I’m burnt out. Then one simple question gave me the solution

On December 27, 2023, I was sitting alone in my fiancee’s RV.

It was a good motorhome. Comfortable. Net. A small desk tucked in the corner where I could work if I needed to. Nothing about it was broken or messy.

That was the problem.

I should have been inside with my family. Laughing. To be present. Enjoy the quiet period between Christmas and New Year. Instead, I sat alone, staring at my phone, feeling completely overwhelmed and strangely isolated.

From the outside, my life looked like progress. Business grew. People depended on me. The momentum was there. But inside I had the feeling that I was carrying everything myself and I was slowly collapsing under the weight of it.

When such moments arise, my mind does something familiar. I stop feeling like a grown-up entrepreneur and suddenly feel like I’m 13 again.

The boy who stuttered when he was nervous.
The boy who felt stupid even though he wasn’t.
A child who was made fun of for speaking up and learned to keep quiet.

That voice doesn’t say, “You’re overwhelmed.” He says, “You’ve never been so smart.” It tells me that I have fooled people and my luck is about to run out.

The voice was loud that night.

I tried to overcome it. Literally. I started running every other night, convincing myself that discipline would fix everything. I would run five miles, feel proud for about ten minutes, and then cancel it all at Chick-fil-A. Movement without progress. Effort without clarity.

I sat alone in that RV and finally admitted what I had been avoiding.

I was burnt out.

Not tired. He is not stressed. He’s so burned out that even small decisions are difficult.

So I called.

I called my mentor Vaughn and told him the truth. I was exhausted and something had to change. I had no strategy or plan. I just knew I couldn’t go on like this.

We’ve been talking about EOS, the enterprise operating system, for years. I read books. I understood the concepts. Vision. Traction. Metrics. Objectives. Weekly meetings. I knew what to do.

My chest tightened when he suggested it might finally be time to launch EOS.

My mind immediately spun. Quarterly rocks. Scorecards. Long-term goals. Responsibility tables. It felt like I was given a thirty item checklist when I barely managed one.

I told him I didn’t have it in me. I meant it.

How would you eat an elephant?

He paused and then asked me a question that completely caught me by surprise.

“How do you eat an elephant?”

I remember thinking to myself, that’s why I didn’t call. I told him I didn’t know.

He said you eat an elephant one bite at a time.

Then he said something that changed everything.

Do not run EOS. Just start a weekly meeting.

Same day. At the same time. That’s all.

No perfect introduction. No system overhaul. No pretending we have it all figured out.

Just one bite.

So we did it.

The first meetings were chaotic. We didn’t have score cards. We had no stones. We didn’t even really know what we were doing. Some weeks have been productive. The others felt useless.

But we kept the meeting.

That consistency mattered more than I realized at the time. It gave the business a place to put their problems instead of putting them all in my head. It gave us a rhythm. It gave me room to breathe.

Over time, one meeting led to clarification. Clarity led to metrics. Metrics led to priorities. Priorities led to long-term thinking.

Not all at once. Not perfectly. One bite at a time.

Internal changes lead to external success

Two years later we were fully running on EOS.

We have a ten-year goal that actually drives the decision. We have three-year and one-year plans that align the team. We organize structured meetings. We follow what matters.

But the biggest change was internal.

I stopped equating being overwhelmed with failure.
I stopped believing that struggle meant I was incapable.
I stopped trying to fix everything at once.

Here is a lesson I learned the hard way.

Most entrepreneurs fail because they don’t know what to do. They fail because they try to eat the whole elephant in one sitting.

When you’re stuck, you assume the solution must be big. Full reset. Big start. Perfect plan. This belief chills you.

Progress does not begin with confidence. It starts with one small action that you can repeat.

If you’re a new business owner or entrepreneur feeling stuck right now, I want you to hear this clearly.

You are not broken.
You are not stupid.
You are not behind.

You are amazed.

Don’t launch the big thing yet.
Don’t rebuild everything.
Don’t wait until you feel ready.

Choose one small commitment. One meeting. One habit. One interview. One decision.

On December 27, 2023, sitting alone in that RV, I didn’t need a new system. I needed permission to marry the first rooster.

If you’re reading this and feeling the same knot in your stomach, here’s my challenge.

What is that elephant in front of you?

Take one bite today.

On December 27, 2023, I was sitting alone in my fiancee’s RV.

It was a good motorhome. Comfortable. Net. A small desk tucked in the corner where I could work if I needed to. Nothing about it was broken or messy.