Today, subscription fitness takes the spotlight. Plus, we encourage company founders to stop… and take a breather.

Your top subscription news

Channel your inner Richard Simmons

Today at 3 p.m. EST we get physical... physically fit that is.

All, through the power of subscription. Because repetition is at home here.

What more is a gym membership than one of the first and most steadfast subscription models to grace this space?  

So we’re teaming up with PushPress gym management software for a live webinar, this afternoon, to bring the fitness community together for discussing key growth metrics and benchmarks.

We're keeping this specific discussion industry-based so that Q&A is tailored to what you care about most.

Here’s how it will go down. During the webinar, we'll help you learn:

• • How to calculate the key metrics for your subscription fitness business

  • Why knowing your numbers is so important

  • Data on which growth levers are the most impactful for your bottom line

  • Easy changes that can boost your revenue

Both PushPress and ProfitWell CEOs, Dan Uyemura and Patrick Campbell respectively, want your questions—so, as always, we’ll leave plenty of time for Q&A.

A link to sign up is coming straight to you, in your subscriber newsletter.

Don’t sleep on this one. Sign up here, now.

The "big wigs" are people, too

Burnout… a culture of never enough.

On Buffer’s open blog, Founder and CEO Joel Gascoigne opens up about what it’s like to be utterly burned out, ultimately taking a six-week break because of it.

Burnout is a fog. It’s sleeping with your email alerts on, hearing the chime in the middle of the night. It’s becoming blinded by the blue light and believing your body should somehow be operating on this level of heightened awareness. It’s convincing yourself: this is dedication.

A few years ago, Business Insider published an article about depression in the startup community. According to it, 7% of the general population report suffering from depression, while 30% of founders report dealing with its effects, and more than 50% of those get to burnout.

Last year, Forbes published findings on how we can stop burnout, with facts like: research suggesting 72% of entrepreneurs report mental health concerns, with founders being 30% more likely to experience depression than a member of the general public.

In Joel’s tale, he tells it like it is—the advice we needed to hear, his story, and how he’d do it differently. And reading his journal entries from a time of crisis is a sobering call to action. At one point, he shares his writing from a personal journal entry:

“I’m feeling this general dull sadness or struggle in me... Everything feels harder, and I’m generally feeling a cloud over me and more low in energy and pessimistic than usual.”

In it, he also gets real on recharging—using outlets like sleeping in, watching YouTube, taking long walks, seeing a therapist. (He shouts out Hiten Shah for that recc.) He then continues on with the biggest lessons in preventing burnout.

But if you already feel you’re on the path, read on for prevention or for taking action.

The big wigs may seem superhuman, but they're people, too.

A bit on preventing burnout

So how does one prevent said burnout?

When you’re in the thick of it, you don’t take the third-party approach. You’re heads down, in the weeds, under water.

But here’s why every founder should consider taking a sabbatical, as told by the journey of a founder himself.

• • # 1: Releasing yourself from daily operations
    

  • # 2: Because you can

  • # 3: Rethinking what you actually want to do, to clear your brain

  • # 4: Freeing up time to work on the company… big picture stuff

  • # 5: Because life’s too short to be worried about too many things

    (which sounds cliché, sure, but it’s a cliché with truth behind it)

And doesn’t that all sound… just lovely?

Our Founder Patrick has reminded us time and time again that the "hustle" isn’t money for money’s sake. It’s not cash and cars. It’s not superficial feelings of accomplishment. "Hustle" is a beacon to changing your own personal circumstances. 

And in this piece on Medium, you’ll uncover a real-world step by step on the reasoning of a break from "hustle" and how to actually implement it so you don’t ever get a taste for burnout that cannot be reversed. We must remember that "hustle" is in the long game. 

So Founders, CEOs… send me a note at abby@recurnow.com if you have thoughts you want shared on this one (if you're not on sabbatical, that is). Have you taken a break of sorts? Did it pay off? We know you have opinions; Let’s hear em.

Subscription Sapien: Leela Srinivasan

Today’s Subscription Sapien is Leela Srinivasan, who, as CMO at SurveyMonkey, powers the curious with survey tools, and believes wholeheartedly that feedback is essential for growth. (And you know our ProfitWell crew is preaching just the same.) Today Leela shows us why she’s so hellbent on feedback for marketing success, and how starting her career in the shower cleaner business got her headed for greatness.

And that’s a wrap for your November 21 subscription news. Recruit your teammates into the subscription know: profitwell.com/recur/recurnow to sign up for episodes on the daily.

If you have news to share, hit me up at abby@recurnow.com and we'll collaborate.