On hustle culture, burnout, and relearning how to be more present outside of work.

— What have you done since you quit? What did you build? What are the interesting projects you are working on?

These are the most common questions I've gotten since I stepped aside from my full-time job in December.

IN DECEMBER.

And every time I said that, I took the time to reset, recharge, read a lot, sleep, and take care of my health — I could see the disbelief on their face. Or even a low voice, “Oh, is that all?”
And I will not lie, it got me a few times.
I felt like I should have actually done something more. Something significant. Visible. That I should have already had huge projects. A few trips abroad, delivered deep-dives and workshops, and have plenty of meetings.
You know, kind of a roadshow at this point.

Which reminds me of a fun personal story about how early my restlessness showed up. I remember to this day how I presented my engineering thesis on Friday afternoon, went home, celebrated with a couple of friends, and told them I decided to change cities. They laughed and brushed it off. I also laughed. But the next day, I packed. On Sunday, I moved to another city, and on Monday morning, I was in my new office signing my hiring papers.

I was always a driven and very active person. Someone who can juggle multiple tasks at once, keep 13 tabs open, and know exactly what the purpose of each of them is, context switch in no time, take accountability for high-impact initiatives, and mix and match ideas from different industries or areas to solve problems efficiently. All in a single day.
Or, what I like to refer to as, always using the brain power to find a creative-pragmatic solution.

And seeing everyone’s disbelief when I said I had done nothing notable (professionally) — even knowing all of that about myself — made me question myself and the ability to achieve things, too. And that is damn sad.
It made me fear that I am maybe slowing down too much.
But that’s the hustle culture easily taking over the (mental) health space too.

Because we are still looking at less than 3 months, out of which December and half of January are not even proper months to focus on work, to be honest. What was I supposed to do: Write the new Rachmaninoff or Glass piece? Vibe code and launch a product, and already gain 1M users? Already work in a multi-billion dollar company that normally has a 6-month recruiting process?

I had to breathe deeply, take a step back, and remind myself (once again!) that glamorizing hustle culture and being overworked was never the answer. And I already learned that the hard way.

After working for 15 years in a row, changing jobs with just a short gap or no gap in between, and never taking a single serious break (and this is such a rare case in Europe!), it is normal to stop and recharge. Sure, I am lucky enough to love what I do and to have my own tools and mechanisms to keep going. But in the end, I was still exhausted. Absolutely exhausted.

And my goal is to have a long-term, balanced life and a rested mind that’s able to find joy in small things, while also solving problems without going into burnout mode. Otherwise, it is not just unhealthy, it’s inefficient. Tired professionals (think of any role, for the matter) don’t spot edge cases, don’t challenge assumptions, and don’t innovate. Tired humans don't get to live their lives as they should.

Sure, this is also a system design problem due to cultural expectations vs. actual performance metrics. Or we can even blame the incentive structures.
But we won't let those lead us, will we?

As a person who wrote this story to critique hustle culture, clearly knowing I was very, very good at it, let me tell you that this is not the only way. Because what I actually did in these months was relearn how to be more present outside of work, recalibrate myself, and rewire a couple of patterns. I didn’t even realize how much I had forgotten.

What I want to say is that seeing everyone's expectations of me, while I do not owe them anything, got me in ways it shouldn't have. Even if it was just for a few minutes.
And if you’re reading this and feeling that quiet pressure to always be building, always be shipping, always be on, maybe that’s the thing worth questioning. Not what you built. But why do you feel like you have to?

It’s ok to be tired. It’s ok not to be productive all day long. It’s ok to take a break and get some me-time. And it’s absolutely ok (recommended, even) to spend that time with your people.
And yes, I know it is also a huge privilege to have the chance to step back and look at all the options you have with intention.
 — But if you have it, don't ignore it.

Because here’s what I know: motivation and excitement will come and go, ‘cuz we’re only humans. And discipline keeps you going. But you can’t discipline your way out of a body and mind that were never given a chance to recover. Start there.

