8 Ways Successful CEOs Handle The Stress of Running a Huge Business

7. Susan Wojcicki

Susan Wojcicki is the CEO of YouTube, the video platform subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google. Life managing YouTube is about more than managing a social media platform for sharing video. It’s like managing high dollar talent at a big studio. Her biggest and best performing content creators make millions of dollars apiece for both themselves and the platform.

They keep users coming to YouTube to serve up all those gazing eyeballs to advertisers. Keeping content creators happy and treating them fairly is a lot of work. Then on top of that, keeping advertisers happy, you know the people who are pouring millions of dollars into the platform, is several full time jobs in itself. Susan’s got her unfair share of reasons to be stressed out.

Her stress management philosophy is mostly focused on taking enough time off for herself and her family. She says: “I think it’s really important to take time off. I’ve also found that sometimes you get really good insights by taking time off, too.” If you’re not where you want to be yet in life (notice how I said yet!), and not even close to the YouTube CEO level of society, you may be tempted to say you don’t need that advice yet. But you might be wrong.

If you are just flogging yourself to be productive and it’s not working, and it feels like a strain, and you’re just suffering and anxious as opportunities and tasks pile up, continuing to flog yourself to get through it almost never works. Really think about it. Does that ever work? You’re obviously in some kind of mental state that is not allowing you to push forward when you face that kind of strong mental resistance.

Sometimes the best thing to do if you find yourself stuck in this mental riptide, is unclench, step back, relax, give yourself permission to disengage from what you’re doing, and just take some time to go for a walk; have a slow breakfast watching a show, or YouTube channel you like, or listening to music; organize your room some or clean up around your house; do some non-work related thing that you’ve been meaning to; maybe catch up with an old friend or spend some quality time with a family member.