Everyone has a different way of coping with work stress; some clear their minds with 5 a.m. runs or by unloading to their therapists, while others let retail therapy work its magic. Joanna Griffiths has experimented with executive coaches for years to help her work through challenges in leading $400 million intimates company Knix. But now, she’s finding new wings by falling into a trance-like, meditative state.
“I love hypnotherapy, which has been really helpful,” Griffiths tells Fortune. “[My hypnotherapist] works with quite a lot of high-profile entrepreneurs, athletes, and really senior creatives. [We’re] really working to rewire my brain and the way that I react in different situations.”
For the past five years she has been working with U.S.-based hypnotherapist Grace Smith after being introduced by a fellow successful founder. Smith, the cofounder of Grace Hypnotherapy, has attracted 78,000 app users and a slew of famous clients—ranging from Fortune 500 CEOs and A-list celebrities, to Olympic athletes and White House officials.
Griffiths says they’ve been working on her fear of failure the most, confronting big business decisions like whether to take Knix public, and potentially get shoved under a microscope as a female founder. Through their hour-long biweekly sessions, Griffiths has been learning how to make smarter decisions “out of a place of optimism, instead of fear.”
“We put so much emphasis on the fear of failure,” she continues. “We often don’t allow ourselves to think it the whole way through and be like, ‘Okay, if this actually did fail, what’s the thing that’s going to happen? Do I still have my family? Do I still have my health? Do I still have my internal knowledge?’”
A peek inside hypnotherapy sessions with successful founders
The concept of hypnotherapy conjures many tropes from pop culture; a willing participant falling under the trance of a swaying pendant and ticking metronome, unconsciously performing whatever is asked of them. But Griffiths’ sessions with Smith are goal-oriented and meditative, helping her to manage burnout and intense decision-making.
The Knix president says hypnotherapy removes the noise, and provides clarity on how to best approach what’s pressing. Griffiths and Smith meet on Zoom, spending the first 15 to 20 minutes talking through current challenges, followed by a 30- to 40-minute hypnotherapy session to specifically target her urgent issues. The topics can range from a big decision on the horizon, to how to handle a challenging team dynamic; and one to three times annually, the pair meets in person for full-day sessions, delving into the Knix founder’s childhood, as well as her future career goals.
Over the past half decade, Griffiths says Smith has helped “address my fears and insecurities, and work through them instead of letting them hold me back.”
“I got a lot of clarity about things…Like how I didn’t [want to] run a public company, where I derived meaning, all those big things,” she explains. “I often leave with a very clear visual understanding and representation of what to do next. Like other meditative states, it’s also great for brain health and resetting your nervous system.”
Being diagnosed with extreme burnout, and learning to recharge
With over a dozen years of experience as a founder, 42-year-old Griffiths has first-hand experience with the social complexities and emotional toll of entrepreneurism.
The Canadian first launched the menstrual brand in Toronto back in 2012, right off the heels of pursuing her MBA at INSEAD in France. To get Knix off the ground, her friends, family, and ex-coworkers all came onboard as angel investors, chipping in investments ranging from $15,000 to $100,000. She served as CEO for a decade before pulling off a $320 million sale that valued Knix at $400 million, when Essity purchased 80% of the business. Griffiths remembers the difficulty in the years leading to the acquisition in 2022.
Griffiths says she was witnessing a lot of criticism around female founders—and being placed under a “different set of expectations” only added to her mental strain. She even recalls one moment when a high-profile San Francisco VC firm called her “lazy” because she hadn’t posted her outfit of the day that morning. Going public would have only exacerbated the stress she was under, and Griffiths said she didn’t want to “disappear” like other women founders do after their IPOs.
When COVID-19 swept the world, Griffith’s life never seemed to stop changing. Every six months since 2020, there has been some type of pivotal shift that has thrown her off her axis. Griffiths endured the pandemic, had three kids, raised a $50 billion series B round, and sold the company for $320 million—all within the span of just two and a half years. After the sale, Griffiths stayed on as president but was still wearing too many hats, and the pressure was building. It wasn’t until 2024 when everything changed; Griffiths took seven red-eyes in 21 days, and says her “brain broke.”
“I got diagnosed with extreme burnout [in 2024] for the first time ever, and that was really eye opening for me. That you have to take care of yourself, and find the time to recharge,” the millennial founder recalls. “Hustle culture and wearing busyness as a badge of honor is something that has been put on us as a signal of success.”
Hypnotherapy is helping her combat the deep-rooted American “grind-set.” In managing her chronic burnout, she’s finally accepting she can’t say yes to everything. Enjoying some time for herself and setting limits have also become bigger priorities after more than a decade in the game.
While Griffiths no longer leads as chief executive, she’s still the face and mind behind the multimillion-dollar intimates business. Serving as founder and president, she’s continuing to drive the company to new heights—and just last December, Knix reached a milestone of 1 billion Canadian dollars ($732 million) in net sales. But moving ahead, she’s learned to break away from the hustle culture of entrepreneurship.
“I’ve been pretty good about saying no,” Griffiths says, adding she wished she had learned to “appreciate the quieter moments, downtime, and creating boundaries earlier on.”