I often play the devil’s advocate with my own work and challenge the “shiny object syndrome” prevalent in marketing leadership. And this was also the inspiration for this story, to be honest.

One of the things I struggled with for many years was how I simplified my pitch to the audience. To the extent of sounding radically simple; Simple enough that executives would ask, ‘Is that it?’

But a new strategy every quarter, starting from scratch every year, and making a ton of promises paired with way too many KPIs may look good on a slide. But realistically, not very successful.

A long-term strategy, discipline, fewer promises, but bolder ones, might look boring, but they are effective.

Now, for startups, they have to break things and move on fast, true. But it is not something to be done forever.
And also, for a few years now (and many more to go too), the psychology of social media is designed around quick reactions and notifications. This causes people to seek immediate results after each action.
At work too.

Reality check: we can’t move fast and hustle forever. It is not healthy, nor sustainable for anyone.

Generating a new strategy every quarter or half year with new tactics and actions will mirror into motivation and excitement that will tend to pass by in no time. If you start working on everything you desire in one month, you’ll be overwhelmed in no time.

No matter the goal you have, think about it for the long term. It doesn’t matter how complex it is, whether it’s an experiment or a long-term initiative with new tactics you normally drop after a few weeks because you can’t see immediate results.

Sometimes, you have to go slow to go far. And honestly, it is a lot like tending a garden, not rearranging furniture. You will not replant the orchard every season because you’re impatient for apples or apple cider. You will plant a selection of trees suitable for your climate, ensure year round mainenance, water, prune, protect, and wait for compound growth. Slow progress is better than no progress, and patience is what separates harvests from hustle. // yes, I radically simplified again.

As CMO or marketing leader in different variations, I had to push back on “viral ideas”, content calendars based on buzzwords and trends, rebrands because “we don’t really like this color”, and many other things.
Not because they were not my cup of tea in terms of tactics, but because noise and big moves don’t always create progress.
But what they do create is a serious backlog, a shift in focus, and less time to achieve what really matters.

Progress and innovation are not always built on new ideas, new channels, and quantitative models, but on a hybrid approach.

A strategy that holds is the one that focuses on what adds up in value in the long term. On what keeps the team and the company stable and ensures some predictability.

That means you will have to keep your tactics, channels, processes, and approaches long enough to learn from them, extract data, mature, and correlate them with KPIs and owners with much higher certainty.

Many tactics, constant changes, and continuous experimentation (at scale) might lead to scrambled ownership, resets, and frictions.

Don’t get me wrong, I have been working with Agile Marketing methodologies for more than 10 years now. And I embrace agility and change, too.

But branding and rebranding, designing and redesigning, building and rebuilding, and continuously chasing creativity and newness is tiring and can easily result in burnout, hustle culture, and a team that is going to benchmark their performance by the number of new ideas, not performing ideas. Glamorizing hustle culture (or hiding it under the beautiful word called creativity, if you may) and overwork were never the answer.

I once worked with a company that rebranded quite a few times in the past years. And they were ready for yet another one. But each rebrand led to an overkill in terms of creation and operations, slowed down or completely stopped campaigns, and the market was just confused.

And while a rebrand would have looked amazing in my portfolio, I wanted to keep the core of what already worked, but also simplify the existing brand in a manner that works for the company, while keeping the public recognition they had (no matter how big that was).

The first year felt boring. The second year was tough and sounded like a bad idea (for both the leadership and some teams). But by year three, they had a better brand recognition, and campaigns with real data — not guesses about what might work, but evidence of what actually did (A/B tests, multiple channels, and at least one start-to-end campaign to analyse). This may not sound impressive (I know!), but for a company that had reset two or three times in the past 4 years, it was transformative.

Boring not only worked, but it also made space to gather data, improve, grow, and add value, without rebuilding from scratch.

