Lindsay Recknell didn’t believe in all that talk about self-care at first.
The breathing exercises, the talk of burnout, the idea that connection could be a business tool? It all sounded too soft, too unproductive. As a former accountant by trade, she had built her career on logic, efficiency, and pushing through.
Now, as president and CEO of Paradigm Corporate Wellness, she works with organizations across Canada to turn mental health skills into leadership assets — but it wasn’t always that way.
It all flipped in 2018. On a regular day, standing in a grocery store aisle, she hit a moment of clarity and realized that something was wrong.
She had stopped chasing goals, stopped seeking joy. She was still going to work, getting dressed, crossing off tasks, but the ambition had drained out of her life. It didn’t feel like a crisis. It felt like nothing.
That, she would later realize, was burnout.
“I’m the original skeptic,” she told the audience at ScaleUP Week in Calgary. “You are going to tell me to breathe and meditate and go for a walk in nature, and I’m gonna say, ‘I don’t have time for that.’”
She didn’t find her way back with time off or better scheduling. What shifted her thinking was the data.
It was the research into how our brains respond to pressure, how stress chemistry affects decision-making, and how building the right relationships could literally change her physiology.
That science became the entry point. It’s also what brought her to the stage at ScaleUP Week 2025 alongside therapist and entrepreneur Tiffany Petite, co-founder and CEO of Virtuous Circle Counselling.
It was a message echoed in a keynote by Andreea Vanacker, who has made a career translating brain science into leadership strategy.
Across both sessions, the message came through that treating connection, joy, and recovery as afterthoughts is unsustainable, and it’s holding leaders and their companies back.
What if stress isn’t the problem?
Vanacker began her talk by describing walking through fire — literally.
At a previous company, facing massive change and fear among her team, she invited everyone to walk barefoot across burning coals for a corporate firewalk.
“Everyone embraced courage over fear,” said Vanacker. “What happened at the business level after was unbelievable, because we killed the fear … All of a sudden, creativity and productivity emerged.”
The skeptics might call it corporate theatre, but Vanacker described it as an experiment in what psychology calls eustress, which is positive stress that energizes and motivates, as opposed to distress, which overwhelms and shuts us down.
According to Vanacker, our beliefs about stress shape our biology.
People who view stress as harmful are more likely to experience burnout, illness, and reduced cognitive performance. People who learn to work with it instead of against it can use stress as a performance edge.
It’s impossible to avoid stress entirely, but the real challenge is cycling through it properly.
“What is unhealthy is when we go from one stressful situation to another without any downtime,” said Vanacker. “This is when we’re on hyper alert, 24/7.”
Read more: How business leaders can turn uncertainty into an advantage
That’s when the body’s protective chemicals (cortisol and adrenaline) stop helping and start hurting.
So what helps? Sleep, nutrition, movement. Practices like breathwork or gratitude, not because they’re trendy, but because they shift your heart rhythm and re-engage the parts of the brain responsible for strategy and creativity.
And perhaps most importantly, joy.
Vanacker calls it “joy as a KPI.” Not a perk, but a measure of team vitality, psychological safety, and collective performance. Companies that integrate joy — and we’re not talking about forced fun, but real belonging and purpose — see higher retention, better decision-making, and stronger collaboration.
“It’s not fluff,” she said. “It’s science.”
Resilience is relational
Vanacker delivered the science, and Petite and Recknell echoed the humanity behind it. Their breakout session, “The Power of Connection,” opened with an admission.
“I started vaping at 41,” Petite told the room, owning up to her less-than-optimal coping mechanisms. “Like, who does that?”
The confession got laughs, but it also made the point. Entrepreneurs often carry their stress quietly. They make payroll, pitch investors, juggle parenting, and try to pretend they’re fine.
Petite shared the story of an entrepreneur she worked with who, publicly, was confident, captivating, and always on, but she was unravelling in private.
“She wasn’t burnt out because she couldn’t handle the work,” said Petite. “She was burnt out because she had nowhere to land emotionally.”
As a registered clinical social worker with more than two decades of experience, Petite now focuses her work on supporting high-performing founders and leaders navigating pressure, growth, and mental health.
The danger isn’t always dramatic. Sometimes it’s subtle. Pulling away from your network. Losing interest in your goals. Thinking, “I’ll deal with this later.” But as Recknell pointed out, ignoring the stress response doesn’t reset it. It just leaves it running in the background, quietly draining your energy and focus.
To challenge that, they introduced the Entrepreneurial Connection Map.
It was an exercise to identify who supports you in three categories: operational (people who help you get things done), emotional (people you can be real with), and inspirational (people who remind you why you’re doing this in the first place).
What surprised many in the room was how empty their emotional columns were. Even spouses were often missing from the list. Not because of a lack of love, but because of fear.
One participant pointed out that when your mortgage is riding on the business, falling apart in front of your spouse can feel impossible.
That’s why strategic connection matters. Not just having people, but knowing which relationships fuel you, and which ones quietly drain you. Not everyone in your circle needs to play every role. But you do need the right mix.
Rethinking leadership culture
One takeaway from both sessions is that building joy, managing stress, and leaning into connection doesn’t mean being soft. It means being precise, and it’s work.
Leaders who understand stress as a performance signal, not a failure, can start adjusting their culture accordingly.
That might look like tracking well-being metrics alongside productivity targets. It might mean normalizing recovery instead of celebrating overwork. It might mean offering space for founders to talk openly about fear and uncertainty, without always needing to have the answers.
And for individuals, the shift begins with honesty. Recknell encouraged the room to check their list. Who are they actually calling when things get hard? Where are the gaps? And what would it take to be a little more human, a little more often?
“You are allowed to need people,” said Petite. “Real leadership is using your network.”
This wasn’t a session about fixing yourself so you can work harder, but about getting real about what it takes to lead something that matters. It takes stamina, strategy, and support.
If you’re building something under pressure, pay attention to the signals. Joy isn’t a distraction, stress isn’t your enemy, and connection isn’t a luxury. It’s all infrastructure.
Invest accordingly.
Digital Journal is the official media partner of ScaleUP Week 2025.
This coverage is supported by the Calgary Innovation Coalition (CIC), a network of 95+ organizations working to accelerate innovation and entrepreneurship across the Calgary region.
