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Raquel Laguna/ SUCOPRESS. At a time when the startup world continues to glorify relentless hustle, Claudia Durán is helping reshape the narrative. As Regional Managing Director for North America and Managing Director at Endeavor Miami, Durán has emerged as a leading advocate for founder wellbeing, pushing mental resilience to the forefront of the entrepreneurial conversation. Her approach challenges long-held assumptions, arguing that sustainable success is not built on burnout, but on balance. Durán’s influence gained momentum with her widely recognized piece, “Entrepreneur, I Hear You,” a candid reflection on the emotional realities of building a company. In it, she articulated the often-unspoken pressures founders face, from isolation to constant uncertainty, giving voice to experiences that many in the high-growth ecosystem had struggled to define. The piece resonated deeply across the Endeavor network and beyond, helping normalize conversations around mental health in a space where vulnerability has traditionally been sidelined. That same message took center stage at the Endeavor Summit 2026 | Multiplying Impact Elsewhere in Miami Beach, where Durán participated in the session “Burnout Is Not a Strategy: How Founders Actually Sustain High Performance.” Speaking to a global audience of entrepreneurs and investors, she offered a pragmatic framework for longevity in leadership. Her insights focused on protecting energy as a finite resource, cultivating healthier leadership habits, and recognizing that peak performance cannot be sustained without intentional self-management. For Durán, the shift is not just philosophical; it is operational. By embedding wellbeing into leadership strategy, she is helping founders rethink how they scale both their companies and themselves.

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00:18what else can we do for the well-being of the founders so the first thing I would say in
00:25order
00:25to support the well-being of entrepreneurs is to start openly talking about it because I was just
00:32in a conversation with a group of entrepreneurs and we were talking how very few people talk about
00:38the mental health that founders are going through right the struggles the pressure the stress and
00:45how they're tackling all these challenges it's it's really hard for them and they feel you know
00:51pretty lonely and they don't know who to share this so more and more I believe that people and
00:57founders and everyone should be talking about the importance of mental health and the well-being
01:02because if a founder is not really doing well mentally and physically right because remember
01:08when stress hits your body it affects your nervous system and then once your nervous system is
01:13affected then you start getting autoimmune diseases and diseases so all of that is is tied together
01:19to the stress of being the entrepreneur so what we have to do is understand what are the tools
01:26to lower stress how can entrepreneurs are be able to disconnect from their job from their work from
01:33their company for a little bit so that they can recharge energy and be able to continue you know thriving
01:40and building their companies because if they're not well mentally and physically they're not going to be
01:45able to scale their companies or be a good leader for their employees right because everybody
01:50will start seeing that the founder is suffering from you know illnesses or stress or even start you know
01:58with mental health that will affect the decision making in the company are investors truly
02:06prioritizing the well-being no i don't think investors are prioritizing the well-being of entrepreneurs on the
02:14contrary i think there are very few investors that are talking to their entrepreneurs about
02:18the importance of taking care of themselves and that is exactly the conversation that i think
02:23we have to start having more and more at the end investors need a return on their investment right
02:29so they need to make sure the founders are working hard and their teams to be able to bring that
02:35liquidity back to the investor
02:37which is great what they don't understand is that by putting the pressure and by not how helping the
02:44portfolio companies and the founders in the portfolio to take care of themselves that liquidity will not come
02:51right and it will probably be delayed because the founder will start suffering um different types of you know
02:59mental health illnesses or as i say physically autoimmune that will not allow them to thrive and really
03:06focus to make the right decisions in the company so if investors would think that this is a priority
03:12and i think it is a priority they would actually probably have better returns because founders would
03:20be really taking care of themselves and as a result there would be probably more exits and more liquidity
03:26how do you personally recognize when a founder is close to breaking point
03:35when they are when i talk to them and they say they have no time and i can feel their
03:42stress in their voice
03:44and the way that they're talking about how much pressure they have right i'm able to have these
03:51conversations and i'm able to to create a safe space for them to be vulnerable and i ask those hard
03:59questions so it's about asking and listening it's about asking and listening you know so that founders
04:06can feel safe in opening up and telling us okay i am i'm struggling and i'm on the on the
04:14verge of a
04:14burnout what happens is typically founders do not want to talk when they're at that stage of you know of
04:21stress and almost burnout they talk about it after it happens and that's what i'm seeing more like
04:28founders after they burn out they come and say oh now i understand what burnout is
04:35well then attention what are you giving attention so what happens usually is of course you start a
04:44company zero you're doing everything you tend to do everything you're trying to solve it very fast
04:50of course it's a very intense period of time right it's exciting also because you're truly motivated you
04:55want to see this being born so the median right but as soon as the company starts growing right and
05:02everything's right the baby's
05:04yeah
05:05so
05:14so
05:21So
05:47So, this is going to be...
05:50Hi. Thank you, Mark.
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