Founders, Investors, Mental Wellbeing - Notes on a Monday

Let's be healthily open to speak about mental health at the very beginning.

Sections:

1. One of the many true stories from a founder
2. Waiting for a personal disaster - my story in brief
3. Mental Health is not a taboo to avoid
4. Why does it matter to investors and customers
5. Why I did not share numbers yet
6. Anonymous tool

One of the many true stories from a founder

This was just as the first lockdown was happening. I was speaking via Zoom with a group of founders in France, on a lazy Sunday. We spoke about general stress levels of a founder. Good Q&A. 60 minutes flew away. As I ended the call, one person stayed on and asked for an extra 5 minutes. I continued.

"My doctor says I am fine but I think I am not.", he said. "I am unable to sleep well. I keep working. My body is still doing great. My doctor says that they can only look at me when its serious as they have a long queue of patients."

"But I do not want to go to the serious stage that the doctors are referring to and am fed up of YouTube self help S&*t. I do not have the patience nor time to meditate beyond a point."

"My family and friends ask me about my business - I keep up a strong face. For my investors, I keep up a stronger face."

The unfortunate part is - this is not just in France. It is the same anywhere in the world. In some countries, I have heard the statement "I do not believe in mental health. If you cannot go through entrepreneurship, go get a job" (as if that will help with the real issue).

I am happy to say the specific issues of the above person are now resolved and he is on a path of growth both personally and for his startup. We have helped him raise a pre-series A too.

However, it did not happen with help from his doctors or using self help.

Was it more of an issue due to the lockdown? Having spoken and met with founders and doctors even before the lockdown, this is a general situation - lockdown could have made the queues worse - however on the founder's side, the situation could have been real any time - with or without the Covid period. In fact, Covid made it easier to now speak on these topics across borders.

Waiting for a personal disaster - my story in brief

People wake up after a personal disaster. Covid was one such thing in our lives. We could do things before such a disaster happens but it is not urgent enough for many of us.

For my story, which I will only in brief, it started after I lost one parent in a road accident. Time flew. I still was working in an European corporate role across multiple countries. What I thought was stress was fuelled by unprocessed feelings. Doctors said I am in my perfect health. Until I was introduced to bereavement counselling. I bet many founders from developing economies (and some cultures) have not even heard of bereavement counselling.

I then 'spoke' with someone about my sexual abuse as a child. For years I was scared of doors. And other things. And had great coping methods to hide my fears. This is a longer story for another day.

I learned psychology and got qualified while my day job was still in technology and I was already doing some angel investing (both good decisions and lessons learned).

I started speaking with business owners for free just to give them a listening ear.

And then I suddenly lost a second parent to Covid.

Psychologists do not fully understand entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs do not fully understand psychology. I lived both the worlds and hope to understand it better.

It was tough but having an appreciation for mental health and a framework based on science helped. (Random knowledge from the Internet only worsened - a directed focused approach was more helpful to resolve).

That's just 0.1% of my story - like I say, I will share in further articles. Not easy to share bereavement, abuse, loss and stuff - however you get the point about addressing mental health (without calling it craziness!)

Addressing mental wellbeing at the right stage changed lives.

By the way, a colleague actually took advantage of my general state and got a promotion for himself when he knew that I was not ready in my head - this makes people even more scare to share. I address solutions to these in my articles (and workshops for founders and their teams).

A large part of the questions that come to me are from friends and families of the actual person involved. I do speak with the spouse / partner of a founder as that resolves things even easier.

Mental Health is not a taboo to avoid

What movies portray is the magnified version of what you see in this world. They want your attention throughout. In real life, issues with mental health start just like a common cold that comes and goes in a few days. It is not as bad as covid or such to start with. However, when one has a cold or sniffle for days and months at a time, when it affects your daily life, it has become a much bigger problem.

And like a simple situation such as a sniffle, when recognised at the right time, a number of situations just move on and get resolved in a healthy way, without becoming a mental health issue.

Like a headache or a flu is not a taboo even though we will keep our distance from someone sick, we still need to speak freely about it, address the underlying issues as individuals, teams, companies and as a society.

And I think we need to address it as a common cold situation instead as a pandemic (and the pandemic like situation will not come if the initial situations are addressed). If it is not addressed, it will worsen like any other thing in life.

People are scared to talk about it as they do not know what the right answer is when someone is going through a stressful time. It brings in their own fears. Is it politically correct to say so and so? Will it help or worsen the situation? To a great extent, they are right in being cautious in their response.

Is it politically correct to say so and so? Will it help or worsen the situation?

Like the example in the previous section, colleagues can play bad games when they know you are not in the right headspace. How can one feel safe? We share some solutions in the coming articles.

Only when we speak freely on this topic, the above questions will get answered in the open. Believe me, the answers to the above questions are not tough - they are just a bit awkward to start with but get easier when we carrying on talking. Remember how awkward it used to be to talk about sex or some specific topics related to female hygiene - and now as we grew as a society, we speak happily and openly about it? A lot is still to be done for those topics too in some sectors / parts of the society but you get the point about we growing healthily open to talk about it.

Let's be healthily open to speak about mental health.

Why does it matter to investors and customers

Every sensible investor knows that in addition to the company, they are investing in a team, the founders, the people. I have seen people breakdown after growing the company, and then the company suffers immeasurably unless they had planned for such breakdown.

Founders keep a very strong front. How can they show their vulnerable side to investors and customers?

Investors do not know what's going on behind the scenes. They can measure hours of work, give access to healthcare and gym memberships. But what goes on in the mind can break everything at the most crucial time.

Preventive measures that follow a scientific framework are the only key. (You can ask me how). Generic workshops on productivity, efficiency, meditations and similar other tools have one key factor in common - they depend on the individual to learn and practice them. For a founder team who is racing against time to grow, any spare dollar goes to the company, any spare minute goes to the company (and their family or such) - they tend to keep themselves at the very end. Even for their own care, mental health is at the end of the queue or not thought about.

Investors are approaching us to share these frameworks with their entire portfolio firms - most of these are pro bono workshops as part of their investment - it helps them know that founders thrive when taboo topics are out of the way.

Why I did not share numbers yet

I wanted to keep this article informal and semi-structured. I do not want to compare stats 1 with stats 2. A simple web search will show you how critical the situation is for mental health.

Now that we know, would you like to talk numbers or look at solutions that work?

If you feel comfortable, share your comments. If not, you can message me or use this anonymous form (no email nor any data is collected). 50% of these questions are also from friends and families of the actual person involved - ask for a friend!

Repeating again, let's be healthily open to speak about mental health. See you in the next article!