Ciara Pressler
Title: Founder and CEO
Company: Pregame
What it does: Business consulting and coaching
Founded: 2016
Ciara Pressler has managed depression since she was 17. She knows that it can feel a lot like burnout. Yet while depression may not have a clear trigger, burnout does.
She’s experienced burnout three times over the course of her six-year-old business Pregame.
“Burnout at work feels like being stuck in a deep hole. There’s no immediate solution. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel. You feel like there are not obvious answers and you don’t have the tools you need to get the answers,” she said.
For her, the feeling was especially cutting. Her business, after all, is a business consulting firm that works with entrepreneurs and solo practitioners.
“I didn’t feel like it was OK to ask for help or show any uncertainty or weakness,” she said. “Because I was supposed to have all the answers. The business model of Pregame was designed to be a mental health solution for founders in that it provides moral support and practical strategy.”
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In short, she designed something she very much needed.
Her first two bouts of burnout came early, as she tried to build the business. There were constant events, free speaking engagements and generally giving away her time and energy in the name of networking and potential growth.
At one point, an upset client crossed a boundary with her, and Pressler spiraled into a depression. She found her way out through several means: unwrapping her identity from her business and focusing on her spiritual practice. And graffiti.
Pressler’s hobby comes from her love of hip hop and street art culture. She found YouTube videos — Bob Ross-like instructions for ephemeral art — and started sketching letters and making her own art on pieces of paper on dirt roads.
“I picked street art because it’s something I couldn’t monetize and build a business around,” she said. “I picked (a hobby) that by definition is not a business.”
2020 brought a major change. Facing a solo Covid-19 quarantine, she moved to Mexico, where she ran her business and evaluated her mental health and her business.
Whereas Pressler was talking to recruiters as recently as last summer, the lure of entrepreneurship continued after seeds planted years earlier began to bear fruit. She sees her own coach now and has the peer support she'd sought earlier. The changes in her self-care haven’t derailed her business. They've made her stronger.
“Going to Mexico was kind of like walking away,” she said. “I realized everything doesn’t fall apart when I also have a life or when I put myself first."