Agility does not mean chaos. It means a long-term focus and the ability to adapt to achieve it. A hybrid approach in the strategy requires consistency on what makes your audience tick, and room for experimentation and creativity, too.

They always have to go hand in hand, but in a balanced and strategic way. In a way that does not place the team in a position of overpromising goals and objectives that sound cool on the slide and win everyone, if they are not scalable or feasible.

So, as a strategist, sometimes you need to take fewer bets, limit the execution to what resources are available and get things done. You need to accept that discipline overpowers trends, buzzwords, and anything in between.

And if my garden metaphor has you feeling stuck in the weeds, think of it like learning an instrument: you don’t switch from piano to cello to violin every few months and expect to perform at the Berlin Philharmonic. Progress comes from practicing the same scales until they become music.

At the end of the day, being focused on long-term wins and compounded value rarely wins the room or gets celebrated. // because it’s not as visible as a vanity tactic or as shiny as one would want it for their Linkedin post

But here is what wins:

• Adding value at every stage of your strategy, as in compound effects, where each campaign informs the next instead of starting from zero.
• Reduced context switching costs and management when teams master their tools and processes instead of learning new ones every quarter.
• Market trust built through consistency
• Data that makes sense for YOUR organization and that turns guesses into evidence.
• Team competence that comes from repetition, maturity, multiple edge-cases, and experience, not perpetual reinvention.

Long-term strategy builds a consistent pipeline, strong teams, competence, and a sense of stability for what is next.

This is how a boring strategy actually starts to look a lot like performance, competence, and reliability.

Do not aim for applause in the meeting room. Aim for ownership and high-impact responsibilities that add value over time. That’s the strategy that holds.

Why A Boring Strategy Wins (And How Discipline Overpowers Trends) was originally published in Startup Stash on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The responses were cruel: a tough reflection of our collective fixation with perfection and productivity culture.

I asked 4 AI models what their view is on taking ourselves too seriously.
 — Yes, you read that correctly.

• It took perplexity 10 sources to tell me that “It often causes people to lose sight of what truly matters, trap themselves in a worry loop, and struggle to enjoy the present moment.” I have to admit I also liked how it said people, not we/us.
• Kimi gave me the “low sides” as “psychologists, coaches, and health writers point to when we treat ourselves as deadly serious, fragile projects instead of ordinary, imperfect people”. What was also interesting was the fact that without any other prompt or keyword, said “I’ll search for research on perfectionism, ego-defensiveness, stress-related health outcomes, and the social consequences of excessive self-importance so I can give you a concise, evidence-based list of downsides”
• Gemini gave me 8 points on the impact on our mental well-being, social relationships, and ability to adapt.
• 7 sources and too many hundreds of words from ChatGPT to say that “today’s environment makes the downsides sharper and more expensive”.

Why did I ask any AI about it?

Oh, not because I cannot string a piece of content together. Neither because I am not socially exposed.
But in the past few years, as AI has become more democratised and accessible, we, the people, have started to take ourselves WAY too seriously.

And since most of us work with these AI tools too, the responses are trained on our massive amount of text data.
AI models are a mirror of our collective anxieties, too. Not only knowledge.

With this in mind, in the past years and with the help of all these productivity tools, we all strive to be even more perfect.

But the thing is, social media is overly curated.
 — This post was rewritten a few times, too.
And the picture on the cover? I actually had tens of photos taken in that shooting — just to use the one from behind the scenes when we were cracking jokes (because, honestly, I was taking myself too seriously again too!)

This curation led us only to showcase “perfect” lives and professionals, which often creates unrealistic expectations.

And then there's the performance culture, too. We all know that many workplaces highlight the importance of high performance in a way that makes any moment of fun, silliness, or rest seem like a sign of weakness or low ambition.

— And it is not.

