How Leaders Manage Stress and Burnout: Heidi Hanna on Learning to Surf

Apr 24, 2025

5 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

Heidi Hanna's napkin says you can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf. She has worked with CEOs around the world and wrote the book Stressaholic. She has also lived with anxiety, depression and panic disorder since an early age. Her point for leaders is that stress isn't only something to fix. It carries information and energy you can use, if you slow down long enough to read it. That is hard for high-action founders who want to jump straight to the solution. Heidi's answer is to build in pauses on purpose, manage your energy before your time, and remember that your stress spreads to everyone around you. So does your calm. A leader's biggest responsibility, in her view, is managing their own energy so the team can show up at its best.

https://youtu.be/6ib8zp_Zq4g

Inspired by Paper Napkin Wisdom Episode 237 with Heidi Hanna.

Why stress carries information, not just pressure

During COVID, Heidi lived in San Diego. She would lie out on the rocks at La Jolla and watch the waves keep coming. That was where the idea landed for her. Stress, challenge and change have energy and information in them. They can propel you forward if you are willing to become a stress detective.

She is careful not to call hard things good. Nobody is being asked to live in La La Land. She has given talks where the sound failed or a fire alarm went off during a guided meditation. Instead of letting it frustrate her, she asks what it has to teach.

I notice that I tend to look for the opportunity in a challenge and skip the information. Heidi's partner is the same. If there is nothing to fix, why talk about it? Her answer is curiosity. She points to Viktor Frankl's idea that there is a space between stimulus and response. That space is where you choose to respond instead of react.

Why your team catches your stress

Stress and rushing are contagious. So is calm. Unless someone truly lacks empathy, people are wired to feel what others around them feel. If you are stressed, the people near you sense there might be danger. That wiring predates Zoom, and it still works.

That is why Heidi tells leaders their biggest responsibility is managing their own energy. You set the tone for whether your team can do its best work.

She thinks about leaders she has spent time with who never made a conversation feel rushed. It signaled that the person in front of them mattered as much as whoever was next. She also points to great comedians. The joke often lives in the pause. A leader can use timing the same way.

How to build pauses into a busy leadership schedule

Heidi's core idea is oscillation. If you are going to be extraordinary, you need moments of strategic disengagement to recharge. "Nothing good happens when we flatline." I have compared it to rest between reps. The strength builds during the rest, not the lift.

She doesn't reject a bias to action. Her twist is a bias to smart, intentional, informed action. The breaks are where you get the energy and focus to be intentional.

Some of it is proactive:

Shorten meetings and build in buffer time.
Think about your energy, not only your calendar. Pushing time makes it hard to be present.
Keep a handwritten journal. It slows your brain down and gets it used to slowing down.

And she is clear that oscillation runs both ways. There is a time for open, curious conversation. There is also a time for a structured agenda and moving to action. Neither should become the only mode.

How to run meetings where people feel heard

One of the biggest problems in meetings, Heidi says, is people wanting to feel heard. When people fear they won't get a turn, they push over each other. When they know they will, they can relax and think about what they want to say. That kind of safety is critical for performance.

She has seen a simple tool work in groups. A token, like a golf ball. Whoever holds it has the floor, then passes it on. Everyone else can rest and listen.

How you introduce it matters. Explain why. Present it as an experiment you will try and adjust. Open with something that sets the tone, like a funny video, a gratitude round or a quick check-in between two people. The more people speak and feel part of something, the more engaged and relaxed they are.

Curiosity helps with the hard moments too. If someone seems agitated, it may have nothing to do with you. Saying that you sense something is going on, and asking about it, helps people feel seen.

Assess, appreciate, adjust: the step most leaders skip

Heidi calls it her stress mastery formula. Assess, then appreciate, then adjust. Most people assess and adjust. They miss the middle step.

She describes stress as the gap between demand and capacity. It is the feeling that you aren't enough, or don't have enough, for what is needed. Once you assess what is causing it, appreciate the value at stake. Is it your sense of self? Your safety, finances, health or family? That curiosity lets you act from an informed place. Skip it, and you tend to repeat the same cycle.

Stories matter here. Heidi watches for what she calls the big but. I know I need time off, but. I know I should eat better, but. Then she plays the script forward. If this continues, what happens to your health, your performance, your family?

She tells one on herself. Before a talk, she had time to exercise or do her hair, not both. Her story said she had to do her hair. The audience would care far more about her energy.

How to apply this in your business this week

Learning to surf doesn't mean mastering it. Heidi doesn't believe in faking it until you make it. When she started presenting, her answer to a hard question was that she didn't know, and she would find out. She always followed up.

The brain changes with what you practice. Learning, curiosity and creativity keep it growing in the direction you want.

Put one buffer block between back-to-back meetings each day.
Try a speaking token in your next team meeting. Call it an experiment.
Pick one stressor. Assess it, then write down what value is at stake before you decide what to do.
Find your big but. Play it forward with if this continues.
Notice the tone you bring into the next conversation. Your team will catch it.

Downtime isn't lazy. Choosing the gym or a quiet hour can be choosing to lead better for the people who matter most.