Success stories in tech and business often sound the same. Hustle harder, sleep less, squeeze more into every minute. Alison Campbell lived that story for twenty years, climbing through the ranks at Workhuman, Wayfair, and Morgan Stanley. But she noticed something most people don't talk about: the same playbook that launches careers often ends up breaking the people running them.
As the founder of unBurnt™, she's not just talking about burnout - she's rebuilding how companies think about performance from the ground up. After years of driving growth at hyperspeed, she's now the person leaders call when they realize their "work harder" strategy is starting to backfire.
This conversation gets real about what actually happens inside companies pushing for peak performance. No corporate wellness fluff, no meditation app recommendations - just real strategies for how to build something that lasts without burning out the people building it.
Read on for five highlights from our interview and watch the full episode to hear Alison's story in her own words right here:
Your Body Drops Warning Signs Before It Drops You
I had just come off of a board meeting and wasn't feeling good. It compounded throughout the weekend, and I ended up in the ER and told I had to have surgery. It was a tremendous wake up call - really the catalyst for me to have that eyes-wide-open moment that the way I'm working just isn't working. Like this is totally unsustainable. There were signs along the way that I've ignored. Instead of celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas with my family, I'm very unwell and about to have surgery.
As a Chief of Staff at a billion-dollar company, Alison was crushing it on paper - but her body was sending distress signals. She was exhausted, having regular headaches, stomach aches, and couldn't think clearly. Yet she kept pushing through. What makes this so relatable is how the medical system backs up this mindset. When driven professionals, especially working moms, show up with these symptoms, they're often told "that's just what being a working mom looks like" and sent right back to the grind. It's no wonder so many of us keep pushing until something breaks - literally, in Alison's case, leading to surgery instead of holiday celebrations with her kids. The wake-up call shouldn't have to be this dramatic, but for most of us, it is. Because when you're in it, you honestly believe you can't afford to slow down - until your body makes that choice for you.
Exhausted Teams Kill Innovation Before It Starts
When everybody's walking around and they're really completely burnt out, overwhelmed, cynical - it does not make for a super collaborative culture and conducive place to drive innovative thinking and big breakthroughs. There are all of these second level intangibles that come along with just grinding seven days a week, not being able to unplug, turn it off and never stop.
Leading a 50-person team at Wayfair during its pre-IPO phase gave Alison a front-row seat to how workplace dynamics shift under sustained pressure. Those spontaneous hallway conversations that spark new product ideas vanish when everyone's too drained to engage. Team members who used to eagerly collaborate start working in isolation, focused solely on getting through their own tasks. The seven-day workweek creates an especially dangerous trap in high-growth companies. Teams might hit their immediate targets while missing opportunities for game-changing breakthroughs. A workplace culture built on perpetual grind gradually loses its ability to imagine and execute bold new directions - exactly what growing companies need most.
The Real Signs Your Team is Running on Empty
We dig into pain points like retention and employee satisfaction. We can survey and look at pre and post metrics to see if we're driving value in the right places. We want to make sure there isn't a high level of absenteeism - that's a huge thing. When there's this culture of stress and burnout, you're not getting the most out of even your best employees.
Your employee satisfaction scores can look amazing while your best people are quietly burning out. Your top performers still crush their basic work because that's who they are - but they stop raising their hand for new projects and throwing out those random brilliant ideas that used to light up team meetings. The really scary part is how this hits fast-growing teams who genuinely love what they're building. People push through because they care so much about the mission. They keep showing up, keep delivering, but that special spark starts dimming. By the time someone hands in their resignation or starts calling in sick, you've already lost months of their best creative energy.
Sometimes Breaking Down Leads to a Better Path Forward
The first time I went to a networking event, writing "founder" on my name-tag was honestly one of the best moments. After spending 20 years hustling in corporate roles - and I'm incredibly grateful for those experiences - this was a new chapter. I'm doing this work because of my story, and by sharing it, I've discovered just how many others are going through the same thing.
Most leaders are trained to hide their struggles, to maintain an image of unwavering strength. But something shifts when a seasoned executive stands up and says "yeah, I burned out too." In Boston's startup scene, she watched rooms full of tough-as-nails founders let their guards down, sharing their own barely-holding-it-together moments. That's the thing about rewriting the hustle culture playbook - it takes someone who's played the game at the highest levels to call out its flaws. Those twenty years of pushing through weren't wasted; they were research. Every stress-fueled board meeting and missed family dinner taught her exactly what needs to change about how we work.
Taking Care of Yourself Makes You a Better Leader, Not a Weaker One
My ambition hasn't dampened at all. If anything, I'm more energized and passionate about what I'm doing now. I'm really committed to this work - to help people and continue the conversation around burnout and how we can make realistic changes inside workplaces.
The old startup playbook says taking your foot off the gas means giving up on your dreams. After her wake-up call, she started running every other day - non-negotiable. She blocks real breaks in her calendar. She builds her schedule around having energy left for her kids at the end of the day. And guess what? She's making bigger moves than ever. The secret she discovered is that ambition doesn't have to burn you up to burn bright. Building unBurnt taught her how to create impact that lasts. When you're trying to change how an entire generation of leaders thinks about success, you need to play the long game.
