Hey Friend,

I told you I'd drop back into your inbox next week, but I'm fired up and believe in meeting the energy of the moment. Soooo, hi again!

Recently, I found myself in the audience of a keynote that I had very strong feelings about. I won’t name the speaker or the conference. That’s not the point. But I will say that a room full of about a thousand nonprofit and government professionals — people managing underfunded programs, leading teams through layoffs, trying to figure out how to get basic healthcare and housing for their communities, and navigating the slow-burn trauma of working in and against broken systems — was told, with great confidence, that the keys to their well-being were...wait for it...sleep more, build positive social connections, set boundaries, put your oxygen mask on first, practice mindfulness, and “just be happier.”

[Insert hard side-eye]

My sister, whom I was rudely texting throughout, responded to me at one point with: “Did he come back from 2006?"

I laughed, but she wasn’t wrong.

Look. None of the advice that was given is inherently bad. Sleep is great. Mindfulness works. I’m not here to argue against breathing (please KEEP BREATHING). But in an hour, there wasn't a single word about the systems and cultures the audience is operating within.

Not one word about the fact that “sleep more” is a really cute suggestion for the person working two jobs just to keep up with rent and gas prices, navigating menopause-related insomnia, parenting three kids, and getting emails from their boss at 10pm with an implied expectation of a response.

There wasn’t any mention of the sector’s own role in creating the conditions that make people physically and mentally unwell.

And there weren’t actionable tools. Just a lot of words, "encouragement", and a not-so-subtle implication that if you are burned out or struggling, it is mostly because you haven’t been prioritizing yourself enough.

That is not just an incomplete message. It's an insulting message and perhaps even a form of violence. We cannot continue putting the onus on individuals to heal themselves out of conditions that institutions created and continue to maintain.

WE CANNOT FIX THIS WITH A MASSAGE, A BUBBLE BATH, OR ANOTHER GENERIC KEYNOTE!!!!

(I’m not yelling at you; I’m yelling into the void and hoping someone will hear it)

Here’s the keynote I would have given. Consider this my rebuttal address:

I’ve worked with nonprofit leaders for nearly 20 years. I run a workshop called Leading Without Martyrdom. I facilitate a nonprofit wellbeing cohort. Every week, I sit in rooms with countless people who are absolutely exhausted. And I’ve learned that the problem is almost never that they haven’t tried hard enough to take care of themselves.

Here’s what I know to be true (warning: soapboxes pending):

Burnout is not a personal failure.

It’s a cultural and systemic issue. The nonprofit sector is built on martyrdom messaging. We celebrate people who sacrifice. We treat underpayment as a rite of passage. We talk about burnout like it’s a badge of honor, and then we turn around and tell people to do more yoga.

Burnout is what happens when the gap between what you’re being asked to give and what you’re actually resourced to give becomes unsustainable. And no amount of deep breathing closes that kind of structural gap.

Before we ask what individuals can do differently, we have to ask: what is this organization, this culture, and this sector asking of people, and is that ask reasonable? (If you want to start answering that question right now, I made a free Workload & Capacity Audit to help. Download it here.)

Self-care without community and systemic care is just a more pleasant way to blame people for their own depletion.

“Put your oxygen mask on first” sounds reasonable until you ask: why is everyone on this plane gasping for air? The oxygen mask metaphor lets organizations off the hook. It frames the solution as individual self-preservation when the real question is why the environment itself is toxic. People are not failing to practice self-care. They are practicing self-care inside systems that keep regenerating the conditions for harm; conditions where it’s hard for anyone, let alone the most marginalized, to breathe.

(I did a whole ChatGMB episode on why the oxygen mask metaphor is fundamentally flawed. Listen on Spotify here or download on any other podcast platform.)

This is also an equity issue (I cannot say this loudly enough)

People do not experience or move towards chronic stress equally. Research consistently shows that women, BIPOC leaders, LGBTQ+ professionals, and people with disabilities experience burnout at significantly higher rates than their white, male, cisgender counterparts. This isn't because they are less resilient, but because they are navigating additional and compounding stressors that individual wellness practices are not designed to address. The “minority stress” burden (the chronic, cumulative toll of navigating bias, microaggressions, code-switching, and systemic exclusion on top of an already demanding job) is real, documented, and physiologically costly. We cannot breathe our way to equity.

