How Founders Stay Regulated When Nothing Is Wrong

In this video, I'm going to help you to suffer a little less and enjoy your life a little more, because today we're going to talk about how to maintain all the hard work that you achieve, in whatever work that you're doing.

In the previous video, we were talking about taking action: when you're working on yourself, like you do in coaching, or you go into therapy, and you're making progress. And the good thing and the bad thing about change is that change has different stages and different levels. It all starts with precontemplation. Then we start contemplating.

After we contemplate about things, we prepare to take action, and we take action. And after we take action, there's a maintenance mode. So how do you maintain the success that you have achieved? That's what we're going to talk about today.

If you're new to me, my name is Eugene. I am a registered hypnotherapist with the state of Washington, and in my professional life I work as a therapist, as a coach and as a hypnotherapist.

The results of your labor are not forever

When it comes to maintenance, the good thing and the bad thing is that the results of your labor are not forever. At some point, you will fall, or something will happen, and eventually you're going to start the change all over again: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, taking action, and then maintaining the result until you cannot maintain it.

But how do you maintain it? Because we want stability. So the first thing to maintain any result, whether from hypnotherapy, from psychotherapy or from coaching, is to understand how you operate and do regular maintenance.

Daily mental health hygiene

First of all, it is your daily mental health hygiene. And I don't know about you, but I don't subscribe to this massive influence of big entrepreneurs who say, "You know what, I go to bed at 9 p.m., I wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning, I do a cold plunge and then I meditate."

Not everybody has the luxury to do that. Some of us have families and responsibilities, and we can't go to bed at 9 p.m. And no, we may not be able to wake up at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning to do all those wonderful things. So my recommendation to you, the first step to maintain your change and your mental health clarity, is to figure out how to reduce your active scrolling on social media and anything work-related, daily and weekly.

And I highly recommend no screen whatsoever, no work, no screen, at least an hour before you go to bed. And when you wake up, allow yourself at least an hour not to look at anything work-related, and just come back to yourself.

Now, as entrepreneurs, as founders, on a daily basis, on a regular basis, we are hit with difficult decisions, with changes, with turmoil, and just the life that we chose for ourselves, either knowingly or unknowingly. And that window, before you start your work, before you start reacting to the outside world, is important to get yourself together.

That hour is the hour when you recharge yourself

I highly recommend everybody to implement a spiritual practice. Either it is meditation or prayer or breathwork, or going outside and just being in nature without technology, without listening to anything, without reacting to your emails, without doing anything. Go for a walk and just spend that time with yourself, or in nature, or just sit quietly in a quiet room as much as possible and come back to yourself. You can do breathwork, you can do prayer, you can do meditation, you can connect with your Creator, however you understand your Creator. And that hour is the hour when you recharge yourself.

Also, I highly recommend that in the first hour of the day, before you start reacting to the life that is happening around you, you focus on how you want to feel that day. Because you cannot control all the turmoil, all the things that are going on in your life. You might have problems with your business, with your family, with your loved one, with your dating life, with your kids, with your health, with anything else.

Now, one thing you have a hundred percent control over is thinking about and invoking the feeling of how you want to feel.

What do you want to happen today?

And I tie it to this technique: focus on what you want to happen today. Not what you have to do. What do you want to happen today? Do you want a deal made, and somebody said yes to your proposal? Do you want to get an opportunity? Maybe a job opportunity, or a seat on the board? Or maybe it's simply getting your employees all together, and they're successful.

What do you want to happen today? Not what you plan to do. What do you want to happen today?

And the next step: when you visualize it, focus on the feeling. How would you feel? Start feeling that feeling in the moment, like it already happened, for at least 90 seconds, a minute and a half. Just be in the presence, like you already have what you want to happen today. It doesn't have to be anything big. Sometimes you have big days, and it's okay to focus on that. Sometimes you don't have big days. Sometimes you have mundane days. But what do you want to happen today, and how would it make you feel? Hold that feeling.

What was the secret sauce?

In my opinion, there's actually a really logical consequence to that. I was listening to one of the podcasts from an addiction counselor, because one of the things that I'm doing is addiction treatment and counseling. The episode I was listening to was with another addiction counselor and licensed therapist, and she was talking about a clinic. I think that clinic was in Colorado, so if you can find it, please let me know in the comments which clinic it is, and if I have a chance, I will do that myself too. That clinic has an unusual success rate for recovery from addiction. And what was their secret sauce?

It was not 12 steps. It was not a particular methodology. They would ask patients to focus, to visualize the outcome when they're sober: who they are when they are sober. And patients did that, and they had an unusually, statistically higher recovery rate from addiction.

And in my personal life, I can attest to it. I am here. And when I say I'm here, running my own private practice as a hypnotherapist, doing work in mental health, running my company in the United States, it is because at some point in my life, when I was in Moscow, Russia, I spent quite a significant time focusing on what I want from my life. I was picturing it, focusing on the feeling. And I got it.

Science and spirituality don't actually conflict

And here's the thing. We might want to say that it's unscientific, that it is too spiritual. But science and spirituality don't actually conflict with each other. From the behavioral science standpoint, when we focus on the outcome, when we allow ourselves to feel like it already happened, we change our perception.

