Tee McConnell is a registered nurse, military veteran, and peak performance coach who helps startup founders turn stress into clarity, focus, and sustainable growth. Drawing on her experience navigating high-pressure environments, she shows entrepreneurs how to regulate their nervous systems, optimize nutrition and sleep, and build habits that protect their most important asset—their brain. For Tee, success isn’t about hustle—it’s about creating a leadership model that supports both performance and well-being, from the founder to the entire team.

“Clarity starts with a regulated nervous system, not hustle.”

How do you help startup founders maintain energy and focus while scaling a business?

I help founders protect the number-one asset in their company:

their brain.

We focus on physiology first  because you cannot scale a business from a dysregulated nervous system. I teach leaders how to fuel their brain, regulate stress, stabilize blood sugar, improve sleep, and build a rhythm that supports sustained performance instead of short-term push.

And as someone who has personally navigated the pressures of entrepreneurship, I’ve learned this firsthand:

you can’t hustle your way to clarity.

Real performance comes from a regulated nervous system.

It’s time to retire hustle culture and evolve into a leadership model that’s actually sustainable long-term.

What are the most common health challenges entrepreneurs face that often go unnoticed?

Oh, I’ve lived this.

When I first started my business, I was so passionate about my work that I didn’t realize the toll it was taking. I was answering emails at 2 AM thinking I was being “driven”… but my body had other plans. Those habits catch up fast.

The most common issues founders miss are:

• Running on adrenaline and caffeine instead of real energy
•  Forgetting to eat or grabbing whatever is fast
• High stress becoming their baseline
• Constant context-switching draining the brain
•  Poor-quality sleep that never lets the brain recover
• Emotional reactivity that comes from a fried nervous system

Entrepreneurs normalize dysfunction  until their body forces them to slow down.

How can nutrition and habits give a competitive advantage in the fast-paced startup world?

Startups move fast  and your brain has to keep up.

With technology and AI advancing at lightning speed, founders need to become agile leaders who can handle uncertainty, chaos, and rapid decision-making without burning out.

And the truth is:

You can’t build that kind of leader without building the physiology and mindset to support it.

Nutrition, hydration, sleep, and nervous system regulation sharpen cognitive function, improve emotional intelligence, and make you more adaptable.

This is the real competitive advantage now ,the leaders who take care of their brain will always outperform the ones who don’t.

How do you coach founders to integrate wellness into their company culture from day one?

I actually don’t frame it as wellness .

I frame it as peak performance and leadership conditioning.

Because that’s what it truly is.

When a founder’s nervous system is regulated, their decision-making improves, their emotional intelligence rises, and their leadership presence becomes magnetic. That energy naturally shapes company culture.

So I help founders create a culture built on high performance habits, not burnout:

-A grounded morning rhythm that sets the tone for the day

-Clear boundaries that protect strategic thinking

-Walking meetings to boost creativity and cognitive flow

-Breaks designed for nervous system resets, not “time off”

This isn’t about meditation rooms and fruit bowls.
It’s about creating a culture where your team performs at their highest level because the leader models regulated, intentional behavior.

Founders don’t realize how much their physiology influences the entire organization.
When the leader is steady, strategic, and clear ,teams follow. 

That’s true leadership enhancement.

What advice would you give a founder experiencing chronic stress without realizing it?

You don’t fix what you don’t acknowledge and most founders are so used to pushing that they don’t recognize their own stress signals.

Chronic stress doesn’t always look like panic. Sometimes it looks like:

• Not feeling like yourself
• Being easily irritated
• Losing patience
• Forgetting simple things
• Feeling mentally “slower”
• Constantly rushing

My advice?

Check in with your body. Your nervous system is the first to signal when something is off. Let it guide you. When you learn to work with your physiology instead of against it, everything starts to change.

How do you help entrepreneurs avoid burnout while still driving growth?

Burnout happens when your output constantly exceeds your capacity.

So we flip the model.

Instead of pushing harder, we expand the founder’s capacity through neuroscience-backed tools:

•  Stress resets that bring the brain out of fight-or-flight
• Recovery routines tied to HRV and energy levels
• Nutrition that stabilizes the mind, not just the body
• Sleep optimization even with unpredictable schedules
•  Creating performance windows based on peak mental hours

Growth becomes easier when your brain isn’t overloaded.

This is how you drive results without destroying your health.

In your view, why is self-care often deprioritized in startup culture?

Because startup culture still worships the idea of “sacrificing everything”  and it’s outdated.

Founders think they can skip self-care because they’re passionate. But the truth is: when your nervous system is constantly overwhelmed, your brain loses access to the prefrontal cortex which is the part responsible for strategy, problem-solving, and emotional control.

So leaders aren’t avoiding self-care because they don’t need it ,they’re avoiding it because they don’t understand that their biology is the foundation of their performance.

And the sooner we update that belief, the better our leaders and companies will function.

Can you share a success story where wellness interventions directly impacted business outcomes?

Absolutely.

I worked with a female CEO who was constantly running on empty because she always put herself last. Brilliant woman  but her body was tapped out.

Once we started focusing on her nervous system, her nutrition, and her sleep, the shift was incredible.

She went from brain fog and irritability to clarity, stability, and confidence. Her mood improved, her decision-making sharpened, and she showed up with a completely different presence at work.

And this isn’t a one-time thing ,I’ve seen this transformation again and again.

When leaders let go of the belief that success requires self-sacrifice, their performance skyrockets.

How do you tailor your coaching for founders who work irregular or long hours?

I build systems that are realistic and aligned with how founders actually live, not how they “wish” they lived. Everything is designed to work in the chaos , not outside of it.

This is why my clients stay consistent. Because the plan bends with their life, not the other way around.

What is one overlooked habit that can drastically improve productivity and resilience in a startup team?

A shared moment of nervous system regulation before key meetings.

It sounds simple, but when a team grounds their nervous system together — even for 60 seconds — everything improves:

-Communication

– Creativity

-Collaboration

-Emotional intelligence

-Problem-solving

You get fewer reactive decisions and more strategic ones.

If you want a team that’s resilient, clear-headed, and aligned , regulate the nervous system first. That’s where real productivity begins.

“Healthy brains make peak-performing leaders—and teams.”