Adaptive vs Maladaptive Coping (The Founder Work-Avoidance Trap)
The world praises the maladaptive coping mechanism that's quietly burying your grief: work.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 90%
Lemieux distinguishes two coping modes from her grief training: adaptive coping actually helps you process, maladaptive coping hurts you but you do it anyway because you don't know what else to do. Her observation about entrepreneurs is that work is their maladaptive mechanism of choice — and unlike other maladaptive coping, the world praises it and calls it success. The tell arrives when the novelty of achievement wears off: I won the award, I hit the number, I grew the company, and I thought this would feel different. What's wrong is that grief can't be pacified by external validation. She frames year five after a major loss as the moment the pause finally arrives and the buried emotions surface, which is why so many are burnt out and don't know what to do next.
Origin
Lemieux's clinical grief training combined with her observation of entrepreneurs, illustrated live on the episode when host Hala Taha described starting her company while her father was dying of COVID in 2020 and then working relentlessly for years afterward.
Core principles
- 01There are two coping modes: adaptive (helps your grief) and maladaptive (harms you, but you do it because you don't know what else to do).
- 02Work is the maladaptive coping mechanism of choice for high achievers — and the world calls it success.
- 03External validation cannot pacify grief; hitting the goal and feeling nothing is the tell.
- 04Men tend to cope through work and busyness, women through talking and retelling — mismatched styles cause partnership conflict.
- 05Around year five after a loss, the pause arrives and the buried emotions surface as burnout.
- 06Sacrifice is important, but it is not sustainable indefinitely.
How to run it
- 1
Classify the coping
Determine whether your current mechanism is adaptive (helps your grief) or maladaptive (harms you, but is the default because nothing else was taught).
Watch out Maladaptive coping via work is uniquely hard to spot because it produces praise, revenue, and growth.
- 2
Check for the tell
Ask whether you hit the milestone and felt nothing. 'I thought that this was going to feel differently than it does' is the diagnostic signal of grief that external validation can't pacify.
- 3
Name what work is avoiding
Identify the layers of emotion underneath the unsustainable work — what are you not facing by staying busy?
Pro tip If you're a man, expect the default to be action and busyness; if a woman, talking and retelling. Neither is wrong; mismatch is what causes partnership conflict.
Watch out A couple grieving in two different styles will read each other's coping as indifference.
- 4
Spend the buffer on space, not output
Use what you've already built — the team, the resources, the financial buffer — to create space and internal resources, rather than compounding output.
Pro tip Delegation and a business partner are legitimate healing infrastructure, not just org design.
- 5
Align insides with outsides
Make the goal your insides matching your external accomplishments. Lemieux argues sustainable, exponential growth becomes possible only once the internal resources exist to support it.
Pro tip Get a therapist. Lemieux is explicit that everyone should have one and normalises saying so.
In the wild
Taha started her company in 2020 while her father was hospitalised with COVID; she watched him die without being able to visit, and then worked relentlessly for years. The company grew toward eight figures.
→ She eventually hit the wall — 'I can't just keep running on fumes' — hired a business partner, delegated, and built balance. She frames sacrifice as important but not indefinitely sustainable.
Lemieux repeatedly told her therapist that what she had in her life was beautiful, but inside there was a chaotic exhaustion that never went away and felt out of alignment with everything external.
→ She reframed the goal from more accomplishment to alignment — building the internal resources that make sustainable growth possible.
Common mistakes
Mistaking praised overwork for health
Work is the one maladaptive coping mechanism society rewards, so the feedback loop that would normally flag a problem instead reinforces it.
Chasing a bigger external win when the last one didn't land
Grief cannot be pacified by external validation. Escalating the goal after an unfelt win just extends the avoidance.
Reading a partner's different grief style as not caring
One partner staying busy and the other wanting to talk is a style mismatch, not indifference — but it reliably produces partnership conflict when unnamed.
Is it for you?
Best for
High-achieving entrepreneurs who threw themselves into work after a loss and now find the achievements aren't landing.
Not ideal for
Anyone looking for a productivity system — this is a diagnosis of productivity used as avoidance.
From the transcript
“One of the maladaptive coping mechanisms that a lot of us have and a lot of entrepreneurs have is work, and working too much. And…”
“I won the award. I hit the financial goal. I have the growth of the company. I thought that I was going to feel differently…”
“My insides don't match my outsides. Like, what is happening around me, what I have in my life is so beautiful, but inside I feel…”
From the episode
Ashley Lemieux: How Entrepreneurs Can Overcome Loss, Heal, and Build a Thriving Business
Ashley Lemieux