How Burnout Inspired Alison Campbell to Create unBurnt™
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Success stories in tech and business often sound the same. Hustle harder, sleep less, squeeze more into every minute. Alison Campbell lived that story for twenty years, climbing through the ranks at Workhuman, Wayfair, and Morgan Stanley. But she noticed something most people don't talk about: the same playbook that launches careers often ends up breaking the people running them.
As the founder of unBurnt™, she's not just talking about burnout - she's rebuilding how companies think about performance from the ground up. After years of driving growth at hyperspeed, she's now the person leaders call when they realize their "work harder" strategy is starting to backfire.
This conversation gets real about what actually happens inside companies pushing for peak performance. No corporate wellness fluff, no meditation app recommendations - just real strategies for how to build something that lasts without burning out the people building it.
Read on for five highlights from our interview and watch the full episode to hear Alison's story in her own words right here:
Your Body Drops Warning Signs Before It Drops You
I had just come off of a board meeting and wasn't feeling good. It compounded throughout the weekend, and I ended up in the ER and told I had to have surgery. It was a tremendous wake up call - really the catalyst for me to have that eyes-wide-open moment that the way I'm working just isn't working. Like this is totally unsustainable. There were signs along the way that I've ignored. Instead of celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas with my family, I'm very unwell and about to have surgery.
As a Chief of Staff at a billion-dollar company, Alison was crushing it on paper - but her body was sending distress signals. She was exhausted, having regular headaches, stomach aches, and couldn't think clearly. Yet she kept pushing through. What makes this so relatable is how the medical system backs up this mindset. When driven professionals, especially working moms, show up with these symptoms, they're often told "that's just what being a working mom looks like" and sent right back to the grind. It's no wonder so many of us keep pushing until something breaks - literally, in Alison's case, leading to surgery instead of holiday celebrations with her kids. The wake-up call shouldn't have to be this dramatic, but for most of us, it is. Because when you're in it, you honestly believe you can't afford to slow down - until your body makes that choice for you.
Exhausted Teams Kill Innovation Before It Starts
When everybody's walking around and they're really completely burnt out, overwhelmed, cynical - it does not make for a super collaborative culture and conducive place to drive innovative thinking and big breakthroughs. There are all of these second level intangibles that come along with just grinding seven days a week, not being able to unplug, turn it off and never stop.
Leading a 50-person team at Wayfair during its pre-IPO phase gave Alison a front-row seat to how workplace dynamics shift under sustained pressure. Those spontaneous hallway conversations that spark new product ideas vanish when everyone's too drained to engage. Team members who used to eagerly collaborate start working in isolation, focused solely on getting through their own tasks. The seven-day workweek creates an especially dangerous trap in high-growth companies. Teams might hit their immediate targets while missing opportunities for game-changing breakthroughs. A workplace culture built on perpetual grind gradually loses its ability to imagine and execute bold new directions - exactly what growing companies need most.
The Real Signs Your Team is Running on Empty
We dig into pain points like retention and employee satisfaction. We can survey and look at pre and post metrics to see if we're driving value in the right places. We want to make sure there isn't a high level of absenteeism - that's a huge thing. When there's this culture of stress and burnout, you're not getting the most out of even your best employees.
Your employee satisfaction scores can look amazing while your best people are quietly burning out. Your top performers still crush their basic work because that's who they are - but they stop raising their hand for new projects and throwing out those random brilliant ideas that used to light up team meetings. The really scary part is how this hits fast-growing teams who genuinely love what they're building. People push through because they care so much about the mission. They keep showing up, keep delivering, but that special spark starts dimming. By the time someone hands in their resignation or starts calling in sick, you've already lost months of their best creative energy.
Sometimes Breaking Down Leads to a Better Path Forward
The first time I went to a networking event, writing "founder" on my name-tag was honestly one of the best moments. After spending 20 years hustling in corporate roles - and I'm incredibly grateful for those experiences - this was a new chapter. I'm doing this work because of my story, and by sharing it, I've discovered just how many others are going through the same thing.
Most leaders are trained to hide their struggles, to maintain an image of unwavering strength. But something shifts when a seasoned executive stands up and says "yeah, I burned out too." In Boston's startup scene, she watched rooms full of tough-as-nails founders let their guards down, sharing their own barely-holding-it-together moments. That's the thing about rewriting the hustle culture playbook - it takes someone who's played the game at the highest levels to call out its flaws. Those twenty years of pushing through weren't wasted; they were research. Every stress-fueled board meeting and missed family dinner taught her exactly what needs to change about how we work.
Taking Care of Yourself Makes You a Better Leader, Not a Weaker One
My ambition hasn't dampened at all. If anything, I'm more energized and passionate about what I'm doing now. I'm really committed to this work - to help people and continue the conversation around burnout and how we can make realistic changes inside workplaces.
The old startup playbook says taking your foot off the gas means giving up on your dreams. After her wake-up call, she started running every other day - non-negotiable. She blocks real breaks in her calendar. She builds her schedule around having energy left for her kids at the end of the day. And guess what? She's making bigger moves than ever. The secret she discovered is that ambition doesn't have to burn you up to burn bright. Building unBurnt taught her how to create impact that lasts. When you're trying to change how an entire generation of leaders thinks about success, you need to play the long game.
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