Michael Jang Parker: Entrepreneurial Burnout, Founder Loneliness, and Mental Health Recovery

Send us a textThis episode opens with an unfiltered conversation about entrepreneurial burnout, mental health, and the deep loneliness of building companies—a place nearly every entrepreneur has found themselves at some point, even if few speak about it openly. Michael Jang Parker, founder and CEO of Illumen, shares how the relentless pressure of entrepreneurship pushed him into severe burnout and hospitalization, forcing him to confront a reality many founders quietly live with.Michael reflects on how entrepreneurship often becomes a solitary journey. The weight of decisions, uncertainty, and responsibility is rarely shared, and outside of a spouse—who must be a special kind of partner to withstand the ride—very few people truly understand the emotional toll of leadership. That isolation, combined with a results-obsessed mindset, became a major contributor to his mental health collapse.His recovery and long-term perspective were shaped in part by his mother, an HBS OPM graduate, whose journey gave him early exposure to principled leadership, peer learning, and the understanding that entrepreneurship is a marathon, not a sprint. Long before Michael formally joined OPM himself, he had witnessed the power of community through her experience.After rebuilding his health, Michael rebuilt himself as a leader—and went on to found Illumine, a Washington, DC–based company focused on modernizing U.S. government systems and building foundational AI and automation infrastructure. He also explains why he joined Harvard Business School’s OPM: to find “more crazy people like me”—entrepreneurs who understand the loneliness of the road and can walk alongside each other. This episode is a story of shared struggle, recovery, and conscious rebuilding—and a reminder that resilience is often found in community, not isolation.Here are the Top 10 Takeaways from the conversation:Entrepreneurial burnout is common—and ignoring mental health has real consequences.Entrepreneurship is inherently lonely; very few people truly understand the weight founders carry.A supportive spouse often sees the unseen cost of leadership.Burnout forced Michael to rebuild himself before rebuilding a company.Long-term, journey-oriented thinking is more sustainable than results obsession.Energy management and self-care are core CEO responsibilities, not luxuries.Frequent, honest feedback builds stronger teams than delayed accountability.Intuition and gut instinct matter when information is incomplete.Stagnation—not failure—is the biggest long-term risk for entrepreneurs.Communities like OPM matter because founders don’t have to walk a lonely road alone.Books: The Surrender ExperimentThe Untethered SoulThe One Thing

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