Invisible contracts are doing more damage than poor sleep hygiene.

Most leaders in mission-driven work operate under unspoken, largely unconscious beliefs about what they owe their organization, their cause, and the people they serve. Things like:

If I don’t step in, everything will fall apart. My worth depends on my output. Good leaders always put the mission before themselves. If I rest, I am failing my community. Being a fixer is who I am.

Sound familiar? These aren’t just stories people begin telling themselves out of nowhere. They’re often survival responses, sector conditioning, and sometimes a result of T/trauma. I guarantee that no amount of mindfulness will touch them unless we start actually naming them and deciding to renegotiate them. Not just as individuals, but as teams, organizations, and a sector at large.

Boundaries are a skill, and they require permission from leaders and organizations to work.

You cannot teach someone to set boundaries in a vacuum. If the culture punishes people for having limits, if saying no gets you labeled as “not a team player,” or if taking a vacation means coming back to a pile of chaos, then teaching boundary-setting skills is a waste of everyone’s time. Real boundary work names the invisible contracts, gives people concrete language, and also asks organizations to examine whether they’re creating conditions where boundaries are survivable and allowed to be set. We must address the culture that boundaries operate within and the consequences for setting them.

Community care > self-care. Every time.

The most sustainable leaders I know aren’t the ones with the best morning routines (although I genuinely envy anyone with a good morning routine). They are the ones who have built real relationships with peers who tell them the truth, with communities and groups that show up for them, and with colleagues who share the weight. Care must run in all directions at all times and without the most depleted needing to ask for help they often are too tired to know they need.

Loneliness and isolation are among the biggest drivers of burnout. The antidote is not meditation. It’s belonging. And belonging doesn’t happen automatically; it has to be built on purpose. Especially in remote and hybrid environments where people are increasingly separated from each other.

What leaders and organizations can do today for free:

This doesn’t have to wait for a budget line, a consultant, or a strategic planning retreat. Start here:

• Audit your culture’s relationship with overwork. Are you celebrating people who stay late and skip lunch? Are you modeling boundaries yourself? Do people feel safe saying no, or do they say yes because they’re afraid of what saying no will cost them? Naming what you see is a starting point.
• Have one honest conversation about capacity. Not a survey. Not a town hall. A real, human conversation with your team or a direct report about what’s energizing and depleting them right now. Be prepared to listen without defending, and then ACT.
• Look at your meeting culture. Are there spaces in the week for people to actually do their work? Do your meetings start and end on time? Are people expected to be “on” constantly? Fixing meeting culture is one of the fastest and most concrete levers leaders have.
• Name the invisible contracts out loud. In your next team meeting, try asking: “What do we believe, implicitly, about what it means to be a good team member here? What does sacrifice look like on this team, and is that what we actually want?” You might be surprised what comes up.
• Stop celebrating burnout. Seriously. Stop saying “I’m so slammed” as if it earns you a gold medal. Stop sending emails at 11pm unless you mean to. Stop rewarding the people who work the most hours and start rewarding the people who get the most done without wrecking themselves.

I'd be so happy to support any and all of this. That’s what I do!

One last thing (for now).

I never want to sit in another keynote on workplace wellbeing without hearing about systems and equity. Not ever again. If you are being paid to talk to a room full of mission-driven leaders about their wellbeing and you are not naming the sector conditions that create burnout, the equity disparities in who burns out and why, and the organizational accountability that has to be part of any real solution, you are not giving a wellbeing keynote. You are giving people a permission slip to keep tolerating intolerable conditions.

We can do better. We have to. Our people and missions NEED US TO DO BETTER.

If you want a version of this work that has the capacity to actually and actively change things, or are looking for a talk, training, or retreat that looks at your systems AND your individual patterns AND gives you real tools AND holds the organization accountable AND treats you like the complex human you are...that’s what you get when you work with me. Book a connection call to learn more.

We deserve better than “just be happier.” And so do the people we serve.

Thank you for tuning in to my rebuttal address, and for being part of the movement!

With gratitude,
Marissa

PSST - I'd love to hear your reactions to this. Are you as fired up as I am?