I am the type of person who takes her job and goals very seriously. Maybe too seriously sometimes.
But once in a while I remind myself that I am still a simple human, and just because I want to be an excellent professional and ace it like a motherfu*#er, it does not mean I have to leave authenticity behind; or to keep jokes outside the work spectrum (dry as mine might be, but I am a persistent one).

The final point is that taking ourselves too seriously disconnects us from the joy and presence of what we have.

And since December is around the corner and all the reports, budgets and all that challenging work are mostly wrapped up, don’t forget to use the end of the year to slow down, breathe, leave a little room for ease, presence, and a good laugh.

dearly,
4 AI models and a human

PS: no, the em dash is not AI-generated.

I asked 4 AI models what they think about taking ourselves too seriously was originally published in Artificial Intelligence in Plain English on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We are living in the Authenticity Economy.
People buy what feels personal, imperfect, and human. And art is no exception.

When I do not tech, I stare at contemporary art. This is a fact.
And when I took my Art Advisory certification at Sotheby’s, it was not because I felt the need to have yet another course or certificate on my CV, but to understand how (or if?) I can bridge my love and knowledge for tech with my passion for art.

The lack of barriers to entry is the greatest barrier of all

This is the strongest sentence that I resonated with in a long while. So simple, and yet it holds so much power.

And it is also the statement that made me think about this piece for months (actually, the moment I heard it at Sotheby’s), wondering whether I should do so at all. Because it defies common sense: how can less difficulty create more problems?

But in the end, I decided to drop my thoughts on the evolution of the art market as a reference (or even case study) for the broader shift toward authenticity and value across markets.

The idea I started with is that, in the world of tools, LLMs, and easy access to any variation of investment of our time and money, art, too, remains a significant investment asset. And yet, this market is quite behind.

However, I also know that its future growth and relevance lie in embracing personalisation, emotional resonance, and accessibility. This is where my thoughts on authenticity and value come into play.

Authenticity as a new currency

And while I can speak about art for hours, this will not be the time. I want to focus on art in the authenticity economy. I know, a very unpopular opinion. But much like personal data, I think authenticity will hold the power of a currency.

• Is art an investment-class asset?
  Absolutely!
• Is this why I recommend people to enjoy or buy art?
  Absolutely not. haha.

I am absolutely aware that it is a class asset, and I am definitely looking at it from a product ownership perspective. Or a startup, honestly.
However, I also consider how art is perceived differently by the new generation compared to the historical view of it.

Until now, art has been elitist. And maybe it still is. But it was also a matter of scarcity. Creating art was not easy. It was not easy to store or hang art in your living room either. This made art a lot about status.

But today? Not that much.
Here’s why.
Today, we are surrounded by a zillion tools, apps, AI, and algorithms that make it easy for everyone to create something.
Is it something good? Is it bad? No matter what the beholder's eyes say, of course, there is a collective agreement that it can feel soulless.

I am not saying the status or scarcity will disappear. And I am not saying that every single one of us can make art nowadays. Or that contemporary art is soulless.— Far from my thoughts.

However, we are definitely going through a shift right now, a shift where the Authenticity Economy is leading the way.
Consumers increasingly seek out products, services, and experiences that feel personal, imperfect, and human.

This is definitely visible in everyday life: People want to know where they are going. People want to relate. People look for models who strive to be the most authentic.

And much like our work and day-to-day life, we can now see this in art as well.
And the entire market is now adapting to this change. Some are faster than others. Some decided to close their doors, while others are waiting for the innovators to take the lead, or they make the first steps and mistakes, so that others can then follow the right path.

Value is socially constructed

Only recently have some studies suggested that art improves our mental health, and some countries have even begun using art as a therapeutic tool (Kudos to the Swiss doctors who prescribe museum visits).
But, to be honest, most of us don’t really have art on our radar of activities.

What I want to start with: if you don't get all the art, it’s fine. You do not have to, honestly. That is the beauty of it: you can love it, hate, dislike, and have a multitude of feelings about it. Just like music. But you can definitely enjoy some of it.

