A Bereavement Day for Pats Fans (and Other Smart Leadership Decisions)

I gave myself the day after the Super Bowl off. As a Pats fan, maybe it could have been considered a bereavement day.

Sure, it felt a little weird to "take a day off" when you work for yourself and are “supposed” to be grinding every waking hour to build a business.
No PTO approval. No guilt spiral (okay, minimal). Just a conscious decision to have a low-effort day.

That’s not slacking...that’s leadership.

Founders love to talk about culture once they hire people. But culture doesn’t start with your first employee. It starts with what you tolerate, model, and normalize - especially under pressure. If the only way your business survives is by running you into the ground, that’s not hustle. That’s a risk. A big one.

Tired leaders make bad decisions. They react instead of think. They avoid hard conversations. They create people problems that HR later has to clean up. Rest isn’t self-care fluff. It’s risk management.

Today was intentionally low-lift - catching up on email, updating my website. Fitting in a nap and a few chapters of my book. No big decisions. No pretending exhaustion equals productivity. Just enough to protect the quarterback. (Which, frankly, is more than the Pats’ offensive line managed on Sunday.)

Here’s the truth most founders don’t want to hear: boundaries don’t magically appear once you have a team. You practice them before you do.
If you can’t step back now, you won’t magically become a healthy leader later.

This is the work I do through KEI Consulting - helping founders build people practices that don’t rely on burnout, panic, or vibes. Real HR support. Human conversations. Systems that actually hold up when things get messy.
If you’re building a business and quietly thinking, “I can’t keep doing it like this,” let’s talk.