Collective Care as a Remedy for Entrepreneurial Burnout
The image features a woman sitting in a reflective pose, with her head resting on her knees and her hands placed on them with a silhouette hiding behind her.
Entrepreneurial burnout isn’t just a buzzword—it’s a lived experience for many Canadian small business owners. According to Business Development Canada’s 2024 SME report, while more entrepreneurs are prioritizing their mental health, a significant number continue to struggle. The report paints a clear picture: long hours, high stress and a deep sense of isolation remain common across this space. This blog reflects on how collective care reshaped my approach to mental health as an entrepreneur, why that shift matters now more than ever, and how you can begin to access it too. I’m joined by Registered Clinical Counsellor Emily Macdonell, who shares why we can’t just self-care our way out of burnout alone!
My Burnout Wake-Up Call
A few years ago, burnout for me looked like working late at my desk, filling every aspect of my calendar seven days a week and pouring most of my energy into my work while still wondering if I should push harder. It was the kind of exhaustion that sleep couldn’t fix—marked by decision fatigue and emotional fog, leading to several life changes that I needed to make. What helped wasn’t another productivity hack though—it was people. It wasn’t until I started letting other people in—friends, mentors, collaborators, even clients—that something shifted. Collective care didn’t fix everything overnight, but it created space. Space to be witnessed. Space to breathe.
The Pressures Facing Canadian Entrepreneurs
Canada’s economy is fueled by entrepreneurs with 98.1% of employer businesses classified as small businesses according to ISED’s 2024 research and statistics report. But with that innovation and independence comes serious pressure. A recent CFIB report said that 66% of small business owners reported feeling close to burnout, while many have no extended health benefits, limited access to mental health care and minimal peer support. We glorify hustle and independence, but that narrative doesn’t account for the toll it takes. The truth is, we aren’t meant to be tireless innovators that carry all of it alone. And the proof is in the economic pudding - while many think that pushing through is the best thing to do for their business and themselves, a recent BCG study reveals that stress and burnout are costing Canadian businesses over $200 billion annually due to lost productivity!
What Is Collective Care?
Emily Macdonell (she/her), a Registered Clinical Counsellor who works with first responders, caregivers and many other helping professionals, says collective care is essential to long-term wellbeing, especially for entrepreneurs and business owners.
Collective care is about supporting each other in meaningful, sustainable ways. “For years, self-care has been touted as the answer to being overworked, overwhelmed and under-supported. While vacations and bubble baths can be supportive (#treatyoself), they do very little to combat the isolation and loneliness that so many feel.” Emily shares, “For business owners and entrepreneurs, long hours, isolated work spaces and competitive circles heighten these challenges even further.”
With nearly half of business owners identifying loneliness as their main mental health concern in a CMHA mental health survey and many feeling reduced passion that can often result in entrepreneurial exit (Zhu, Yu, Fan, & Jonathan, 2023), it is clear that self-care can only go so far. “We can learn so much about how to care for one another, and in turn receive care, when we look to Indigenous communities, social justice circles and marginalized spaces who have historically seen interdependence and interconnection as a form of necessity, care and survival. We currently exist within an economic system that implies that business owners must hustle, compete and deny their own needs in order to achieve any ounce of success. That said, the way people have historically gathered and relied on one another for survival and health conveys another way.”
This, Emily says, is a recipe for burnout and where collective care comes in. “Collective care is more than just taking care of or being with others, it is responding to the parts of ourselves that are wired for connection and intentionally seeking out community and collaboration when possible.” While at times this can feel counter-cultural, Emily argues that this is “one of the most intuitive things we can do as human beings.”
In practice, collective care can look like:
Connecting with others through mentorship, associations and peer support
Considering ways your business/product can support other local initiatives
Being open and honest with peers about the ups and downs of business ownership
Checking in with others along their own entrepreneurial journeys and championing their growth and successes
Using the body doubling technique (Completing tasks in the presence of another person to enhance your motivation, focus and efficiency). Working at a coworking space or a community location with friends virtually from home could be examples of this.
Ask a Professional:
Every field, role and sector carries different expectations. When it comes to fast-moving or client-focused fields, I asked Emily from her professional perspective, how emotional labour contributes to the burnout equation, especially as this came up recently in my article ‘Quietly holding space: Acknowledging emotional labour in PR’ with PR & Lattes.
Paige: As burnout conversations become more common, I occasionally wonder about how communicators and other client-facing professions carry and manage emotional labour. Whether it's navigating crises with calm, managing expectations across stakeholders or supporting tough decisions with clarity and care—we’re often holding a lot of emotional weight behind the scenes. But when you're the one people count on to stay composed, how do you find space to ask for support yourself?
Emily: You can’t pour from an empty cup – and yet when there are deadlines to manage, activated clients to connect with and hard conversations to initiate, caring for yourself can feel like the last thing on the to-do list. I also want to recognize the vulnerability that has historically been connected with “asking for help”... There’s perhaps a misunderstanding that we ask for help from others out of a reduced position of power, strength or ability. I like to view collective care more like a relay. We pass the baton to our teammate so we can get the end result we’re looking for (and so that we can be healthy enough to witness the success!). I’m not the only one that knows how important this is; in the book Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski, they talk about completing the neurophysiological stress cycle as an important practice for combating burnout. Can you guess what one of the ways to do this might be?
Paige: Collective care?
Emily: They call it “positive social connection”, but I’d argue they are one in the same. Whether an intentional connecting point or a casual check in, we can’t do this thing alone.
How to Embrace Collective Care
You don’t need to overhaul your entire life – you just need to start making space for other people to be part of your journey. Try:
Inviting a colleague to co-work online or in person
Joining a peer support group, mastermind, or casual accountability check-in
Sharing a struggle publicly (yes, even on LinkedIn)—and seeing who responds
Practicing receiving: when someone offers help, say yes. Trust people at their word
The key is recognizing that leaning on others—and allowing yourself to be with them—is not just allowed, it’s necessary. You don’t have to earn rest or prove your worth through constant productivity.
An Invitation: Join Us This June
If this resonates, we invite you to join us for a supportive virtual co-working event on June 23rd from 12-1pm—an hour to be together, quietly or collaboratively, without pressure or pretense. It’s not just about getting things done. It’s about being reminded you’re not alone. Together, we can build something better than burnout and elevate each other through a culture of care. Send an email to paige@strandandstrategy.ca and we'll include you on the invite!
To book a consult with Emily, click here or visit her Psychology Today profile.
