in your personal life and equally true in how you lead your business. The headspace you’re operating from shapes every decision you make, every conversation you have with your team, and every risk you’re willing to take. A business owner running on fumes thinks differently than one who feels clear and capable. That clarity isn’t a luxury — it’s a performance variable. 

The scale of what poor mental health costs leaders and organizations is staggering. The World Health Organization estimates that depression and anxiety alone cost the global economy $1 trillion in lost productivity every year. And yet most business owners I talk to have never once considered their own mental wellness as a line item worth protecting. 

What Gets Lighter When You’re Not Carrying Everything Alone

Here’s what I watch happen with business owners who are finally honest about the load they’re carrying. They describe their weeks the way someone describes treading water. They’re competent. Committed. But they’re spending so much energy on tasks that aren’t theirs to own that there’s nothing left for strategy, for vision, for the conversations that actually move the business forward. 

One of the hardest things I’ve learned is that a leader who is stretched too thin eventually stops leading and starts just surviving. I know that feeling from the inside. And I know how much changes when the weight gets distributed more wisely. 

When we help clients find the right virtual employee and they finally hand off the tasks that have been eating them alive, something shifts. The mental load lightens. They sleep better. They stop reacting and start leading. That’s not a coincidence. Carrying too much for too long is one of the most underestimated threats to a business owner’s mental health, and getting real, reliable help is sometimes the most practical act of self-care there is. 

You don’t need a full mental health program to make a meaningful difference. Start here: 

Try one “I am” statement in the morning. Write it down if that helps. Say it like you mean it, even if it feels a little awkward at first. You’ll grow into it. 

Look honestly at what’s on your plate. If you’re handling tasks that someone else could do with the right training and support, ask yourself what it’s actually costing you to keep doing them yourself. Not just in time. In mental bandwidth. 

The business results you want are built on a foundation of clear, focused, healthy thinking. Protecting that isn’t soft. It’s strategic. 

If any of this resonates with where you are right now, I’d genuinely love to talk about what’s on your plate and whether there’s a way we can help make it lighter. You deserve to actually enjoy what you’ve built. That starts by being intentionally good to yourself and putting your mind in the best place possible — because what you think about, you bring about. 

Click here to schedule a free consultation.