Bourbon, Burnout, and Building Something That Lasts
There are two types of bourbon in the world.
The kind you show off, and the kind you come home to.
Burnout is what happens when your life is all the former and none of the latter.
You know the feeling: you’re crushing it on paper.
Busy, booked, back-to-back, high-functioning and half-dead.
You’ve got the title, the tasks, the tempo—but something’s leaking out of you in the quiet.
You used to light cigars.
Now you light fires you don’t care about and call it momentum.
Let’s stop pretending bourbon is just a drink.
It’s a ritual. A check-in. A moment with gravity.
It’s a pause you actually feel. And in a world full of speed and screens and shallow dopamine, that pause might be the most dangerous thing a man can offer himself.
Because when you slow down long enough to taste something on purpose,
you start to notice what else you’ve been swallowing whole without chewing.
The meetings that don’t matter.
The hustle that leads nowhere.
The brand you built that no longer feels like you.
That’s the moment bourbon stops being a habit and becomes a mirror.
Not the kind in the gym. The kind in your gut.
The Craft Is the Cure
There’s a reason bourbon takes years to get right.
It’s charred, aged, tempered, and tested. And if you try to rush it, it punishes you.
It doesn’t care about your launch calendar.
It doesn’t respond to urgency emails or Slack pings.
It just… becomes. Over time. On its own terms.
“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.”
—Seneca
Bourbon doesn’t just taste good—it earns good.
It teaches you that anything worth drinking, worth building, worth becoming—takes patience, heat, and stillness.
You don’t rush the barrel. You respect it.
And here’s the real kicker: the same people who romanticize bourbon’s long game will burn themselves out trying to “optimize” their own process like a Shopify funnel.
You can’t “10x” your way into being a better man.
You can’t speed-run presence.
Burnout isn’t solved by self-care checklists and cold plunges.
It’s solved by rediscovering your pace, your presence, and your personal process.
You don’t need another calendar app.
You need to remember what it feels like to do work with weight.
Work that matters in the dark.
Work that survives the scroll.
Because legacy isn’t built in viral bursts. It’s poured, pressed, and proofed.
Taste the Truth
Pour something you respect.
Sit in a chair you like.
Let the smoke linger.
You don’t need a big moment.
You just need a clear one.
Ask yourself:
- What am I building that still matters to me?
- Who am I trying to impress—and why?
- What’s the work I’d do even if no one saw it?
- When did I stop tasting things—people, places, words—and start consuming them just to keep up?
If those answers make you wince, good. That’s the real you checking in.
Not the you with the pitch deck. The you with the gut check.
“Find what you love and let it kill you.”
—Charles Bukowski
The man beneath the meetings.
The builder beneath the brand.
The fire that hasn’t gone out—it’s just been buried under someone else’s to-do list.
You can feel it in the pairing: the burn that makes you slow down, the finish that makes you think.
That’s what bourbon offers you. Not just a drink. A mirror with backbone.
And maybe, just maybe, an invitation back to yourself.
The Finish That Stays With You
Great bourbon has a finish you feel long after the glass is empty.
It lingers. Evolves. Leaves a mark.
Your work should too.
So should your presence.
Build something with that kind of integrity.
Age it right. Name it well. Let it breathe.
Because you can spend a lifetime chasing attention.
Or you can build something worth being remembered for—whether anyone claps or not.
“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.”
—William Faulkner
We don’t need more men chasing legacy.
We need more men becoming it.
Start with the pour.
End with the truth.
And whatever you do in between—make sure it’s something that lasts.
Keep it well lit.
—Mark