Buy with your eyes, not ears

Some people appreciate craftsmanship, some enjoy colour, some like the concept or the message, some appreciate the way a piece fills the room, and most are stunned by it just for a few seconds.
But no matter in which category you fall, it has to make you feel something. To evoke emotions (happy, content, sad, anxious, angry, or any other feeling). It must move something inside you.

And see? This is where the shift is happening.

The new consumers and the Next Gen collectors call BS. They are vocal when something doesn’t work for them.
And that’s the trick: they all fall under the same system of values:
They spend their time or money on something only if it relates to them. And that is what makes it so much more valuable and authentic as an experience.

People will collect based on emotional connection, not only art investment. People (or say the young collector) will want outspoken artists and people who produce online and have a stand. A position in society which they need to relate to.

We are used to fancy collectors or banks that have a good understanding of art as assets. They have amazing collections, as a matter of fact. However, with the rise of NFTs, prints, high-volume series, or tokenised art also began to be flipped, hedged, and/or collected by teenagers, youngsters, and a more diverse audience.

While we are still looking at top-selling items in 2024, like Monet, Magritte, Basquiat, Rucha, or Warhol. The ultra-contemporary has changed the narrative and involves either a more tokenised or democratised art, or a lot of flipping.

Sure, some of these things turned sour quickly, as they were only opportunistic. However, this is also how change occurs. Change is not always beautiful. It is not soft on us. And it's uncomfortable AF. No matter the change we go through.

Where do I want to go with this?

Simple, to the fact that value is socially constructed. We need to hear a story, to go through an experience and to perceive things our way, to give them value.

And this is what changes now: we buy authenticity and experiences. And providers (be it services or art, in this case), need to up their game and give us diversity, alternatives and experience.

What impacts the value of an artwork?

The main actors in shaping the perceived value are those who engage in this continuous dialogue between emotion and logic.
And yes, that means both increasing the value, as much as it can decrease it, just by cancelling someone or through a boycott.

But besides this, it turns out that art has almost the same set of metrics and values as in any startup investment (nearly), so you can also look at the team behind, their experience, who backs them, and all that spice and everything nice.

Stop Asking ‘What Did the Artist Mean? Or better said: the Product Mindset for Art (bear with me, even if it sounds tough)

And yes, considering the economic scale of art (compared to tech), the art world is taking itself much too seriously, honestly. Nevertheless, my point is that while the mega galleries and classics are struggling, data shows that sales have been quite up in recent years, especially in the online medium.

And the same UBS and Art Basel report has this quote, that just plainly says that the only way to keep it interesting is thtough high levels of personalisation.

Point being, navigating art investments —including acquisitions, art funds, art lending, and alternative and investment structures — is surely interesting. However, treating the art market like the others that went through major shifts (e.g., tech and products) is key to innovation.

And the New generation, or new collectors, are also interested in watches, cars, and wine. And any other kind of luxury assets that are super cool to collect as a way to diversify our portfolio. And we become super geeky about it or fixated, which is ok.

Let’s think about art from a product perspective — Hear me out! I know it sounds cringe, and most likely the industry will soon find a better word for it. But for now, this is the taxonomy in tech.

The art market needs a product mindset to make art more accessible, understandable, and aligned with people’s values.

Product thinking brings empathy, iteration, and data into play: bridging the gap between artists and audiences, translating meaning without losing depth.

It’s about democratizing access to art and shaping experiences that help more people connect with it, not just consume it (without losing its soul in the process).

Compared to today’s often exclusive (or elitist, if you want) and fragmented system, this approach would create a more inclusive, transparent, and engaging art ecosystem.

Bluntly put, a product mindset in art would reduce the “I don’t get it” barrier and the overused “what did the artist mean?” question.

It would focus on designing clearer pathways for understanding and connection, so that people can relate to art through their own values and experiences, rather than just through expert interpretation.

