Moving from a regional VP to a global CRO requires a fundamental shift. You can no longer manage through direct influence and execution playbooks. Instead, you must establish a clear vision and core values that provide orientation and guidance for a multi-layered organization on a global scale, even when you aren't physically present.

High-growth leaders often sacrifice self-care, thinking they're helping the team. This burnout degrades their patience, creativity, and decision-making. True leadership requires the discipline to protect personal time, as the team depends on a leader operating at their best.

To maintain performance over the long term, Canva's CEO deliberately creates strict boundaries between work and life. By removing email from her phone, she can be "all in" when working at her laptop and "all out" when she's not, allowing for true mental separation and recovery.

Juggling multiple roles requires moving beyond task management to actively managing mental capacity, or "cognitive load." This involves strategically delegating and letting go of responsibilities, even when ego makes it difficult, to focus on core strengths and prevent burnout.

The startup world is an insular, high-pressure echo chamber. A powerful way to maintain mental health is to regularly connect with people completely outside of it, like family. These conversations ground founders, contextualize startup crises, and provide a source of energy rooted in a bigger purpose.

Constantly grinding on execution without purpose leads to burnout. Using a quote from a French author, MongoDB's Cedric Pech advises leaders to not just focus on the tasks of building a ship (the 'how'). Instead, they must constantly 'teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea' (the 'why'), keeping the team connected to the larger vision.

In a world that glorifies rapid growth, MongoDB's CRO Cedric Pech offers a counterintuitive insight: slow, hard-won success is more valuable because it builds character and resilience. Conversely, quick, easy success often leads to an inflated ego, which is fragile and ill-equipped to handle future adversity. The process matters more than the speed.

At scale, the biggest threat isn't a lack of opportunity but mental overload. The key is to treat your focus as a finite resource and actively protect it. This means becoming comfortable saying "I'm done for today" and disappointing people, realizing that protecting your mind is more strategic than satisfying every request.

The transition from 'deal jockey' to operator at a multi-billion dollar company took a visible physical and emotional toll on Snowflake's CRO. He lost his passion for the operational grind, leading to burnout. This highlights the importance of self-awareness for leaders in hyper-growth environments.