How to stop hustle culture from becoming your identity
She worked 80-hour weeks, slept in the office, and knew every answer - until her brain shut down and she walked out for good.
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Her brain just… stopped working.
That’s how Else van der Berg describes the moment everything came crashing down.
She had been clocking 70 to 80 hour weeks, sleeping in the office, and earning praise for being the go-to person who always had the answers.
But one morning, she sat down at her desk, opened her laptop, and nothing happened.
Her mind went blank.
She stared at the open tabs, but couldn’t remember how to use them. Or even how to work.
She closed her laptop, got up from her desk, and walked out of the office at 9AM - without saying a word. She didn’t come back.
If you’ve ever tied your entire identity to your job…
If you’ve ever been rewarded for hustle…
If you’ve ever hit a wall and felt like your brain needed a break…
This story is for you.
When hustle becomes your identity
Else is a former head of product turned solopreneur.
She spent a decade working in the Berlin startup scene and now works as a Product Advisor and Coach for B2B SaaS companies.
But earlier in her career, she fell into a dangerous pattern that startup culture tends to reward: doing too much, for too long, without taking breaks or finding balance.
And it nearly broke her.
Before Else worked in product management, she was on track to be a human rights lawyer.
She earned a PhD in law, focused on anti-torture policy, and tried applying to NGOs. But without unpaid internships or the “right” connections, the professional doors didn’t open.
So to pay the bills, she took a customer service job at a Berlin startup.
She didn’t expect to stay, but something clicked. She liked the speed, and the chaos. The opportunity to take ownership and solve real problems - she fell in love with all of it. That one customer support gig evolved into team leadership, then ops, and eventually a head of product role. But the startup world wasn’t just fast-paced. It consumed her.
Else was working 60, 70, even 80 hours a week.
She was pulling all-nighters. Doing QA tests at night. Then spending the night in the office and staying the next workday. She knew the conversion rates of every funnel by heart. She had answers on command. And people noticed.
Her coworkers praised her responsiveness.
Leaders admired her commitment.
She started tying her self-worth to being “the person who always knew.” That persona - the hyper-available, high-output teammate, became her whole identity.
But it was killing her.
The day her brain shutdown
“One day, I opened my laptop and I couldn’t remember what I was doing,” she said.
“I opened a spreadsheet I had been working on the day before, and I didn’t know what it was. I looked at Jira, and I didn’t know what anything meant.”
Her brain had gone offline.
The thoughts were still there, but she couldn’t reach them. So she just stood up, left the office, and went home to sleep.
That moment, the walkout at 9AM, was a breaking point.
Else went home and slept for almost two full days. When she woke up, she realized she hadn’t called in sick. So she phoned a doctor, explained what happened, and was immediately signed off for multiple weeks.
She had pushed too far. And now she was facing a fear she didn’t expect: the fear that her brain might never come back.
“I was really scared that I had broken my brain. My brain is very important to me - it’s kind of my key asset.”
It took months to feel normal again.
She couldn’t read, couldn’t look at screens, couldn’t process new information. For someone who had built her entire life around cognitive horsepower, that loss felt terrifying.
But recovery did come. And with it, came clarity.
“I still care deeply about my work,” Else said. “But my identity is no longer my job. And I’m much better at keeping boundaries now.”
She didn’t return to the same company. In fact, she suspects very few people who burn out ever do. But she started choosing her environments more carefully, and built a system that allowed her to be high-performing without self-destructing.
Unlearning the habits that nearly broke her
Startup culture had shaped her professional defaults.
In a new job years later, she noticed the same patterns creeping back in. She was over-prepared, over-explaining, not giving others space to contribute.
She wasn’t trying to dominate the room, she had just internalized being the person who was always on, and always knew the answer. That’s when she asked her CEO for feedback. And it changed everything.
“You’re not creating space for people to co-create,” he told her. “You’re doing too much on your own.”
That feedback landed, because she was finally in a place where it was safe to hear it.
“I had picked up negative habits… talking over people, assuming others didn’t care as much as I did, always being the one who knew everything,” she shared.
This time, she didn’t power through. Instead, she paused. She reflected. She adjusted. She had finally built a version of work that let her use her full brain, without burning it out.
And now, as a coach and advisor, she helps others do the same. Especially those who are newer to leadership and still unlearning old startup scars.
Two things to try if you’re headed towards burnout
If you’re feeling like Else was, caught in a loop of overwork, trying to outrun doubt with effort, here are two small things to try:
Listen more than you talk during your first 30 days.
New roles make us want to prove ourselves fast. But if you come in blazing, you might lock yourself into an identity that doesn’t fit the team or the moment. Else’s advice: observe longer. Understand the system first. Then show your strengths with intention.Separate your self-worth from your output.
Your brain is not broken if you need rest. And your value isn’t tied to how fast you reply to Slack. Create space for breaks. Surround yourself with people who model healthy ambition. And don’t confuse identity with productivity.
Else’s brain did come back.
But the persona she had built; the always-on, always-right, always-working leader - got left behind.
And thankfully it did.
Because the version of her that showed up after the burnout was wiser, more reflective, and more powerful than the one who left.
If you’ve felt like being the go-to person was the only way to succeed. Hear how Else rewrote that belief - one boundary at a time in our full conversation below.
Catch her entire story on YouTube
Listen on Spotify
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