This does not mean that a tech bro or gal wants to ‘optimize’ the artist soul. Not at all. But make art easier to reach people’s souls.

This is precisely what we need today.

// PS: And while there is a lot for the artwork release strategy to learn from tech product launch strategies. But considering my audience, there is also a lot for us, the techies, to learn from art. At this point, it is one of the few fields where we can find authenticity and things that resonate with our ecosystem of values.

Because a product is never just a feature or tool: it’s an ongoing conversation between marketing, pricing, tech, and execution, held together by human judgment.

In the past few months, I went to quite a few tech conferences: be it as a speaker or as a moderator (or MC, in the fancy terms). But no matter the role I had, they reminded me that we only grow when we learn (or unlearn).

Everyone is talking about AI and automations. About how they will change everything. But change is inevitable, growth is optional.

I remember that one of my first articles on how to use AI and ML to build a marketing strategy was published around 2020, and everyone told me that I was naïve. Sure, now that I look at it, it is outdated and conceptually shallow by 2025 standards, but it was a bit forward-thinking for its time. Nevertheless, parts of it are (still) philosophically true principles and also my take on AI as an enabler, not a replacement for the human-centric viewpoint.

And going back to learning and unlearning: across all these events, people see AI and product development as being in an era of doing anything and everything with a snap of the fingers. And truth be told, you can do a lot. And yet, not enough.

As I also mentioned in the opening remarks of PROW 2025, there are still the everyday realities of making something work.

Too often, we talk about a (tech) product as if it lives in its own bubble.
As something we build, launch, and then move on from. But in real life, a product is a living ecosystem of interconnected decisions:

• Marketing defines its story.
• Pricing shapes its perceived worth.
• Technology determines what’s possible.
• And execution determines whether it all holds together.

After working in consultancy, IT services, and products, I have one piece of advice: start thinking about products from a non-product perspective!
This is how you will notice the invisible threads that keep everything aligned.

In marketing, product is an ongoing conversation between promise and delivery. It’s not the feature itself, but the transformation it enables.

In pricing, it’s always a dialogue between logic and emotion; a psychological mirror of value, if you may.

And in technology, if we're honest, the product is never finished.

Every decision is a haggle between scalability, performance, and the human who will eventually use it.
And that is exactly how real product thinking happens: at the intersection and even overlapping point of all these. Not by prompting strategies, solutions and value propositions to any of the LLMs out there (and no, if we add as a marketer, as a founder, as product {something} at the beginning of the said prompt is not going to think like that person. it will structure like so).

Do not get me wrong, I am an early and avid adopter of AI. What I am saying is that in a time when tools, algorithms, and AI can do more than ever, that the real differentiator remains human judgment.
And the authenticity.
The person who can think a few steps ahead.
Who can translate uncertainty into opportunity.
Who can connect dots when others see noise.

And that’s what makes a strong product mindset.
Besides perfectly written responses, there is a lot of testing, iterating, and prototyping, that WE need to do.
And that is how we learn that sometimes we need to leave our ego at the door, our strong opinions behind, or go beyond wishful thinking, and need to accept that taking two steps back can move us five steps forward.
And right now, we need to unlearn the idea that a prompt can replace thinking; because it cannot. It can solve a zillion other things for now, but not this one.

If there is one thing I have learned in the past at least 10 years, it is to accept that Product and Execution isn’t glamorous. It is messy, nonlinear, and sometimes exhausting.
But it’s also where innovation truly happens.

In the end, building a great product, service or using AI effectively depends on the same thing: the ability to learn, unlearn, and stay human while everything else moves extremely fast around us.

// This post is a mix of thoughts gathered from various tech events, and a big part of my opening remarks on the EDGE stage at PROW 2025 in Timișoara.
And I have to give a huge shoutout to Fabian Kleeberger for inspiring me to post here after a long break.