FROM BURNOUT TO COMMUNITY

By: Jon Bregel | Five Minute Read

I was 22 years old when my first production company, Variable, was launched in 2011. While my team and I had worked our way into industry success, I was continually burned out along the way. Seven years in, I found myself in the midst of a deep depression. After a paralyzing amount of thought, I decided to leave it all behind. My soul was calling and had different plans for me.

The initial business plan was simply to find ways to work together as a team of friends and create great work. Overnight, we were catapulted into the advertising industry.  

Shortly after Variable opened its doors, Nike's ad agency called me on my cell phone. I was shocked. They wanted to hire me to direct their latest campaign based on a personal project I had made months prior. The eight-year journey into advertising began.

Our team pushed one-another incredibly hard to work our way into an industry we didn't quite understand. Before we  wrapped our heads around the Nike job, National Geographic called. Then Pepsi. Then Cadillac, Tiffany & Co., Mercedes Benz, ESPN, Audi, Samsung, Gap, ACLU…the list goes on. Everything was happening so fast, and I was immediately addicted to the speed and reactivity of it all. I was around 23 years old when all of this was exploding and I felt completely unstoppable.

It took a lot of personal sacrifice to grow both creatively and from a business standpoint. The highs and lows made my emotional life practically nonexistent. All that mattered was work. Forty page treatments due in three days? If that's what we need to do to compete, sign me up. I didn't even know what a commercial treatment was, let alone how to write one. I had seen one or two and that served as the entire basis of my understanding of pitching, but I had no context to those treatments. So I winged it. Thanks to the support of my team, it worked. This is what I did for the next four years.

I found it increasingly harder to focus as the workload grew (naturally) so I consulted with a doctor hoping to get diagnosed with ADHD, hoping to get meds. 

"Why can't I focus, doctor?"

Within two minutes he diagnosed me with ADHD and gave me a prescription for Adderall.

Mission accomplished.

I started taking Adderall 5-6 days a week, staying up most nights writing treatments while traveling the world and directing, pitching, and shooting. 

Eventually, Variable got to the point where we had more work than we could tackle as a core team so we decided to represent directors. I thought this would take more work off my shoulders, but for about two years, my workload  grew. So now, not only was I continuing to direct work on my own, I was also pitching and co-directing with our roster of directors (around the world) while overseeing the creative vision of our company. 

One night I was working on a treatment in my living room and my roommate asked me, “Hey Jon, when was the last time you had any fun?” The question stopped me in my tracks...for a moment...and then I got right back to work. 

I never took time to be still. I couldn't see the value in it. I tried meditation a handful of times but Adderall had a way of making that highly unproductive for me.

The consistent praise of my ability to create emotionally driven work within a competitive industry was my fuel. Looking back, I have to imagine that I was only capable of creating that type of work consistently because I was pouring all of my life and emotions into it. On a personal level, I was emotionally strung out and incapable of holding down an intimate relationship. 

How did I let myself get to this point?

I've come to believe that the bulk of my efforts were aimed towards me trying to fit in and be accepted by the world. Unresolved teenage trauma resulted in me wanting to be accepted by everyone. Not unusual, natural even. But the entertainment business loves people like me. It lured me right in. 

Instagram photos of technocranes and camera cars? Exotic locations? Working with beautiful & famous people? Vimeo Staff Picks? Industry awards? Why would I want to let go of that?

The soul-crushing was so rampant because I had not yet accepted or maybe even realized that I didn't align with the culture of advertising. At least within the capacity that I had steeped myself into. I had misinterpreted advertising as my own personal art form. Everything was So. Damn. Personal.

So my soul kept entering the inferno, day in and day out. I was completely lost. Inside advertising, I felt nothing. Outside of advertising, I felt nothing.

Seven years in, I’m in Shanghai for a job where I met a woman whose spirit revealed to me that there is more to life than filmmaking. This isn't something I could have planned myself.

So I fell in love, by accident, on the other side of the world.

When I landed back in NYC and entered our brand new office space, something clearly didn't feel right. The following couple of weeks were some of the hardest of my life. Ultimately, I decided to leave the company to pursue my soul's calling in China. What I wasn’t yet aware of was how hard the next chapter of life would be; on both personal, and spiritual levels. 

It's been almost six years since I left the company, and while there are some incredible memories from that period of life, the bulk of them are of exhaustion and this constant feeling of numbness. Numbness at expensive dinners. Numbness in beautiful parts of the world. Numbness on Christmas day with my family. Numbness in bed with my girlfriend (now wife). Too much numbness and exhaustion to believe that life was supposed to be that way.

Thankfully, with the help and support of various coaches, mentors, therapists, family members, and my wife, I'm starting to feel a bit more normal. And that's all I really want; just to feel more alive than I used to.

I also want to be a better husband, friend, brother, and son. I want to make an honest living, and feel good about it. I want to live a life where I feel more aligned with my values.

Without the added pressure of staff and overhead, I’m learning how to set clear boundaries and focus on doing jobs that keep me close to home. Oftentimes it’s not the “coolest” or biggest jobs, but I’m totally okay with that. I’m in this for the long game now. 

Figuring out this new work/life approach has been much more challenging to me than lighting a beautiful scene or winning a big job. They certainly don’t teach this stuff in film school. It turns out that living life well is an art form, and requires me to remain tuned into my inner voice, or "God" as I like to call it, which on my best days is where I receive direction. I am happy to admit I am an amateur at this inside-out approach. But I'm determined, because I experienced life as a result of my own iron will and it was dark and lonely.

So here's to more stillness. More listening. More feeling. More self-compassion. Learning that it's okay to feel anger, frustration, and the constant nagging feeling that "I am not enough.” It's all going to be okay.

"Everything is going to be okay."

All of these feelings are so raw, new, and at times terrifying. But by the grace of God, I am far from alone in my journey.

While I have struggled with my own relationship to filmmaking, I found tremendous value in connecting with other filmmakers who were also navigating their own wellness journeys. These deeper, life-focused conversations kept me motivated to grow both as a filmmaker and as a human being. They reminded me that there’s more to life than work, and that true creativity thrives when we’re grounded in our own purpose and well-being.

This realization led me to start coaching creative professionals, helping them align their deepest values with their career goals—resulting in a spirit of deeper fulfillment and growth. It’s this same spirit of connection and shared growth that ultimately inspired the creation of The Nourish Community.

Alongside my friend and partner, Ien Chi, who had his own parallel experiences of rapid success and burnout, we recognized the importance of living well in deep community—not just as filmmakers, but as human beings. Together, we launched The Nourish Community, where filmmakers can come together in pursuit of wellness, meaningful relationships, and purpose.

So here we are, picking up where Variable left off, but with a mission that’s much more personal in the truest sense of the word. What happens next with this community is not entirely up to me, but my hope is that only good things come from it.

Thanks for reading my story, and I hope to see you in the community :)

Warmly,
Jon Bregel