Because usually, typically, when we go through day to day as entrepreneurs, we are inundated with negative emotions. We have a lot of anxiety, sometimes a lot of anger, a lot of residue from past trauma, right? And for us who have ADHD, we might have problems with nervous system regulation and rejection. When we see rejection, when we feel rejection, when we feel something is not working like we want it to work, it dysregulates us.

But this little practice that I am talking about can actually regulate your nervous system.

Adjustment disorder for entrepreneurs

Now, what else? In the previous video, I promised data about adjustment disorder for entrepreneurs. I did my little research, and I couldn't find a whole lot. But here's my personal observation, from working with numerous entrepreneurs, people who are running businesses, business consultants, and from being in the room with other entrepreneurs in the business coaching programs that I was a part of: in business, we always have changes. Sometimes they're positive changes, and sometimes they're negative changes. And our nervous system may not have the capacity to adapt and adjust to those changes just in time. It is normal.

When we don't have enough time to adjust and regulate ourselves, we might experience negative emotions, and we might experience adjustment disorder. And the trick with adjustment disorder is that it goes away when the stressors go away. This is why we feel like our nervous system regulation is so tied to our businesses and our numbers. It is quite normal, because it is really hard for us to disengage, disassociate, let it go. Because it's our creation, because this is something that we built, because this is important to us. And we also put quite a bit of self-worth and energy into the business.

Lifestyle therapy

So for that, I would recommend lifestyle therapy for founders and business owners. Lifestyle therapy can be talk therapy, it can be hypnotherapy, something that you have on a regular basis, where you schedule a certain cadence with your therapist.

For example, as a registered hypnotherapist, sometimes I see clients twice a month, and it's strictly for maintenance. I also have clients who enjoy weekly hypnotherapy sessions. A weekly hypnotherapy session is a combination: we have a conversation, a talk, where I'm using motivational interviewing to help you get clarity. I'm using Internal Family Systems to bring more Self-leadership to you, and I use hypnosis to strengthen Self-energy and Self-leadership. After that, we integrate again with motivational interviewing: how you do it on a day-to-day basis. Hypnotherapy is actually a perfect fit for lifestyle therapy, for maintenance mode, 100%, and also for when you don't have anything acute going on.

And I'm going to jump a little bit to the topic of pain management, because another application for hypnosis is pain management. Sometimes we run businesses and we have migraines, we have chronic pain, we have fibromyalgia or other disorders that cause physical or emotional pain. So regular hypnosis, weekly hypnosis sessions, can be absolutely therapeutic for pain as well.

So weekly lifestyle therapy supports you in day-to-day life. A lot of business owners do have psychotherapists, or they do have hypnotherapists, or they do have a person that they trust where they can address their mental health.

The stress in your life is not going to go away

Because I have news for you: the stress in your life is not going to go away as long as you run a business. There's no such thing as "I completely arrived, I completely succeeded, I can just relax." You can optimize your business to the point that it just runs like a well-oiled machine, and you can just enjoy your business.

Pain is unavoidable, suffering is optional

But even the acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) framework says that discomfort and pain in our life are unavoidable. We're going to experience pain. But even though pain is unavoidable, suffering is optional. When we accept that we will experience pain at some point, and that it's okay to feel the feelings, and it's okay to process it, this is how we avoid suffering. And this is how we maintain results.

What we covered so far

Now, what we covered so far: how to maintain results for your mental health. Mental health hygiene. I highly recommend connecting to something bigger than yourself. Spirituality is one of the things that helped me in my life, because I survived horrendous experiences in my life. I have huge trauma in my life. And if not for my spirituality, if not for my therapy, I would not be here today, as put together as I am.

Number two, lifestyle therapy, which we just talked about, because life is not going to stop. Lifestyle therapy, especially for founders, especially for executives, and especially for people who are in career transition: it's one of the ways you can maintain yourself.

And we also talked about screen time, right? Allow yourself to rest. At least an hour before you go to bed and an hour when you wake up, allow yourself to be with yourself. Go for a walk, pray, meditate, connect with your Creator. Go work out without your phone. You don't need to listen to a podcast. You don't need to listen to music. You can just tune in with your body and work out. I mean, it's your preference, but that can be a part of your self-care too.

And when you've completely worked out, when the blood is pumping and there are a lot of really good chemicals flooding our brains and our bodies, then you can check your email, then you can go back to work, then you can start your day.

All right, I love you so much. I really hope it helps. And this actually concludes our series for entrepreneurs. Let me know which video resonated with you more. I love you so much. I will see you in the next video. Bye, y'all.

This is education, not therapy or a diagnosis. If you're in crisis in the US, call or text 988.

One thing I want to be clear about. I don't treat addiction independently. If you're in active addiction, you need a treatment provider, and I can work with you as part of your care team. If you're the partner, or the ex, or the one holding it all together, I can work with you directly.

This first went out as a letter on my Substack on October 18, 2026. If you would rather get these by email, subscribe there.